Column Science Fiction Film Club Boy and the World: A Stunning Child’s-Eye View of Post-Colonial Latin America The story of a boy and a nation told wordlessly through beautiful images and sound By Kali Wallace | Published on May 14, 2025 Credit: Filme de Papel Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Filme de Papel Boy and the World (Portuguese: O Menino e o Mundo) (2013). Written and directed by Alê Abreu. Art direction by Priscilla Kellen. Music by Ruben Feffer and Gustavo Kurlat. Back in 2010, Brazilian filmmaker and animator Alê Abreu was working on a very ambitious project: an animated documentary titled Canto Latino. That never-finished film would have presented the sweeping story of the post-colonial hardships and growth of Latin American nations. In an interview with Variety, Abreu described the political ideas he wanted to showcase: “I asked myself during my research for Canto Latino how these Latin American countries, born as exploited colonies with such difficult ‘childhoods,’ and marked by military dictatorships that served specific economic interests, came into today’s globalized world.” Abreu didn’t end up making that film. He made Boy and the World instead. Because, it turns out, the difference between a wide-ranging political documentary and a whimsical child’s adventure story is a matter of perspective. This is the first Latin American film I’ve written about for this column, which is a shameful oversight considering that I’ve been doing this for over a year. I do in fact try to include films from all around the world, although that’s sometimes easier said than done, as it’s a combination of who was making sci fi or speculative films at what point in time, as well as what is available online and relatively accessible to watch. Regular readers have probably noticed that I keep stretching my definitions of both “sci fi” and “relatively accessible,” but we’re all here to enjoy movies from around the world, so I hope nobody minds. Before we get into that, let’s take a very quick look at the history of Brazilian cinema. There has been filmmaking in Brazil for as long as there has been a filmmaking anywhere. Mere months after the Lumière brothers presented the first public screening of a film in Paris in 1895, one of their Cinématographes (combination camera and projector) was being showcased in Rio de Janeiro. This caught the attention of Alfonso Segretto, who acquired one of the contraptions for himself and set about becoming (probably) Brazil’s first filmmaker. Segretto started out filming short clips of real events, but he eventually branched out into what film historians describe as “filmed recreations of notorious local crimes”—or what anybody who has ever succumbed to a Forensic Files marathon would recognize as true crime. Film flourished in Brazil in the early years of the 20th century, but it took longer for it to become a broader cultural or economic force. The reason is simple: you can’t really build a widespread film culture in public cinemas without a stable power grid, and Brazil in the early 20th century did not yet have one. There were cinemas in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, however, and some early films did become popular. The film generally regarded as Brazil’s first hit was Francisco Marzullo and Antônio Leal’s Os Estranguladores Do Rio (The Stranglers of Rio) from 1908, a 40-minute true crime drama about the murder of a teenage boy. It’s hard to find information about Os Estranguladores; I’m not even sure how much, if any, of the film survives. A runtime of 40 minutes means it would have used multiple reels of film, but I haven’t found any details about its production. (That information is probably out there, but not in a place I can easily find before this article’s deadline!) That wasn’t quite unheard of; in Australia Charles Tait’s 1906 film The Story of the Kelly Gang ran for 70 minutes on more than 4000 feet (1200 meters) of film. But films of longer than a single reel were extremely rare in the first decades of the 20th century. A 40-minute narrative film was a truly unique accomplishment in 1908. It was also a largely insular accomplishment. Early Brazilian films were rarely viewed outside of Brazil, even though Brazilian filmmakers were making a lot of them, and kept making a lot of them through the first half of the 20th century. Brazil imported a lot of foreign films—particularly from the United States—and Brazilian films tended to echo what was popular in Hollywood during that time, such as comedies, musicals, and epics. This included the wildly popular chanchada films, the joyfully theatrical musical comedies that propelled singer and actor Carmen Miranda to fame. Miranda was born in Portugal but lived in Brazil from before her first birthday, and she is generally acknowledged to be the first Brazilian performing artist to gain international recognition. That’s resulted in a somewhat complicated legacy, as international audiences associated Brazilian entertainment with Miranda’s image long after both the nation’s arts and the woman herself had evolved beyond what made her famous. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Brazilian films began to intersect more directly with international films. Brazilian filmmakers, like everybody else in the film world, became enamored of developments in post-World War II cinema, particularly our old friends in Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave. The Brazilian take on this filmmaking era is known is Cinema Novo, which began by exploring gritty realism about social issues, such as Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil (1964). At the same time, Brazilian film—like all Brazilian arts—was complicated by the 1964 military coup and dictatorship that followed. Complicated, but certainly not stopped. Some Brazilian filmmakers left the country due to the government’s censorship, but others remained and found ways to create stylized, ironic, and symbolic protest art under the nose of the regime. That included a bizarre but notable detour into politically-themed cannibal films. No, really. You can go watch Nelson Pereira dos Santos’ Como Era Gostoso