'It is going to be in State Parks property'

Drugs were also seized during the operation, an official said

'Quite happy at CNN'

The glory days are now dead

News Doctor Who Doctor Who Spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea Gets a New Trailer — but Still No U.S. Release Date The Doctor is also nowhere to be found By Molly Templeton | Published on December 1, 2025 Screenshot: BBC Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: BBC The future of Doctor Who is a bit wibbly-wobbly at the moment. The show’s partnership with Disney is over, but it’s set to return an entire year from now with a new Christmas special. There is some confusion and/or denial about who exactly is the Doctor after the last season’s finale, which saw Ncuti Gatwa regenerate into Billie Piper. But there is one certainty: The next bit of Who to hit screens is the baffling miniseries The War Between the Land and the Sea, which turns back to the Sea Devils, and to two previous Who actors in new roles. Russell Tovey (previously seen as Midshipman Frame in “Voyage of the Damned”) and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (previously seen as Martha Jones’ sister, Tish) join recurring Who star Jemma Redgrave (as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart) in a tale with a very short synopsis: “When a fearsome and ancient species emerges from the ocean, dramatically revealing themselves to humanity, an international crisis is triggered. With the entire population at risk, UNIT step into action as the land and sea wage war. ” A UNIT-focused spinoff was announced back in 2023. Focusing on UNIT is still a strange choice, but no stranger, really, than the choice to bring back Mbatha-Raw and Tovey in new roles. Which, in itself, isn’t new for Who: Let us never forget that Peter Capaldi was at the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (along with future companion Karen Gillan), and then appeared on Torchwood, well before he became Twelve. This spinoff is written by creator Russell T. Davies and Pete McTighe and directed by Dylan Holmes-Williams. The latest trailer is a mere 30 seconds of footage that mostly serves to remind UK viewers that it’s only a week until they get to watch this story of interspecies conflict and possible cooperation. Those of us in the US will continue to wait for Disney to announce a premiere date.[end-mark] The post <i>Doctor Who</i> Spinoff <i>The War Between the Land and the Sea</i> Gets a New Trailer — but Still No U.S. Release Date appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV It: Welcome to Derry IT: Welcome to Derry Deals With Daddy Issues — “In the Name of the Father” Ingrid. What are you DOING, Ingrid. By Leah Schnelbach | Published on December 1, 2025 Credit: HBO Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: HBO IT: Welcome to Derry has thoughts about fathers this week. Episode Six, “In The Name of the Father”, was written by Jason Fuchs, Cord Jefferson, and Brad Caleb Kane, and directed by Jamie Travis. …and it ends on a note of genuine terror. As Brief a Recap as a King Adaptation Will Allow We open in black-and-white, in 1935, at Juniper Hill. A woman who I have to assume is young Ingrid Kirsh wakes a little girl named Mabel late at night, and takes her down down down into the basement. “This is where the clown told you to meet him?” she asks. Uhhh… And right on cue, there’s a red balloon. It bobs into a hallway, Pennywise appears and hides his face behind it. He pulls the balloon down… and we cut to the credits, and then to a fight in the Hanlon household in 1962. Leroy is yelling at Will for being in the sewers, and comes right to the edge of blaming his son for Pauly’s death. Will pushes back, screaming that his father’s always told him to stand up for his friend, and not back down from a fight. “I have friends now!” But when Leroy says “You’re nothing like me,” Will snaps and says, “I know I’m not you! I would never let my friends die!”