This sounds like the plot of a spy thriller movie, except federal prosecutors say it was real and the target was Ivanka Trump. Federal prosecutors say a suspected Iran-linked terrorist plotted against Ivanka Trump as payback for President Trump ordering the strike that killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani back in 2020. According to the New York Post, recently captured terror suspect Mohammad Baqer Al-Saadi vowed to target Ivanka Trump after Soleimani was killed in the U.S. drone strike ordered during Trump’s first term. Sources told the Post the suspect viewed Ivanka as a symbolic way to “burn down the house of Trump” in retaliation for Soleimani’s death. The report claims Al-Saadi had a map of the Florida enclave where Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, own a multimillion-dollar home, along with threatening social media posts warning that neither “palaces nor the Secret Service” would protect Americans. Federal prosecutors say Al-Saadi was arrested in Turkey earlier this month before being extradited to the United States. According to court filings cited by the Post, investigators accuse him of involvement in multiple terror attacks and attempted attacks targeting American and Jewish sites across Europe and North America, including alleged firebombings, stabbings, and shootings tied to Iran-backed extremist networks. The Post also reported that Al-Saadi maintained close ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iraqi militia groups connected to Soleimani. Photos included in federal filings reportedly show the suspect meeting with Soleimani at military facilities, posing with missiles, and posting threats online for years. One image allegedly posted by the suspect showed a map near Ivanka Trump’s Florida neighborhood alongside an ominous message about “surveillance and analysis.” The allegations arrive as tensions involving Iran and Iranian-backed terror groups remain a major focus for the Trump administration following Operation Epic Fury. Neither Ivanka Trump nor the White House publicly commented on the alleged plot.

In a standoff over ethics and foreign affairs with the leader of the free world, a company can do worse than to post up a co-founder alongside the spiritual father of roughly 1 in 5 living human beings. Anthropic will pull that off next week, when Chris Olah, its lead on interpreting AI, joins the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, as he presents his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (that is, magnificent humanity), which concerns “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.” The pope will break with tradition by appearing at the publication of his letter. The event will also include other church leaders and two theologians. It will undoubtedly be a day of envy in the comms office at OpenAI. And the White House will be frustrated seeing a firm it shut out go global, but these are temporal matters. All signs indicate that next week’s event will instead seek to refocus the attention of the faithful on what recurs through history, on the eternal. In one of his first speeches to fellow cardinals, Pope Leo echoed the past with the present, calling artificial intelligence “another industrial revolution.” On new things We don’t know what his encyclical will say, but its context indicates the pope believes humanity has entered an era of rapid growth powered by data centers, neural networks, and a vast electrical dynamo bent to the will of a manmade demiurge. Notably, his first encyclical will be dated May 15, the anniversary of the day his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, published the Rerum Novarum (or “On New Things”), the crucial Catholic doctrine written amid humanity’s first age of machines, on workers and capitalists and how they might collaborate for the “beauty of good order.” But for a hint of what to expect, we can look to prior messages on AI from the church. In January 2025, the Roman Curia released a note, Antiqua Et Nova (ancient and new), calling on believers to “a renewed appreciation of all that is human.” Which echoes a sentiment from the Rerum Novarum, that “it is the mind, or reason, which is the predominant element in us who are human creatures; it is this which renders a human being human, and distinguishes him essentially from the brute.” After humans But now brute machinery may, as Anthropic’s founder Dario Amodei wrote in his own extensive missive in 2024, “Machines of Loving Grace,” create a “country of geniuses in a datacenter.” How is the Holy Father to console his flock when faced with its potential obsolescence? And why would he stand alongside one of the companies most responsible for ushering in this fresh new flavor of existential dread? Anthropic did not reply to a request for comment. But it may simply be that Anthropic has shown its willingness to engage with Christian theologians, among others, on these difficult questions. It is a company that has said humanity is in a kind of adolescence. And, in adolescence, we turn to fathers. Olah has reportedly been convening Christian thinkers on such topics since at least March. And, in his essay, Amodei wrote hopefully of AI furthering economic equity and men living meaningfully after we enter the era of truly powerful but benignly aligned artificial intelligence. If that’s how it turns out. Final days In particular, this question of alignment looms over next week. If the pope