o Meu Francês (How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman) (1971) if you don’t believe me. But you should always believe me. I never joke about cannibal films. Brazilian filmmakers kept making a lot of movies during the 21-year dictatorship, many of them state-sponsored, and some of those films did gain some international attention from filmmakers, festivals, and critics, if not from general audiences. The problem is, a strictly censored, state-sponsored film industry is a rather fragile thing once the regime that controls it ends. Brazilian cinema fell into a sort of fallow period in the ’80s, with movies struggling due to the lack of state support and the widespread popularity of television. But filmmakers kept making movies, because if we’ve learned anything from the history of film around the world it’s that filmmakers always keep making movies. This included some very good ones; Héctor Babenco’s Kiss of the Spider Woman (O Beijo da Mulher Aranha) (1985) was an international sensation—albeit one that even many cinephiles mistakenly think of as an American film, even though it was an independent American-Brazilian co-production that was filmed in São Paulo and had an Argentine-Brazilian director. It wasn’t until the release of Walter Salles’ Central Station (Central do Brasil) in 1998, followed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s City of God (Cidade de Deus) in 2002, that Brazilian cinema finally started getting lasting attention outside of Brazil. That’s rather late for a nation that has been making feature-length films for longer than just about anybody else. The economics and influence of Brazilian cinema have gone through a lot of ups and downs, but the movies and the filmmakers have always been there, even when the rest of the world wasn’t paying attention. That film history is long, but it’s rather spotty when it comes to animation. The first feature-length Brazilian animated film was Amazon Symphony (Sinfonia Amazônica), a black-and-white film which was entirely created by Anelio Latini Filho over the course of five years before its release in 1954. The film is similar to Disney’s Fantasia (1940) in structure: an anthology that tells stories from folklore with musical accompaniment. But unlike Fantasia, Amazon Symphony does not seem to have been part of any expansion in the popularity of animation; there are very few animated feature films in Brazil’s film history, and fewer still that survive intact. Another early example is Piconzé (1973), made by the Japanese-born animator Ypê Nakashima, and there have been various children’s cartoons and television series over the years. Another significant Brazilian animated film came along with Clóvis Veira’s Cassiopeia (1996), which has the honor of being the world’s second fully computer-animated feature film; John Lasseter’s Toy Story (1995) beat it to the title of first by a few months. I have brought you through this abbreviated summary of Brazilian cinema not because it all leads in some obvious way to this week’s film, but because it doesn’t, and that in itself is curious. We’ve watched many films that grow organically out of cherished cinematic traditions; The Iron Giant (1999) is the perfect example, as it is an homage and a love letter to both American sci fi cinema and animation from earlier eras. Boy and the World is different. Neither its storytelling nor its artistic style is obviously inspired by trends in Brazil’s long cinematic history. In fact, Abreu has specifically cited another unusual film as the inspiration that got him excited about animation at a young age: René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet (1973). As I said above, the process that led to Boy and the World began when Abreu was developing a wide-ranging political documentary. He was going through his sketchbooks when the scribbled, scratchy drawing of a young boy caught his attention. That was when he started thinking about telling that big political story—the story of urbanization, industrialization, and wealth inequality in post-colonial Latin America—from a child’s point of view. I think that anybody who writes fiction can recognize that lightbulb moment that happens when you realize that changing the point of view changes everything about your story. I don’t know what Abreu’s Canto Latino would have looked like, but I’m glad he was seized by a wild fit of creativity that inspired him to rework his entire approach. Because Boy and the World is a marvel. It’s beautiful, poignant, and painful. It tells the story of a boy and a nation in a way that is both loving and critical. The parallels between a child searching for his father and a nation searching for its identity are deliberate and powerful. The film begins, as a child’s life begins, with a small, protected world of innocence, one full of color and wonder in the countryside. When the child leaves his home, that world expands to include the precarious lives of migrant farm laborers, the toil of exploited factory workers, and the weary anonymity of life in a favela, as well as clashes between protesters and military troops, a glimpse of the futuristic cities across the ocean that benefit from unseen human labor, and the persistence of a creative, rebellious spirit in the most crushing of circumstances. It’s all in there, so rich and vibrant, and conveyed without any words, because the film has no dialogue. Some characters do speak a little, but the Portuguese dialogue is muddled and played backwards, giving viewers a child’s sense of experiencing but not fully understanding adult conversations. In place of the dialogue is music. The soundtrack is the work of Brazilian composers Ruben Feffer and Gustavo Kurlat, who made a point of creating an immersive soundscape in which the sound effects of the film—everything from the birds to the factories, the storms to the protest marches—are part of the score. Among the musicians they brought on to create the soundtrack was the legendary Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos. In an interview with Billboard, Abreu talks about the ingenuity Vasconcelos brought to the film’s score, such as using unique