—and Leroy’s response is to slap his son so hard the boy flies and lands in a sobbing heap on the floor. Charlotte tries to step in, and Leroy tries to apologize, but Will’s reached a whole other conclusion: “IT got to you! IT’s in your head!” and he bolts out the door in terror. We see people papering over the signs for the missing children of Derry with WANTED signs for Hank Grogan, as armed, crew-cut white men gather in the town square under the American flag. Never a good sign. Courtesy of HBO Back at the Tower, Lilly shows the other kids the shard, and describes how it seemed to scare Pennywise—but she won’t let any of the other to touch it. She announces a plan to go back and kill IT. Ronnie, staring at a WANTED poster with her father’ face on it, finally blows up. She says all of this is Lilly’s fault, and, as Rich tries to jump in and says that this is what IT wants, Ronnie finally crosses into No Man’s Land and says that Lilly never should have been let out of Juniper Hill. Lilly starts crying, and Will goes after Ronnie. The others split up. Dick finally turns up at the Airman’s Club… but he’s already very drunk, and also seeing visions everywhere he turns. He wants to sleep in the back, but it’s already occupied by Hank Grogan. We cut back to Ronnie as Will catches up with her. She tells him that she’s tired of being scared, they embrace, and are probably juuuust about to kiss each other when Charlotte pulls up and tells “William Dubois Hanlon” to get his disobedient butt in the car—but also that Ronnie should come, too. She doesn’t take either of them home, she takes them to the Airman’s Club, and Ronnie is finally able to reunite with her father, as Will reckons with what a warm relationship with a dad looks like, and Dick looks on in horror and frustration. Meanwhile, back on the Tower, Margie has to change her eye dressing, and Rich appears and asks to help. “I was a Webelo for a couple years. I know trick to take it off without it hurting.” As he licks his thumbs to pry that bandage off Margie stops him—spit is gross—but he reassures her that “saliva has antiseptic properties.” Margie has her doubts, but this kid, who is GREAT, calmly says “Who knows? Science is constantly changing.” Fair enough. She’s still worried that he’s going to be squicked out by her wound, but when the bandage finally falls away—seemingly painlessly, I’ll add—Rich stares in wonder and pronounces it: “the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” With that done he muses on how the kids are stronger if they stick together, and flies ones of his balsa planes down over main street, where it crashes right into the sewer, and into a series of Dick Hallorann’s visions. He’s woken up by Major Hanlon, who’s finally tracked him down to his barracks. This is nothing like their last encounter. “Dick, what happened down there?!” he asks of the visibly terrified man who’s been trying and failing to drink himself into a coma. “I think we pissed IT off,” is Dick’s succinct reply. Major Hanlon softens his tone, slightly, and tries to get Dick to open up about the Shining. “You… see things. What kind of things?” “Dead ones,” Dick snaps. But then he finally decides to drop the walls a little bit. He tells the Major about his grandmother teaching him to shut the visions away, to “‘…think of a great big old box, and think of all the things you don’t want to see no more, put them inside the box, and close it up.’ So I did. I took all them dead things and threw ‘em in the box in my mind, and I shoved that goddamn lid on tight …I was nine. I ain’t seen ‘em since—’til yesterday. That goddamn thing forced itself into my head, ripped that lid off, and laughed as it all came spilling out.” When he goes on to say that they “know things the living aren’t meant to know” the Major switches back into Military Mode, and tells Dick that he has a duty to finish his mission. Dick, quite understandably, laughs at the very idea of this, and tells the Major to get out. The Major reminds him that if he doesn’t remember his duty to America, he might leave the base in handcuffs. The Major then walks into practically the same fight with his wife. He finds her packing her stuff. She informs him that Hank is in a safe place, that she’s taking him out of town tomorrow, and immediately thereafter she and Will are going back to Shreveport. He tries to counter with something about his duty to keep this country safe, and she snaps at him to fix his relationship with his son. Leroy’s getting yelled at a lot this week, and frankly, I think he needs to hear all of it. At school, Lilly is holding the shard in her lap like it’s the One Ring or something, and she’s, of course, confronted again by Pickle Dad—this time hidden in her desk! “You’ll die if you try!” IT shrieks, already knowing her plan to come back to the sewers. When she jumps up and faces it with the shard, the teacher, of course, tells her to get back in her seat and calls her “young lady”—but Lilly’s