'I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice'

News Dawn Neal Shusterman’s “Dawn Terminator” to Get Adaptation at Netflix The short story is included in his upcoming 700-page compendium, MindWorks. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on June 23, 2025 Neal Shusterman photo credit: Gaby Gerster Comment 0 Share New Share Neal Shusterman photo credit: Gaby Gerster Scythe author Neal Shusterman has another adaptation in the works. This one is based on his short story, “Dawn Terminator,” and is being developed by Netflix under the title, Dawn. “Dawn Terminator” was first published in 1996, but was updated and included in his short story collection, MindWorks: An Uncanny Compendium of Short Fiction, which is set to come out in November 2025. In the short story, the sun has deadly solar flares that a family in a plane heading to Alaska, tries to survive.   “The shorter the piece, the more economical you need to be with story and language,” Shusterman told Publishers Weekly about his approach to writing shorter works of prose. “You have to get a lot across in a very limited amount of time. I find short stories can be a palate-cleanser between larger projects. Also, sometimes I have an idea that just doesn’t feel big enough to be a novel, so I get to explore it in a story. Both forms are rewarding in different ways.” The screenplay for the Netflix adaptation is being written by A Minecraft Movie scribes Neil Widener and Gavin James. Dylan Clark Productions, the company that backed Carry-On and Bird Box, is producing. The project is still in its very early days—the script isn’t finalized yet—so no news on casting or if/when we’ll see the adaptation make its way to Netflix.[end-mark] The post Neal Shusterman’s “Dawn Terminator” to Get Adaptation at Netflix appeared first on Reactor.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Border Patrol agents reportedly released hundreds of Iranian nationals into the U.S. during President Joe Biden’s time in office, drawing national security concerns as military tensions escalate. The Biden administration arrested 1,504 Iranian nationals during fiscal year 2021 through fiscal year 2024, releasing 729 of these individuals into the country, according to Customs and Border Protection data obtained by Fox News. The newly released data follows U.S. military airstrikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities, sparking vows of retaliation from the Islamic regime. Iran has since responded to the airstrikes, launching missiles at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, according to The New York Times, citing the Iranian military. The success of the airstrikes, at the time of writing, is unclear, though no casualties have been reported from the airstrikes, per the Qatari foreign minister. Qatar Foreign Minister says there are no reported casualties from the Iranian strikes on the U.S. air base.— Wallace H. White (@WallHWhite) June 23, 2025 The data suggest nearly half of all Iranians—who are considered special interest aliens by immigration authorities—caught illegally crossing the border under the Biden administration were eventually released into the U.S. Border czar Tom Homan, tasked with leading the Trump administration’s deportation operations, said these are just the individuals the government knows about. “Under Joe Biden, we had over 10 million people cross that border,” Homan said Sunday during a media appearance. “But my biggest concern from day one—beyond the fentanyl, beyond the sex trafficking, women and children—were the two million known gotaways.” “Over 2 million people crossed that border,” Homan continued. “We don’t know who they are, where they came from because they got away because Border Patrol was so overwhelmed with the humanitarian crisis that Biden created.” Amid the worst southern border crisis in history, Border Patrol agents operating under the Biden administration were overwhelmed with unprecedented levels of foreign nationals in its custody, forcing the agency to release many of the individuals in their custody—including foreign nationals of particular concern to the U.S. A total of 12 Iranian nationals were released into the country in fiscal year 2021, 40 released in fiscal year 2022, 229 released in fiscal year 2023, and 448 released in fiscal year 2024, according to Fox News’ CBP data. “The leading state sponsor of terrorism exploited the Biden administration’s weak border policies for four years,” Texas GOP Rep. August Pfluger said Sunday of the released Iranians. “Now, 729 Iranians with unknown terror connections are currently in our country, which [is one] of the largest national security vulnerabilities we have ever experienced.” “We must act swiftly to find these individuals immediately,” Pfluger continued. The U.S. military Saturday night launched a coordinated aerial assault on three of Iran’s top nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. The military operation, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, is believed to have obliterated the country’s nuclear capabilities, eliminating the threat that Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism around the world, could utilize nuclear weapons. The Department of Homeland Security has since warned of a “heightened threat environment in the United States.” While not citing any specific threats, DHS deemed “low-level cyberattacks” by pro-Iranian hacktivists to be likely. With the U.S.-Mexico border currently experiencing historically low levels of illegal migrant activity, far fewer foreign nationals are being released into the country by border officials. The Trump administration touted the release of zero migrants into the U.S. during the month of May—a far cry from the 62,000 illegal migrants released into the country in May 2024. DHS did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect information about the recent Iranian missile strikes against the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post New Figures on Iranians Let in Under Biden Reportedly Emerge as US Braces for Tehran Counterattack appeared first on The Daily Signal.