instruments and recording in a dynamic, improvisational way. Equally important, however, was to bring the film back down to earth at the end, which is why it ends with a song by Emicida, a rapper out of São Paulo’s underground hip hop community, a choice that Abreu describes as a deliberate nod to Brazilian protest music of the past. The film doesn’t need dialogue—nor does the audience need in-depth knowledge of Brazil’s history—to understand the significance music plays in political protest. The message is there every time the colorful parade appears and every time the music endures when other sounds try to drown it out. And we can’t talk about Boy and the World without talking about its art and animation. The style is unique for an animated feature film, and it’s one that Abreu and art director Priscilla Kellen sought to preserve throughout the story. That meant maintaining not just the childlike simplicity of the forms but also the visual textures of the tools of childhood art: crayons, markers, colored chalk, watercolors, cutouts. Some scenes are as simple as a single figure on a blank white background, while others are an ornate symphony of colors and shapes. What we see on the screen is a combination of hand-drawn images in different media and layered computer animation, which allows even the roughest drawings to move and interact smoothly. All of the art is beautiful, and some of it is truly breathtaking. A few of my favorite visual elements are tied in with the film’s larger themes. I love that every machine is portrayed as an animal, from the trains and trucks to the long-necked dinosaurs that make up the shipping port. It is exactly the sort of imagery we might expect from an imaginative child experiencing a world of unknown rules, but it’s also a nod to the process of industrialization, particularly when paired with the clever, machine-like patterns that develop from the work of the human farm and factory laborers. It’s not a subtle point, nor should it be. There are humans driving the massive economic machine that feeds endless goods to the ravenous floating cities across the ocean. The gears might change, the process might evolve as workers are shunted from one part of the system to another, from the cotton fields to the factories to the cities and back again, but they are always there. The machine doesn’t exist without them. There is a brief section late in the movie when the animation is replaced by real footage of destructive industrialization and deforestation. This is, again, not a subtle choice. It’s a way of contextualizing the whimsy, a way of reinforcing that what is rendered so beautifully in crayon drawings is, in fact, representative of a rather ugly reality. The characters in Boy and the World do not have realistic faces and many are not distinctive; they are not individuals but symbols of entire populations. All of the men who spill from the train are identical and it’s impossible for the boy to recognize his father, because they are every father who left his family due to economic necessity. They are every family torn apart by the juggernaut of so-called progress. And the boy’s journey is not a childhood adventure. It is the story of a lifetime, as we see when we reach the end and the boy is an old man returning to his rural home. It was never going to end with the family reunited; it’s simply not that kind of tale. The hardships of the world are too present, for all the charm and wonder that goes along with them. Boy and the World is a beautiful movie. It’s also sad and painful in a way that leaves the heart aching. I adore the art and animation style, and even more I love the juxtaposition of the childlike perspective, bright imagery, and heavy themes. Some of the scenes that stick with me are the moments throughout the film that emphasize the importance of art in times of hardship: the impoverished father playing his flute, the factory worker spinning color and music amidst dreary oppression, the determined march of protesters, the way that people throughout the story, old and young, find their community and voices by making music together. It’s a rare and lovely accomplishment, I think, for a film to tell a story so well, with so much heart, without any words but with perfect understanding. What do you think of Boy and the World? Thoughts on its art, its music, its story? I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked it to watch; all I knew was that it was a darling among critics and film festivals. This is one case where choosing a movie on a whim seems to have worked out quite well, as I think it’s wonderful and I’m very glad to have found it. Next week: The insects are coming and we are not ready for them. Watch Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) on Max, Amazon, or Apple.[end-mark] The post <i>Boy and the World</i>: A Stunning Child’s-Eye View of Post-Colonial Latin America appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Two Republican lawmakers are advancing a bill that could dramatically expand the federal government’s ability to criminalize certain content online. Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Representative Mary Miller of Illinois have introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA), legislation that aims to overhaul the legal definition of obscenity and give prosecutors wide authority to target more online content. We obtained a copy of the bill for you here. Supporters of the bill claim it is designed to protect families and children from harmful material, but civil liberties advocates warn that its sweeping language threatens to criminalize large swaths of constitutionally protected expression. IODA discards key elements of the Supreme Court’s long-standing Miller test, which has served as the nation’s benchmark for identifying obscene content since 1973. Under that framework, courts assess whether material appeals to prurient interest, depicts sexual conduct in a “patently offensive” way by community standards, and lacks “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Lee and Miller’s bill replaces that careful balancing test with a rigid federal definition. According to the