'telling of the everyday issues Latino New Yorkers face'

'Clear and present danger'

'You ought to talk to him'

Tropical Storm Jerry developed Tuesday in the Atlantic

Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Blood & Breath by Qurratulayn Born into the persecuted Magi class, Evan Wilde keeps her true identity under wraps… By Qurratulayn | Published on October 7, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Blood & Breath by Qurratulayn, a new young adult fantasy publishing with Page Street YA on October 7th. Born into the persecuted Magi class, Evan Wilde keeps her true identity under wraps. Her days are spent drawing up simple contracts—a task Magi are banned from performing—which call devils from beyond the veil to carry out clients’ requests in exchange for a bit of blood or breath. It’s not until Evan lies dying in an alley, the victim of an illegal blood sacrifice, that she draws a contract for herself. A devil can take the last of her life—if it grants her revenge.Such a hasty, open-ended contract can only lead to trouble. But when a devil named Jack accepts her terms, Evan decides to make the most of her borrowed time. With Jack’s help, she infiltrates high society, posing as part of the ruling Necro class—the group responsible for oppressing Magi and perpetuating illegal blood sacrifices. Dining and dancing by day, unleashing her devil at night… for the first time in her life, Evan no longer lives in fear. She even finds friends—and love—within the circles of her supposed enemy. 1 Girl There are three types of devils: the ones you summonfor love charms and good luck,the ones you summon for ambitions and impossible dreams.And then there are the true devils,the ones that almost broke the world three hundred years ago.The ones you don’t summon at all. “Have you been listening to a word I’ve said?” My head snapped up, and I met Mrs. Thorne’s suspicious, thin-lipped gaze. I wasn’t sure why that saying had emerged unbidden in the forefront of my mind. My mother had always told me it every time she gave me a lesson on how to summon devils. I didn’t know if it was a saying that every child learned or if it was only said because we were Magi, and people like us weren’t allowed to summon devils at all. At the breakfast table, there were only two plate settings, and I looked around in confusion. “Where’s Theo?” When I first arrived at Mrs. Thorne’s Boarding House for Respectable Ladies, there had been six girls living here including myself, but within eight months, it had whittled down to two girls as Mrs. Thorne found fault with the tiniest infraction. Mrs. Thorne’s lips pinched even further—if that was possible. “I found a salacious jazz record in Theodora’s room, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before she started keeping all sorts of company in there.” Her gaze settled upon me. “I trust you’re not hiding anything in that room of yours, Evelyn.” “No, Mrs. Thorne,” I said into my respectable bowl of oatmeal. “I just had trouble sleeping.” Mrs. Thorne nodded once, though her gaze still harbored a thread of suspicion. “Good. I was beginning to wonder if there was any hope for your generation, all the wild dances you youths come up with. That’s why we Dun will never gain the respectability Necros have.” I said nothing as Mrs. Thorne talked on. I had thought that I would be able to save up enough money within a year to get a place of my own, but with Theo gone, I would need to move faster. The other girls had shielded me from Mrs. Thorne’s attention, but now I was all she had to focus on, and it was only a matter of time before she discovered that I wasn’t Dun. I grabbed my necklace, running the green stone charm back and forth along the gold chain. It was the only thing I had left of my parents, and I wore it always. I hurried off to work before Mrs. Thorne found some excuse to do an inspection. I had more pressing issues on my mind than whether or not my room was respectable. I had picked up an extra shift at the Red Emporium, and with Theo gone, I was definitely going to need the money. As I moved away from the boarding house, the buildings in the surrounding area slowly changed from sooty homes that huddled together for warmth to new brick buildings bright with electricity. “Evan Wilde, I’m so glad you could make it,” the owner, Mrs. Blackwell, said as she stood outside the entrance. “You poor thing; I’m getting cold just looking at you.” She wrapped soft arms around me, and I wanted to lean in and never let go, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t afford to trust anyone. I dropped my gaze and nodded before hurrying to my station. I avoided everyone’s eyes, staring down at the surface of my desk until I was sure the colors of my own eyes had steadied and wouldn’t reveal what I was. The full moon was tonight. Everyone who worked at the Red Emporium was Dun, as were most of the customers. Thirty years before, it had been illegal for anyone other than Necros to call down a devil; only Necros had the knowledge and skills to do so. But now, after a growing movement for equity between the classes, Dun were allowed to as well. Places like the Red Emporium had popped up rapidly, fulfilling a growing demand for contracts that called down devils to perform small tasks. Contracts like those required a steady hand, an artistic flair, and a vast knowledge of devils and their duties. We were only allowed to draw contracts based on the Book of Known Devils. It was supposed to be safer that way, but I still knew the contracts my mother taught me, which were completely different from the standard method we were to follow. Using contracts, Necros had been the first to rise up against devils hundreds of years ago. They’d freed everyone from the devils’ cruel rule and banished nearly every devil back into their