'Iran under protesters’ control'

'I’m committed to moving forward with purpose'

'Dishonorable and feckless'

'There is a supremacy clause in the Constitution'

'You want to come at us?'

News What to Watch What to Watch and Read This Weekend: We Could All Use a Little Labyrinth Right Now Plus: Sister Simone, Carol Sturka, and (some) of the best books of 2025. By Molly Templeton | Published on January 9, 2026 Photo: Tri-Star Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Tri-Star Pictures In a different week, in a different timeline, this would be a “hey, welcome back, happy new year!” bit of intro text. But this week has crushed any shreds of festivity I might have had left. In Minneapolis, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. A day later, in Portland, Customs and Border Patrol agents shot two more people (who survived and were taken to local hospitals). I keep thinking about what Portland mayor Keith Wilson said (and I am generally no big fan of Mayor Wilson): “We know what the federal government says happened here. There was a time when we could take them at their word. That time has long passed.” Everyone is quoting 1984 on social media, and with good reason.  Call your reps. And take care of yourselves and your communities as best you can. I Wish Mrs. Davis’ Sister Simone and Pluribus’ Carol Sturka Could Meet I loved the end of the first season of Pluribus. And while I wait with absolutely zero patience for this show to come back, I think I will rewatch Mrs. Davis, which is not exactly a similar show—but I do think it shares some DNA, somehow. Instead of a collective mind, Mrs. Davis involves a supposedly benevolent AI that everyone on Earth loves. Almost. Not Sister Simone (a fantastic Betty Gilpin), who goes up against said AI with the help of her ex. She also has a really complex relationship with Jesus. Mrs. Davis is funnier than Pluribus, and more tangled, and less streamlined and polished, and I love all of those things about it, from the chaotic episode titles to the way one character smashes phones. It is really hard to recommend, though, because it doesn’t sound like much. (Leah Schnelbach’s review is titled “How Do I Talk About Mrs. Davis?”) In actuality, it’s kind of everything. Including a quest for the Holy Grail.  Mrs. Davis is streaming on Peacock. We Could All Use a Hoggle Hug Right About Now: Labyrinth Labyrinth is 40. I cannot linger on this thought; it feels weird. But as is the case with so many big film anniversaries these days, that means it is playing in theaters this weekend only! There’s a funny synchronicity to this, as this week contains both David Bowie’s birthday (January 8) and death day (January 10). Maybe you want to celebrate, maybe you want to mourn, maybe you want to do a little of both? I know I always, always cry at the end, when Sarah says she needs her friends. Go and appreciate tiny Jennifer Connelly; go and appreciate David Bowie and the offscreen man handling his crystal balls; go and appreciate the puppetry and the soundtrack and all the magic that happens when people get to make movies straight out of their own idiosyncratic imaginations.  The Inconsistent Passage of Time Speaking of the passage of time (Labyrinth is forty?!?!?), there’s a gorgeous essay in Emergence magazine about time, and how it’s not the same for every living thing. It’s not even the same for each of us, running on our own clocks and calendars. “Wild Clocks” covers a lot of ground, but swings back, like a clock hand, to the Future Library Project: a grove of trees outside Oslo, in Norway, that will be turned into books in one hundred years. The works that will be printed on these trees will not be read until 2114.  Thinking about this project makes me feel marvelously unstable and small; I can only imagine how it feels for the authors whose work is part of the project. No one will ever read that work until they’re dead. Phew.  David Farrier’s “Wild Clocks” talks about that project, about the way climate change affects the internal clocks of animals and plants, about time and how we move through it. It’s a perfect New Year’s read: rich, challenging, honest and optimistic in turns. It makes me think of Gandalf saying, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” The most important part of that line, I think, is not “the time that is given us.” It’s “we have to decide what to do.” (Side note: It was J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday a few days ago, too, on January 3rd.) What We All Read Last Year I love a reading year in review. To name just a few you might peruse: Reactor critics did our reviewers’ choice in December; at Intergalactic Mixtape, Renay has a list of bloggers and critics wrapping up their 2025 in reading; Strange Horizons is doing their multi-part year-end wrap-up now. On Bluesky, Roseanna Pendlebury tallied up which books appeared most often on the Strange Horizons list; it would be interesting if someone with a lot of time on their hands tallied up all the mentions on all the lists, as—as Pendlebury notes—it doesn’t really feel like critical consensus has landed on a frontrunner for book of the year. (For the record, I think this is a good thing. I prefer a broad spread to one or two books dominating all the discourse!)  I do feel like I’ve seen a few books mentioned a lot, including The Raven Scholar, The River Has Roots, Notes from a Regicide, Luminous, and The Incandescent. But then there’s also The Everlasting, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, and Katabasis. Whatever your 2025 favorites are, don’t forget that the deadline to register to vote in this year’s Hugo Awards is January 31st![end-mark] The post What to Watch and Read This Weekend: We Could All Use a Little <i>Labyrinth</i> Right Now appeared first on Reactor.

