'How woke do you have to be to let #trans ideology infect a language lesson?'

'Appears to be a 'diversion''

In a provincial English city, a man has taken it upon himself to address what he referred to as a “fun deficit” in town. By placing humorous signs in the style of public notices and road signs around town, he hopes they will disarm people into seeing issues in a new perspective, whether that’s the […] The post These Silly Signs Are One Man’s Campaign Against His ‘Anti-Fun’ City appeared first on Good News Network.

Books book reviews Changing the World is a Group Project: E.K. Johnston’s Sky on Fire Beautiful character work, lightness, precision… and hope. By Molly Templeton | Published on August 20, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share In 2021, a slim science fantasy called Aetherbound took me by surprise. I had only read one of E.K. Johnston’s previous books (her Ahsoka, which was just what I needed after finishing Star Wars Rebels), but the premise caught my eye. Mages and space empires and maybe also smuggling and rebellion? I’m in. What I didn’t expect was for Aetherbound to also be a character study, a novel about a girl reinventing herself after growing up in a spacefaring family that literally and emotionally barely gave her enough to live. Pendt Harland went into the world knowing what she’d learned from reading (a lot) and what she’d learned from her family (that she was worthless). And she figured out much better ways to live in the bigger, wilder world—both on her own, and thanks to the people she met there. Her book ended with a tiny note about another young woman, Morgan Enni. For years it didn’t seem like Morgan’s story was going to make it to bookshelves. At long last, it has, and it’s both an excellent continuation of the story of Aetherbound, and something quite different, too. Morgan is not like Pendt. When she was small, Morgan was sent to live with her loving aunt on bustling Katla Station. Morgan has no magic. Where Pendt loves cheese, and people, and doing everything she can for Brannick Station, Morgan is intense about her work and her privacy and could probably happily go days without speaking to another soul. But both are young women whose lives could easily have turned out completely differently—young women who specifically, purposefully, make choices to be something other than what their upbringing taught them to be. The Aether Saga is a series about space magic and scrappy rebellions, yes, but it’s also a series about compassion, kindness, risk, trust, and learning when and how to let the world change your mind—and then, maybe, to change the world. Morgan Enni has a pretty solid theory about the massive disaster that coincided with the end of the Stavenger Empire. The problem is, no one wants to hear it. Big scary things that may or may not happen in the future—near or distant—are, well, unpopular. (Nothing we can relate to in this day and age, right?) Her university has turned down her requests for research funding. Morgan lives her work; she is beyond organized, keeping her life small and compact, spending time only with her aunt. (She knows people, sort of, like her friendly neighborhood food vendor. But she doesn’t spend time with anyone.) She’s precise, she likes what she likes, and she moves through the world in a way that’s odd to some people. It all makes sense to her. So when her research proposal is suddenly approved and she heads out on a ship full of strangers, it’s a bit of a shake-up, both professionally and personally. Johnston pays as much attention to how Morgan finds her way among the crew of the Marquis as she does to how Morgan’s research goes, because the process of Morgan coming to better understand people leads directly into the major choices she eventually makes.  Buy the Book Sky on Fire E.K. Johnston Buy Book Sky on Fire E.K. Johnston Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget In Aetherbound, runaway Pendt fell straight into the orbit of Ned and Fisher Brannick, two young men running Brannick Station because they had no choice: Each station has to have a member of its ruling family on board at all times, or the whole thing shuts down. This is the Stavenger legacy—and what’s more, the station requires a family member with a Y chromosome, and the Hegemony (what’s left of the Stavengers) takes another family member hostage.  Pendt is a gene-mage, able to understand and alter biological processes at a deep level, and she ended the first book by changing Brannick Station’s gene-lock. But she always had bigger aims: She wants to break the gene-locks altogether. In order to do that, she needs an empty station to practice on, so no lives are at risk. And Enragon Station—which died when the gene-locks were implemented, because no member of the family was on it—is out there, empty. It’s clear why the Brannicks want Morgan: Her research relates to their aims, and she’s so good at research, she might be able to help them find an Enragon heir who can wake up the station. It is less clear to Morgan whether she wants to be wanted by these idealists and their rebel friends. Smashing the gene-locks of all the stations would go a long way to breaking the power of the Hegemony, but Morgan isn’t sure it’s worth the risk (to her, and to her family) if she gets involved at all. It just takes some time for all of these characters to understand each other—and that’s one of the great joys of this book. Morgan is a cat. She’s particular, she’s unpracticed at people-ing, she likes her privacy and her space, and she needs time to process. In many ways she’s the opposite of the rash, headstrong, feisty, almost aggressively brave YA heroine that was so common for a time. She doesn’t really want to be a rebel. But this rebellion needs her.  