The actor is in custody in New Mexico.

'There's a level of emotion to it'

'I've stopped more illegal immigration than Marcy Kaptur has in her 43 years'

Books book reviews An Unlikely Coven by AM Kvita Is Full of Delightful Shenanigans If you’re chasing a sense of belonging in what can feel like an ever-more-alienating real world, An Unlikely Coven is the book you need. By Jenny Hamilton | Published on January 15, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Joan Greenwood is not excited to come back to New York. Scratch that: She’s excited about the New York part, and the reuniting with her vampire bestie part, and the finished her architecture degree part, but not so much about returning to the bosom of her family. The Greenwoods are the most powerful magical family in New York, counting among their number the Head and High Witch of New York and Manhattan (Joan’s aunt), and the Head Witch’s eagerly cutthroat planned successor (Joan’s father). And then there’s Joan, the only talentless Greenwood witch in living memory, a perpetual disappointment to her family. Still, home she goes, arriving to rumors that someone’s managed to cast a spell transforming a regular human into a powerful witch—rumors that, if true, have the potential to destroy the power Joan’s family have amassed in New York, not to mention the delicate ecosystem of mutual tolerance between the witches and New York’s other magical communities. Joan’s happy this is none of her business, except that the next phone call she gets is from her vampire bestie, CZ, anxiously confessing that the rumors are true, and the new witch is real, and in fact CZ has rescued them from the Night Market and is sheltering them at his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. He needs help keeping the new witch, named Mik, safe from the magical communities that are now ravenous to find them. This is not a problem Joan is well-equipped to solve, given that she can’t do a single spell without it going completely haywire. As that description probably conveys, An Unlikely Coven is what I call hi-jinks literature: the type of book that scatters complications like jacks, only to amaze and astonish you by scooping them all back up in a great big finish at the end. A debut novelist has to be wildly ambitious to take on a cast as big as this book has—we’ve got Joan, her family, her bestie, the new witch, the witches that show up from California to cause problems, the vampire leaders, and the consultant brought on to solve the making-new-witches problem—and Kvita manages it handily. Buy the Book An Unlikely Coven AM Kvita Buy Book An Unlikely Coven AM Kvita Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Among the elements that go into making a book, plot can fly under the radar. We notice big twists and turns, but a well-functioning plot can act as the instrument of its own concealment. It’s like a hot water heater, not noticeable unless it stops working. (Ask me how I know.) So I want to take a moment to admire the quiet competence of Kvita’s plot work, where every cog in the machine does its job smoothly, leading us to a satisfyingly dramatic conclusion. The story of regular human Mik being transformed into a witch could have led to a straightforward MacGuffin hunt as our coven searched for a solution. Instead, we’re tossed into a sea of internecine conflicts, new ways of doing magic, and a possibly-sentient city—and the search for a cure for Mik. The other central pleasure of An Unlikely Coven is witnessing its ensemble cast come together as a team. Joan’s friendship with CZ is the relationship that begins and grounds the book, and the two of them have variously wary, curious, and adversarial relationships with the characters who will become a part of their eponymous coven by the end. The arc of creating that found family interweaves seamlessly with the shenanigans of the main plot, as the characters learn how their different strengths, powers, and interests can complement and impede each other. With a cast this big, it’s inevitable that some of the characters will fall by the wayside, and Kvita doesn’t kill themself trying to unload backstory and character development on every single cast member. Instead, they focus on building relationships and establishing group dynamics, leaving plenty of space for readers to learn more about individual characters in future books. Joan’s love interest, Astoria, is inseparable from her bestie Wren, who’s half-fae, while Astoria herself belongs to a ruling family determined to maintain witch supremacy over other magical beings, including the fae. Outsider Grace struggles to find the balance between her passion for creating new spells and her dislike of the ruling witch families. The elder generation of Joan’s family cares about her, but also clings tightly to their power as Greenwoods. These issues, raised but not resolved, leave Kvita with plenty of room to continue exploring the characters and the world, should they wish to make it an ongoing series. (In case it is unclear, I would like for that to happen. I love, love, love a long-running series with an ensemble cast.) I admit that I’m not mad keen on stories where the one character believes she’s a talentless failure, only to discover later in the book that she’s actually the most special and powerful magic-user of them all. Maybe now and then, as a treat, a character who’s grown up feeling worthless because of their lack of magic could locate a sense of self-worth in some other place than the exact system that has excluded and devalued them their whole lives. Not to say that Joan’s magic isn’t cool—it is—or that it wasn’t fun to see her learning from other witches how her specific brand of magical failures could be channeled into success. It’s common for debut authors to insist on their protagonist’s awesomeness without really doing the work to show it in action; but when Joan’s friends remind her that she’s worthy even without magic, they point to personal qualities that Kvita has been careful to demonstrate in Joan throughout the rest of the book. In a fantasy landscape dominated by romance-forward stories, it felt like a treat to read a story where romance just isn’t the point—but relationships still are. There’s a warm heart at the center of An Unlikely Coven, and every single hi-jink will ultimately lead us back there. In the book’s first scene, Joan arrives at Grand Central to find that every member of her family forgot to come meet her there; a disappointment but not a surprise. By the end of the book, she’s no longer an afterthought, but has built herself—almost by accident—a community of support, a cadre of ride-or-dies. If you’re chasing a sense of belonging in what can feel like an ever-more-alienating real world, An Unlikely Coven is the book you need.[end-mark] An Unlikely Coven is published by Orbit. The post <i>An Unlikely Coven</i> by AM Kvita Is Full of Delightful Shenanigans appeared first on Reactor.