proposed language, content is considered obscene if “taken as a whole, [it] appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion,” if it “depicts, describes or represents actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desires of a person,” and if it “taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Promoting the bill, Lee declared, “Obscenity isn’t protected by the First Amendment, but hazy and unenforceable legal definitions have allowed extreme pornography to saturate American society and reach countless children.” He added, “Our bill updates the legal definition of obscenity for the internet age so this content can be taken down and its peddlers prosecuted.” Representative Miller characterized the legislation as a necessary tool for law enforcement, saying it “equips law enforcement with the tools they need to target and remove obscene material from the internet, which is alarmingly destructive and far outside the bounds of protected free speech under the Constitution.” She stated that their intent is to “safeguard American families and ensure this dangerous material is kept out of our homes and off our screens.” But legal scholars and civil liberties organizations are raising alarms. The bill’s definition of obscenity eliminates key legal safeguards such as the requirement that content be “patently offensive” under contemporary community standards. That omission, say critics, opens the door to prosecuting even mainstream or artistic representations. The bill also proposes to revise federal rules around telecommunications by stripping out the requirement that “obscene” calls must be made with intent to abuse, threaten, or harass in order to be criminal. Under IODA, any “obscene” communication over a phone, regardless of context or consent, could be subject to prosecution. That change could sweep in phone sex services, private webcam sessions, or consensual messages between adults. Though the bill is framed as an effort to protect minors, its broad application would affect all users, regardless of age. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Redefining Obscenity: Lawmakers Take Aim at More Online Content appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A British citizen has been handed a 10-year prison sentence in Saudi Arabia over a tweet that no longer exists and was seen by barely a few dozen people. The post, erased years ago from an account with just 37 followers, is now at the center of a case that exposes how harshly the Kingdom is punishing digital speech. Ahmed al-Doush, a senior business analyst with Bank of America, was taken into custody at Riyadh’s main airport on August 31, 2024, as he prepared to return to the UK with his wife and children following a family trip. He never made it onto the plane. Saudi officials stopped him at the departure gate and transferred him to a maximum-security prison, where he was kept in isolation for more than a month. It would be five months before Saudi authorities disclosed the supposed basis for his arrest: accusations that he used social media to “spread false and harmful information” and maintained a relationship with someone deemed a threat to national security. Those close to al-Doush believe the state is targeting him over a post from 2018 referencing unrest in Sudan, one that made no mention of Saudi Arabia and was deleted shortly after being published. The alleged “association” with a known Saudi dissident appears to stem from the fact that al-Doush knows the individual’s son. His family dismisses any deeper connection. Since his arrest, al-Doush has not seen his newborn son, Youseff, who arrived in December while he remained in detention. He has told supporters that he was interrogated for extended periods without legal counsel and was not informed of the charges against him during those sessions—violations of international standards for due process. Speaking to The Times, his wife Amaher Nour recalled the moment he was taken. “The authorities asked for his documents and we thought it was just a problem with his visa,” she said. “He called me from security and told me to fly with the children on to Turkey, our transit stop, and said, ‘I’ll be with you shortly’.” That would be the last time she heard from him freely. Upon arrival in Manchester, the family received news that al-Doush had been imprisoned. Nour said her husband has only had three consular visits since last summer. “Ahmed has been sleeping in an overcrowded cell that is filthy. My husband is a dedicated family man who is devoted to his children, spending weekends taking them to restaurants and the park. They are distraught and are constantly asking when he will be back. I no longer know how to answer their questions. “For me the night-time is an empty void where I question over and over why this has happened to us. “What Ahmed has endured over the past eight months is tortuous prolonged solitary confinement, unclear charges, a forced confession, and excessive surveillance by prison authorities all managed by a powerless state-appointed legal counsel.” International legal experts have condemned Saudi Arabia’s use of vague national security and anti-terror statutes to quash online speech. Barrister Haydee Dijkstal, who is representing al-Doush abroad, said: “Online expression, even if expressing concern or criticism of a government, should not be criminalized or lead to detention and imprisonment. Using anti-terrorism legislation to punish and repress online expression on social media with severe prison sentences is inconsistent with international law and human rights standards.” The UK government has acknowledged his detention but has taken no public steps to challenge the sentence. A Foreign Office spokesperson said only: “We are supporting a British man who is detained in Saudi Arabia and are in contact with his family and the local authorities.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post UK Citizen Sentenced to 10 Years in Saudi Arabia Over Deleted Tweet appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

House Dems: Eriously-Say, Ix-Nay on Eachment-Impay, Orons-May

​Reactions to the video were pretty, uh, mixed.

