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Well-designed gardens help people relax straight away, as they cause viewers to look at them differently, suggests new research. Our gaze shifts quicker and more often in such green spaces, say scientists, who believe their findings could ultimately help people affected by neurodegenerative diseases. The international research team thinks they may have found “the key” […] The post Well-Designed Gardens Help People Relax Immediately by Provoking a Wandering Gaze appeared first on Good News Network.

Movies & TV Final Destination: Bloodlines Final Destination Bloodlines May Be the Best of the Franchise How is it possible that this series has leveled up six movies in? By Leah Schnelbach | Published on May 16, 2025 Credit: Warner Bros./New Line Cinema Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros./New Line Cinema Until yesterday, my favorite moment in the entire Final Destination series came in Final Destination 2, when Rory (Jonathan Cherry), a fairly stereotypical drug-addled burnout, asks Kimberly (A. J. Cook) to clear all of his drugs and porno out of his apartment when he almost inevitably predeceases her. “Anything that might break my mom’s heart”, he tells her. It’s a startling moment of vulnerability and truth in what’s basically a horror-comedy series, an acknowledgement that in the world of the film, these hilarious deaths, whether by logging truck, roller coaster, or malfunctioning escalator, are happening to real people with lives and loved ones. The interesting thing about this is that the newest entry in the franchise, Final Destination Bloodlines is that moment, expanded over an entire film to the point that it balances all the wacky, gruesome deaths with actual emotion. It worked for me (and if you like the series I think it’ll work for you) but it’s interesting that in our era of Tragic Origin Stories, morally-complex antiheroes, and Villains with Trauma, we get a Final Destination movie that feels like a real movie. The acting is great across the board, the relationships feel lived in, you care about the characters, and there are consequences. You can kind of see how the surviving characters will have to continue their lives around all the death. Credit: Warner Bros./ New Line Cinema This creates an interesting conundrum. The fun of Final Destination is cheering for Death. It’s watching all the Rube Goldberg machinations play out until a person dies in a way so brutal, so over-the-top, that the idea that they’re afraid or in pain becomes irrelevant. How can it work when you don’t want the characters to die? In this case, the filmmakers doubled down on the deaths. These are some of the most complex, brutal deaths the series has ever given us—which again, in an era where some parts of the culture seem to be trending neo-puritan, it felt cathartic as hell to cackle with glee along with all the other people who were able to make it to a 3pm IMAX screening. (A surprising number of people!) I don’t want to give anything away, obviously, but go in knowing that the elaborate tattoo parlor scene that was used for the initial trailer is like someone peacefully passing away in their own bed surrounded by loved ones compared to most of the deaths in the film. People are burned, impaled, squished, eviscerated, impaled some more… you know, the more I write about it the more I like it? Oh and they now hold the record for “oldest person set on fire for a movie”. My beloved colleague Natalie commented that the deaths had maybe gotten too gory for her, “too squishy”—on this we disagree, because I thought some of the deaths reached the heights of Fina Destination 2’s Logging Truck Extravaganza. (The logging truck is referenced in this one!) But it’s important to remember that there’s something wrong with me. Credit: Warner Bros./ New Line Cinema As for plot, Bloodlines slightly subverts some of its usual structure. Not by messing with the timeline/our heads, as some past entries have, but by building family history into it. There is of course a fabulous, horrifying multi-death setpiece early on in the film, as is standard for the series. But this isn’t a group of hapless teens or young adults thrown together by destiny: this is a family, with all the history, grudges, fissures, fierce love, and annoyances that come with that word. This ups the stakes considerably as Stefani Reyes, the one person who can see Death’s design, races to protect loved ones, who don’t always believe her visions—and in some cases are actively hostile to her. At least one character had what can only be called a cheeky and irreverent relationship with Death itself. (I desperately hope that this is a vision of my own future.) One of my only problems with the movie is that I think they could have used this element more—there are two characters who seem to have these relationships, where somehow they can see through the matrix coding and understand what Death is doing, and I think the movie would have been even stronger if they’d run with that idea more.    