News The Bride The Bride! Trailer Rejects the Whole “of Frankenstein” Bit You tell him, Jessie Buckley! By Molly Templeton | Published on January 15, 2026 Photo: Warner Bros. Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Warner Bros. This Bride does not belong to Frankenstein. The latest trailer for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new film finds the undead Bride (Jessie Buckley) claiming her name for herself. “The bride of Frankenstein,” murmurs Frank himself (Christian Bale). “No,” she replies. “Just the Bride.” As previously noted about the first teaser, this film has style. Buckets of style. Style to spare. Dance sequences, even! Florence and the Machine’s “Everybody Scream” certainly helps set the tone here—a tone which the synopsis is quite! enthused! about! A lonely Frankenstein (Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (five-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening) to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride (Buckley) is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance! Wild and combustible! No holds barred! It has really been a time for beloved and well-lauded actors tackling Frankenstein-adjacent tales (though this one is clearly as much Bonnie & Clyde as Mary Shelley). Last year we got Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, and Jacob Elordi; now we have a small army of Oscar nominees and winners, including Buckley, who is essentially a lock for an Oscar nomination for her work in Hamnet. Along with the appealing trio of Bale, Buckley, and Bening, The Bride! also stars Peter Sarsgaard, whose role seems to primarily involve looking longingly at the Bride; Jake Gyllenhaal; and Penélope Cruz. Maggie Gyllenhaal is both writer and director. Her behind-the-scenes team includes composer Hildur Gudnadóttir, who recently did the music for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and last year’s Joker: Folie à Deux. Costume designer Sandy Powell may have more Oscar nominations than the film’s stars combined: 15 in total, with three wins. The Bride! dances into theaters on March 6.[end-mark] The post <i>The Bride!</i> Trailer Rejects the Whole “of Frankenstein” Bit appeared first on Reactor.

The legal standoff between Minnesota and the federal government continues to escalate, as the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sued the state on Wednesday over its race-based and sex-based hiring policies.  The litigation comes the same week that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced a joint lawsuit by the state and the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis against the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the two cities.   Prior to those lawsuits, federal prosecutors had charged nearly 100 people in Minnesota welfare fraud schemes that have been estimated to have exceeded $9 billion. Whistleblowers have also alleged that state and federal lawmakers were involved in a cover-up of the fraud. The Justice Department’s lawsuit stems from the state’s affirmative action goals, which seek to balance the sex and race composition of its workforce with that of the civilian labor force in its staffing and personnel decisions. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. The Justice Department is “on the side of Minnesotans” and “stepped in to hold the state accountable,” said U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen for the District of Minnesota. “Minnesotans already had to see their state officials let criminals brazenly walk off with over a billion taxpayer dollars,” Rosen said in a public statement. “Now they see those same officials abusing their power by systematically and unlawfully branding jobseekers as the wrong race or sex.”  The state’s affirmative action mandate unlawfully discriminates against employees and prospective employees, and classifies them based on their race and sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Justice Department argues. “Because staffing is a zero-sum game, when Minnesota gives preferences to employees or prospective employees on the basis of their race, color, national origin, and sex, it inevitably and necessarily discriminates against other employees or prospective employees because of their race, color, national origin, and sex,” the complaint says.  Today, @TheJusticeDept sued Minnesota for using affirmative action to hire for its state agencies.This is discriminatory DEI codified into bad state policy, and the Trump Administration will not stand for it. https://t.co/NcNHMftLwa— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) January 14, 2026 Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Daily Signal for this story. Also, the office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz did not immediately respond.  In what he called a “direct appeal” to President Donald Trump, Walz made a general statement Thursday about the confrontation between his state and the federal government.  “Let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of retribution,” Walz posted.  pic.twitter.com/EFBOPpNluy— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) January 15, 2026 The Supreme Court halted the practice of using race as a factor in college admissions in its Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision, noted Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This case is the next logical step,” Dhillon said in a statement, adding that federal civil rights law “protects all people from race and sex discrimination in employment. There is no exception that allows discrimination against employees who aren’t considered ‘underrepresented.’” In a recent development of the unfolding legal drama between the federal government and Minnesota, a federal judge on Wednesday halted the U.S. Department of Agriculture from withholding $80 million for food stamps while the state reviewed 100,000 recipients for potential fraud.  