NEW ORLEANS—When Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk goes to speak on campus and attracts a large following, that’s not the story—the story is how the Right conspired to open the door to his “extremism,” according to journalists presenting at an investigative reporting conference. David Armiak, research director at the Center for Media and Democracy, and Kyle Spencer, a former New York Times contributor and the CEO of the Pro-Democracy Information Lab, coached a room full of at least 60 reporters and editors on “Tracking Right-Wing Influencers and Movements” at the Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference in New Orleans on Friday. Robert Downen, a Texas Monthly senior writer, moderated the panel. Armiak recounted seeing Kirk at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s library mall last fall. He saw Kirk “in the center of campus with frat bros all around him, you know, spewing anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+ talking points” and campaigning for Donald Trump. “I had never seen so many folks standing out, watching him in the past,” Armiak noted, mentioning that Kirk had previously been limited to a room “where it was more difficult for him to get exposure.” “What’s the story?” Spencer asked. “The story is, how is he now next to the library?” She called this a “great opportunity” to write about “the right-wing network” passing bills “that will allow extremism to be normalized and to be more easily spread.” Spencer pointed to nonprofits like the Goldwater Institute that publish draft legislation. In October 2017, the Wisconsin Board of Regents adopted a free speech policy echoing language used in a bill based on Goldwater Institute draft legislation. Both Armiak and Spencer suggested the Kirk speech represented a good opportunity for reporters to expose the infrastructure of conservative policy, which they also branded “extremist.” Armiak condemned a network that “brings together fossil fuel funders, Christian Right activists, pastors, some of these state policy network folks, litigation folks, people like Leonard Leo, Trump’s judge whisperer.” He claimed the members of this network “were deeply tied to the January 6th insurrection and are deeply tied to the manipulation of our democracy and efforts to subvert it now.” Spencer emphasized that “when you’re covering somebody who is voicing views of the extreme Right, they have been sort of planted by a larger network.” No Telling ‘Both Sides’ When it comes to covering the “far Right,” Spencer urged reporters to “avoid features that glamorize and glorify these people,” and to avoid “both-sides-ism”—the journalist’s practice of presenting a point and a counter-point in reporting. “Do not ‘two-side’ stories,” she said. “Their fascism is not a side. Destroying people’s right to vote is not a side.” Spencer also advised reporters not to merely use the names that conservative organizations adopt for themselves. She claimed they “use propagandist tools,” employing “words that we associate with democracy, with humanism” for groups that “are doing the exact opposite.” She gave the example of the parental rights group Moms for Liberty. She called it “an organization that is heavily funded by non-moms, that wants to keep people from reading the books they want to read.” “As a journalist, if you refer to them as ‘Moms for Liberty’ and you don’t put that in context, you’re lying to your readers,” Spencer said. The Christian Right Downen, the moderator, said the Christian Right and business groups “who really want unfettered capitalism” work “in tandem together.” He urged reporters to “find the ideological underpinnings for these groups.” He gave the example of the Council for National Policy, a secretive organization that he said “was founded almost explicitly with a Christian Dominionist agenda … the idea being that Christians need to dominate every sector of society in order to bring about the apocalypse.” Downen gave a “practical tip for reporting,” urging listeners to find people “two, three, four steps removed from somebody who has some really noxious ideologies or has been funding a bunch of other groups, too.” He said making these connections is “an important part of this reporting process.” He also argued that most Americans don’t really support conservative ideas, and that conservatives favor “voter suppression” tactics in order to maintain power. Undemocratic? “A crucial part of the Christian nationalist movement, a lot of these movements, is convincing people that it’s not gerrymandering or low civic participation that is allowing them to sustain power, but rather that they represent some silent majority,” Downen said. “I think it’s really important to be pointing out that these are actually very unpopular ideas and the reason that they often are looking to institute them by subverting democratic processes is precisely because they know that they do not have popular support.” Those on the Left often condemn voter ID laws as a form of “suppression,” preventing people from voting. Conservatives