Zachary Jordan Alam, the Jan. 6 rioter who vandalized windows, taunted police, and incited chaos in the U.S. Capitol hallway where Ashli Babbitt was shot, was arrested in Virginia on a state felony burglary count and a misdemeanor destruction of property charge. Just months removed from a pardon issued by President Donald J. Trump, Alam, 33, of Centreville, Virginia, was arrested and charged for burglary in Henrico County, southeast of Richmond, court records show. Alam, who was serving an eight-year Jan. 6 prison sentence when he was pardoned, was charged with one count of entering a dwelling at night for the purpose of burglary, a Class 3 felony that carries a potential prison term between five and 20 years. 'He was then taken by force to a psychiatric facility.' He was also charged with one Commonwealth of Virginia count of destruction of property valued at less than $1,000, a Class 1 misdemeanor with potential jail time of one year. A hearing in the case is scheduled for June 24 in Henrico General District Court. Blaze News filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the police reports surrounding Alam’s arrest, but the County of Henrico Police Division denied the request because “the incident is still being investigated and/or the case has not been fully adjudicated.” Alam was the central figure in the rioting that broke out in the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby on Jan. 6, 2021. He punched the glass panels in the entry door, narrowly missing the left side of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Christopher Lanciano’s face, video showed. He also punched at the glass panel behind Officer Kyle Yetter and Sgt. Timothy Lively. He ended his spree using a black riot helmet to bash out panes of glass in the doors and side panels, according to video. That earned him the online nickname “Helmet Boy.” RELATED: Federal judge explodes in Ashli Babbitt court hearing as wrongful-death case slows Rioter Zachary Alam changes clothes in the Crypt at the U.S. Capitol shortly after entering the building on Jan. 6, 2021.U.S. Capitol Police CCTV “Alam intentionally put himself at the front of the mob, where he threatened the USCP officers, yelling, ‘I’m going to f*** you up!’ in their faces,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s sentencing memo and supplement. “All said, in the course of just 25 seconds, Alam violently kicked the doors three times, then smashed the doors and glass panes with the helmet an additional nine times, breaking two glass panes completely out,” the DOJ memo said. “All the while, Alam’s actions exacerbated the chaos, inflaming the mob overall.” A jury found Alam guilty of 10 charges on Sept. 12, 2023, including assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers; obstructing officers during a civil disorder; destruction of government property; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; and seven other counts. 'We need guns, bro!' He was sentenced on Nov. 7, 2024, to eight years in prison by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee. Alam’s obstruction of an official proceeding verdict was tossed out based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark June 2024 decision in Fischer v. United States. Alam’s sentencing was repeatedly delayed after the trial. His defense team filed some information about him under court seal. His mother, Karyn L. Alam, disclosed to defense attorney Steven Metcalf II and the court that Alam had a history of substance abuse and psychiatric troubles that were unknown to the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services office. Rioter Zachary Jordan Alam (wearing helmet) is confronted by protesters minutes after the fatal shooting of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021. U.S. Capitol Police CCTV Karyn Alam said her son attempted suicide while he was a student at the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine in Dothan, Alabama. “I was notified by the school that Zachary was found in a bathroom stall with a belt around his neck,” she wrote. “This is around the same time that we made the decision for him to withdraw from medical school. Based on my best recollection, he was then taken by force to a psychiatric facility.” Alam’s attorney appealed his case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Dec. 2, 2024. The appeals court, citing Trump’s pardon declaration issued shortly after he was sworn in on Jan. 20, vacated Alam’s convictions on April 14, 2025. The federal district court in D.C. then dismissed Alam’s Jan. 6 case as moot. Babbitt, who was the first protester to reach the Speaker’s Lobby entrance at 2:36 p.m., grew visibly worried as a large crowd filled in around her. She shouted at the three officers to “call f***ing help” when they made no moves to de-escalate the crowd or subdue Alam during his violent spree. After the three officers abandoned their post, other rioters joined in the attack on the doorway, using a flagpole, karate kicks, and the kinetic force of their bodies in failed attempts to breach the doors. After Alam smashed out the window in the side panel, Babbitt grabbed him by the backpack, spun him toward her, and punched him in the face with a left hook, according to video discovered by the Epoch Times. The blow knocked off his glasses. An instant later, Babbitt jumped up in the now-empty sidelight window and was immediately shot by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd. “You want to be next?” Seeing Babbitt bleeding after she fell back to the floor, Alam