One of Johnston’s great strengths as a writer is, I think, her interest in how people are and can be kind. There is nothing twee about this; being kind, doing good, these aren’t always easy things, especially in a world that doesn’t value them. There’s a moment in her novel The Afterward that I think about all the time—a gift of freedom, given to a virtual stranger, by a man who knew he wouldn’t live to see the result. Sometimes doing the right thing makes so much sense that it seems easy. But that doesn’t mean it is. In Sky on Fire, people are kind to Morgan, in gentle, measured ways that she can understand. It’s clear that Morgan has to adjust to having people around her, but the grace of this book is that people adjust to her, too. That kindness changes Morgan. When Pendt gets back on a spaceship for the first time since escaping her family, it is not without attendant trauma. The Morgan at the beginning of this book might not have known what to do to help. The Morgan who grows into herself over the course of Sky on Fire at least tries. She even discovers the appeal of sharing her personal space. All around and through all her beautiful character work, Johnston builds a rebellion (the power-driven Hegemony is mostly off page, but there’s enough that you understand what people need to rebel against). It’s small and it’s scrappy, but it has committed fighters, powerful mages, and, in Morgan, a brilliant scientist who can help it prepare for something no one else wants to admit is coming. Like Aetherbound, this novel has an Arthurian streak (Morgan’s name is no accident—first or last) wide enough to delight those who notice it, and yet if you don’t notice it, I don’t think you’ll miss anything. (It’s really, really delightful, though.)  Johnston writes with lightness and precision; there is always just exactly the right amount of detail, whether about how a space station works or how a scrappy group of rebels find exactly the scientist they need. The balance of plot and character feeds entirely into the theme that makes me love these books so much: the idea that changing the world isn’t just a matter of who a person is and what they do, but also about who they meet, and how they change as a result. (Not for the first time, I’m thinking about how her work has this in common with Becky Chambers.) The pragmatism of Johnson’s worldbuilding—nothing here is easy unless a lot of work went into making it seem that way—is matched, beautifully, by the generosity her characters show to one another. There is so much power in making space for how another person moves through the world—or in letting new people unlock something in you. You never know what might come of it.  There is one thing about this book that I absolutely did not expect, and that has to be addressed in this review. To my astonishment, Sky on Fire is dedicated to me and Liz Bourke, “who never gave up hope.” (And also Chappell Roan. I cannot say I ever thought I would be named on the same page as Chappell Roan.) A funny thing about the modern internet is that you can know things about people without knowing them. I don’t know E.K. Johnston, except for the occasional friendly social media exchange. We’ve never met. But I loved Aetherbound, and I said so. So did Liz. I reviewed it; she wrote about it in her column. We talked about it on social media platforms that are now dead or not worth visiting. I felt a little self-conscious sometimes about how much I wanted to shove that book into people’s hands, but when you love a book, you want people to join you in reading it.  On Bluesky, Johnston explained the dedication, writing, “it felt like every time I was ready to give up, one of them posted.” The Aether Saga is about a lot of things, and one of them is hope: Hope that something better is out there; hope that you can make the world better for the people you love; hope that, despite everyone telling you no, you can do something to avert disaster, to help people prepare, to help them through the things they won’t even accept are happening. It’s the kind of hope that takes a lot of work, and risk, and, okay, yes, also a lot of cheese, sometimes. (Space magic takes calories! This is both practical and a much better deal than “magic comes from pain.”)  It can be hard, these days, to remember that hope matters, whether you are hoping for something small or something world-changing. It is beyond meaningful to be reminded in this way that it does.[end-mark] Sky on Fire is published by Dutton Books for Young Readers. The post Changing the World is a Group Project: E.K. Johnston’s <i>Sky on Fire</i> appeared first on Reactor.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The Trump administration is making it much more difficult for foreign nationals who display anti-American behavior to live and work in the U.S. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin screening foreign national applicants for anti-American behavior when they apply for certain immigration benefits, according to a policy update from the agency. Posting anti-American rhetoric online, voicing solidarity with terrorist groups, or expressing antisemitic language would be deemed an “overwhelmingly negative” factor for migrants hoping to upgrade their status. “America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser said in a public statement. “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible,” Tragesser continued. “Immigration benefits—including to live and work in the United States—remain a privilege, not a right.” The Trump administration is expanding on policies that encourage immigration officers to vet social media for anti-American sentiment and activities, according to the USCIS memo. Additionally, the agency will factor in a migrant applicant’s past use of parole programs that allowed them into the country, as hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals took advantage of loose parole programs under the Biden White House. Tighter screening for anti-Americanism could have a serious impact on the foreign students who got involved in campus protests around the country, many of whom were accused of antisemitic activity. The Trump administration has already attempted to remove many of the allegedly pro-Hamas foreign students. The policy update also marks the latest hawkish reform by USCIS, the agency tasked with managing the country’s legal immigration system. Since President Donald Trump returned to office, USCIS has worked to support his border enforcement agenda. Earlier in August, the agency announced it would no longer just consider an alien’s absence of misconduct during the naturalization process, but also weigh their “positive attributes” to society, a move the agency says will ensure integrity to the application process. Since taking the helm of the agency, USCIS Director Joe Edlow has also implemented new measures to bar non-citizens from partaking in U.S. elections and he aims to restore integrity to immigration programs that are rife with fraudulent applicants. Edlow says much of his agency’s work now is shoring up the historic backlog of asylum cases that accumulated under the Biden administration. “We already knew that there was a misalignment of priorities and resources, but that became painfully obvious that really USCIS was acting as kind of the the arm of the administration to help maneuver the parole programs, to do what they could on credible fear and to ultimately try to address the growing border crisis that the Bidens have created,” Edlow previously stated to the DCNF. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post Migrants Who ‘Despise’ US to Be Denied Benefits Under New Trump Admin Policy appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Vice President JD Vance slammed anti-Israel protesters during a visit to Washington’s Union Station for advocating against safety in the nation’s capital. “This is the guy who thinks people don’t deserve law and order in their own community,” Vance said, pointing to a screaming protester. Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller gave burgers from Shake Shack to members of the National Guard, who are protecting Union Station, a Metro subway stop on Capitol Hill previously plagued by vagrancy. Protesters repeatedly chanted “Free D.C., Free Palestine,” and booed the Cabinet officials as they left the Shake Shack franchise there. .@VP, @StephenM, and @SecDef leave Union Station after giving burgers to National Guard members as anti-Israel protesters boo. pic.twitter.com/VLbHTjUMxZ— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) August 20, 2025 Miller said he would be ignoring the “stupid” protesters. “We’re going to ignore these stupid, white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old,” he said. Miller said a majority of D.C.’s residents are black. “This is not a city that has had any safety for its black citizens for generations, and President Trump is the one who is fixing that,” he said. Before leaving Union Station, Vance clapped back at a reporter who suggested that there is no evidence of a crime crisis in the District. Anti-Israel protesters are chanting outside the Shake Shack in Union Station where VP Vance and SecDef Hegseth are meeting with national guard. https://t.co/TwhdvseVgT pic.twitter.com/pdlAsfZGct— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) August 20, 2025 “Obviously, D.C. has a terrible crime problem,” Vance said. “The Department of Justice statistics back it up … Let’s free Washington, D.C., from one of the highest murder rates in the entire world.” He also answered a question about a poll supposedly showing a majority of D.C. residents don’t support the National Guard presence ordered by Trump. “I don’t know what poll you are talking about,” he said. “Maybe it’s the same poll that said Kamala Harris would win the popular vote by 10 points.” “I am highly skeptical a majority of D.C. residents do not want their city to have better public safety and more reasonable safety standards within Washington, D.C.,” he said. The post Vance Owns Anti-Israel Protesters at Union Station appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Ezra Klein Defends His Shoddy Interview with Mahmoud Khalil

Look, I’m British, so I think you know what I’m going to say about tea.Tea is great. Tea is delicious. I drink tea every day, just like my father and my mother and their fathers and their mothers and so on, back hundreds of years to when tea first started being imported to Britain from India and became our national beverage of choice.Put a food-grade-plastic tea bag in near-boiling water, and it rapidly starts to disintegrate and you’ve got a cuppa that’s more plastic soup than tea.Tea made Britain great. It made the British Empire, and it was the cause — or the proximal cause, anyway — of the great falling-out between Britain and its thirteen colonies, so I guess we can say tea made America great too.Besides being a nice thing to drink, tea has all sorts of health benefits. Here are three that may surprise you.1. Tea makes you lose weightJapanese researchers have shown that an extract of tea catechins with caffeine significantly increases energy expenditure by causing changes to brown fat