An international team of astronomers recently found not one, but two of the strangest and rarest of all cosmic objects, and in the same star system no less. Called brown dwarfs, these peculiar objects are invaluable resources for learning about the formation of stars, planets, and systems. These would-be stars fail to accumulate enough mass […] The post The Wild Quadruple Star System Contains Not One, but Two of the Most Illusive Objects in the Galaxy appeared first on Good News Network.

News in remembrance Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, 1942—2025 The author of the Saint Germain cycle was 82. By Molly Templeton | Published on September 3, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, a World Horror Association Grand Master, died this past weekend at the age of 82. The author of more than 80 novels, Yarbro was best known for her Saint Germain Cycle, a historical vampire series that included more than two dozen books and began, in 1978, with Hôtel Transylvania: A Novel of Forbidden Love. She also wrote mysteries, Westerns, fantasy, science fiction, and more. Yarbro began her career as a playwright, writing for what her bio describes as “a now long-defunct children’s theater company.” Before becoming a full-time writer in 1970, she worked as a demographic cartographer, and drafted maps for her own books and books by other writers. Yarbro wrote under several pseudonyms, including Quinn Fawcett (for works co-written with Bill Fawcett), Trystam Kith, Terry Nelson Bonner, T. C. F. Hopkins, Camille Gabor, and Vanessa Pryor. She earned a literary knighthood from the Transylvanian Society of Dracula in 1997, the World Horror Association’s Grand Master award in 2003, became a Living Legend with the International Horror Guild in 2006, and, in 2014, the World Fantasy Convention honored her with a Life Achievement Award. Peter Straub said of her work, “Quinn Yarbro is one of our finest writers and craftspersons, incapable of a sloppy sentence, a slack paragraph, or a fuzzy thought.” A post on Yarbro’s Facebook page goes into some detail about her passing, and says, “Quinn’s health had been declining for some time in ways which gradually limited her mobility, productivity, and communications. Over a year ago she became bedridden, and then her kidneys failed, which required being taken in an ambulance to dialysis three times a week. Despite this very difficult treatment regimen she remained brightly engaged, surrounded by books while binging her favorite TV shows and classical music channels, and enjoying visits from friends.” A memorial service—with magicians, the Facebook post notes—will take place a year and a day after Yarbro’s death. It also mentions that she wrote “several” books that have not yet been published, and that there are plans to re-release some of her out-of-print works. A GoFundMe has been set up to help Yarbro’s sister pay for medical expenses.[end-mark] The post Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, 1942—2025 appeared first on Reactor.

Books Reading the Weird No Idea What We’ll Name It: Lucy Snyder’s Sister, Maiden, Monster (Part 1) Snyder’s 2023 novel starts with a new pandemic — one that leaves some survivors craving brains… By Ruthanna Emrys, Anne M. Pillsworth | Published on September 3, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches. This week, we’re starting our new longread with Chapters 0-2 of Lucy Snyder’s Sister, Maiden, Monster. The book was first published in 2023. Spoilers ahead! Erin Holdaway arrives home from work bone-tired. She immediately goes through a mask-trashing and hand-sanitizing routine; a week before, the world learned of a new pandemic called PVG. CNN has called polymorphic viral gastroencephalitis “the stomach flu on nightmare mode,” but the details remain unknown. People are hospitalized with dangerous symptoms—enough said for Erin and her boyfriend Gregory, who remember coronavirus. Gregory surprises Erin with a fifth anniversary dinner. They feast on sushi and talk about Erin’s workmate Mareva. Both she and her new acquaintance have life sciences degrees and shared fandoms. “Nerds of a feather,” Erin thinks. Too bad the pandemic will prevent them from hanging out. Gregory produces another surprise: an engagement ring. Erin accepts. After a bedroom interlude, Erin calls her father and sister Claire with the news. Claire’s out, Dad’s called away. Just as well, as Erin’s getting a headache and belly cramps. Bad sushi? Soon she’s in the bathroom staring in the mirror at a fever-flushed face and bloodshot eyes. A bloody tear runs down her nose. Next second she’s vomiting violently. Gregory arrives, solicitous