Excerpts publishing news Revealing The Iron Garden Sutra by A. D. Sui A spaceship murder mystery — arriving February 2026 from Erewhon Books! By Reactor | Published on July 9, 2025 Photo courtesy of A.D. Sui Comment 0 Share New Share Photo courtesy of A.D. Sui We’re thrilled to share the cover and preview an excerpt from The Iron Garden Sutra, a darkly philosophical murder mystery from author A. D. Sui—available on February 24, 2026 from Erewhon Books. Klara and the Sun meets S. A. Barnes’s Dead Silence with a touch of Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built in Nebula Award-winning author A.D. Sui’s darkly philosophical murder mystery, as a death monk and a team of researchers trapped onboard a spaceship of the dead encounter something beyond human understanding…Vessel Iris has devoted himself to the Starlit Order, performing funeral rites for the dead across the galaxy, guiding souls back into the Infinite Light. Despite the comfort he wants to believe he brings to the dead, his relationships with his fellow Vessels are distant at best, leaving him reliant on his AI implant for companionship.The spaceship Counsel of Nicaea has been lost for more than a thousand years. A relic of Earth’s dying past, humanity took the ship to the stars on a multi-generation journey to find another habitable planet yet never reached its destination. Its sudden appearance has attracted a team of academics eager to investigate its archeological history. And Iris has been assigned to bring peace to the crew’s long departed souls.Carpeted in moss and intertwined with vines, Nicaea is more forest than ship. Skeletons are all that remain of the crew, and Iris’ religious rituals are met with bemusement by the scientists—and outright hostility by the engineer Yan Fukui. Determined to be more than just the curator of the dead, Iris tries to make himself useful to the team, desperate to form friendships.But Nicaea’s plant life isn’t the only sentience to have survived in the past millennia. Something onboard is stalking the explorers one by one. And Iris with his AI enhancement may be their only hope for survival…” Cover art & design by Seth Lerner 1 The Infinite Light does not love nor does it care. It has no capacity for kindness or cruelty. The Infinite Light observes life with the curiosity of a child tearing off the legs of an insect. It watches its successes and failures with nothing but detached amusement. Do not forget, do not make me repeat myself. The Infinite Light does not love.—From the unabridged diaries of Vessel Iris, Volume Ten You like dead people. At this, Iris returned to himself, back to the airy, sunlit room, to the peach-tinged marble floors scrubbed to a mirror-like finish, to the single stick of incense burning in front of him, to the tranquil temple morning before it erupted in its usual commotion. “I like meeting people. They just often happen to be dead when I get there,” he said in a tone he’d use when instructing a novice. “And have you forgotten that jolting a monk from their meditation is an ill omen?” A superstitious tale, the same voice, so much like his own but stripped of any human intonation, replied.Iris could shut off the voice if he was inclined to, but he had grown quite accustomed to VIFAI’s chattering over the past two decades.At their introduction, when Iris had first welcomed the AI companion to share in the space of his mind, he had asked for its name. It had refused to give one at first, stating it was nothing more than “Iris’s friendly AI” and that its records indicated that monks never insisted their AIs name themselves. But the acronym stuck. Over the years it evolved to “Vessel Iris’s Friendly AI” and the now VIFAI had inadvertently named itself despite its reluctance to do so. Iris was about ready to slip back into the calming waves of his sunrise meditation when an alarm flashed across his field of vision. He had half a mind to dismiss it, but the message flashed red and ignited with the crest of the Starlit Order. A quick scan revealed the notice had bounced from Doshua Station to the Primary Temple first before landing in Iris’s ocular projector. This had to be important. Inner peace and enlightenment would have to wait. Iris sat back on his heels and made a silent apology to the very thing that was both nothing and no one, and yet was everything and everyone at once. With a micromovement of his eyes, he opened the message. Counsel of Nicaea, arri— Are you going? This time Iris did gently shoo VIFAI to a distant corner of his mind. A time-out for while he read. He would apologise when he learned more about his assignment. Generation ships, like the one suddenly orbiting Doshua Station, had all but disappeared. The last one crossed the galaxy arm not three hundred years prior and docked at P’Ilani before its passengers, seventh-generation descendants from First Earth, hit the dirt and gleefully destroyed all of P’Ilani’s native fauna. Yet