The post ‘SYSTEMATICALLY AND UNLAWFULLY’: DOJ Alleges Minnesota Discriminates in Hiring appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. By now, you’ve probably heard: The British Labour government is not bringing in mandatory digital ID. Rejoice! The freedom-loving Brit can breathe easy again, safe in the knowledge that no one will be asked to wave some creepy state-issued QR code at the pub. Or the supermarket. Or the job center. Except, well…they sort of will. According to The Times, Labour is quietly yanking back the explicit demand for a national digital ID, but it’s the same way a magician might yank a tablecloth while keeping the cutlery exactly where it was. They make it look like the plan has changed. But we’re still marching briskly into the warm digital embrace of compulsory identity checks. No Digital ID? No Problem. You Still Can’t Work Without One Let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t about scrapping the system. It’s about calling it something else so the voters don’t kick up a fuss. People will still be subject to what are being called “mandatory digital checks for right to work” under the current plans. Reading more closely, a government source told The Times that “mandatory digital checks” are necessary. “There will be checks, which will be digital and mandatory,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said today in the House of Commons. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “We are saying that you will need mandatory digital ID to be able to work in the UK. Now the difference is whether that has to be one piece of ID, a digital ID card, or whether it could be an e-visa or an e-passport, and we’re pretty relaxed about what form that takes.” And there it is. The oldest bureaucratic trick in the book: declare a system broken, then quietly replace it with something ten times more controlling, but dress it up as progress. So you don’t have to carry a digital ID. It’s not mandatory. But if you want a job, you’d better have the digital credentials to prove your worth. The Great Rebrand: Compulsion Without the PR Headache One unnamed official even said this latest rhetorical pivot was designed to “deflate one of the main points of contention.” Avoid boiling the blood of the electorate even further by doing the same thing, just with softer language. They added, “We do not want to risk there being cases of some 65-year-old in a rural area being barred from working because he hasn’t installed the ID.” How thoughtful. This whole “mandatory checks” versus “mandatory use” semantic judo is precisely the kind of thing that gets ministers nodding sagely in Whitehall while everyone else wonders what planet they’re on. They didn’t eat the cake; they just “redistributed its contents through direct oral engagement.” The end result is the same. As soon as digital ID exists, people will be pressured into it. Despite claims that digital ID can be optional, company directors in the UK are now being effectively forced to use it. Under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, from November 2025 all directors must verify their identity to legally act in their role, and the default method is via GOV.UK’s digital ID One Login system. This government wants everyone on digital ID one way or another. The truly galling part is that all of this is happening with the usual platitudes about “consultation.” A spokesperson said that ministers have “always been clear” that full details will follow “a full public consultation.” Which, in Westminster-speak, is usually code for: “We’ll tell you what we’ve already decided, then ignore your opinion,” just like they did with the debate over the new censorship law, the Online Safety Act. Public support for digital ID has fallen sharply. When people really learn about the long-term consequences, they seem to wake up. Polling last year showed a steep drop in approval, and an online petition opposing the digital ID plan gathered almost three million signatures. Make no mistakes about this new “non-mandatory” digital ID propaganda that’s out in the news right now. While they assure us that no one will require a digital ID, they’re building a world where not having one turns your daily life into a slow-motion punishment. It’ll be coercion by inconvenience. Welcome to the Slow Lane, Citizen Take airports. In the United States, for example, you technically don’t have to use the biometric fast lanes. But try not using them. The people with facial scans and “trusted traveler” clearance breeze through like they’re on a travel ad. Meanwhile, everyone else is funneled into a neglected, sluggish line patrolled by a single, visibly exhausted border agent. The more you resist enrollment, the longer your wait. And since nothing says “security” like punishing the innocent for existing, the “random” secondary screening always seems to find its way to the folks who opted out. The Transportation Security Administration in the US practically wrote the playbook: say it’s voluntary, then make the alternative unbearable. Miss a flight or two because the manual ID lane moves slower than tectonic plates, and you’ll be scanning your irises faster than you can say “civil liberties.” The Line is the Punishment Here’s how it works: instead of making enrollment mandatory, they just make life worse for people who say no. Time becomes the cudgel. Every choice comes with a cost in minutes, hours, or lost opportunity. Need to get into a venue? The express line is digital ID only. Age Checks: The Digital Trojan Horse It started with just adult content. Alcohol. Vaping. Gambling. Now it’s even to access to social media under some authoritarian regimes (we’re looking at you, Australia). You name it; every move on the internet is suddenly a proving