until she starts retching up blood. Then he retreats to call 911. As diarrhea hits, she loses consciousness. * * * Some months later. Erin has gone for her monthly appointment with Dr. Shapiro, who’s filling out the routine CDC risk evaluation form. Erin works to hide her tongue, its pores lined with tiny circular teeth. She’s learned to be careful about how she comes across. Type Threes like herself have to endure the questions and tests, and hope there will someday be help for them. Dr. Shapiro asks about Erin’s job, because although chronically ill, Erin must still work. She does the graveyard shift at her old company’s network operations center, where she suspects her co-workers carry tasers in case her craving for gray matter overcomes her. It hasn’t, and her glitchy memory doesn’t interfere too much thanks to operations manuals. Most of Erin’s memories pre-PVG are “insubstantial as dreams; the strongest of them feel like borrowed clothing.” She has a recurring nightmare in which she meets Mareva and a blonde woman in a doctor’s office. Erin feels she knows the blonde but can’t remember her name. The pair hold hands. They’re expecting, Mareva says. Not a child, the blonde clarifies, but a whole new eon. When Erin enters the exam room, she sinks into a tar-pit, from which the blonde pulls her. Now Erin’s in a cheap motel room, with a chestnut-haired woman who says Erin’s not allowed to know her. The woman shoves her out into a parking lot, where Erin falls into pale nothingness. Suddenly sprouted wings save her; she flies over a ravaged city where Mareva and the blonde tend strange poppy-like flowers. Everywhere are piled mutated and tumor-ridden corpses. The stink of doesn’t disturb her, though, and their twisted bodies are pleasant to behold. When Erin wakes, she’s alone in a cold bed. * * * Erin doesn’t remember being transferred from the hospital to Greenlawn, a recommissioned insane asylum. When she comes to, she’s cuffed to a hospital bed. The windows are barred. Her parched hellos bring a woman in blue scrubs and a full-face shield. A huge Taser is clipped to her belt. She introduces herself as Allegra Tesfaye, psychiatric mental health nurse. Greenlawn is a special place for housing PVG convalescents. As for the restraints, she’ll remove them if Erin can prove she won’t “get agitated.” When Erin asks about Gregory, Tesfaye says he’s fine, calls every day, will be glad to hear she’s awake. No, Erin can’t talk to him until they return her phone. The doctor doesn’t want patients worrying themselves with outside news just yet. Next Erin needs to eat. It’s an assessment, important for her treatment plan. Erin agrees to try, then signs forms she’s too groggy to read. Tesfaye returns with a student pushing a food cart, a burly orderly, and Dr. Sallow from pathology. Her IV and restraints removed, she sits up to eat. Erin’s tray contains cups of water, clear soda, apple juice and a deep red fluid like beet juice. Small bowls hold applesauce, vanilla pudding, and warm gray lumpy mush that looks terrible but smells delicious. She must try each item and describe her reactions. The water, soda, and apple juice are okay. The beet juice, however, tastes like salt and iron, raw meat. She spits it out, realizes it’s blood, and demands to know what the hell her watchers are up to. Tesfaye and Sallow only repeat that it’s necessary for her diagnosis. Angry, Erin goes for the grossest dish, the gray mush. Its gelatinous texture is disgusting, and yet she empties the bowl like a starving dog. Back up, the orderly warns: we’ve got a Type Three. Erin is so hungry for mush that she doesn’t question what he means. She tells Sallow the stuff would be even better raw. She demands more. Sallow says they can’t provide it; his trembling voice and sweating forehead tell Erin he’s afraid of her. The realization’s exhilarating. She imagines bashing Sallow’s skull open so she can get at the goodness inside, and she tells him so. Tesfaye steps in, Taser drawn. She tells Erin this rage isn’t her true self. She warns that if Erin doesn’t calm down, she’ll use the Taser, making it much longer before she can go home. Erin’s adrenaline drains, leaving her weak. Sallow admits the mush was brains, mostly bovine, ten percent human. Erin’s appalled when Tesfaye insists this “special diet” is necessary. She weeps, while in her mind a perversion of the children’s song plays: Brains, brains, the magical meat, The worse you feel, the more you eat…. What’s Cyclopean: A “stegosaurian bureaucracy.” The Degenerate Dutch: A man is only afraid of a woman, Erin knows, if she has power. Admittedly, there are better girl powers than