here was the Nicaea, unexpected, uninvited, and, according to the message, assigned to Iris himself. Doshua was a two-day trip, but Iris could easily leave at a moment’s notice.A Vessel’s belongings were few, and he was al.ready wearing most of them. Finding a shuttle was a simple task with Inon Station hanging in low orbit, only an elevator ride away. Currency was also of no concern. Under the unspoken social contract the Starlit Order had formed with the rest of known space, it was improper for Vessels to handle currency, more improper still for someone to demand it of him. In exchange for this preferential treatment, Vessels performed a multitude of services for the countless citizens scattered across the galaxy. For centuries, gate travel had been relatively safe. For just as long, space travel in general had been relatively safe. But relativity and wishful thinking did little to protect a ship’s hull when it split from impact or to shield a crew from a sudden burst of stellar radiation. Death still frequented orbits and travel routes. It was the vocation of the Vessels to guide those lost in space to the Infinite Light, to read final rites, to prepare the bodies for transport and burial of choice, and to comfort those left behind. Iris had attended many such deaths and ushered many travelers back to the One Beginning. It was a peaceful job, away from the core of civilization, away from the pull of a planet and the un.bearable routine of temple life. Iris had been planet-side for nearly six months now and had committed—again—every crumbling step and every clay tile of the Northern Temple to memory. He had recited every line of scripture at both sunrise and sunset prayers.He had bowed, and prayed, and meditated, and memorised every leaf on every tree in the main garden, and was slowly, and most assuredly, going mad with boredom. He could skirt the idea all he liked, but the friendly voice in his mind knew the answer before Iris ever thought of it himself. You’ve already decided, VIFAI chimed, noting the decisive fluctuation of Iris’s thoughts. Iris couldn’t help but smile in return. No part of him could ever be concealed from the AI companion—not that he would ever want that. No sense pretending he had ever entertained staying put. Yet Iris wholeheartedly believed the decision had been made long before he ever opened the message, that it was as the Infinite Light had intended. He couldn’t fathom why the Light had intended for a generation ship to appear from the Doshua Gate when it did, but it wasn’t his place to question. Machinations far greater than his life were playing in the universe. The directive had been placed before his eyes, and it was his duty to carry it out. He would miss the temple, like he always did, but not for a long while, and by then a new adventure would be sure to dim the homesickness. Smoothing out his white robe and trousers, Iris rose. The warm, cream marble beneath his bare feet flushed peach against the rays of the rising sun.A stifling day it would be when the sun hit its zenith, but he would be long gone before midday.A ribbon of saffron smoke wove towards the domed ceiling from the single stick of incense, keeping time of Iris’s sitting. He bowed deeply to excuse himself. No time to waste. There were too many things for him to carry in just the pockets of his robes, so Iris placed each item carefully inside a cracking, leather duffel bag. The bag had been a gift from a wealthy Yutam widow who had bestowed her deceased wife’s belonging to Iris. The language barrier had been too much for him to decline the gift, and no matter how hard he attempted to firmly thrust it back into the woman’s hands, she had persisted. Nevertheless, he was proud of the bag and lamented rarely being able to use it. One change of robes. One pair of replacement mala beads. One shaving kit. One tattered, pocket-sized diary with the front cover missing. The bag remained largely empty. You need a smaller bag, VIFAI said. Or more stuff. A Vessel needs few possessions, Iris recited and zipped up the duffel. He was doing a moderately successful job of contain.ing his blossoming excitement; if only he could suppress it long enough to board a shuttle, away from the nosy eyes and ears of his peers.Another couple of hours at most, and he would be free to shake off the veneer of aloofness so common to monks who spent prolonged tenures between temple walls. Someone’s here, VIFAI said, two seconds too late. A lithe shadow greeted Iris from the doorless entrance. “Vessel Iris,” Vessel Bacai said, her voice gentle as the turn.ing of the sand dunes, “you’re leaving us so soon?” Not soon enough. Iris bowed, low enough to satisfy Bacai’s unmentioned ego. She was his senior, not in years, but in status. She would never say it out loud, but she would walk ahead of him and talk over him given the opportunity and give every possible indication that it was him who was to learn from