Credit: Warner Bros./ New Line Cinema This entry in the series was written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, working from a story they developed with Spider-Man director Jon Watts, and was directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, who apparently got the gig after staging an elaborate death prank during a Zoom call with the producers. As I said, the acting is great across the board. Kaitlyn Santa Juana is an excellent lead, balancing Stefani’s plucky defiance of Death with her realistic trauma remarkably well. The prickly sibling relationship she creates with Teo Briones as her little brother Charlie is the heart of the film. Also shockingly sweet is the relationship between Stefani’s cousins, deadpan tattoo artist Erik (Richard Harmon) and much-more-uptight Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner), with Erik trying to protect his little brother from Death at all costs. Brec Bassinger and Gabrielle Rose are both fabulous as the younger and older versions of the family’s estranged matriarch. Photo Credit: Eric Milner/Warner Bros. And of course another thing that’s important to mention—carefully, so I don’t spoil it—is that this is one of the last performances the icon Tony Todd gave us before he passed away in 2024. (His appearance is my new favorite moment in the series.) The movie treats William Bludworth and his legacy in a startlingly real and emotional way, and I’m pleased to say that both his first appearance, and the film’s dedication to him, were met with applause in my theater. This has been a surprisingly good year for movies already, and I’m delighted to tell you that even among a crowded field, Final Destination Bloodlines is a standout for a great time in the theater.[end-mark] The post <em>Final Destination Bloodlines</em> May Be the Best of the Franchise appeared first on Reactor.

The Secret Service will be visiting James Comey after the former FBI director posted a picture of shells laid out on the beach reading “86 47” … which translates to “Murder Trump.” “86” is a slang term for “murder,” while 47 refers to the 47th president.  Comey captioned his Instagram post, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”  Not cool, given how close President Donald Trump came to being murdered twice last summer. The disgraced FBI director deleted the post after an immediate outcry, including condemnation from Donald Trump Jr.   Just James Comey causally calling for my dad to be murdered. This is who the Dem-Media worships. Demented!!!! pic.twitter.com/4LUK6crHAT— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 15, 2025 Comey then posted, “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I thought was a political message. I did not know some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I am against violence of any kind so I took the post down.”  Top Trump administration officials aren’t buying it. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Comey “just called for the assassination of President Trump. DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”   Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was more direct. She told “Jesse Watters Primetime” Thursday night that Comey knew exactly what he was doing, she fears for the president’s life, and that Comey deserves to be in jail.  After her appearance Gabbard posted, “James Comey just issued a call to action to murder the President of the United States. As a former FBI Director and someone who spent most of his career prosecuting mobsters and gangsters, he knew exactly what he was doing and must be held accountable under the full force of the law.”  James Comey just issued a call to action to murder the President of the United States.As a former FBI Director and someone who spent most of his career prosecuting mobsters and gangsters, he knew exactly what he was doing and must be held accountable under the full force of the… pic.twitter.com/zvbu5Vf0zg— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) May 16, 2025 Why Gabbard’s reference to the mob? “86” is said to have originated as a mob term, meaning “Take him 8 miles out of town and bury him 6 feet under.”   Trump, in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier airing Friday on “Special Report,” called Comey a “dirty cop.”  “He knew exactly what he meant. A child knows what that meant,” Trump said. “That meant ‘assassination.’”  ? @POTUS on former FBI Director James Comey's "86 47" threat: "He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant … That meant 'assassination.'" pic.twitter.com/LfOHKfSOFa— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 16, 2025 There’s another twist to the story, which could speak to Comey’s motivation. His latest crime novel “FDR Drive” is scheduled for release next Tuesday. A question the Secret Service—and his publisher Mysterious Press—must ask Comey: “Did the former director of the FBI put the current president’s life in danger with his call for assassination just to generate publicity for his new book?”   In a blurb on the book, best-selling author Michael Connelly calls Comey “an expert storyteller.”  But telling a story to the FBI and the Secret Service is fraught with danger.   As The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway said Thursday evening on X, “If Comey is interviewed about his call to assassinate President Trump and he repeats his lie that he didn’t know what he was doing, make sure to also charge him with lying to FBI agents.”  