craniophagia. Weirdbuilding: They’ve just discovered a “new megacephalopod species,” which I am interpreting as a giant-giant squid. This is like when they kept discovering larger and larger dinosaurs, and running out of prefixes. It’s an underrated problem of apocalypses. Madness Takes Its Toll: Gotham-like, the powers that be are putting their new monsters in a “recommissioned insane asylum” to be sorted. Ruthanna’s Commentary Magdala, it turns out, is the town from which Mary Magdalene hails, a.k.a. she’s a Magdalene like I’m a Cape Codder. I’m Jewish, I had no idea. Like Cape Cod it’s known for fishing; unlike Cape Cod it’s known for mythological origin stories. The amygdala, on the other hand, is part of the vertebrate limbic system; you have one in each temporal lobe of your brain. On a lay and literary level it’s associated with fear. However, it’s actually responsible for processing emotion more generally along with its connection to memory. From an extremely practical perspective, emotion is how you label the importance of events, both degree and kind, and thus the importance of retrieving information from those events. So you got attacked by a rampaging mammoth here, and your amygdala makes sure that you’ll be super-cautious next time you’re in the area, or avoid it all together. This person was nice to you, so positive emotions encourage you to hang out with them again. It’s not where you store memories, but it’s central to laying them down and keeping them fresh. I’m guessing that for a new-hatched zombie, the amygdala is particularly delicious. So “Magdala Amygdala,” in addition to being a tongue-twister, suggests a mythosian origin for memory and emotion, or the formation of memories for myth. Perhaps something that comes out of the sea? Something both within and beyond oneself. It’s certainly not as on-the-nose as Megiddo Amygdala, say. But we do find ourselves on the cusp of an apocalypse. “Apocalypse” can be an end of the world, but more literally means a revelation bringing about a new age. “The means of mediation,” quoth Wikipedia, “include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys”. Erin dreams of acquaintance Mareva, a mysterious blonde, and another woman whose name she isn’t allowed to know. (Shades of the Woman in White?) They’re expecting a new eon—“But we haven’t any idea what we’ll name it.” Which suggests that the nature of the eon is yet to be settled. From a current-age perspective, though, it doesn’t seem promising. Plague is one of the apocalyptic horse-entities, and rarely welcome except by a particular sort of political death cultist. Polymorphic viral gastroencephalitis seems a particularly nasty one. Not only does it give you the stomach flu from hell, but it does so in the process of modifying your digestive system. Some people, apparently, come out with a taste for blood. And some, like Erin, come out craving braaaiiiiins. You can’t, apparently, tell type from the particular type of body horror visible on the surface. So lamprey tongues, for example, don’t automatically go with Type 3s. (There are at least two other types, so what’s the non-blood one? I have a feeling it’s not “eats perfectly normal non-disturbing food, just with the tooth-tongue.”)  No wonder they don’t want Erin doomscrolling. Imagine all the misinformation that X has to offer about how to keep your zombie hungers under control. Just eat fresh vegetables and avoid vaccines, and you’ll be fine, we promise. Or just eat the brains of people who deserve it. We’re sure there are plenty to go ‘round. And stay at work; a new eon is no excuse to neglect the demands of capitalism. Anne’s Commentary Page one of Sister, Maiden, Monster, and I was already detecting the miasma of plague in the breeze off the pages. As long as that foulness is strictly fictional, it’s as delicious a scent to me as rugosa roses and dark chocolate. Many of us have lived through multiple contagion crises and scares. For me, there have been various influenzas, AIDS, Legionnaire’s disease, SARS-CoV-1, MERS, Ebola, Zika, Nipah, MRSA, West Nile, and Lyme disease. Probably none of us has lived through the shifting waves of COVID-19 without being old enough to recognize the emblems of a thoroughly modern pandemic. Erin Holdaway enters the novel stripping off a KN95 mask and dropping it into an improvised biohazard bin by her apartment door. Next she applies hand sanitizer. Applies it twice after touching her possibly contaminated keys. Smart moves, Erin, though a NIOSH-approved N95 mask would provide optimal protection against insidious airborne viral particles. I’m surprised germophobic Gregory let her go out