cells.There are actually two types of fat: white and brown. Brown fat is a more metabolically active type that’s involved in maintaining body temperature. Think of brown fat cells as little furnaces, if you will, that burn energy to keep the body warm. So by cranking up these furnaces, in a manner that’s similar to the effects of consuming chiles or taking a cold dip, the catechins in tea will increase your total energy expenditure. That means you can eat more and not put on weight, or you can lose weight more easily. Cool, huh?2. Green tea helps you build muscleThere’s quite a lot of research demonstrating the anabolic effects of green tea; these include studies of bodybuilders, trained athletes, and elderly people. A Brazilian study of women who undertook a weight-loss regimen showed that those who combined weight training with green tea increased their strength the most and also increased their muscle mass the most.How? It’s been suggested that the phenols in green tea inhibit the enzymes that remove testosterone from the blood, meaning more testosterone remains there for longer. But there are probably other mechanisms at work too. Drinking green tea before exercise may boost the concentration of adrenaline in the body, which could help to improve the quality of the workout.3. Drinking tea helps you live longerA large-scale population study of 100,000 Chinese adults showed that drinking three cups of tea a week — in this case, green tea again — reduced the risk of death by a whopping 15% over a period of seven years. The researchers estimated that drinking tea could add an average of 1.26 years to the life of a 50-year-old tea drinker. The researchers attribute these effects to the phenols in the tea — again — which may have a protective effect on blood vessels.You could quite literally spend all day reading studies about the health benefits of drinking tea. If you’d like to do that, here’s a link to one of my favorite websites, which has a whole archive of tea studies.So the moral of this story is, clearly, drink tea.Hold the plasticBut not so fast. Before you go and brew a cup or a pot, there are some problems with drinking tea that you need to be aware of. Here’s a really big one: plastics. Or rather, it’s a big problem that takes a very small form: microplastics.If you drink tea made with tea bags rather than loose-leaf tea, as most people do, you’re almost certainly ingesting large quantities of microplastics, and that’s not something you want to do if you can help it.Microplastics are a serious emerging health threat, and new research is linking them to pretty much every known chronic disease, from Alzheimer’s and autism to heart disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Microplastics accumulate in all the organs of the body: the liver, the heart, the eyes, the sexual organs, the brain. It’s been suggested that we swallow a credit card’s worth of plastic a week (5g) and inhale the same amount too.RELATED: Study finds microplastics in every single human and canine testicle: 'The plastic makes a difference' BSIP/UIG via Getty ImagesWhat's in your bag?The microplastics in tea don’t just come from the water or the kettle (if it’s plastic); they also come from the tea bag itself. A significant proportion of tea bags are now either made of plastic — the tea bag is actually plastic — or contain plastic, usually in the glue that holds it together. A study of six tea brands in the U.K. revealed that four included polypropylene and one was made entirely of nylon.Food-grade plastics deteriorate significantly at temperatures above 40 degrees centigrade. Put a food-grade-plastic tea bag in near-boiling water, and it rapidly starts to disintegrate and you’ve got a cuppa that’s more plastic soup than tea.A 2019 study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology found that a cup of tea produced by one plastic tea bag contained 11.6 billion — billion — microplastic pieces and 3.1 billion nanoplastic pieces. Nanoplastics are probably even worse than microplastics, because they’re smaller, which means they can get into places microplastics can’t inside the body.One way to cut out the plastics is to avoid tea bags altogether, but it’s not particularly convenient — and who wants to deal with strainers and cleaning up the soggy leaves afterward? I certainly don’t.Kindred spiritThankfully, there’s a solution that doesn’t mean abandoning those handy little pouches. It’s Kindred Harvest, a brand I’m proud to have founded myself, because I don’t want a mouthful of plastic either. Our tea products are organic (so no nasty pesticides); they're independently tested for heavy-metal content (many teas are heavily contaminated with lead and other toxic metals); and best of all, they’re packaged in 100% plastic-free tea bags.Kindred Harvest offers 10 different blends, with everything from black and green tea to vanilla chai, cinnamon apple, and hibiscus flower. Kindred HarvestMy personal favorite is the Sleep Tea mix, made with chamomile, lemongrass, spearmint, and lavender. If you’ve been paying attention to these articles over the last month or so, you’ll know that sleep is a seriously underappreciated aspect of good health. Men who double their sleep can double their testosterone, for example. When I have a nice hot cup of that chamomile blend, I know that when my head hits my perfect Woolshire organic virgin-wool pillow, I’ll be counting sheep in no time.The company profiles and product recommendations that Align publishes are meant solely to inform and edify our subscribers. Unless explicitly labeled as such, they are neither paid promotions nor endorsements.Visit kindredharvest.co.