jumped back and bolted down a nearby staircase, brushing past a four-man Capitol Police SWAT team coming up the stairs. He was seen on the landing with his hand on his head, looking distressed. After the shooting, protesters vented anger at the police, who told the crowd to get back so medical help could reach Babbitt. “She’s going to f***ing die!” Officer Yetter roared at the crowd. “You want to be next?” As Alam left the building, he was heard on a protester’s video stating, “We need guns, bro … we need guns,” the DOJ said. RELATED: Officer who killed Ashli Babbitt abandoned US Capitol post for card game, lied to investigators about it, source says Zachary Jordan Alam (in black Pirelli T-shirt), takes an elevator from the Crypt in the U.S. Capitol to the fourth floor before walking down an interior staircase to the second floor, where he joined a large contingent of protesters near the main House door.U.S. Capitol Police CCTV Alam was one of the most active provocateurs on Jan. 6. Wearing a floppy-ear Canada Goose cap, he became one of the most recognizable Jan. 6 figures. Video showed he helped protesters climb makeshift ladders leaned against the Northwest Steps so they could access the Upper Terrace and the Senate Wing Door entrance to the Capitol. Once inside the Crypt level of the Capitol, Alam changed his clothes, then took an elevator to the fourth floor. He accessed a back stairway and descended two levels. While on the third floor, video shot by Paul Kovacik showed, Alam took a velvet theater rope with weighted brass ends and threw it down an open area at police standing below. 'We’d love to f***ing revolutionize the whole world!' Once Alam reached the second floor, he walked toward the main House entrance and was trailed by Jason Gandolph, an officer with the House Sergeant at Arms office. Widely shared video showed that Alam walked from behind the police line to join the swelling crowd in the Will Rogers Corridor near Statuary Hall. Alam immediately started trouble, shouting so loudly that an elderly man slapped him on the side of the head and told him, “Shut up!” Alam photo-bombed journalist Tayler Hansen’s livestream inside the Capitol. “This is insane, bro. We’d love to f***ing revolutionize the whole world!” Alam said. “It’s the repetition of what happened decades and centuries ago, and it’s repeating itself. It’s going down right now!” Alam was arrested by the FBI on Jan. 30, 2021, in Denver, Pennsylvania, after he spent weeks on the the lam. When agents raided his room at the Penn Amish Motel, they reportedly found more than $5,600 in antiques stolen from Stoudt’s Antique Mall in nearby Adamstown. In August 2021, he was charged by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with one count of burglary and one count of theft by unlawful taking of movable property. The Pennsylvania case was held in abeyance for more than three years while the U.S. Department of Justice prosecuted Alam for Jan. 6 crimes. It’s not clear if he will ever face the Pennsylvania charges. According to the criminal docket, Alam’s burglary case is listed as “closed.” There is no indication in court records of a dismissal or other case disposition. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers' Democratic administration issued guidance on April 18 directing state employees not to immediately cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal agents. That same day, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan allegedly helped a previously deported illegal alien facing three misdemeanor counts of battery get away from ICE. In what proved to be a shock to some Americans now accustomed to seeing judicial activism go unchecked, the FBI arrested Dugan on April 25. The arrest sent Democratic lawmakers, former judges, and liberal activists into a frenzy. The indictment alleges that Dugan committed multiple 'affirmative acts' to assist Eduardo Flores-Ruiz evade arrest. Following weeks of Democratic accusations of judicial intimidation and claims about an improper arrest, a federal grand jury determined Tuesday that there was, after all, sufficient evidence to indict Dugan on charges of concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of the law. The indictment alleges that Dugan committed multiple "affirmative acts" to assist Eduardo Flores-Ruiz evade arrest following his pre-trial April 18 appearance in her courtroom, including: confronting members of an ICE task force and "falsely telling them they needed a judicial warrant to effectuate the arrest of E.F.R."; directing all members of the task force to leave the public hallway outside her courtroom and to go to the chief judge's office; addressing the illegal alien's criminal case off the record while ICE agents were waiting in the chief judge's office; "directing E.F.R. and his counsel to exit Courtroom 615 through a non-public jury door"; and advising Flores-Ruiz's lawyer that the illegal alien could appear by Zoom for his next court date. Despite Dugan's alleged efforts, law enforcement was ultimately able to capture Flores-Ruiz, an illegal alien from Mexico who was previously deported in 2013, after a brief foot chase. Flores-Ruiz's battery charges reportedly include modifiers for domestic violence and reflect that he allegedly punched one individual 30 times, then brutalized the woman who attempted to intervene. Attorney General Pam Bondi noted in an interview last month that both of Flores-Ruiz's alleged victims had to be hospitalized. RELATED: Dems condemn Trump admin over arrest of judge who allegedly helped illegal alien escape: 'A red line' Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images Dugan indicated through a lawyer that she will fight the charges, reported the New York Times. "Judge Hannah C. Dugan has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge," said Dugan's lawyers. "Judge Dugan asserts her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court." If convicted, Dugan could reportedly land up to six years in prison. The judge turned defendant is expected to enter a plea at her Thursday hearing. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman will preside over Dugan's case. That bodes well for the meddlesome judge. After all, Adelman, a Clinton appointee who long served in the Wisconsin state Senate as a Democrat, has a history of attacking President Donald Trump, claiming, for instance, that the president makes no effort "to enact policies beneficial to the general public" and behaves like an "autocrat." The Heritage Foundation noted that Lynn has also compared Republicans to "the 'fireaters,' [sic] those fervent defenders of slavery who pushed the South into the Civil War." The Department of Homeland Security told Blaze News, "Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected ICE agents away from this criminal illegal alien to obstruct the arrest and try to help him evade arrest. Thankfully, our FBI partners chased down this illegal alien, arrested him and removed him from American communities." Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for public affairs, stated, "Since President Trump was inaugurated, activist judges have tried to obstruct President Trump and the American people’s mandate to make America safe and secure our homeland — but this judge’s actions to shield an accused violent criminal illegal alien from justice is shocking and shameful." "We are thankful for our partners at the FBI for helping remove this accused criminal from America’s streets," continued McLaughlin. "If you are here illegally and break the law, we will hunt you down, arrest you and lock you up. That's a promise." Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News' Jesse Watters Tuesday, "I'm grateful that the judicial system recognized that Judge Duggan let down the court, the country, and the authority that her position held and that she will be held accountable. That [the indictment] was a great decision to recognize that nobody can facilitate breaking the law. We should not be able to allow that in this country. We need to make sure that even judges are held accountable for their actions." Shortly after Dugan's arrest last month, FBI Director Kash Patel posted to social media: "We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest." In response to a request for comment about Dugan's grand jury indictment, the FBI told Blaze News: "We don’t have anything to add to Director Patel’s public statements posted on social media." The White House did not respond by deadline. Dugan's indictment comes two weeks after the Supreme Court of Wisconsin relieved her of her official duties "in order to uphold the public's confidence in the courts of this state." As a result, Dugan — who appears to have flouted the Wisconsin Code of Judicial Conduct, particularly its requirement that "a judge shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of the judge's activities" — is now prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court judge in the state until further order from the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In the wake of her arrest, Democratic lawmakers and their allies in the media ran with the narrative that the FBI's enforcement of the law amounted to the Trump administration "making an example of the Milwaukee judge to intimidate critics and opponents." For instance, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) stated, "We have a system of checks and balances and separations of power for damn good reasons. The President's administration arresting a sitting judge is a gravely serious and drastic move, and it threatens to breach those very separations of power." Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.) told Axios, "It is remarkable that the Administration would dare to start arresting state court judges." RELATED: How biblical justice finally caught up to a leftist judge Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said, "They arrested a judge?! They can no longer claim to be a party of law and order." Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) stated on the day of the arrest, "We have seen in recent months the president and the Trump Administration repeatedly use dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level." While some Democratic lawmakers issued their condemnations, others celebrated Dugan's alleged obstruction and concealment of a person from arrest. Wisconsin state Rep. Ryan Clancy (D) stated, "I commend Judge Hannah Dugan's defense of due process by preventing ICE from shamefully using her courtroom as an ad hoc holding area for deportations." Hundreds of former state and federal judges also leaned into the narrative, stating in a recent letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi — who had noted on X, "No one is above the law" — that "the circumstances of Judge Dugan's arrest make it clear that it was nothing but an effort to threaten and intimidate the state and federal judiciaries into submitting to the Administration, instead of interpreting the Constitution and laws of the United States." This is a developing story. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