without NIOSH approval! He’s quick enough to get major social distancing from Erin once she starts showing hemorrhagic symptoms reminiscent of Poe’s Red Death, whose mark is the horror of brightly-colored blood. He also starts fumigating the apartment with Lysol, though the must-knows about PVG remain terrifyingly unknown. Such as how it’s spread, how to disinfect a contaminated area, and what’s the long-term prognosis. If any. PVG is becoming one of my favorite fictional viruses. “Polymorphic” suggests the disease exhibits multiple forms or outcomes, perhaps associated with variant viral forms. “Gastroencephalitis” suggests GI ravages that involve the central nervous system as well. Chapter one ups the “polymorphic” ante by confirming that infection has altered Erin’s tongue into an organ with pores like missile silos housing tiny circular teeth. She tries to hide the change, even though she knows Dr. Shapiro’s probably seen “fifteen far more grotesque” PVG-related deformities that morning. The big clue to what the tiny teeth might be used for is the way Erin’s brain has been altered. Part of it is now “always alert and restless no matter what [she does.] Hungry-predator gray matter [she] can’t leash or satisfy.” This hypervigilance has wrecked her sleep cycle. Dr. Shapiro is rightly concerned about Erin’s insomnia, which can only weaken her resistance to the APUs (Acquired Predatory Urges) that make her a potential menace to society—hence the CDC’s monthly risk evaluations. I doubt that Erin has shared her recurring dream with Shapiro, as it ends in her sprouting wings and soaring like a “raptor” over a ruin-scape of mutated human corpses. The problem isn’t the grotesque imagery. It’s Erin’s reaction to it. The “stink of festering flesh” is to raptor-Erin “no more disturbing than the delicate scent of cherry blossoms”; the sight of “people who had died in abject misery” is as pleasant as “nodding sunflower heads.” Chapter two jumps back to Erin’s first fully conscious day since her illness began. She wakes up in Greenlawn, a former insane asylum repurposed into a special convalescent hospital for patients that other facilities “aren’t equipped to properly care for.” That explanation from Nurse Tesfaye might be unnerving, ditto the huge Taser hanging conspicuously on her belt, but Tesfaye is so calm, so sympathetic. Greenlawn must be a good place, so Erin signs electronic forms she doesn’t really understand. She agrees to the odd diagnostic test involving “soft” foods she must sample and comment on. It’s only through this test that her caretakers will learn how to treat her. They don’t tell her the test will determine her PVG victim “type,” or even that there are types. It turns out she’s the most dangerous polymorphic variant, inspiring fear in student nurse Lisa, Dr. Sallow, and even massive orderly Darius. At that point, Erin has spit out a sample of human blood in outrage. I’m assuming a Type One would be a “normal” who rejected all but the “normal” samples. I’m further assuming a Type Two would enthusiastically quaff the blood sample but reject the bovine and human brains that Erin wolfs down. The ferocity with which she demands more, and threatens Dr. Sallow, marks her as a Type Three. Final assumptions: A lust for blood is diagnostic of a vampire post-PVG variant. A lust for brain matter is diagnostic of a zombie variant. To the horror writer, PVG is a double gift, and perhaps there are variants yet to be discovered. Tesfaye tells Erin the hungry predator is not what she wants to be. She’s right. Whenever Erin wakes from her recurrent dream, it hits her like a nightmare. She wants to scream to purge its images. She has dry heaves. In rare lucid moments during her sickness, she just wanted to get to the future she planned with Gregory. Coming down from her brains-fueled rage in Greenlawn, she sobs her rawest truth: “I wanna go home.” I want her to go home, too, but I fear it won’t be anything like her pre-PVG home. Next week, we look for trouble on the back roads in Stephen Graham Jones’ “Refinery Road.” You can find it in Ellen Datlow’s When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired By Shirley Jackson.[end-mark] The post No Idea What We’ll Name It: Lucy Snyder’s <i>Sister, Maiden, Monster</i> (Part 1) appeared first on Reactor.

Michael and Adam discuss Wizard’s irreverent take on the Fantastic Four, a Last Man Standing battle between rookie versions of Batman and Daredevil, outrageous comic book legal battles and more Wizard magazine goofiness. Plus, William CONTINUE READING... The post WIZARDS The Podcast Guide To Comics | Episode 114.5 appeared first on The Retro Network.