her. Bacai was, after all, enlightened. Her words, not his. She had recited all the right mantras and had all the right dreams. She had the whitest robes and the most benevolent of smiles. Where Bacai embodied the sutras, Iris only knew them by name. Rumours had it that the walls of her room were carved with notches, one for every soul she had ushered to the One Beginning, and that Vessel Bacai was running out of space. “I’m afraid my time has been cut short,” Iris said, intending to keep the conversation curt. “A message came through just moments ago. I have been summoned to usher the souls from a generation ship. It looks like I’ll be away for quite some time.” On the surface, Bacai remained perfectly serene, tan skin unlined. But her eyes darted from side to side ever so slightly. She was checking her own messages, possibly asking her AI companion to flag any reports of generation ships in the news feeds. “Don’t you find it strange, Vessel Iris, that the Primary Temple asked for you? Someone of—” She didn’t finish. Someone of your unimportant and unimpressive standing, Iris finished internally. Someone’s jealous, VIFAI said, and Iris begged it to be silent. Gently, gently, it was all to be handled gently. Politeness and respect were to be held above all else, especially at the temple, where every clay wall had ears of its own and mouths eager to spread the recent temple gossip. Nothing but universal love for everything and everyone, including Vessel Bacai, whose arrogant big toe now pushed its way past the threshold and took residence in Iris’s room. “Would you like me to suggest you go, Vessel Bacai, in my stead?” Iris asked, voice tranquil, his face unreadable. It was a daring move. She could easily supersede him and attend to the ship herself, but that would mean he had done her a favor, and Bacai resented owing anything to anyone. So, just as anticipated, she gave a chilling smile and let Iris have a small bow. “Not at all,” Bacai said, lips stretching along pearly teeth. “I hope you enjoy yourself very much.” Wouldn’t you like that. Every Vessel had their own subtle ways of practicing vanity. Some more obviously than others. Iris was grateful that unlike Bacai’s jewel-adorned strand of white mala beads, he had the sense to keep his sandalwood. They were the very same beads he had been given at age six when he was welcomed into the Order, and they were soft and warm, wound around his left wrist as he scurried across the terraces, bag tucked under his arm. “Do return swiftly, Vessel Iris,” Bacai called after him, her voice a birdsong against the rising suns. “We will all miss you terribly.” Sweet lies, nothing more. If he moved fast enough, he would miss most of the Vessels, the Beacons, and the novices as they moved from sunrise prayer to breakfast. Faster even, and he would miss Mother Nova as she emerged from the main garden after collecting the morn.ing’s fruit. Their brief exchanges were mostly neutral and sometimes even pleasant. But recently their conversations had grown strained, weighed down by the gravity of things unsaid. It was simpler to avoid her altogether—cowardly, Iris admitted to himself, but simpler. Check the shuttle schedules, he told VIFAI, and find the ones that express the highest pro-Vessel sentiment, particularly by the captains. The AI buzzed affirmatively and got to work. Iris flattened himself against a wall and squeezed by a group of elderly monks who were creating an elaborate mandala symbolically representative of the known universe using vibrant sands of reds and yellows. Swirls of colour dusted from tiny, bronzed funnels as the monks gently brushed short metal rods along their lengths, a couple grains of sand at a time. Iris didn’t have the care nor the patience for such artistry. Receiving a dis.approving look, he hurried along, never lingering long enough to collect a reprimand. The mandala was to be destroyed as soon as it was completed, to signify the impermanence of even the most beautiful things. What harm was to be done if Iris were to hasten its end? The monks would disagree. No time to ponder. Iris was already outside the main building, bare feet stepping quickly on the warm dirt of the courtyard. Excerpted from The Iron Garden Sutra, copyright © 2025 by A. D. Sui Buy the Book The Iron Garden Sutra A. D. Sui Buy Book The Iron Garden Sutra A. D. Sui Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget A.D. Sui is a Ukrainian-born, queer, disabled science fiction writer whose novels include the Nebula Award-winning The Dragonfly Gambit and The Iron Garden Sutra. Their work is supported by the Ontario Arts Council, Government of Ontario, and Canada Council for the Arts, and their short fiction has appeared in Augur, Fusion Fragment, HavenSpec, and other venues. A failed academic and retired fencer, they live in Canada and can be found online at TheSuiWay.ca or on social media @thesuiway. The post Revealing <i>The Iron Garden Sutra</i> by A. D. Sui appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Foundation Foundation: Pilou Asbæk Channeled The Little Prince in Order to Play The Mule “[It’s] kind of weird because I’m the least evil person in the world. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I wouldn’t do anything to a fly.” By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on July 9, 2025 Courtesy of Apple TV+ Comment 0 Share New Share Courtesy of Apple TV+ Season three of Apple TV+’s brings us the rise of The Mule, played with maniacal precision by Game of Thrones alum Pilou Asbæk. The Mule, for those who need a refresher on Isaac Asimov’s source material, has the ability to bend people’s minds to his will, and his apparent desire for power, if left unchecked, would lead to the end of humanity. I talked with Asbæk in the lead up the season premiere, and he shared that he turned to an unexpected source for inspiration: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. “The Little Prince is isolated on a planet. His best friend is a rose. He gives the rose a glass box, and he doesn’t understand love. He doesn’t understand friendship. So he goes to the Earth to understand these things. And that’s how I felt like The Mule is—he’s caught in a time bubble. He never really had a childhood himself…” he explained. Read on for our full discussion, including other sci-fi stories he loves, and “his weird way of understanding evilness.” This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Screenshot: Apple TV+ One thing that really struck me when watching this season is that, and this is the highest compliment, you play an unhinged character extremely well. How did you prepare to get in that headspace when you were performing those scenes where The Mule just really goes off the rails? The director and the showrunner gave me a lot of creative freedom to just focus and concentrate and do unexpected stuff. They said, “Feel free to do whatever you feel like in the scenes. If you want to do something, go with your instinct. We want you to do your version of The Mule, because we think what you did previously on Game of Thrones and Overlord, and a million other villains, that you have this weird way of understanding evilness.” Which is kind of weird because I’m the least evil person in the world. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. I wouldn’t do anything to a fly. So it’s a mixture of concentration and a well-written script. The character arc is there on the paper—that’s how he’s written, so all you have to do is just honestly memorize the words and not try to bump into the furniture while you’re saying them. Screenshot: Apple TV+ One interaction I thought was interesting with The Mule was with the girl he has tag along. Can you talk about how you approached those scenes and how The Mule thinks of her? The Mule has never felt any love in his life, and the only true love that he finds is in a twelve-year-old assistant, a companion, and she, the actor, is doing an incredible job on this season. And you asked me my inspiration for the character, I just want to answer that first. My inspiration for the character came from a book called The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. And the reason why is because the Little Prince is isolated on a planet. His best friend is a rose. He gives the rose a glass box, and he doesn’t understand love. He doesn’t understand friendship. So he goes to the Earth to understand these things. And that’s how I felt like The Mule is—he’s caught in a time bubble. He never really had a childhood himself, and therefore the only one he’s really connecting with is a twelve-year-old girl whom he thinks is the best thing in the world, and his best companion. She’s like a little pet. Screenshot: Apple TV+ You mentioned The Little Prince: Do you have any other personal favorite sci-fi books or stories that you enjoy? The thing is this, if you’ve read Asimov, you have read them all. There’s not a sci-fi show in the world that has not been inspired by his books. You wouldn’t have Star Wars, you wouldn’t have Star Trek. But if I have to say one specific sci-fi film—I’m not going to say one, I’m going to say two: It’s Blade Runner and it’s Her. Blade Runner is just phenomenal. I love that film. I love the performance. I love the villain in it. I love the whole android storytelling. But for me, Her is the most incredible love story, but now it’s also one of the most horrific films I’ve ever seen, because that has become our reality. It’s so real that it’s not in the future—that is now. You should watch it again. It still stands, but it’s brutal. Season three of Foundation premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday, July 11, followed by new episodes weekly, every Friday through September 12, 2025.[end-mark] The post <i>Foundation:</i> Pilou Asbæk Channeled <i>The Little Prince</i> in Order to Play The Mule appeared first on Reactor.