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.  The post Comey Calls for Murder of President. Plays Dumb. But DHS and Secret Service Aren’t Playing.   appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Trump administration made a bold announcement this week, declaring it would lift sanctions on Syria, earning bipartisan praise in doing so. “I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” the president said on Tuesday in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. The move will likely stimulate significant economic growth in the nation, given that U.S. sanctions applied to third party actors, which meant countries beyond the U.S. sought to avoid trade with Syria lest they be frozen out of the American market.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., known for her contentious relationship with the president, praised the move. Warren had said this week that the Trump administration should lift sanctions “or risk walking away from an opportunity to promote stability in the region and help the Syrian people build a better life after years of living under the thumb of the oppressive and brutal Assad regime.” Trump’s announcement comes after Qatar and Saudi Arabia said they would be paying off Syria’s debts to the World Bank. The move will likely free up more financial investment in the country. Trump’s move has already helped the country, with the Syrian pound strengthened 25% in value compared with the U.S. dollar after the announcement.  Trump noted the massive destruction the more than a decade of civil war has wreaked on the Middle Eastern nation. “In Syria, which has seen so much misery and death, there is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace. That’s what we want to see,” Trump said. The president explained how he had already sought to reestablish diplomatic ties with the new regime governing the country. “In Syria, they’ve had their share of travesty, war, killing many years. That’s why my administration has already taken the first steps toward restoring normal relations between the United States and Syria for the first time in more than a decade,” Trump said.  He met with the new leader of Syria, President Ahmad al-Sharaa, on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia along with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined the meeting via telephone. Trump praised the new Syrian president as a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”  Al-Sharaa has appeared to make some effort in restoring trust with the U.S. government by meeting with Debra Tice, the mother of American journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive in Syria in 2012. Trump said on Friday that “Austin has not been seen in many, many years,” when asked if he had raised the American journalist’s case with the Syrian president.  Nevertheless, the administration has remained cautious about the prospects of the new regime in Damascus. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had harsh words toward the Syrian government for not preventing reported mass killings against ethno-religious minorities in the country in March.  “The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days,” Rubio said in a press statement.    “Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable,” the secretary of state added.  Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., also praised the president for taking a risk. “Trump knows he’s taking a gamble. He knows the guy he’s dealing with as the head of Syria was a terrorist—is still on the terrorist list—and he knows that it’s a gamble. What he’s also saying to Turkey and to Saudi Arabia, you know, [is] ‘I’m going to do my part. Now, you guys have got to step in here and clean this act up,’” Gingrich said. The post Trump’s Lifting of Sanctions on Syria Wins Cautious Approval appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The House Budget Committee voted down the budget reconciliation bill in a blow to leadership’s efforts to pass President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” The bill was voted down 16-21 in committee, with Republican fiscal hawks—specifically Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma—voting it down. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., switched his vote from yes to no at the last moment. House conservatives’ main concern remains the bill’s potential impact on America’s debt and deficit. While tax cuts remain a priority, these members have pushed for large cuts in federal spending to offset the budgetary effect. Conservatives argue that several portions of the bill, like moving up when Medicaid work requirements and when the elimination of energy subsidies kick in, could further cut savings. With so many outstanding questions, House Republicans were expected to continue vigorously debating major provisions of the budget reconciliation package no matter what way the budget committee voted. Beyond Medicaid work requirements and repealing President Joe Biden’s green energy subsidies, other points of contention include defunding Planned Parenthood and transgender surgeries for minors, as well as state and