takes seriously AI’s economic potential, what might he make of basilisk and paperclip monster prophecies? Anthropic, after all, has been a leading proponent of guarding against a computer-powered apocalypse. Nathan Schneider, a professor at the University of Colorado who has been writing about the deep questions raised by artificial intelligence, drew attention to just this question when we spoke. “One other question I would pose, that I’m going to be reading the document for, is whether the Pope buys an apocalyptic narrative around AGI and a Singularity event,” he said. “I think there’s a good theological case to be made that too much worrying about AGI is a kind of idolatry.” The Rerum Novarum, he noted, was written in part as a rejection of another apocalyptic vision from man’s first industrial revolution: Karl Marx’s foretelling of the collapse of Capitalism (which, so far, not so good). AGI doomerism is, to Schneider, another attempt to secularize the end times. Stewarding the Earth is man’s business. Ending it is God’s. What lasts But the secular world will watch whether and how President Trump reacts to the joint appearance by two present-day giants who refuse to toe his particular line. The pope has had, after all, his own disagreements with the president, over immigration and U.S. incursions into Iran, but it’s unlikely that Anthropic is there for politics. This appearance has likely been in the works for some time. So the loudest thing both parties can say about those disputes with the White House is nothing at all. Moments like these are about what is enduring. Meanwhile, political controversies are the Kleenex of history. They dissolve. Look, Schneider says, for the pope, like his predecessor, to craft another path through the thicket of secular futures, of doomscapes and utopias, to a vision in which this new era might permit humans to give more attention to what his fellow bishops called “the continual search for the True and the Good.” Or as the prior Leo put it, to remember that “age gives way to age, but the events of one century are wonderfully like those of another, for they are directed by the providence of God, who overrules the course of history in accordance with His purposes in creating the race of man.” *** This is republished with permission from the author and Pirate Wires. The original can be found here. Brady Dale is the writer of the Front Stage Exit newsletter and writes for Pirate Wires. He was the author of the first book about FTX founder, crypto billionaire and convicted felon, Sam Bankman-Fried. 

America’s most hated time ritual may finally be clocking out. Twice a year, Americans collectively stumble through the same bizarre routine: forgetting how microwaves work, showing up early to church, late to brunch, and spending three straight days wondering why they suddenly feel exhausted. Now, Congress is finally inching toward ending the clock-changing madness for good. The Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee just advanced legislation that could eventually make daylight saving time permanent nationwide, pushing the long-running “lock the clock” movement closer to reality than it has been in years. The proposal, known as the Sunshine Protection Act, was folded into a larger transportation package this week and passed out of committee by a massive 48-1 vote. In other words, Washington may have finally found the one issue capable of uniting exhausted Americans. Florida Republicans Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Vern Buchanan have been leading the charge after years of public frustration over changing clocks twice a year. The effort was previously championed by now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose version famously passed the Senate in 2022 before dying in the House. Buchanan celebrated the latest momentum this week, calling the twice-a-year clock change “outdated and unpopular.” At this point, changing clocks feels like one of those strange traditions Americans continue mostly because nobody in Washington can quite figure out how to stop it. If the legislation eventually becomes law, most Americans would remain on the brighter summer-style schedule year-round. That means sunsets after 5 p.m. during winter instead of darkness arriving before many people even leave work. Of course, there’s a catch. Sunrises in some parts of the country would drift past 8 a.m. — and in certain areas, even closer to 9 a.m. Critics argue that could create problems for children heading to school in darkness and potentially affect sleep and health. Some Democrats and sleep experts are already pushing back. During Thursday’s markup, Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-CA) warned about possible health concerns tied to permanent daylight saving time. But honestly, Americans increasingly seem willing to accept almost any trade-off if it means never having to manually reset the clock in a car dashboard again. Nineteen states have already passed laws supporting permanent daylight saving time if Congress approves it federally. Maine and Texas joined the list last year. There are still several hurdles before anything changes nationally. The full House would need to pass the package, the Senate would need to agree, and President Donald Trump would ultimately need to sign it. Until then, Americans can look forward to once again pretending they totally remembered the time change when clocks roll back this November.