ground for your identity, tying everything you say and view to you real-world ID. Age verification laws arrive draped in moral concern, but underneath it all, they’re laying the tracks for a digital ID system no one asked for. They’ll insist there are alternatives, right up until the moment there aren’t. Once a government digital ID exists, sites no longer need to dance around the issue. They can simply require it. No upload option. No fallback. No fiddly workaround involving a photo of a passport taken on a cracked phone camera. Just a blunt message on the screen: verify with your government digital ID to continue. It will be framed as compliance, safety, or liability management. Platforms will shrug and blame regulation. And that’s the trick. The state doesn’t have to force anyone to enroll when the internet itself does the job for them. Once digital ID exists, more places will demand it. What about trying to buy a bottle of wine at a self-checkout? Stores will start pushing digital ID verification to make the process faster and easier. Without a digital ID, you might as well ask to pay with pebbles. Retailers are quietly re-engineering shopping so that identity is baked into the process. Self-checkouts won’t clear unless the system can scan you. Alcohol purchases will require digital approval. Manual lanes? Oh, they exist, all one of them, but the cashier is also covering returns, cleaning up aisle four, and having a nervous breakdown. You’re not banned from shopping. You’re just herded toward the system that knows who you are and what you buy. For your convenience, of course. Banking, Broken on Purpose You can still have a bank account without a digital ID, technically. But the moment you want to transfer more than a bus fare, you’ll hit a wall. Transaction limits will be lower. Payments are slower. Account freezes drag on for days unless you’re verified, at which point, everything resolves with miraculous speed. It’s like the difference between writing a check in 1972 and using Apple Pay. People will just enroll. Not because they trust the system, but because they want to access their own money without feeling like a criminal on remand. So, there you have it. No official digital ID. Just mandatory digital checks for work. Maybe housing. Maybe banking. But not a mandatory digital ID. Definitely not. This is how it happens. Not with a diktat, not with a vote, not even with a proper debate. Just a slow, quiet redesign of daily life so that refusing the ID doesn’t make you brave. It makes you late, broke, locked out, and eventually invisible. So no, digital ID isn’t always mandatory. But as soon as one is introduced, and you don’t have one? Enjoy waiting in line. You’ll be there a while. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post The Myth of the UK’s Axed Mandatory Digital ID Plans appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Democratic senators are broadening the definition of what counts as restricted online content, moving from earlier efforts focused on explicit deepfakes to a new campaign against what they call “non-nude sexualized” material. The new language dramatically expands the category of what can be censored, reaching beyond pornography or criminal exploitation to include images with altered clothing, edited body shapes, or suggestive visual effects. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware led the group of seven Democrats who signed a letter to Alphabet, Meta, Reddit, Snap, TikTok, and X. We obtained a copy of the letter for you here. The signatories — Tammy Baldwin, Richard Blumenthal, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Kelly, Ben Ray Luján, Brian Schatz, and Adam Schiff — are asking for records that define how each company classifies and removes this type of content, as well as any internal documents or moderator guidance about “virtual undressing” and similar AI edits. “We are particularly alarmed by reports of users exploiting generative AI tools to produce sexualized ‘bikini’ or ‘non-nude’ images of individuals without their consent and distributing them on platforms including X and others,” the senators wrote. “These fake yet hyper-realistic images are often generated without the knowledge or consent of the individuals depicted, raising serious concerns about harassment, privacy violations, and user safety.” Their argument rests on reports describing AI tools that can transform photos of clothed women into revealing deepfakes or fabricate images of sexualized poses. The senators describe this as evidence of a growing “crisis of image-based abuse” that undermines trust and safety online. But the language of the letter goes further than earlier initiatives that targeted explicit content. It introduces a much wider standard where mere suggestion or aesthetic change could qualify as “sexualized.” The call to prohibit “altered clothing” or “body-shape edits” effectively merges real abuse prevention with subjective judgments about appearance. More: Democrats Demand Apple and Google Ban X From App Stores This approach lowers the threshold for content removal and places large technology firms under political pressure to enforce taste-based standards. The likely result is that automated moderation systems, already known to misclassify satire or art, will increasingly suppress harmless or expressive images. The senators’ request, framed as a matter of safety and dignity, and capitalizing on recent headlines, moves the boundaries of acceptable online expression further into the realm of interpretation rather than clear evidence of harm. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Democratic Senators Urge Tech Platforms to Restrict AI Images, Including Altered Clothing and Body-Shape Edits appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Will Trump Get a Nobel Prize Today?

Inching Toward Civil War...