realm. Dun were the ordinary humans they had freed and protected. And Magi… depending on the rumors, we were part devil ourselves, easily possessed and eager to corrupt and destroy the noble world the Necros had created and return everyone back to the subjugation of devils. Buy the Book Blood & Breath Qurratulayn Buy Book Blood & Breath Qurratulayn Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget That was the excuse Necros used to raid the community I’d lived in all those years ago, torching homes orange against a midnight sky, circling until my parents and I were trapped. I sat beside Jo, who also worked on contracts. She had her bobbed hair tucked behind her ears, and the tip of her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth as she painted the fluid wave pattern of a contract for safe voyage. Her eyes lit up when she saw me. “Do you have anything planned for tonight?” she asked as she continued drawing her contract. It was a generic contract with a basic glyph, perfect for someone looking for simple protection before their journey. Only a few drops of a person’s blood were required. Jo could make those in her sleep. “Not really,” I mumbled as I unrolled my brushes, selecting one before setting the rest beside my ink-stone and stick. I planned to stay home, like I always did when the moon was full. It made the strangeness of my eyes more prominent, and people would know what that meant. “Perfect,” she said. But before she could say anything more, a customer walked in, distracting her and saving me. There were three types of contracts. A full contract was what Vayyu and a group of one hundred Necros had done to save the world three hundred years ago. It was the ultimate self-sacrifice. It called the best of devils, and anything was possible. It was uncommon, rarely done, and I had only witnessed it once. And for those whose ambitions seeped past the bounds of morality, there were unwilling contracts. An unwilling contract was like a full contract, except someone other than the user was the victim. Though it called the best of devils, it lacked the power of a full contract, and its scope was limited. I curled my hands into fists. Unwilling contracts had been made illegal decades ago, but that didn’t stop everyone, and rumors always swirled around anyone with a suspiciously fast rise to power. The Red Emporium sold half contracts, the most common, which only required a few drops of blood and covered small tasks. In this city, I was the only Magi I knew who drew contracts. My mother had done so openly, teaching anyone who wished it no matter how much my father grew concerned. And they’d punished her for it. I gripped the edge of the desk, the tips of my fingers turning white from the pressure. I needed to start drafting a few basic contracts and get prepared for the day, but I could barely look at the paper in front of me. Jo always drew customers; with her bright hair and cheerful personality, she could make anyone feel right at home while she created a love charm for them and wished them the best of luck with it. It was not that I didn’t like people. People were fine. It was the stuff they did that was not, and my changing eyes marked me as Magi, and Magi blood made for powerful contracts, further solidifying the rumor that we were all part devil. Jo was already working with a customer when the bell above the door jangled, so I took a deep breath and looked up with my best smile. “Welcome to the Red Emporium. We make the best contracts in the city.” The man raised an eyebrow. “Is that official?” He had thick brows and narrow eyes. Coupled with his strong nose and cheekbones, it would have made his expression look harsh, but a full mouth softened his overall countenance. He looked about my age, around seventeen, which was unusual. Most of the patrons of the Red Emporium were middle-aged or older, with a few here and there in their twenties. “You made it here,” I said. “That means you’ve heard of us, and nothing’s more official than word of mouth.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “I suppose. Rumor has it, I can find someone reputable for a decent price, and they won’t let me walk out with junk like this.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a square of paper before handing it to me. Our fingers touched briefly, his long and tapered, mine sporting several hangnails where the skin had split from the dry winter air. The note was folded in fourths, and when I finally opened it, I just stared. “What is this?” The words came unbidden. “I knew it.” He dragged his hands through his hair, clutching at the strands. “It’s a piece of junk, isn’t it?” I rotated the paper left and right, canting my head to the side as I tried to decipher what the contract could have been for. It looked like a mess of swirls resembling half a dozen possible contracts. I looked from the sheet of paper to him. “It’s supposed to be a contract for… ?” He lowered his hands, black strands of hair sticking up in all directions. “It’s supposed to be a luck sacrifice.” I glanced at the paper again. I would have never guessed. “General or specific? A general contract is much cheaper, but there’s more of a gamble, as it gives a devil more room to interpret it how they please since there aren’t any time constraints. It’s also open to a random selection of devils.” A flush appeared on his face, and he peeked at Jo, who was focused on her own work and not listening to our conversation at all. I continued. “A specific contract means that I’ll include the name of the devil best suited for the task and will write down exactly what you want done.” “Specific. Not for me,” he hastily clarified. “For someone else.” He leaned forward. “Gambling.” “Ah.” No one liked a cheat. “We do not sell those types of contracts here.” “I know. I figured. I bought another