Stephen Colbert spent a decade obsessing over President Donald Trump. For his final “Late Show” appearance, the far-Left host wouldn’t so much as utter Trump’s name. By design, of course. Thursday’s CBS finale proved a bizarre affair, a forced repudiation of what Colbert & co. built over the show’s 11-year run. He pretended he was Johnny Carson signing off for the last time, an aw, shucks comic looking back on a show filled with gentle riffs on news and culture. “The Late Show” was anything but that. Still, Colbert must have decided not to give his literal devil his due. That left an hour-plus affair that felt dishonest and jarring. Think a mashup of forced gratitude and weak-tea jokes. “The Late Show” went out not with Clapter but by defying its true nature. The veteran host began with charity to both the gig and his employers. “We were lucky enough to be here for the last 11 years … we can’t take that for granted,” he said, despite having attacked the Tiffany Network early and often since it announced his cancellation last July. Remember how, mere days ago, Colbert and former “Late Show” host David Letterman watched as employees hurled furniture from atop the Ed Sullivan Theater to target the CBS logo waiting below? Lucky or spiteful? Colbert can’t make up his mind. Still. Celebrities in the crowd interrupted Colbert’s final monologue, including Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Tig Notaro, Ryan Reynolds, and “Saturday Night Live” veteran Tim Meadows. None proved funny, but the star power fed Colbert’s assertion that his cancellation will be a loss for the culture. It’s actually more painful for stars who will have one less outlet to hawk their films, TV shows, and records. Colbert described his late-night approach as “feeling the news with you” over the years, which made even less sense than his trademark “truthiness” shtick. He lectured audiences on how to process the news headlines and avoided stories that hurt his fellow Democrats. But he couldn’t say that aloud. Not even on his final night. That last monologue avoided politics entirely, including a certain world leader. The results were tepid, like a weak spin on what Jay Leno shared for more than two decades on NBC’s “The Tonight Show.” Colbert’s heart wasn’t in it. Nor were the writers’, apparently. Yet throughout the night, Colbert flashed his considerable skills as a host and comic. He always had solid timing and delivery chops. That was never in question. “What do I plan to do after tonight? The answer is, ‘drugs,’” he quipped, turning a milquetoast joke into a solid laugh. Still, throughout the night, Colbert’s rage at his dismissal and anti-Trump fury peeked through. One daffy dolphin sketch included a line suggesting his dismissal “was purely a financial decision.” Yes, a network has every right to cancel a show that loses a reported $40 million a year. No one has disputed that number, shared at the time of the show’s cancellation. Yet the legacy media and Colbert himself have done all they could to ignore that inconvenient truth. Colbert played the rebellious employee to the end, forcing his band to play a classic “Peanuts” song he claimed could get CBS in legal hot water. Unlikely, but this Rebel Without a Cause never took any prisoners. He played The Victim and Martyr Cards to the bitter end. The final episode did land a stellar guest – Sir Paul McCartney. Sir Paul remains miraculously unaffected by both Father Time and the fact that he’s Paul Bleepin’ McCartney. He’s just a funny, unassuming lad from Liverpool. Still. The final interview was far from Colbert’s best, but the moment didn’t require a Walter Cronkite-level interrogation. Macca merely played along with the bits, an old pro delivering as usual. McCartney did allow for two Trumpian references. He shared how he had to wear bright orange makeup when he appeared with his old band at The Ed Sullivan Theater back in 1964. “I hear that’s popular in certain circles these days,” Colbert said. The host didn’t lean into that Orange Man Bad shtick, though. He wanted to make his final show about him, not the man who became his White Whale and drained the humor from him. McCartney attempted a second Trumpian reference, explaining what it meant to play in America for the first time, way back when. “America was the land of the free, the greatest democracy … that’s what it was, and still is hopefully,” the singer said, another wink to Colbert’s far-Left faithful. Then things got … weird. A recurring bit throughout the night found The Ed Sullivan Theater flooded with an odd green light. Later, backstage, a green wormhole appeared, ready to suck Colbert and everyone in the studio into a void. They even trotted out astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to quasi-explain it. You’ve got the number one late-night talk show but you’re still getting canceled, Tyson said, another attempt to ignore that $40 million annual loss. “It’s not a hole, it’s a metaphor,” said Jon Stewart, offering his old “Daily Show” chum some wisdom. “When faced with something dark … stare it down and laugh,” Stewart said, sharing some final wisdom for his pal. Colbert got paid untold millions for hosting a talk show, will write a future “Lord of the Rings” movie, and will likely host a podcast or similar program before the year ends. If only the rest of us faced such dark challenges. Then, Colbert’s other late-night hosts dropped by (except Bill Maher, who wouldn’t be caught dead in such stale shtick) for more forced gaiety. The show wrapped with McCartney performing The Beatles’ “Hello, Goodbye” while Colbert sang backup with Elvis Costello, ex-“Late Show” bandleader Jon Batiste, and the band’s current head honcho, Louis Cato. “This may come for all of our shows,” fellow far-Left talker John Oliver said late in the final episode, referencing Colbert’s fate. Yes, it will, and likely sooner than later. Even Letterman predicted as much recently. And everyone in The Ed Sullivan Theater on Thursday was likely in denial as to why. *** Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. He’s also the host of The Hollywood in Toto Podcast. Follow him at @HollywoodInToto. 