often respond by noting the persistence of voter fraud, and that most polls find Americans broadly favor voter ID laws, even in blue states like California. Armiak also warned about the Convention of States, a conservative group that aims to hold a convention of the state legislatures to amend the U.S. Constitution under Article V. “This is a massive threat,” Armiak said. He noted that “a lot of editors” would say, “Once they have the convention and they got to get 38 states to ratify it, that’s pretty difficult.” The journalist said reporters should respond, “Yeah, but do you want them to get in the room?” He urged reporters to ask, “Who are the extremists that are supporting it in your community?” Advice for More ‘Contextualizing’ A member of the audience who said the Right wants to “tear government out by its roots” asked the panelists, “How do we, as journalists, convince editors and publishers to contextualize this on a higher level than what we’re doing now?” His question suggested that legacy media journalists are insufficiently negative in their coverage of the conservative movement. Spencer did not challenge the question, but proceeded to give advice. She said that “the end game of limited government … of destroying the safety net” is “something that you can really explain to people.” “You should always be using examples that would be alarming to people,” Spencer added. She encouraged reporters to start “reporting on aspects of limited government that would be really scary to people, and that would be really alarming.” Journalists often worry about reporting on truly extreme individuals, such as mass shooters, lest they reward people who are seeking negative attention. Spencer applied this concern to conservative activists, but she suggested reporters solve the problem by telling “a larger story about how dangerous these entities are.” More than 1,600 reporters and editors attended the conference, which included panels on practical tips for investigative reporting. Other panels, however, focused on issues from a left-wing perspective, such as “Following the anti-trans federal actions,” and “Belonging under fire: In an era of backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.” The post ‘Fascism Is Not a Side’: Journalists Strategize to Expose the ‘Extremism’ on the Right appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As the Senate Finance Committee’s reconciliation package continues to make its way through the Senate process, a review of its key provisions as compared to the House-passed version offers some helpful insights and exposes some glaring omissions.  The Senate Finance bill follows the House-passed reconciliation bill in a number of ways. First, like the House bill, the Senate Finance proposal focuses on strengthening eligibility verification and enforcement rules in Medicaid and the Obamacare exchanges to ensure only those who are eligible for the program are on it. It also sets up a framework for adding work requirements, similar to those in other welfare programs, to the Medicaid program and establishes a process to recapture Obamacare premium subsidy overpayments. In some ways, the Senate Finance bill is better than the House bill. Specifically, the Senate provisions further narrow eligibility for illegals to qualify for Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies. It also removes the delay on Disproportionate Share Hospital payments cuts. These cuts were originally promised as “savings” under Obamacare. Yet, these cuts have never taken effect as Congress constantly intervenes to stop them. The Finance proposal correctly stops these delays. The Senate Finance Committee also took additional steps to further limit states’ use of questionable financing gimmicks to leverage federal funding.  In other ways, however, the Finance bill continues other distortive provisions. Specifically, like the House bill, the Senate Finance bill makes special allowances for states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs over those states that expanded their programs via Obamacare. On the surface, this might seem a good concession. A way of rewarding those states that took the fiscally sound path of rejecting the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. However, such special carve outs only further distort an overly complex and opaque financing structure. Medicaid needs greater transparency and accountability, not less. The most glaring difference between the two bills is the Senate Finance eliminates any improvements to Health Savings Accounts. The House bill made a number of modifications to increase availability, contributions, and qualified expenses for Health Savings Accounts, including Direct Primary Care arrangements and plans offered through the exchanges. The Senate bill removes these changes as well as other first term Trump initiatives, such as codifying the Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements. The omission of these two provisions is a major setback for patient-centered health reform.   