George Clooney was shocked when President Joe Biden did not recognize him at a 2024 fundraiser despite Clooney being one of the hosts of the event.A June 15, 2024, star-studded fundraiser hosted by Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Barack Obama pulled in a whopping $28 million for the Biden campaign. Fans took pictures with the celebrities while late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was set to host Obama and President Biden on stage for a Q and A.However, just a few weeks later, Clooney did a complete 180 turn and wrote an op-ed in the New York Times calling for the president to step down. In his piece titled "I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee," the actor said the Biden he saw at the fundraiser was not the "Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020."Clooney added that he and others held their tongue about Biden's obvious decline because they were "all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term."RELATED: Pretend newsman Clooney's message to America: Trust journalists!A new book by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson purportedly revealed the details of Biden and Clooney's interaction that caused the actor to do an about-face on the president's re-election campaign. George Clooney shakes President Joe Biden's hand after receiving a lifetime artistic achievement award in 2022. Photographer: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images'It was like watching someone who was not alive.'According to an excerpt from the book provided to the New Yorker, Biden hobbled into the fundraising event after flying in from the G7 summit in Apulia, Italy, that morning.The president allegedly appeared severely diminished as if he'd aged a decade since last seeing Clooney at the White House in 2022, when the actor received recognition from the John F. Kennedy Center. Biden was reportedly taking tiny steps and was seemingly guided by an aide."It was like watching someone who was not alive," an unnamed source claimed. "It was startling. And we all looked at each other. It was so awful."Biden began to pass Clooney and said, "Thank you for being here.""Hi, Mr. President," Clooney reportedly replied in greeting."How are ya?" Biden replied.Clooney apparently then asked the president how his trip had gone, but it seemed clear by Biden's generic "it was fine" reaction that he did not recognize Clooney, one of the hosts of his own fundraiser who he had met many times before.The inside source described Clooney as being shaken to his core, although he was not the only person who noticed the president's declined cognitive function. Biden reportedly had obvious brain freezes at the event and what were referred to as clear signs of a mental slide.RELATED: George Clooney laments sale of 'mom-and-pop' shop ParamountJohn F. Trent, editor for Fandom Pulse, said the new Biden revelations seemed to be a way for those who were running cover for the president's decline to give penance."Anyone who had eyes to see could tell Joe Biden's mental capabilities had completely declined," Trent told Blaze News.In fact, Tapper and Clooney both congratulated each other for their work on the topic. In an interview on CNN, after Clooney praised the bravery of journalists for "setting a standard," the anchor told Clooney he felt the actor's op-ed asking Biden to step down was "brave.""I don't know if it was brave," Clooney replied. "It was a civic duty. ... The specific idea of [freedom of speech] is, you can't demand freedom of speech then say, 'You can't say bad things about me.'"The 64-year-old concluded, "That's the deal. You have to take a stand if you believe in it."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Tempest Rising and Broken Arrow are spearheading a comeback for old-style RTS games. Elsewhere, the boomer shooter is still going strong thanks to Selaco, Boltgun, and Ultrakill. But if we’re reviving all these classic genres, then what about the erstwhile six-degrees-of-freedom, or 6DOF game? Forsaken is maybe the best-remembered example. But there’s also Descent, Terracide, and the still-gorgeous Adrenix, bygone icons of PC’s past. Mixing the core mechanics of those historic shooters with a space dogfighting setup akin to No Man’s Sky and Elite Dangerous, The Waking Ashes is a new FPS you can sample very soon. Continue reading The Waking Ashes is a terrifying spiritual sequel to classic FPS game Forsaken MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best space games, Best FPS games, Best horror games

Intel has just announced a new set of Arc Pro workstation GPUs via social media, but it’s the commentary following this announcement that is causing a buzz. Among its replies to social media posts, the company has teased that new gaming GPUs could also be on the way, telling everyone to “stay tuned” ahead of a likely announcement at Computex 2025 next week. We’ve all been waiting to see what Intel might be up to with its GPUs following a period of quiet after its most recent Intel Arc B580 graphics cards received praise. With AMD and Nvidia moving on with a new generation of the best graphics cards, speculation about Intel’s next moves has been rife, from recent suggestions of a dual-GPU Intel card with 48GB VRAM to Intel Battlemage cancellation rumors. Continue reading New Intel Arc Battlemage gaming GPUs teased, could be announced next week MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Intel Core Ultra 7 265K review, Best gaming CPU, Core i9 14900K review