The acting director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has stepped down, leaving yet another leadership vacancy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — and federal health officials are refusing to explain why. Story Snapshot Jeffery Taubenberger stepped down as acting director of NIAID, confirmed during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing by Sen. Tammy Baldwin. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has not responded to press inquiries, and NIAID staff were reportedly not informed of the change. Taubenberger had served as acting director since April 2025, replacing Jeanne Marrazzo, who was placed on administrative leave under the Trump administration. The exact timing and reason for Taubenberger’s departure remain publicly unknown, fueling speculation about the circumstances surrounding his exit. Another NIAID Leadership Vacancy Surfaces Sen. Tammy Baldwin disclosed during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that Jeffery Taubenberger had stepped down as acting head of NIAID, one of the federal government’s largest and most influential health research institutes. STAT News reported the development on May 21, 2026, noting that the agency’s leadership status had become “unclear” and that queries to HHS “have gone unanswered and unacknowledged.” NIAID staff, according to the report, had not been formally informed of the change. Taubenberger was appointed acting director of NIAID in April 2025, stepping into the role after Jeanne Marrazzo was placed on administrative leave as part of the Trump administration’s broader restructuring of federal health agencies. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya publicly acknowledged Taubenberger in the position through an NIH video, describing him as acting director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. His tenure in that role ran approximately from April 2025 through May 2026. Silence From HHS Raises Questions What stands out most is not the departure itself but the institutional silence surrounding it. Large federal agencies routinely cycle through acting leadership during transitions, and that alone would not be newsworthy. What makes this different is that HHS failed to respond to press inquiries, NIAID employees were left uninformed, and the disclosure came not from the agency but from a senator during a budget hearing. That combination of opacity is not consistent with a routine administrative handoff. The exact date Taubenberger stepped down has not been publicly established. STAT reported it was “unclear when Taubenberger stepped down, or why,” and noted that internal chatter within the institute had been circulating before the public disclosure. Whether the departure was voluntary, requested by NIH leadership, or the result of a broader personnel decision remains undocumented in any public record. HHS has offered no clarifying statement as of the time of reporting. Gain-of-Function Controversy Shadows the Exit Taubenberger is a virologist known for his work reconstructing the 1918 influenza pandemic virus — research that has drawn scrutiny from critics of high-risk pathogen studies. Conservative activist group White Coat Waste Project had publicly targeted him in connection with gain-of-function research concerns, and his association with the broader NIH scientific establishment made him a figure of interest to those pushing for accountability in federal pandemic research programs. Those criticisms formed the backdrop against which his departure became public. 1/ It was revealed today that the acting head of NIAID that replaced Fauci, Jeffrey Taubenberger, has stepped down. There is yet no current information available publicly as to why. Here is a reminder on who Jeffrey is and why having that position was a threat to humans… https://t.co/bRUPCtwjPz — Melissa (@missyTHX1138) May 21, 2026 However, the available public record does not establish a direct causal link between activist pressure and Taubenberger’s exit. No resignation letter, internal memo, personnel action notice, or on-record statement from NIH or HHS connects his departure to gain-of-function research criticism or any specific campaign. The facts on record are that he held the role, he no longer holds it, and the government has not explained the change. That gap between what is known and what is being claimed is significant — and it is a gap the administration should close with a straightforward public statement. NIH Accountability Demands Transparency American taxpayers fund the NIH to the tune of tens of billions of dollars annually. The public has a legitimate interest in knowing who is running its largest infectious disease research institute and why leadership changes