News Wednesday Wednesday Faces Terrible Visions and Cursed Popularity in Season Two Principal Steve Buscemi is here to make everything okay, though! By Molly Templeton | Published on July 9, 2025 Image: Jonathan Hession/Netflix © 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Jonathan Hession/Netflix © 2025 Wednesday always arrives on Wednesdays. Trailers, release dates, you name it: This show has a thing and it sticks to it. It seems it will also stick to all its other things—weirdly shiny visuals that make everything look like a Spoopy Disney Carnival, for one—when it returns for season two next month. Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) willingly (gasp!) returns to Nevermore Acadamy, where she finds herself an unwilling hero to the student body—and has a terrible vision. “Enid dies and it’s all my fault,” Wednesday tells Morticia (Catherine Zeta Jones), who is familiar with the meaning of the black tears that spread across Wednesday’s cheeks. Wednesday obviously wants to keep her bubbly roomie (Emma Myers) among the living, but this is all very portentous to Morticia as well; she says “I will not let history repeat itself.” What this all means for the show’s (quite large) audience is yet to be seen, but it involves ziplines, weapons, and a really, really fancy-looking carnival for a town so theoretically small. And maybe setting bear traps outside Wednesday and Enid’s dorm room. As one does. And if threatening visions aren’t enough, our deadpan heroine has to contend with having her brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) at school, too. The second season of Wednesday has a lot of returning cast (those who didn’t die the first time around, that is), including Luis Guzmán as Gomez, Hunter Doohan as Tyler, and Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester. Newcomers include Billie Piper, Evie Templeton, Noah Taylor, and Steve Buscemi (as Nevermore’s new principal), and guest stars include Joanna Lumley, Thandiwe Newton, Jamie McShane, Haley Joel Osment, Heather Matarazzo, Joonas Suotamo, Frances O’Connor, and, yes, Lady Gaga. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar created Wednesday and serve as showrunners; Tim Burton is the series director. The family-friendly spookiness returns with Part 1 on August 6th, and Part 2 on September 3rd.[end-mark] The post <i>Wednesday</i> Faces Terrible Visions and Cursed Popularity in Season Two appeared first on Reactor.

Books Five Books Five Books About Aliens Who Are Fed Up With Humans Yelling “Get off my lawn!” on an interplanetary scale… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on July 9, 2025 The Delikon cover art by Sharron Vintson Comment 0 Share New Share The Delikon cover art by Sharron Vintson Graciously informing other people standing on one’s own lawn that their presence on said lawn is unwelcome and that they should find a different lawn on which to stand is fine. But it’s alarming when some officious busybody offers uninvited observations regarding the lawn on which one happens to be currently standing. It’s especially alarming when vastly powerful aliens turn out to be the ones complaining (and assuming ownership of all lawns within their reach). Their lawn observations may well be backed up with a prodigious capacity for lethal damage. Let us consider five classic SF works about lawn-complaining aliens. The Star Fox by Poul Anderson (1964) A million years of civilization provided the Aleriona with a keen sense of propriety. Upstart humans were clearly an affront. For some reason, humans did not understand this obvious fact. Therefore, humans would have to go. As humanity could, if pushed, offer formidable resistance, an all-out attack is ill-advised. However, a brush with global thermonuclear war has left Earth hesitant to resort to force. The Aleriona plan a campaign of judiciously scaled attacks, framed as unfortunate mistakes. This will incrementally eliminate the upstarts without provoking all-out war—or it would have, if navy veteran turned magnate Gunnar Heim did not turn privateer. I was intrigued by the book’s explanation as to why, in a galaxy full of advanced civilizations, Earth was not colonized back in the Devonian. First, the Milky Way is very big and stars can be overlooked. Second, settling alien worlds with their own indigenous biochemistries is hard. In fact, most civilizations don’t bother. That humans chose to expand and colonize beyond their own planet is what pissed off the Aleriona. The Turning Place by Jean E. Karl (1976) The Clordians enjoy a slight head start over Terrans. By the time the humans reached the stars, the Clordians had already planted colonies. Still, if they tried, the humans might catch up with the Clordians. Out of an excess of prudence, the Clordians exterminate almost every living thing on Earth. The sweep accomplishes its immediate goal. The cost is to force the handful of survivors to develop along lines Clord could not foresee. Rather than eliminating a rival, the Clordians create something far more alarming: a civilization against which Clord is essentially irrelevant. Is it wrong that my reaction to an indiscriminate disintegration of most of the life on a planet is to object that the dandelions, hummingbirds, banana slugs, and what have you are all innocent bystanders? Surely, it should be possible to fine-tune the disintegrators to target one species. The Delikon by H.M. Hoover (1977) The long-lived, conservative Delikon found mayfly humans intolerable. Contact was followed by a one-sided war the humans had no hope of winning. Humans survived only because it was never the Delikon intention to exterminate humans, only contain them. The Delikon invested millennia trying to harmonize Earth with Delikon standards. Varina is a comparative newcomer to the effort, having arrived twenty-odd decades earlier. Her tour of duty is coming to an end… as is humanity’s patience with their alien overlords. Thus, the sudden, unexpected rebellion. The Delikon also serves as an example of a book where kids are used as frontline staff. Adult Delikon cannot abide contact with ephemeral humans. They delegate the task of managing them to Delikon youths, who still have the cognitive flexibility to deal with a species with the attention span of a Golden Retriever.  