sacrifice—a different one. I don’t think it worked, and the guy I bought it from disappeared.” He sighed. “Great.” He turned to go. “Hey.” I stopped him. Tucking my necklace into my shirt, I leaned over the paper and drew out a quick glyph. “All luck contracts start with this basic symbol.” I turned the paper around so that it faced him, glistening ink on white. “If you do not see it, then it’s not a luck contract.” He stared down at the paper, biting his lower lip. He seemed to be battling an idea in his mind before he finally looked up. “What about protection sacrifices?” he wanted to know. “Do you make those?” “General or specific?” My voice was a whisper, and I hastily cleared my throat. “Specific.” If anything, he looked even more wary than he had when he mentioned the gambling contract. “I want a protection sacrifice against devils.” I closed my eyes, remembering the night our house was surrounded by yelling men with torches, the orange flames reflecting the malice in their eyes. “We—” My throat was closing. I cleared it and tried again. “A half sacrifice would not make for a strong enough contract. They’d just take your blood and run.” I kept staring into his eyes, the color of cognac, trying to see if they’d change to green, purple, black, trying to guess if he was like me. A rare Magi stumbling across another, pretending to be Dun, lying low, trying to survive. His arms were bare of tattoos, so I was certain he wasn’t a Necro, not that I’d ever seen a Necro come into the store. I assumed they made their own contracts instead of buying ready-made like the common folk. I wanted to ask—I opened my mouth to ask, but old habits die hard, and instead what came out of my mouth was: “I can draw a contract of protection that will warn you if a devil is about to harm you.” My grip on the brush was white-knuckle tight. I slowly loosened it. “It’s not ideal; there’s not much you can do if someone sent a devil after you, but at least you’ll know. And you can try.” “Something.” His voice was low. I was selling horribly. I was supposed to inject him with some hope, which was probably what the other guy with horrible contract skills had done. But I could not. I knew what it was like to constantly look over your shoulder and try to be brave only to have it all come to nothing because of a stupid mistake. “You want a premium contract.” I added a few drops of water to the ink-stone and picked up my half-worn ink-stick. “It’ll cost more than a basic contract, but my blood will be mixed with the ink. Once you add your blood to the contract and burn it, it’ll call up a high class of devil—well, as high as a half sacrifice will allow.” I gently rubbed the stick back and forth against the ink-stone. “Good devils for protection are Abidugun, Vernon, and Amal. I prefer Amal; she’s a bit friendlier than the others. Her hair is black and gold, occasionally in flames.” Some contractors didn’t share devils’ names with the customer in an effort to keep trade secrets. I told them because that was how my mother always did it, to ensure that I knew exactly which devil I was supposed to expect. Though they had been defeated and were only allowed into our world with strict conditions, she’d said we were always to treat devils with caution. Once I had enough ink in the well, I wiped my hands and pulled out a candle and a box of lucifers. The matches caught in one strike, and I grabbed a needle, passing it three times over the candle flame. The fire was to sterilize it; passing the needle over the flame three times was merely an extra piece of showmanship. My fingertips were freckled with needle marks, faded brown stippling the pads of my fingers. When I’d first arrived, Jo had shared, with great relish, the story of one young man who had accidentally pierced his own nail. I was not sure how much of her story was true; in fact, I was certain it was all lies. Still, ever since then, I was careful as I pricked my finger and allowed a few drops of blood to land on the ink-stone. Blood and ink swirled beneath my brush; then I took a deep breath and started to draw. The base of the contract was protection, but I blended the lines into a glyph of warning, specifying that it was against devils that wished to do harm. I added a request for Amal, placing her glyph in the far right corner, and stipulated that the warning come at least an hour before he was attacked. Devils were tricky, and this contract would be worthless if Amal only warned him a few seconds before a devil came after him. When I was done, the contract filled the whole page and glistened wetly under the light. I reached for the blotter. “After you offer your blood and burn the contract, you’ll feel a little light-headed and breathless. That’s normal. Devils always take before they deliver; that’s why your contract needs to be tight.” Since my blood was in the ink, it would affect me as well, hence why we were only allowed to draw five premium contracts a month. “This is a half sacrifice,” I reminded him as I handed him the contract neatly folded into an envelope. “Amal will only warn you once.” He nodded. “I know.” He looked grim. I held onto the envelope a little longer than necessary. I wanted to ask him so badly if he was Magi, but I did not know how to do it without exposing both of us. He handed me several bills, and the moment was gone. I kept my head down as I made change, urging myself to say something, anything, but I was mute as I handed him his coins. He pressed a square of cloth into my hand, a handkerchief, and I looked up in surprise. “For your finger,” he said. He shrugged apologetically. “It’s the least I can do.” He turned before I could do more than nod my thanks and headed out into the cold. The handkerchief was made out of silk. It stood out given his plain clothes, and in the corners were the initials