occur. The Trump administration has made NIH reform a stated priority, which makes the silence around this departure harder to justify — not easier. Accountability cannot be a one-way street that applies only to the previous administration’s decisions. When federal health agencies go dark on basic personnel questions, they undermine the very trust conservatives have demanded be restored to American public health institutions. Sources: [1] Web – Acting head of NIH’s infectious disease institute reported to have … [2] Web – Jeffery Taubenberger Named Acting Director of NIAID – AABB.org [3] YouTube – Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger & NIAID – Director’s Desk [4] Web – Jeffery Taubenberger – Wikipedia

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Hawaii has agreed to pay $118,237.47 in attorney’s fees and costs to The Babylon Bee and local activist Dawn O’Brien, closing the books on a failed attempt to make some political satire a criminal act. The state chose not to appeal a January ruling that struck down its so-called deepfake law, Act 191, as facially unconstitutional. It tried to ban speech. It lost. Now, taxpayers are covering the bill. The settlement comes with an unusual wrinkle. Hawaii can’t actually pay yet. The agreement is contingent on the state legislature appropriating the funds during its next session, which runs from January to May 2027. If the legislature doesn’t approve the money by September 1, 2027, the Bee and O’Brien retain the right to file a formal motion for attorney’s fees, meaning the case would reopen and the final number could climb. Act 191, signed by Governor Josh Green in July 2024, banned the distribution of “materially deceptive media” during election seasons if it risked “harming the reputation or electoral prospects of a candidate” or “changing the voting behavior of voters.” The only escape for satirists was to slap joke-killing disclaimers on their content, disclaimers that had to appear throughout the entirety of a video and be printed in letters as large as any other text on screen. Violations carried fines, civil lawsuits, and jail time. The law didn’t require anyone to actually be harmed or deceived. It punished speech based on a speculative “risk” of harm, a standard so vague that the person posting had no reliable way to know whether they were complying. US District Judge Shanlyn Park found that the law “muddies the line between compliance and noncompliance by forcing speakers to base their conduct on their own risk assessment, rather than on clear, objective standards.” She noted the law created an “inherently subjective assessment for enforcement agencies” that “could conceivably lead to discretionary and targeted enforcement that discriminates based on viewpoint.” Hawaii argued the law was needed to protect election integrity. Park acknowledged that interest but found the state couldn’t show it had chosen the least restrictive means. Hawaii’s own expert agreed that digital literacy education would work, objecting only that it “would require a larger investment of resources” compared to a ban. Park cited the Supreme Court: “The First Amendment does not permit the State to sacrifice speech for efficiency.” ADF legal counsel Mathew Hoffmann said: “Hawaii’s war against political memes and satire has come to an end, thankfully. The First Amendment doesn’t allow any state to choose what political speech is acceptable and censor speech in the name of ‘misinformation.’ That censorship is both undemocratic and unnecessary.” Hawaii follows California, which lost a similar fight against the Bee. Minnesota’s version is still being litigated before the full 8th Circuit. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Hawaii To Pay Up After Trying to Criminalize Political Memes appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Before the cloud took over as the prime form of data storage, these old-school devices were essential when it came to storing and transferring data.

A 59,000-year-old tooth hints that Neanderthals may have treated infections with stone tools. Long before modern dentistry, Neanderthals may already have understood something crucial about pain: where it came from and how to relieve it. A 59,000-year-old tooth discovered in Siberia contains evidence that one of our extinct relatives may have deliberately drilled into an [...]

Ancient genomes from northwest Europe show that farming, foraging, migration, and marriage shaped prehistory in ways far more complex than earlier models suggested. When ancient DNA research began drawing major attention a little over a decade ago, many geneticists came to believe that earlier ideas about how modern humans populated Europe needed to be reconsidered. [...]