local tax deductions. All Democrats on the committee opposed it, as well. An earlier social media post from Trump encouraged Republican members to get behind the bill. “We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING AND GET IT DONE!” the president said. ?NEW FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP:“Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’” pic.twitter.com/2BaiQcJ7Rd— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 16, 2025 At the close of the hearing, Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said, “I do not anticipate us coming back today,” and encouraged House members to go home for the weekend. “This bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” said Roy at the committee markup. Rep. Roy: "We are writing checks we cannot cash, and our children are going to pay the price. I am a no on this bill unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday… something needs to change, or you're not going to get my support." pic.twitter.com/oYIxUPTVzV— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) May 16, 2025 “I am a no on this bill unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday,” he added. Norman expressed hopes that the budget could later be fixed to address fiscal hawks’ concerns about spending on Medicaid. Democrats will forever fight to rely on government as their savior.Republicans shouldn’t continue to fund their radical agenda, giving handouts to illegals who don’t pay taxes. Why rush the process when we should be working overtime to get it right?The payment stops now!! pic.twitter.com/AQ4udXPs3U— Rep. Ralph Norman (@RepRalphNorman) May 16, 2025 “Sadly, I am a hard no until we get this ironed out,” he said. “And I think we can. We’ve made progress, but it just takes time.” After the vote, the Freedom Caucus stated on X, “Roy, Norman, Brecheen, Clyde, and others continue to work in good faith to enact the President’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ — we were making progress before the vote in the Budget Committee and will continue negotiations to further improve the reconciliation package.” Reps. Roy, Norman, Brecheen, Clyde and others continue to work in good faith to enact the President’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — we were making progress before the vote in the Budget Committee and will continue negotiations to further improve the reconciliation package. We are not…— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) May 16, 2025 The post Panel Gives Thumbs Down to ‘Big, Beautiful’ Bill appeared first on The Daily Signal.

NJ Funds Unicorn Farts, Social Programs Thru Utility Bill Fees and Now Wants More

NYT's 'Fascism' Narrative Is So Tiresome It Has Become Self-Parody

The typical suspects in the leftist media ether have been spitting out Armageddon-level economic scareporn about President Donald Trump’s trade war like clockwork. But Axios is now admitting that may have all been just pathetic attempts to get people to jump at shadows that aren’t attached to anything. “Hard data suggests tariff-driven inflation and recession fears may be overblown,” read the eye-opening May 15 headline by Axios economics reporter Courtney Brown. “With major indicators from April — the month of peak tariff uncertainty — now in, none show the kinds of recessionary or inflationary conditions implied by business and consumer surveys,” Brown reported. Go figure. Brown based her analysis on recent data on retail prices being “steady” and a “surprise drop” in whole price inflation in April. “So far, so good,” concluded Brown. The Labor Department released its report on producer prices showing a massive 0.5 percent drop against economists’ expectations of a 0.3 percent increase.  The Daily Wire noted that the producer price drop “marks the first time the Producer Price Index declined since October 2023.” In Brown’s estimation, the producer price figures “showed little sign of tariff-related price pressures that businesses have warned about.” Of course, Brown couldn’t let it all be good news and elevated the doomism of Walmart CFO  John David Rainey who predicted the subdued tariff effects on prices wouldn’t last. But, as ING chief international economist James Knightley told Brown, “There is little evidence, so far, that tariffs are inflationary and instead profit margins are being squeezed.”  All in all, the Axios report flies in the face of media hacks like CNN Business executive editor David Goldman who was floating the absurd notion of a “Great Depression” in the stock market as recently as April. When the consumer prices report came in on Tuesday showing that egg prices had indeed tumbled 12.4 percent in line with Trump’s predictions, Goldman still had the temerity to write a spin-job story that reeked of oxymoronic reasoning: “Trump’s egg price fiction has suddenly become reality.” Yes, that headline actually exists on the CNN website.  To be clear, no one knows what the end result of Trump’s trade war will be. But recent data — as Axios concluded — is at the least an indictment on a media sphere that was clearly hellbent on jump-starting nervous breakdowns in the economy before Trump even had a chance to sit down in the Oval Office in January.