JB. The marks on my fingers were small and would never bleed for long, but I wrapped the handkerchief around my finger anyway. Beside me, Jo leaned over her station until she was as close to mine as possible without falling out of her chair. “So,” she began in a leading tone. “Who’s that?” I stifled the urge to laugh. “I have no idea.” She sat back, her chair landing on all four legs with a thump. “I forget. You never ask their names. Pity, he seems fun. I was going to see if I could get him to convince you to go dancing with me. I’ll teach you the shimmy.” “I’m not a dancer,” I mumbled, looking down at my desk once more. “You’d have a terrible time.” That wasn’t true; I loved dancing. But the full moon was tonight, and I couldn’t risk my eyes changing and everyone discovering that I wasn’t Dun like them. People like me had been fired from their jobs or worse because they were Magi, and I didn’t want to risk it. Jo let out an exasperated huff of air. “It’s not about being a dancer; it’s about having fun. Surely it won’t kill you to have fun for a day.” I was about to protest, but she was right. I was tired of constantly looking over my shoulder and fearing that someone would find out who I was. But there was a full moon out tonight, and I was already being risky going to work where someone could notice how different my eyes looked from normal. At nighttime the iridescence would be even worse. “How about next time?” I said, offering a tentative middle ground. Jo let out a little groan. “I’m going to hold you to that. You’re not allowed to say no.” Suddenly it felt like all the breath had been pulled from my lungs, taking with it sight and sound. Vertigo hit me, and I grabbed the edge of my station to keep from falling. My ink-stone clattered to the floor, black ink staining my stockings. Jo had stood up halfway as I blinked my vision clear, her brow knitted in concern. I tried out a few experimental breaths. That was the most powerful reaction I’d ever gotten from a premium contract, and it had come so soon too. Most people waited until they got home before they burned their contracts, giving me a couple of hours. I stared at the door, wishing I had found some way to reveal that I was Magi, and that if he was like me, he was not alone. Devils were after him, and he only had a piece of paper to keep him safe. I spent the rest of the day only drawing basic contracts and allowing myself to recover. He was still on my mind once the evening rolled around, and I ran my hand over the square of silk in my pocket wondering if I would ever see him again. It was snowing, and soft flakes brushed against my cheeks as I left. I stared up boldly at the sky, at the betraying moon, slowly turning Magi eyes from normal human browns and greens and grays to strange, iridescent colors mimicking the warped seam where devils had ripped their way into this world. Footsteps approached, and I quickly looked back down, hoping that no one noticed my odd behavior. I held my breath until the footsteps passed. The streets were mostly empty as the snow deepened, and anyone who was still outside tucked themselves into their coats and rushed home. The snow fell soft against my face and hair, and I stuffed my hands deep into my pockets, wishing I hadn’t forgotten my gloves. I could already feel my fingers growing stiff and clumsy. I turned the corner and nearly crashed into two people but righted myself just in time. “Sorry,” I mumbled as I stared down at their feet. I hurried past them before they could respond. I couldn’t wait to get home; the longer I was outside, the more anxious I was becoming. “We have to do it already.” I could barely process the sentence, barely wade my way through the muck of confusion, when I was hit on the back of the head. I collapsed. Blood poured from my head as shards of ice and snow cut into my skin, blinding me. “Wh—” I barely got out the word; it was a huff, a single syllable offered alongside a begging, upraised hand before I was hit again. Someone grabbed my legs and started to drag me into the alley. Fear blasted its way through the confusion, and seventeen years of survival crystallized into a single shard of certainty. If I did not escape, I would be sacrificed. No. I kicked and scrambled and clawed at the ice and snow. It didn’t matter that I could barely see; it didn’t matter that it was two against one and I was sorely, dreadfully disadvantaged. It didn’t matter. No. Hands pressed me down into snow, and the overwhelming scent of a masculine cologne filled my senses. My shoulder screamed as my arms were wrenched behind my back and held tight, keeping me in place. The cold bit into my cheek and the snow flooded my nose, melting with each frantic exhale. “Hurry, I think someone’s coming.” I felt them fumble above me and then saw the glint of a razor as it fell into the snow. A pale hand snatched it up, the arm wrapped in burgundy tattoos, and my dread was complete. No. Whoever had found me was Necro. Necros called down devils whenever they pleased, using whomever they pleased. Cold metal bit into warm flesh. I heard them swear as blood gushed from my throat, but I barely registered it. All I could hear was the frantic pounding of my heartbeat rapidly descending towards death. My necklace fell out onto the snow, the gold chain broken and the charm covered in blood. Suddenly the weight pinning me down disappeared, and panicked footsteps dashed past my bleeding form. They were gone. Something had scared them off. With a groan, I tried to glance toward the mouth of the alley. I could vaguely make out a figure. I started to call out and then stopped myself. I made for the perfect sacrifice. I was already bleeding. Already incapacitated. There was nothing to stop anyone from finishing what had already been started. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. I did everything right. I was good, I was quiet, I did nothing to draw attention. And yet… and yet… I let out a single sob as flurries of snow fell from the night sky. The ice–cold flakes burned my hand as I dragged clumsy fingers through the drifts, smearing my blood into a half-legible contract. This was dangerous. Contracts had to be meticulous; a shaky hand, a wobble, could turn a love charm into a poison curse, or give a devil just enough wiggle room to leave you half-drained of blood and breathless. I knew this. And yet, seeing my life spilling out red into a lonely alley, and the cold settling its ache deep into my bones, I tossed every warning aside and drew a contract. I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting back tears as I pressed a hand to the gash in my throat. “I offer a contract of blood and breath.” I wet my lips. They stung from when I had bitten into them during the struggle. “Of blood and breath,” I repeated. Tears spilled from my eyes, melting the snow that clung to my face. My words were an exhale. “Of blood and breath.” Silence. My heart beat sluggishly, fighting a losing battle. The spaces between each beat grew longer until it was barely pumping at all. “Evan Wilde.” The voice sounded amused as it mentioned my name. My shadow stretched and darkened as it became a distorted version of itself. It rose from the ground, reaching for the sky as though it had finally awakened from a long slumber. Feather-soft fingers brushed against my cheek. “You called.” A light touch across my lips. I sucked in the last breath I would ever call my own and sealed my contract with one word. “Revenge.” Excerpted from Blood & Breath, copyright © 2025 by Qurratulayn. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Blood & Breath</i> by Qurratulayn appeared first on Reactor.

Many of us find ourselves drawn away from prayer. Why? My personal take is that the temptation to abandon prayer largely comes from our subconscious belief that if we are doing good for God we have a good excuse not to pray. There are many temptations that can lure us away from prayer, even in church. And the effects can be devastating: burnout, anger, and cynicism, combined with a loss of faith, hope, and charity. I once witnessed Pope St. John Paul II tell ambassadors that “Christians who fail to pray are at-risk Christians.” He’s right: If we don’t cling to God in prayer, we will fall down flat in despair! While God loves us and desires our love, He doesn’t actually need us. In fact, He created us for our good, not His. Yet despite that, He constantly asks for our prayers because praying profits us for salvation. Prayer is so important that every one of Christ’s faithful should spend at least 20 minutes a day in quiet prayer; if not, our work will not be His work but only ours. Early in our marriage, my wife noticed that I was ceasing to be faithful in prayer. So one morning, she grabbed me by the jacket, looked me in the eyes, and said with frank love that I needed to be the rock of our family, and if I didn’t pray, I couldn’t be that! Today, October 7th, is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, a feast celebrating the naval victory of the Holy League fleet at Lepanto—which in 1571 saved Christian civilization from defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.  Then-Pope Pius V knew well the tremendous importance of resisting the aggressive expansion of the Ottomans and the consequences of defeat. But he also knew the battle was a spiritual one—so he called on the faithful of Catholic Europe to join him in praying the Rosary for a victory despite the long odds faced by the Holy League. The subsequent Christian victory, obtained through courageous fighting and the powerful intercession of Our Lady, is still widely known today. The Christians went to battle under a banner bearing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, held in the hand of the great-nephew of the Admiral Andrea Doria. The Mother of God had appeared in Mexico forty years earlier, and a reproduction of her miraculous image was preserved in the cathedral of Genoa, one of the member states of the Holy League. In other words, an image of the Holy Mother from the New World saved her children in the Old—a lesser-known fact told me by an Augustinian friar, now deceased, who worked in the rooms next to the magnificent mural of the Battle of Lepanto in the Sala Regia of the Vatican. During my service as a Swiss Guard, I spent many hours gazing up at this mural, commissioned by the pope and painted by Giorgio Vasari in commemoration of the battle. I frequently found myself praying the Holy Rosary (even if in bits and pieces, the Holy Mother of God knows well how to sort them out) with the beads that Pope St. John Paul II once gave me while he was ?walking alone in the Loggia one afternoon.   When he arrived in my proximity, before I stood to attention, I noticed his Rosary in his hand. I must have stared at it because the Holy Father first passed by me without acknowledging my presence and then, all of a sudden, he stood right in front of me! He looked intently at me with his deep blue eyes and said, “Mario, the Rosary is my favorite prayer, marvelous in its simplicity and profundity. Take these beads and make good use of them.” That day, I decided to become Our Lady’s soldier too, and I decided to carry those beads at all times. In that moment, I also received the grace of prayer that has never left me—and because of that, I rediscovered the power of the Rosary, a treasure of mercy placed by the Church in the hands of every believer. In the Rosary, Our Lady gave us all of herself. Her life, her works, her privileges, her grace, and her merits are contained in those evangelical paintings offered for our contemplation and carried out harmoniously through the gentle rhythm of the Hail Marys. Pope St. Pius V knew, long before couriers could have brought the news to Rome, by divine inspiration received while praying the Rosary, that a triumph of the Cross had been won in the Gulf of Patras in western Greece. That victory was announced with joy from the Church of Santa Sabina on the Aventino hill in Rome. Today, we too need a triumph of the Cross in our families, our workplaces, and our society.  