Fierce invective flew back and forth at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, with committee chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Nigel Farage putting on the gloves and removing the restraints. The hearing, titled, “Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation,” was held to discuss EU and UK censorship, including acts that Jordan described as “infringing on Americans’ First Amendment rights.” Witnesses included Farage, an avidly pro-free speech British member of parliament. Jordan began by denouncing several European laws that he said “target our tech companies that provide the modern town square.” “Laws like the Digital Services Act and the Online Safety Act,” two EU statutes, “are the engines of a global censorship regime targeting political speech disfavored by European bureaucrats,” Jordan said.  The laws “effectively require social media platforms to change their terms of service to moderate more content,” imposing policies Americans like Jordan worry will extend beyond the EU into the U.S., harming Americans’ free speech rights. Jordan decried recent examples of censorship in the EU and the UK, condemning their lack of respect for free speech. Then, Raskin took the floor, denouncing Farage, who he called a “far-right, pro-Putin politician.” “This hearing’s just a drive-by hit against a strong democratic ally to benefit a Donald Trump sycophant and wannabe,” Raskin said. “Not only are our colleagues ignoring intensifying repression in the world’s dictatorships, they’re also trying to distract the world from the attack on freedom taking place right here in America every single day.” Raskin pointed to alleged examples of censorship under Trump, concluding, “There’s a free speech crisis in America today. But there’s no free speech crisis in Britain.” In a brief response, Jordan was ready with a sharp rejoinder: “The gentleman alleges there’s no free speech in America under Donald Trump while his staff member holds up countless articles criticizing the Trump administration.” Farage opened his testimony with a strong dose of irony. “I’m delighted to reacquaint with the charming Mr. Raskin.” “Delightful testimony you gave me earlier on with your speech,” he continued. “But hey that’s fine, you can say what you like, I don’t care, because that’s what free speech is.” Farage pointed to the UK’s recent arrest of an Irish comedian at Heathrow Airport for posting supposedly transphobic tweets. “This could happen to any American man or woman that goes to Heathrow that has said things online that the British government and the British police don’t like,” he said. “At what point did we become North Korea? Well, I think the Irish comedy writer found that out two days ago at Heathrow airport,” he concluded. The post Fireworks Erupt at House Judiciary Hearing as Jordan, Raskin, and Nigel Farage Scorch Europe—and Each Other appeared first on The Daily Signal.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Wednesday declared the need for an economy that “emphasizes a large middle class that makes and grows, rather than a small elite that extracts, reallocates, and squanders.” “Ultimately, to support a conservative society as conservatives, it’s been drilled into us to always lament that politics is downstream from culture, but I would say that even culture itself can often be downstream from economics and the systems that it sets up,” Greer contended in remarks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington. “So, if we want a conservative culture, we have to create a conservative economic system,” he contended. Greer, a lawyer and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a rising star in conservative policymaking. In his address, Greer outlined what he sees as the correct form of a conservative economic system; namely, one that prioritizes a production economy. “A production economy is one that’s oriented around production, rather than consumption, as an end in itself,” Greer explained, adding: America became great because, for most of our history, we had a production economy. Greer grounded his political philosophy in what he characterized as reflections of what the Founding Fathers actually thought about trade policies. “The Founders knew that other nations should not automatically benefit from free access to a market. The debates between Thomas Jefferson’s nation of farmers and Alexander Hamilton’s nation of manufacturers actually resulted in a practical compromise. We would be both, whether through toil on the land or labor in the factory. We would be a nation of producers, and even in their commitment to the yeoman farmer in his fields, the Jeffersonians recognized the need for industrial might to maintain our independence,” he explained.  The U.S. trade representative cited the trade policy of the first U.S. secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.  “Alexander Hamilton had argued that America needed tariffs and industrial policy to promote manufacturing and allow our young country to develop without being subject to the coercive economic policy of the British Empire. Eventually, this view was perfected by Henry Clay, and his unique model was called the American system,” he said.  The trade representative also decried the trade policy of past decades, going so far as to characterize it as trading Americans’ birthright for instant gratification.  “The heartland became a Rust Belt. The streets less safe. Our divide seemed to get sharper, and as we all know very well. People reverted into tribes, essentially, of identity. They latched on to ever-thinner slices of that identity to define themselves,” Greer said of the outcome of the trade policies of the past. Greer concluded his speech by emphasizing American sovereignty and how that principle guides his work. “Americans, we elect our own leaders, whether it’s in the White House, Congress, or state capitals, so we can make decisions for ourselves. We have autonomy, we have sovereignty, and that’s the work of a free and independent people, the work I support as U.S. trade representative, and it’s the work that I believe will set our country right,” he concluded. The post US Trade Rep Outlines Policy That Puts Middle Class First appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Department of Justice is taking Illinois to court over state laws it says unlawfully offer in-state tuition and scholarships to illegal aliens.  The DOJ filed a complaint Tuesday asking a federal court to prevent Illinois from enforcing those laws, which it says are both unlawful and unconstitutional.  “Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This Department of Justice has already filed multiple lawsuits to prevent U.S. students from being treated like second-class citizens—Illinois now joins the list of states where we are relentlessly fighting to vindicate federal law.”  The challenged laws include Illinois’ 2011 DREAM Act, which established a fund that offers scholarships to “undocumented students” in Illinois, as well as the 2020 RISE Act, which extended Illinois financial aid to “noncitizen student[s]” who have “not obtained lawful permanent residence.”  The DOJ says those laws discriminate against U.S. citizens in violation of federal law. Specifically, it points to a 1996 law that bans states from offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens unless they offer the same tuition to all U.S. citizens from any state.  By violating federal law, the DOJ says, the laws also violate the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which establishes federal law as “the supreme Law of the Land.”  Its complaint names as defendants the state of Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker, state Attorney General Kwame Raoul, university officials, and others.  The case comes amid a battle between President Donald Trump and Pritzker over Trump’s threat to deploy National Guard troops to the state to help local law enforcement in Chicago fight crime.  On Tuesday, Trump said in an Oval Office event, “We’re going in. I didn’t say when, we’re going in.”   Pritzker responded on X, “The President’s absurd characterizations don’t match what’s happening here. There’s no emergency that warrants deploying troops in Chicago. He’s insulting Chicagoans by calling our home a hellhole—and anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting them, too.”  The post DOJ Takes Illinois to Court Over Benefits for Illegal Aliens  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, British MP Nigel Farage issued a stark warning about Britain’s trajectory on speech regulation, arguing that UK law now poses a direct threat not only to free expression at home, but also to core American liberties abroad. In testimony submitted to the US Congress during a hearing titled “Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation,” the Reform Party leader detailed how the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act (OSA), passed in 2023, is already being used to pressure American platforms into adopting restrictive UK speech codes, many of which would be flatly unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Farage said the OSA “integrates the United Kingdom’s broad, speech-related criminal offenses with sweeping duties imposed on online platforms,” placing enforcement power in the hands of Ofcom, Britain’s communications regulator. That authority, he warned, now includes the right to demand self-incriminating data from platform operators, punish non-compliance with up to two years’ imprisonment, and seek court orders to block access to non-compliant services. “Ofcom has already threatened four American companies with exactly these penalties,” Farage told lawmakers. “I repeat: regulatory bodies in the United Kingdom are actively threatening to imprison American citizens for exercising their protected Constitutional rights.” This is not a hypothetical scenario. Just last week, two US-based platforms filed suit in Washington, DC, seeking protection against UK enforcement attempts. Their case shows the growing tension between the UK’s new speech suppression regime and America’s longstanding protections for political and controversial speech. Under the OSA, the UK can extend its rules to any platform with “links to the UK,” a vague standard that includes merely having British users, even if a platform has no physical or legal presence in the country. This creates what Farage calls “powerful, and unconstitutional, extraterritorial pressures.” Ofcom’s fines, which can reach 10% of a company’s global revenue, effectively force international platforms to choose: either conform to UK censorship demands or face financial ruin and bans within the UK market. Farage remarked: “Claiming that American companies using American servers must follow UK content moderation law is like claiming that UK law applies to Americans who receive a telephone call from the UK.” Startups and