Further, still missing from both the House and Senate Finance version is an agreement on bringing the enhanced Obamacare Medicaid match rate in line with traditional Medicaid match rates. Both bills do not change the enhanced Obamacare Medicaid expansion funding to normal federal Medicaid funding levels. While the bills remove a recently added temporary bonus to new expansion states, ending the preferential match rate across the board would make funding fairer and would stop the distortions it creates in the program. Also, neither bill includes any trigger mechanism to force Congress to make more fundamental, long-term reforms to the Medicaid program. Without a forcing mechanism in place, it is likely Congress will move on as they did after welfare reform and calls for future reforms will be ignored. The House bill does not address this. As the July 4 goal for passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act nears, there is still time for Congress to act and fix what’s missing. The post Senate Finance Health Care Reconciliation Provisions: Some Improvements but Some Glaring Omissions appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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President Donald Trump has endeavored to ram a stake through the heart of the federal DEI regime.He kicked off his second term by requiring that the head of every federal agency, department, or commission see to the elimination of all DEI offices, positions, initiatives, programs, contracts, and performance requirements; ordering the government to eliminate DEI discrimination in the federal workforce as well as in federal contracting and spending; tasking his inbound attorney general with preparing a civil rights-focused pressure campaign against DEI practitioners in the private sector; and rescinding numerous race- and identity-centered executive orders issued by Democrat presidents.While Trump has since enjoyed tremendous success in eliminating various DEI initiatives across the government, it appears that there is still much work to be done.The 1792 Exchange, a corporate bias watchdog seeking to restore political neutrality in the boardroom and to educate lawmakers about the dangers of woke corporate policies, recently released an analysis of the top 100 federal contractors by dollars obligated in fiscal year 2023.The report highlights the apparent ideological capture and woke policies of a number of corporate juggernauts on the list, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and the RTX Corporation, formerly Raytheon."The American people have the right to know if our hard-earned money is subsidizing any corporation's subversive ideological programs," 1792 Exchange CEO Daniel Cameron said in a statement."President Trump has taken bold action to remove DEI programming from federal institutions, including government contractors," continued Cameron. "This report empowers government agencies and legislators to align procurement decisions with that vision of neutrality and excellence."RELATED: Behind the rainbow curtain: Who is funding the trans agenda targeting kids? Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty ImagesOf the 100 contractors that the 1792 Exchange analyzed, 36 were characterized as "high risk," 16 as "medium risk," and 46 as "lower risk," on the basis of "publicly documented alignment with DEI-driven policies and practices."The watchdog noted that high-risk companies "have demonstrated a pattern of engaging in DEI practices that prioritize ideological conformity over merit-based considerations."Examples of such practices include recruitment, hiring, and promotion on the basis of immutable characteristics and sexual preference; requiring employees to suffer through training sessions on gender ideology and critical race theory; and corporate alignment on philanthropy and marketing strategies with "progressive social agendas."While some big organizations appear to have read the writing on the wall and reversed course on DEI — 1792 indicated that Accenture, AT&T, IBM, Booz Allen Hamilton, and IBM have rolled back at least some of their most divisive DEI policies — others have dug in their feet.Seven out of the top 10 recipients of federal dollars on the 1792 Exchange's list of U.S. government contractors were labeled "high risk." They were, in order from biggest to smallest recipients of federal dollars obligated: Lockheed Martin, the RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon), the Boeing Company, Northrop Grumman, Optum360, Leidos, and McKesson.'Compliance with the CEI naturally leads to ceding nearly all facets of corporate governance to the HRC's influence.'BAE Systems and Honeywell, though farther down the list, similarly appear to be big offenders in terms of DEI initiatives.Lockheed Martin, at the top of the list, "yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders"; "implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes"; and "embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues," according to the 1792 Exchange.Part of what gave the company away was its perfect score on