My dear friends, the Holy Rosary is the most powerful “weapon” of peace for the laity who are called to sanctify the whole world—first by becoming holy and then by shaping their work in light of their faith, letting faith animate every part of the day. Don’t be ashamed; instead, be Our Lady’s soldier for Christ and the Church. Pray it often; pray it fervently; pray it well. The post Prayer: The Most Powerful Weapon appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A week into the federal government shutdown, Senate Democrats are demanding the extension of expiring enhanced health care premium tax credits, claiming the credits, enhanced by Democrats during President Joe Biden’s administration, are resoundingly popular among the American people. “Even a majority of Trump supporters by nearly 60% support an extension,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Friday. “People are learning about this issue, and they’re aghast that their premiums could go up so much.”  But a new poll conducted from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2 finds a majority of Americans support, in general, letting COVID-era policies expire and are less enthusiastic about the health care assistance when told that they are direct subsidies to insurance companies. OnMessage Public Strategies, a political strategy firm, conducted a poll that showed that 60.5% of Americans agree “the federal government should allow programs that were designed deliberately to address the problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic to sunset, and put those funds to more pressing issues facing Americans.”  Those enhanced tax credits were introduced during Biden’s administration under the American Rescue Plan Act to subsidize the cost of health care premiums as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and then were further extended, but currently are set to expire at the end of 2025 by Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The Democrat legislation expanded the reach of the health care tax credit to higher-income earners—those earning up to 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL)—while also boosting the savings it provided. Recipients of the premium tax credit can elect to have the credit advanced before filing their taxes, a process in which the subsidy actually flows directly to the insurance provider on behalf of the recipient. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., previously told The Daily Signal he considers the subsidies “a COVID-era insurance company giveaway scheme.” He added, “The insurance companies have made billions of dollars off the enhanced tax credits. It’s about time to return to the pre-COVID level of tax credits with the original [Affordable Care Act] tax credits.” When those surveyed are told that “these subsidies go directly to insurance companies, not to Americans using the health care system,” 61.8% of respondents say they are less likely to support their extension. Additionally, when informed that “extending the federal health insurance subsidies will cost taxpayers $400 billion over the next 10 years,” a 50.6% majority of respondents say they are “less likely to support” extending “federal subsidies for health insurance companies.” The survey’s polling sample included 44.9% of respondents who said they voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election, and 47.5% saying they voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The post Americans Want COVID-Era Policies to Sunset, Poll Finds appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Republicans are again condemning Virginia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger for her history teaching at an Islamic school funded by Saudi Arabia and tied to Hamas, which graduated students who went on to commit acts of terror. “Abigail Spanberger can’t be trusted,” Peyton Vogel, press secretary for Spanberger’s Republican opponent Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “While Winsome Earle-Sears wore the uniform to defend America, Spanberger worked for a Saudi-funded school tied to terrorism. Virginians deserve a governor who stands with our country and our Commonwealth.” Earle-Sears served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1983 to 1986. Spanberger worked at the CIA from 2006 to 2014. She taught at the Islamic Saudi Academy as a substitute English teacher for two semesters in 2002-2003, while undergoing a background check for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, where she worked before joining the CIA. The Republican Party of Virginia tied Spanberger’s brief teaching career to her stance on Jay Jones, the Democrat candidate for attorney general, who sent text messages fantasizing about shooting the Republican speaker of the House of Delegates. While Jones apologized for the remarks and Spanberger condemned the texts, she has stopped short of demanding that he drop out of the race, which many Republicans have demanded. “Fake Moderate Abigail Spanberger’s failure to denounce the policies and activities of the Islamic Saudi Academy where she taught—what some have called ‘Terror High’—is yet more evidence of her unwillingness to take accountability for the radical company that she keeps,” the party told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “We have seen this lack of moral character again in recent days as Spanberger has failed to call on Democrat Attorney General nominee Jay Jones to drop out of the race following text messages showing that he wished death on his political opponents and their children, as well as reporting that he hoped police officers would be killed,” the party added. “Virginians simply cannot trust Abigail Spanberger to make sound judgements and keep them safe.”  