smaller companies are especially vulnerable. The cost of compliance with Ofcom’s complex takedown rules, record-keeping requirements, and risk assessments amounts to a structural disadvantage for any US-based service that refuses to preemptively silence speech the UK might find offensive. Adding to the alarm, Farage noted the new criminal offenses created under the OSA, including a “false communications” law that criminalizes sending messages known to be untrue and intended to cause “non-trivial psychological harm.” The law does carve out exemptions for certain broadcasters and news publishers, but applies broadly to ordinary citizens. Farage pointed to the prosecution of Lucy Connolly as a clear sign of the UK’s hardline approach to online expression. After posting a charged message on X following a violent incident in Southport, Connolly was arrested and sentenced to 31 months in prison under the Public Order Act. Though her case was not brought under the OSA, Farage argued it revealed a legal system increasingly willing to criminalize speech that is merely provocative or offensive. “What Lucy Connolly said in her X message, which was only visible for 3.5 hours, may have been expressed inelegantly, but it was a sentiment that was being felt by a lot of the public at that moment, and it should not have been criminalized,” Farage stated. “When the government starts regulating speech in this way, it is rarely those that agree with the government who find themselves in court.” He emphasized that the UK has long prosecuted even silent protest, such as praying on a sidewalk, and warned that such examples show how low the UK’s threshold has become for punishing speech that would remain protected in the US. The OSA’s requirements also place encrypted communications at risk. Farage pointed to growing concerns that UK mandates will lead to the deployment of surveillance tools, such as client-side scanning, that undermine privacy and are incompatible with end-to-end encryption. He cited industry analysis warning that “no ‘accredited technology’ currently exists that can both scan at scale and preserve genuine E2EE,” suggesting the UK’s approach risks eroding cybersecurity while offering only the illusion of safety. This, combined with the burden of compliance, may drive American innovation out of the UK altogether. “If the UK forces American companies to block VPN access, that would prevent legitimate American users of those VPN services from accessing content that is lawful in the USA,” Farage added. Farage argued the problem is one of legal incompatibility. UK law has increasingly adopted a censorial posture, while American law remains anchored to the principle that the government may not ban speech simply because it is offensive or upsetting. “Ofcom’s ambitions are to ensure that every internet platform in the world, if it is accessible by UK nationals, must implement the Online Safety Act’s ‘illegal content’ rules,” he said. “This effectively means that American platforms must choose between surrendering their First Amendment rights or complying with the Online Safety Act.” Such a conflict, he warned, cannot be reconciled. It forces companies to pick a side: freedom or conformity. To counter the spread of foreign censorship norms, Farage called on Congress to take a firm stance: Declare that foreign speech laws have no bearing on Americans or American-hosted services, even when accessed overseas. Protect strong encryption without backdoor scanning requirements. Establish safe-harbors for US startups, insulating them from foreign regulatory overreach. Demand due-process guarantees for any foreign content takedown orders. “Americans share the UK’s goals of combating illegal content and protecting children online,” Farage said. “But those objectives must not become a back door for importing foreign speech standards that erode First Amendment values, weaken encryption, and stifle US innovation.” Farage concluded with an appeal to shared Anglo-American heritage. He reminded Congress that “every signatory of the American Declaration of Independence was, after all, a British subject.” “Free speech is a fundamentally British value,” he said. “On the question of civil liberties, Britain has, unfortunately, now lost her way. I will do my part, as a participant in UK democracy, to help our country find its way back to the traditional freedoms which have long bound together our two countries in friendship.” Until then, he called on the United States to stand firm. “British free speech rules, applicable to Britons, are made in Britain, and American speech rules, applicable to Americans, are made in America.” Farage left no room for ambiguity: the future of global speech freedom may depend on whether the US remains a place where open platforms can still be built without submission to authoritarian regulatory demands. “Somewhere on this planet of ours, innovators must remain free to build the next generation of platforms without being hamstrung by illiberal and authoritarian censorship regimes that are alien to both American and traditionally British values,” he said. “Right now, that place is America.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Nigel Farage Warns US Congress: UK Censorship Law Threatens American Free Speech, Encryption, and Tech Innovation appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Malcolm Gladwell Apologizes for Supporting Trans in Sports

Japan has good reason to be wary of Mount Fuji.