Texas House Democrats fled the Lone Star State earlier this month to deny their colleagues the necessary number of bodies for a quorum, thereby temporarily preventing Republicans from passing new congressional lines and gaining five more congressional pickup opportunities ahead of the midterm elections.Following the Democratic lawmakers' departure, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) signed arrest warrants for the absentee legislators and Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered their arrests by the Texas Department of Public Safety.State Democrats — having likely recognized the futility of their flight — finally slunk back to Texas this week. 'You are among those who history will reveal to have been heroes of this moment.'To leave the Texas Capitol building on Monday, Democrats apparently had to obtain written permission from Burrows and agree to be escorted by a DPS trooper. Rather than agree to the safeguard, some Democrats decided instead to engage in what Texas state Rep. Brian Harrison (R) referred to as "crocodile tears and bad, bad Kabuki theater" — throwing fits, tearing up their permission slips in front of reporters, and camping out in the statehouse.State Rep. Nicole Collier really made a show of her sleepover — telling CBS News she refuses "to comply with this unreasonable, un-American, and unnecessary request" and sharing a photo online of her snug in a chair in the state House with a pillow, a sleep mask, and a blanket. These theatrics attracted the attention of twice-failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who called to paint Collier's sleepover as heroic."You really are inspiring so many people, and I just want you to know that you are among those who history will reveal to have been heroes of this moment," said Harris. "So you just stay strong and do what you are doing. You have the right instinct. You are talented, and you are principled."Harris noted further in a tweet, "Nicole, we are all in that chamber with you."Taking the lead from Collier, Democratic Texas Rep. Mihaela Plesa and a handful of other Democrats returned to the chamber to virtue-signal and tear up their permission slips.RELATED: 'Texas has plenty of bullets to shoot': Abbott tells Glenn Beck new maps will pass, laughs off Newsom's threat Democratic Texas Rep. Mihaela Plesa tears her Department of Public Safety escort form. Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesOn Wednesday, another failed Democratic presidential candidate piped up in support of the sleepover Democrats.Hillary Clinton stated, "I stand with state Rep. Nicole Collier and other Texas Democrats on the front lines of protecting American democracy. In a free country, state lawmakers don't get held hostage by the opposition."Clinton's suggestion that the Democrats were protecting democracy misses the point of the confinement and police escort — namely that the Texas Democrats have been trying to thwart the democratic process and the people's will.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The fallout from revelations about the Russiagate scandal has led to security clearances being canceled for 37 current and former officials.Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard posted a statement on social media on Tuesday about the decision ordered by President Donald Trump.'They undermine our national security, the safety and security of the American people and the foundational principles of our democratic republic.' Gabbard accused the officials of abusing "the public trust by politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified intelligence without authorization, and/or committing intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards."Gabbard posted a list of the officials, some of whom had been previously identified as participating in the generation of the infamous 2017 intelligence community assessment about the Russia collusion allegations. "Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right. Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold," she wrote on social media."In doing so, they undermine our national security, the safety and security of the American people and the foundational principles of our democratic republic," Gabbard added.In July the president accused former President Barack Obama of treason based on the release of documents revealing how the Russia collusion narrative was created. Obama released a rare statement through a spokesperson denying the accusation and belittling the investigation."Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction," read the statement from Patrick Rodenbush.RELATED: Trump makes shocking statement as he commends Gabbard for bombshell evidence release "Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes," Rodenbush added. "These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio."Gabbard has since then released other documents, including one in which former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper apparently wrote that the intelligence community had to compromise on "normal modalities" in order to push out the Russia collusion accusations.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!