I joined @marc_lotter on @NEWSMAX to break down the story. Jay Jones said he would sh**t Todd Gilbert over Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot. In a follow-up call, he said he wanted to see Gilbert's child dead if it convinced Gilbert to change his political position.?4/7 pic.twitter.com/sV3snl7ZYa— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) October 6, 2025 Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation‘s Center for Education Policy, expressed concerns about Spanberger’s history. “I think her being a teacher at a radical Islamic school is quite alarming,” Greene told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “She would have to have known the extremist views being taught. And she did this job as an adult while waiting for clearance to start work at the CIA.” “If she was mature enough to be entrusted with protecting our country, this participation in extremist indoctrination cannot be dismissed as a youthful indiscretion,” Greene added. ‘Terror High’ As Jerry Dunleavy reported at Just The News, news outlets had reported the Islamic Saudi Academy’s terrorism ties and concerning textbook passages about Jews before Spanberger took a job there. In March 1997, The Washington Post reported that Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, the first chairman of Hamas’ political bureau, had sent his kids to the academy. The State Department designated Hamas a foreign terrorist group later that year. In October 1998, the Post reported that Ismail Selim Elbarasse worked as a comptroller for the academy before he got arrested for refusing to appear before a grand jury investigating money laundering. Agents were reviewing the funds Elbarasse handled, including bank accounts he shared with Marzook. A search of Elbarasse’s northern Virginia home in 2004 provided evidence in the terrorism financing Holy Land Foundation case. In March 2002, CNN, The Washington Post, and others reported that Israel had denied entry to Mohammed Osman Idris and Mohammed el-Yacoubi, both former academy students, in December 2001. The Israeli government suspected they were planning a suicide attack in Jerusalem. While the men did not ultimately face charges for any such attack, their story might have given Spanberger pause when she considered teaching at the school. In February 2002, The Washington Post reported that the academy’s textbooks tell students that “the Day of Judgment can’t come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews.” An 11th grade textbook reportedly stated that one sign of the Day of Judgment will be that Jews will hide behind trees, and the trees will say, “Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.” “I wouldn’t be surprised if some teachers are sometimes anti-American or anti-Semitic,” one student’s mother told The Post. “But I don’t want it to be that way.” Multiple students told the Post that teachers instruct them to “shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims.” The Washington Post reported in 2008 that the academy used textbooks “that compared Jews and Christians to apes and pigs” as recently as 2006. The terrorism ties would continue after Spanberger’s teaching stint. In 2005, a jury convicted the school’s 1998 valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, of plotting with Al Qaeda operatives to kill President George W. Bush and hijack airplanes. In 2009, authorities arrested 2003 graduate Raed Abdul-Rahman Alsaif for trying to board a plane in Tampa with a concealed butcher knife. Spanberger’s campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s repeated requests for comment about how much she knew about the school before teaching there and whether she would condemn the school’s terror ties now. How Spanberger’s History Came Out The Virginia Republican Party first published Spanberger’s connection to the Saudi academy in 2018 after the Republican opposition research firm America Rising obtained it in a job application Spanberger submitted to the Postal Service. The Postal Service later admitted it should not have turned over Spanberger’s application in response to America Rising’s Freedom of Information Act request, The Washington Post reported. “I am proud of my background and my service, and not ashamed of the information I submitted,” Spanberger wrote in a cease-and-desist letter that year. “I have nothing to hide in my background,” she added, but noted that she was concerned about her privacy, particularly about the potential disclosure of her Social Security Number. The Islamic Saudi Academy closed in 2016, and the King Abdullah Academy that replaced it closed earlier this year. The Daily Signal reached out to the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, D.C., which funded both academies, for comment. The post TERROR HIGH? Republicans Slam Spanberger’s History Teaching at ‘Saudi-Funded School Tied to Terrorism,’ Hamas appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. With the vote approaching, the European Commission’s plan to scan private digital messages is moving toward final approval. The regulation, called Chat Control 2.0, has gone through a year of resistance, warnings from experts, and objections from technology companies. It is presented as a child safety measure, designed to inspect messages, photos, and videos across the EU before they are sent. The privacy implications are immense. Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s AfD party, described the proposal as “an absolutely totalitarian project” and “a comprehensive general attack on central citizens and freedoms.” She said the measure would install scanning software on personal devices, intercepting content before it reaches its recipient. The system would remove the protection offered by end-to-end encryption and treat every user as a potential suspect. Weidel said the use of child safety language was “a cheap pretext” for real-time surveillance. “Even the Stasi could only dream of such a full force,” she said, comparing the plan to intercepting and photographing every private letter for review by a government authority. She warned that once the system exists, its function can expand to include other categories such as “politically offensive content” and “so-called hate speech.” The structure of the law allows the criteria to be adjusted through political decisions. Technology companies have joined in opposition. Hundreds of privacy-oriented firms, including encrypted messengers, cloud storage services, and VPN providers, signed a joint letter urging EU ministers to reject the regulation. Their message called for the protection of encryption and for an end to mandatory message scanning. Signal has announced that it will leave the EU if forced to comply. The platform has stated that it cannot operate under a framework requiring message inspection. The regulation creates an obligation to weaken the systems that enable private communication and turns encryption into a technical formality rather than a guarantee of privacy. Supporters of the proposal say it will catch child abusers. Critics point out that criminal networks conduct their operations in offline settings or hidden spaces beyond the reach of such scanning. “Criminals are already using offline or so-called dark rooms for their illegal businesses,” Weidel said. The measure would monitor regular users, journalists, and private citizens instead. Automated scanning systems often misidentify legal or harmless material, producing false positives that draw in people with no connection to crime. The October 14 vote will decide whether private communication continues to exist inside the EU. The proposal establishes a framework in which surveillance is routine and encryption is limited by law. Over 500 scientists from more than 30 countries have issued warnings about the plan’s impact. Legal experts and civil society groups have said the regulation would create an environment of constant monitoring, inconsistent with democratic rights. Technology platforms have warned that they may withdraw services from the region if the proposal becomes law. The window for change is closing. If Chat Control 2.0 passes, it will redefine digital communication in Europe and end the assumption that private messages remain private. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Tech Firms Unite in Open Letter Against EU Chat Scanning Law appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has expressed clear frustration with democratic processes that she believes are obstructing her efforts to introduce a central bank digital currency. Speaking at the Bank of Finland’s 4th International Monetary Policy Conference, Lagarde characterized the digital euro’s delay not as a technical hurdle but as the result of slow-moving democratic systems. Although she acknowledged that democracy is something Europeans “praise ourselves with,” she went on to describe it as “too much of a drag at a time when speed is really of the essence.” She openly admitted that the legislative timeline has prevented her from completing the rollout of the digital euro within her term, stating, “Given the time that it takes… I will be gone.” The digital euro project is still in its preparatory phase, with a decision expected soon on whether to proceed to pilot testing. However, the European Central Bank has repeatedly said that a full launch is not guaranteed. More: EU Parliament Agrees on Digital ID Introduction and Pro-Censorship Chief Suggests CBDC Integration According to the institution, “the decision on whether to issue the digital euro will only be considered at a later stage once the European Union’s legislative process has been completed.” Despite this, Lagarde referred to the launch as a certainty, saying “when the digital euro is eventually launched for good.” Her language suggests the outcome is already decided, regardless of what public institutions or lawmakers may conclude. This approach has only heightened concerns about the underlying purpose and design of central bank digital currencies. Unlike physical cash, which allows for anonymous and untraceable transactions, a digital euro would make financial activity fully visible to authorities. Every payment could be tracked, recorded, and analyzed. Privacy advocates have long warned that CBDCs risk becoming tools for mass financial surveillance and control if strict protections are not in place. Lagarde’s comments have added fuel to those concerns. By describing democratic oversight as a hindrance, she implied that public debate and legislative scrutiny are problems to be managed rather than essential parts of policymaking. Her tone suggested that the biggest challenge is not designing the digital euro in a way that respects civil liberties, but getting around the delays created by representative governance. The more these systems are treated as foregone conclusions, the less space remains for real debate over their risks. For many, her comments serve as confirmation that democratic resistance is not just being ignored but actively resented. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post ECB President Christine Lagarde Calls Democratic Process a “Drag” Slowing Digital Euro CBDC Rollout appeared first on Reclaim The Net.