More than $250 million in federal funding for Illinois programs risked misuse due to poor monitoring, state audits show.  With Minnesota facing scrutiny over a massive fraud scandal, Illinois is among other states that have continued receiving federal funding despite scathing audits.  Illinois state officials failed to perform required risk assessments for more than $250 million in COVID-19 housing relief and crime victim assistance, leading independent auditors to issue “adverse opinions” stating that the programs did not comply with federal requirements. Federal regulations require independent audits for state and local government entities receiving federal funding. Such audits are made available to Congress and federal agencies.  “If a corporation received an adverse opinion, or even a qualified opinion, the IRS, the SEC, and probably Congress would be all over them,” Sheila Weinberg, CEO of Truth in Accounting, an Illinois-based fiscal watchdog group, told The Daily Signal. “With government agencies, bad reports continue, and nothing ever happens.” The Illinois Department of Human Services didn’t conduct federally-required monitoring of the $177 million in spending for the COVID-19 House Assistance Fund, according to the fiscal year 2023 state audit, the most recent publicly-available state report. The Illinois Housing Development Authority administered the housing program.  “Failure to perform required risk assessments and to adequately monitor subrecipients may result in the subrecipient not properly administering the federal programs in accordance with laws, regulations, and the grant agreements,” the report from the Illinois Auditor General’s office warned.  Neither the Illinois Department of Human Services nor the Illinois Housing Development Authority responded to inquiries for this story.  The audit cited conversations with Human Services officials complaining of a lack of resources to oversee the program in collaboration with the housing authority. The auditor’s office recommended that the department implement monitoring procedures in accordance with federal regulations. It said the department “agrees with the finding and recognizes the importance of programmatic reporting.” In Minnesota, federal prosecutors brought fraud charges against almost 100 people for $9 billion in alleged welfare fraud. Such fraud hasn’t yet been alleged in Illinois, but the audits say the funding is vulnerable.  “For a while, people seem to be paying attention to waste, but I’m hesitant to say this is a turning point,” Weinberg said of the Minnesota fraud case. “People should have been paying attention before. A good solution would be if Congress or federal agencies looked at these state audits and decided not to send more money.” The same FY 2023 audit report gave an adverse opinion to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority for not monitoring its allocation of $75.3 million of federal funds on the Crime Victims Assistance program, and failing to conduct on-site visits.  The audit said it found 21 sub-grantees that received assistance and were “designated for high oversight,” requiring a fiscal audit. Of those, only two were actually audited.   “Failure to complete and document reviews of subrecipient single audit reports in a timely manner may result in federal funds being expended for unallowable purposes and subrecipients not administering the federal programs in accordance with laws, regulations, and the grant agreement,” the audit report says.  The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority acknowledged the inquiry from The Daily Signal for this story, but did not immediately respond. The agency responded to auditors that it “does not have staff dedicated to this function.” It said it was “actively in the hiring process for a person who will be dedicated to this work.” A separate audit, the 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, gave a qualified opinion for $6.1 million in federally-funded unemployment benefits paid to 2,828 Illinois claimants. “Qualified opinions” indicate weaknesses in complying with funding requirements, or insufficient audit evidence. They are not as severe as “adverse opinions” in measuring fiscal compliance. The state audits also gave qualified compliance opinions for childcare, food stamps and other state programs receiving federal funding.  The state comptroller’s office conducted this audit that found “inadequate controls” over unemployment assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic administered by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.  The state received the funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which Congress passed in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.  “Due to the absence of complete and accurate information to support the eligibility of paid and accrued claimants, some amounts in the financial statements could not be audited,” the audit found. The audit says Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s office replied that the state’s employment security department “continues to implement improved general IT controls and to analyze operational management.” The Daily Signal reached out to Pritzker’s office, the Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s office, and to the Illinois Auditor General’s office for this story. None responded by publication time. The post Not Just Minnesota: How Tax Dollars Are at Risk of Fraud in This State appeared first on The Daily Signal.