Earth Ship and Star Song by Ethan I. Shedley (1979) Left unchecked, runaway greenhouse effects will kill everyone on Earth. Every apparent means of mitigating rampant climate change has second-order effects that will accelerate global extinction. In short, Earth is doomed and so is everyone on it. Escape is crucial and for that, Earth needs a star drive. Calibrating the star drive needed to flee Earth required sacrificing a whole stellar system. Unluckily for Earth, Alpha Centauri was inhabited by telepaths. The telepaths could not escape—but they could broadcast their murder and the identity of their murderers across the Milky Way. In so doing, the slain spark an anti-human vendetta that spans millennia. In the aliens’ defense, annihilating an inhabited solar system is a dick move. The humans might counter that desperation forced their lack of due diligence, but the reason the humans were in dire straits in the first place was because of their own inability to manage an advanced civilization without destroying the planet it was on. Ambassador of Progress by Walter Jon Williams (1984) Igara has taken upon itself the duty of modernizing the other human worlds that survived the collapse of humanity’s first starfaring age. Their ambassadors arrive on Demro just as the city-states Arrandal and Neda-Calacas prepare for war. Igaran pleas of neutrality are met with violence, leaving survivor Fiona with a pressing problem: is vengeance more important than the survival of the human species? The Igarans are not motivated by charity. The first starfaring age ended in catastrophe, thanks to side effects of the FTL drive then in use. The effects echoed across the Milky Way. Determined to prevent a repeat, an alien armada set out to exterminate humanity… but as the side effects of FTL limit the armada to sublight speeds, humans have millennia to prepare. As was the case with the Shedley novel, readers must concede that the irate aliens have a point. Causing a galaxy-wide apocalypse because one did not sufficiently foresee the consequences of the technology one lavishly deployed deserves a firmly worded letter of rebuke, at the very least. “GET OFF MY LAWN,” expressed in various alien tongues, meaningful chromatophore flickering, informative tentacle waving, and psychic emanations, is the prelude to many an exciting SF story. Feel free to offer your favourite examples. Don’t be shy! Nobody wants to hear crickets![end-mark] The post Five Books About Aliens Who Are Fed Up With Humans appeared first on Reactor.

My son recently graduated sixth grade, and it’s a big time of transition for him. He’ll be going to a new school for seventh grade. New building, new teachers, new classmates. No guarantees that he CONTINUE READING... The post The Last Summer I Saw My High School Friends appeared first on The Retro Network.

A little-known Texas state representative, James Talarico, is said to be considering a run for the Democrat nomination for a U.S. Senate seat from the Lone Star State. Three other, better-known Texas Democrats are either already in, or considering jumping into, the race. Whoever wins would face off against either Republican incumbent Sen. John Cornyn or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the November 2026 general election. Talarico has served in the Texas Legislature since 2018. A former middle school teacher, he is a graduate of Texas’ flagship state college, the University of Texas at Austin, and Harvard University, where he studied education policy. Talarico also attended a seminary in Austin affiliated with the liberal mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) and has been touted as an example of a Democrat Christian in the public square. It’s difficult to avoid a comparison between Talarico and former Biden administration Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who previously served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Both are Harvard alumni and Democrats from solidly red states. Both embrace liberal forms of Christianity as a part of their political brand. (Buttigieg is an Episcopalian.) Even Talarico seems to have acknowledged the resume similarities, having taken assistance from Buttigieg campaign staff alumni. But despite his seminarian pedigree, Talarico has opposed forms of faith he doesn’t like in the public square. For example, the state legislator decried a Texas bill that would have mandated putting the Ten Commandments in every public classroom in the Lone Star State.  “This bill to me is not only unconstitutional, it’s not only un-American, I think it is also deeply un-Christian. And I say that because I believe this bill is idolatrous,” Talarico declared to the bill’s sponsor in a social media post. “I believe it is exclusionary. And I believe that it is arrogant, and those three things, in my reading of the Gospel, are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus,” he added. Talarico also appears comforted when his brand of Christianity is endorsed by nonbelievers. “The thing that warms my heart the most is people who say, ‘I’m an atheist, agnostic, or I left the church or I left religion. But this is the kind of Christianity I can believe in,’” Talarico told Politico’s Adam Wren in 2023.  