the 2025 Corporate Equality Index from the non-straight activist organization Human Rights Campaign, as well as its receipt of the "Equality 100 Award: Leader in LGBTQ+ Workplace Equality" distinction from the activist group.Many of the scoring criteria for both the 2025 CEI and the so-called equality award appear to require corporate violations of federal policy.While the watchdog outfit did not go out of its way to put CEI scores as a top consideration when assessing risk, Dustin DeVito, the 1792 Exchange's director of corporate research, told Blaze News that "compliance with the CEI naturally leads to ceding nearly all facets of corporate governance to the HRC's influence.""1792 Exchange's company ratings center around six criteria: ideologically driven cancellation, charitable work, employment policies, reputation, funding, and political action," continued DeVito. "The CEI touches on all of these."When pressed for comment, Lockheed Martin referred Blaze News to its Jan. 23 statement, which claimed:Merit-based talent management programs and compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, contracts, and directives have always been central to this mission. We are taking immediate action to ensure continued compliance and full alignment with President Trump’s recent executive order. We will not have goals or incentives based on demographic representation or affirmative action plans. Additionally, our training offerings are compliant with Executive Order 13950 from President Trump's first administration.The RTX Corporation was slapped with the same broad critiques as Lockheed Martin. A closer look revealed precisely why.The company similarly rated high on the 2025 CEI partly because the company apparently "will not donate to non-religious charities unless they embrace controversial sexual identity policies"; requires employees to attend "multiple, controversial trainings on gender identity, sexual orientation, transgender issues, and divisive racial ideology"; covers medical transvestism costs for employees and their children; and publicly advocates for "controversial sex and gender ideology through local, state, or federal legislation or initiatives."When pressed for comment, RTX directed Blaze News to a Jan. 24 company statement that said, "RTX is taking the necessary actions to comply with the presidential executive orders."RELATED: Pride Month’s true competition? Faith, family, freedom Blaze Media IllustrationBoth Boeing — whose executive compensation plan the 1792 Exchange claimed "devalued the weight of product and employee safety in its operational performance metrics, in order to include diversity, equity, and inclusion as a consideration" in recent years — and Northrop Grumman also scored 100% on the 2025 CEI, meaning that it likely jumped through many of the same hoops as other "high-risk" organizations.Blaze News reached out to Boeing and Northrop Grumman as well as to top "high-risk" companies McKesson, Honeywell, Leidos, Optum360, and BAE Systems for comment.Northrop Grumman directed Blaze News to another months-old statement indicating that work was under way to ensure the company was in compliance with the president's executive orders."We are actively reviewing our policies and processes and taking the necessary steps to ensure compliance with the presidential executive orders for the work entrusted to us," said the Northrop Grumman statement. "Underpinned by our values, we hire, promote, and pay based on merit and performance, resulting in the best team to deliver for our customers."A company spokesperson for BAE Systems told Blaze News, "As a federal contractor, we continuously evaluate our policies and programs to ensure continued compliance with all applicable legal requirements, including executive orders, and we will continue to hire, promote, and compensate based on merit."The other companies did not respond by publication time.The 1792 Exchange has invited any companies on its list to submit corrections to the data if they have taken meaningful steps to comply with Trump's executive orders.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The guitarist and songwriter of such favorites as "Can't Get Enough" and "Ready For Love" suffered a stroke shortly after Bad Company's 2016 "Swan Song" U.K. tour. The post Mick Ralphs, of Bad Company and Mott the Hoople, Dies appeared first on Best Classic Bands.

Although it's only been out for two weeks, there are dedicated Dune Awakening players who have already reached the MMO's endgame, and despite the allure of an immense challenge, there have been complaints about the unfair treatment of PvE and solo players when compared to those that love PvP. A Reddit AMA last week addressed some of these complaints, but the answers weren't enough to satisfy most. In response, Funcom has outlined some big changes that are in the works. Continue reading Dune Awakening won't force you into PvP, Funcom says, apologizes to PvE players MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best survival games, Best MMOs, Dune Awakening release date