NY Post: Renee Good Was an 'ICE Watch' Activist

Leave it to an insane, radical group funded by leftist billionaire George Soros to make a narco-terrorist dictator out to be the victim and President Donald Trump out to be the arch-villain. Public Citizen — whose apparatus (including its affiliated foundation) was pumped with at least $6,096,003, from Soros between 2016-2023 — railed against Trump’s capture of Nicolás Maduro and expanding U.S. access to Venezuela’s oil reserves in a January 3 statement: “Trump Embraces Big Oil and Empire After Kidnapping Venezuela’s President.” Yes, the group actually accused Trump of “kidnapping” a murderer who funnels deadly drugs into the U.S. and who lost his reelection bid, effectively staying in power via fiat. But for Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman, Trump liberating the oppressed Venezuelan people constituted a “deadly and unconstitutional regime change war for oil and empire.” Ironically, Public Citizen has an entire page dedicated to “Taking on Trump,” railing that he “represents the powerful, not the people.” Wanna take a guess on which leader Public Citizen considers to be the illegitimate one?  Apparently Weissman never read the War Powers Resolution of 1973 passed by Congress, which stipulates under Section 5(b) summarized by Congress.gov: [W]hen the President reports an introduction of U.S. Armed Forces into active or imminent hostilities, or such report is required under Section 4(a)(1) but not made, the President must terminate such use of U.S. Armed Forces after 60 days unless Congress (1) has declared war or specifically authorized the action, (2) has extended the 60-day period by law, or (3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack on the United States. The purpose of the resolution was to check the war powers of the executive branch, yet still gives the president a 60-day window before a congressional war declaration is required. In addition, the resolution requires the president “to notify the Speaker and President Pro Tempore within 48 hours after U.S. Armed Forces are introduced ‘into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.’” Although the resolution says in Section 3 that the president should consult with Congress before introducing Armed forces into hostilities “in every possible instance,” there is plenty of room for nuance. The specific stipulations of the act, however, have not been violated.  Has 60 days passed since the January 3 deposal yet, Weisman? But with self-righteous indignation, Weissman pontificated that “There is no Congressional declaration of war nor authorization for the use of force in Venezuela, making Trump’s actions transparently unconstitutional and illegal.” Nope, that's not what the resolution says. Weissman even went as far as to obfuscate the Maduro regime’s role in drug trafficking, claiming that Trump made “fantastical claims that a Venezuelan-led drug trade had led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. In fact, Venezuela has no role in the fentanyl trade.” But as Argentinian news outlet Infobae pointed out November 7, 2023, leaked documents revealed that the Maduro regime “made drug trafficking its main source of funding.” The investigation, led by the Miami Herald in conjunction with Venezuelan news portal Armando Info and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), “revealed a complex drug trafficking network involving high-ranking members of the Venezuelan regime and members of the country's Armed Forces.” In essence, Weissman was being deceptive straight through his teeth. But what more can you expect from one of Soros’s flunkies: There’s no way to know what unfolds now in Venezuela, but there is certainly a risk of widespread and persistent chaos, violence, death and instability, which may well involve the risk of American lives along with countless Venezuelans. Maybe Weisman should pay more attention to the “countless Venezuelans” who are celebrating around the world now that the boot of one of the most brutal dictatorships in Latin America might finally be off their necks.

While arguing that owning a home is rooted in “deep racism and classism,” Zohran Mamdani’s newly instated radical-left tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, seems to have forgotten that her roots are made of gentrification and million-dollar homes.“Democratically controlled public housing is really important. ... You know, people like homeownership because they like control, and that’s been perverted by, like, deep racism and deep classism in our society,” Weaver once said confidently on a podcast.“So, like, we have to not have a racist and classist society. And so that’s, like, something we need to think about, like, deeply,” she continued.“To me, it's about control,” she added. “And why rent control is really important is because rent control alters the power dynamic between renters and who owns the building,” she added.“So, it’s racist to own a home,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray says on “Pat Gray Unleashed,” before pointing out that Weaver’s mother reportedly owns a $1.6 million home in Nashville, Tennessee.“So, she’s obviously a racist,” Gray says. “And it’s in what used to be a predominantly black neighborhood, which they’ve gentrified, and that’s absolutely wrong no matter who you are or where you’re doing it. You can’t have white people moving into black neighborhoods.”And Gray isn’t the only one aware of Weaver’s mother’s “racist” homeownership.When she walked outside of her Brooklyn apartment this week, she was asked about the home her mother owns — and instead of answering, she began crying and ran back inside.“She broke down in tears. She turned around and left. Now, they thought that she was heading toward the subway station,” Gray laughs. “Instead, she just went back home and then started looking out the window where there’s also a poster there that says, ‘Free Palestine.’”Want more from Pat Gray?To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.