Talarico has not been shy about wading into the most controversial social issues of the day. In 2021, he disputed the idea that there were just two biological sexes.  “The one thing I want us to all be aware of is that modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes,” Talarico said at a hearing for a Texas bill to ban transgender-identifying males in girls sports. “In fact, there are six, which honestly, Rep. Hefner, surprised me, too,” Talarico contended, addressing the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Cole Hefner. “The point is that biologically speaking, scientifically speaking, sex is a spectrum, and oftentimes can be very ambiguous,” Talarico asserted. Talarico received a reprimand at the time by Beth Stelzer, the founder of the Save Women’s Sports coalition, who was testifying on behalf of the bill at the hearing. “The other—quote—‘sexes’ mentioned are disorders of sexual development that are variants of XX or XY chromosomes. They are still disorders of male or female,” Stelzer explained.  Talarico has also appeared critical of greater transparency in public schools. Consider the former teacher’s discussion of legislation enacted in 2021 that provisionally required human sexuality education taught in Texas public schools to be an opt-in system approved by parents of students, rather than an opt-out system. Talarico compared the change in policy to allowing students to opt out of a form of science instruction. “And so, my concern is that maybe the theory of evolution will be opt-in, right? Because we have a large segment of the population that has a problem with the theory of evolution … a personal belief that maybe conflicts with what we all agree should be taught in public schools,” Talarico contended at a meeting of the Texas House Public Education Committee in 2022. Talarico did not reply to a request for comment prior to publication of this article. Former Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who lost a 2024 Senate contest to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, last week announced his candidacy for Cornyn’s Senate seat. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, are reportedly also considering jumping into the 2026 race. If Talarico were to win his party’s nomination, he would face a daunting challenge. No Democrat has won election to statewide office in Texas since 1994. The post Texas Democrat Weighs Long-Shot Senate Bid appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Despite its penurious name, the Southern Poverty Law Center has an endowment of more than $700 million, compensates leadership handsomely, and possesses more than $30 million in offshore accounts—likely in the Cayman Islands, its most recent IRS filing reveals. “It’s very odd and frankly raises suspicion that a nonprofit organization would have accounts in places like the Cayman Islands, or as they reported $30 million in Central America,” Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the law firm Liberty Counsel, told The Daily Signal on Tuesday. “The Cayman Islands has always been known as one of these places that people select to hide their money from the government,” he noted. “This is a public charity, and they should explain to the public, why do they find it necessary to have money in these offshore accounts? I don’t think there’s any good explanation.” As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay,” the SPLC gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy, and it publishes an annual “hate map” that includes mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits alongside Klan chapters. The SPLC uses this map to urge Big Tech and financial companies to blacklist conservatives, to advise law enforcement on “hate” threats, and to urge donors to contribute to its cause of fighting “hate.” Staver is representing the Dustin Inman Society, a nonprofit that opposes illegal immigration, in a defamation lawsuit against the SPLC, which called the society an “anti-immigrant hate group.” This year, the SPLC added Turning Point USA, the largest conservative youth grassroots organization in America, to the “hate map,” along with the Christian nonprofit Focus on the Family and PragerU, which is known for its five-minute videos promoting conservative ideas. In 2019, a former employee called the SPLC the “poverty palace” and described the “hate” accusations as a “highly-profitable scam.” The SPLC’s Cayman Islands interests go back at least 10 years, when the center transferred millions offshore in 2014 and 2015. The IRS Form Nonprofit organizations must file a Form 990 with the IRS, revealing their revenue, grants, and the salaries of top leaders, among other things. The SPLC’s latest filing covers Nov. 1, 2023, to Oct. 31, 2024. During that filing time, the SPLC received $106 million in contributions and $129 million in total revenue (including interest on investments). The organization spent $47 million on salaries and wages, and $94 million on program service expenses. At the end of the tax year, the SPLC had $786.8 million in net assets and $738.4 million in endowment funds. Despite all this cash, the SPLC laid off about a quarter of its staff last fall, and the former employees accused the center of targeting union members in the layoffs. In the Form 990 Part V, the SPLC acknowledged that it had “an interest in, or a signature or other authority over, a financial account in a foreign country,” namely “CJ,” the country code of the Cayman Islands. Form 990 Screenshot In the Form 990 Schedule F, the SPLC wrote that it had $30.7 million in “investments” in “Central America and the Caribbean,” which likely refers to the Cayman Islands. The group also divulged that it has $186,000 in investments in North America outside the U.S.—in either Mexico or Canada. This appears to represent a decrease from the $92.6 million in “non-U.S. equities” the SPLC reported in October 2017. Form 990 Schedule F Screenshot SPLC Leadership Salaries The SPLC compensates its leaders well, far above the median income of Montgomery, Alabama, where the center is based. SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang enjoyed a base compensation of $466,934, and other benefits accounted for another $55,806. This represents more than eight times the median income of Montgomery County, $60,739 in 2023, according to the Census Bureau. Most of the SPLC leadership earned more than $200,000 during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, with considerable benefits beyond the base pay. Only two leaders, Interim CEO Rebecca Latin and Chief Communications Officer Julian Teixeira, received below the $200,000 mark, at $161,050 and $189,592, respectively. Form 990 Screenshot The SPLC also awards grants through its education program, Learning for Justice, and other programs. The SPLC awarded more than $106,000 total to eight education institutions through Learning for Justice, a program that advocates leftist ideology in education. The SPLC also gave $275,000 to New Venture Fund, a nonprofit founded by Arabella Advisors that allows donors to support projects indirectly. One of New Venture Fund’s projects, Governing for Impact, advised key leaders in the Biden administration. Form 990 Screenshot The New Venture Fund has previously supported the SPLC, sending the center $20,000 in 2022. One of the biggest issues for me has been the weaponization of federal law enforcement against conservatives. At the center of this is the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left smear factory that puts mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a "hate map" with the Ku… pic.twitter.com/D9zSmoBQeQ— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) October 21, 2024 The SPLC did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about the offshore accounts, the grant to New Venture Fund, and the high compensation for SPLC leadership. The offshore accounts, and the secrecy surrounding them, raise important questions for which the public deserves answers. The post ‘Poverty’ Nonprofit That Smears Conservatives Has Millions in Offshore Accounts, IRS Records Show appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Block CEO Jack Dorsey has introduced a new peer-to-peer messaging platform called Bitchat, a Bluetooth-based service that operates without internet access or centralized servers. Now in beta, the project is structured to function entirely through decentralized mesh networking, with privacy and autonomy at its core. Over the weekend, Dorsey shared on X that he had been diving into “Bluetooth mesh networks, relays, store, and forward models, message encryption models, and a few other things.” He described the app as having “IRC vibes,” evoking the minimalist, user-controlled chat systems from the early days of the internet. The technical framework behind Bitchat is laid out in a recently published white paper. The app uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to create a mesh network where each device acts as both a node and a relay. Messages are passed from one device to another across a maximum range of around 30 meters, with bridge devices connecting isolated clusters. This allows communications to move freely without relying on any centralized infrastructure. Rather than tying users to accounts, phone numbers, or email addresses, Bitchat is entirely registration-free. Messages are encrypted, and by default, they live only in temporary device memory and never connect to the internet. For group chats, users can create rooms using hashtags, with optional password protection. The app also supports store-and-forward caching so messages can be delivered later to offline users. Large messages are automatically broken into smaller 500-byte segments. Future upgrades will include WiFi support, which is expected to improve bandwidth and allow for richer communication without sacrificing privacy. This model offers a sharp contrast to how most widely used messaging platforms operate. Services like WhatsApp and Messenger, both owned by Meta, are built around centralized systems that often monetize personal data. In contrast, Bitchat is designed to operate outside of profit-driven ecosystems and avoids harvesting any user information. The white paper outlines several scenarios where Bitchat could be especially useful, including during conferences, in disaster response areas, or anywhere traditional internet service is inaccessible or untrusted. According to the paper, “By combining Bluetooth mesh networking, end-to-end encryption, and privacy-preserving protocols, Bitchat provides resilient communication that works anywhere people gather, regardless of internet availability.” The app is currently in beta. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post BitChat, New Offline Messaging App, Uses Bluetooth Mesh, No Internet appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Escalation: DHS Subpoenas Harvard Records Over Foreign Student Info

Grok Goes Full Hitler