finally, finally, done. She walks out of the room as they all stare at her. Credit: Brooke Palmer/HBO At lunch that day, Margie and Rich (who don’t seem to know about Lilly’s latest incident) have a ridiculously sweet conversation about jars of pee (can’t go to the bathroom in the middle of the night when your pipes are full of evil clown voices), medieval knighthood, and piracy. Rich gives Margie an eyepatch that was supposedly worn by a corsair ancestor of his in Cuba, and she immediately puts it on over her bandage. And of course, that’s when the Patty Cakes walk up, accusing Lilly of gouging Margie’s eye out, and asking if she wants to come back to them or stay at the table with the freaks. And Margie, whom I love now, jumps up, charges at them, and says “I AM A FREAK!” and lifts her bandage to force them to see her eye. The girls scream, one of them starts hyperventilating, Rich falls even deeper in love with her, it’s great. Later, to the tune of “Pretty Little Angel Eyes”, Will, Margie, and Rich go to the Airman’s Club to find Ronnie and convince her to come back. They debate their options.   “What if she says no?” Rich asks. “I don’t know man, say a prayer she doesn’t?” Will says. “Last time I said a prayer my dead tío almost killed us!” “OK, so no prayers then.” Margie turns backwards and crosses herself as they walk in, so Will won’t see. Inside the Club, the kids discover a magical new world. There’s music, dancing, grownups making out, everyone is drinking. As Will enters the back room to negotiate, Rich and Margie lean against the pool table to watch the band. Meanwhile across town, Lilly goes to Ingrid’s house, which seems abandoned? Once again there’s a creepy adult man who leers at her, just like in the grocery store, which made me think we were entering a true horror setpiece. Instead, parts of the house seem empty and derelict, but there’s music playing somewhere. She wanders upstairs to an attic room, and finds a book of photos documenting Ingrid’s life with Mr. Kersh. And then she flips another page, and there’s young Ingrid with a man who looks a lot like Pennywise without his makeup. Credit: HBO Ingrid comes up behind her, and seems weirdly chill about a stray eleven-year-old coming into her house and rifling through her stuff. Lilly tells her that they went to the sewers and she faced the clown, and then Ingrid’s whole demeanor changes. Not like she’s been possessed by IT, or like she’s been IT in disguise the whole time—no, I think this is worse. “You saw him!” she says, ecstatic. “Of course it was you!” Lilly is shocked and horrified at Ingrid’s seeming Pennywise fandom, and it’s soon revealed that it was her at the cemetery in the clown outfit, and her outside of the Hanlons’ house. Her father was a carnival performer called Pennywise. “He was taken from me,” she says. (So presumably it was Ingrid’s dad who we saw during the flashback to General Shaw’s childhood.) When the circus left, she stayed behind in Derry, and eventually got a job at Juniper Hill. When she overheard Mabel talking about a clown back in the 1935 (“There are no such things as clowns in pipes, clowns live at the circus,” Mabel’s doctor helpfully informs her) she somehow decided it was her dad, back after all this time. She took Mabel down to the basement thinking they’d have a reunion. We flashback to black-and-white 1935, and there’s young Ingrid looking at fucking Pennywise and asking “Papa?” IT laughs at her, unfurls ITs jaws, and they run. Ingrid makes it, and watches as IT eats Mabel behind a closed fire door. Then Pennywise pops back up, without the makeup this time. “Pumpkin? It’s me, Papa. Oh, how I’ve missed you all these years! Don’t be scared…” Ingrid lets him into the hospital, and presumably he’s been feeding on children there ever since. “He was changed by whatever he’d been through, but it was him all the same. A daughter knows… [t]his shadow would steal my father away, but I did what I had to to see him again… I know he’ll be able to break free.” Ingrid assures Lilly that she won’t let anything hurt her, and insists that surely Lilly would also do anything to be reunited with her own father. When Lilly pushes back to say that her own father is dead, Ingrid replies, “Oh sweetie, you know what they say about Derry. No one who dies here ever really dies.” Ooof. Oooooof. So anyway Lilly slashes her with the shard and escapes. Riding her bike, a giant bloody handprint on her shoulder, she finally screams the terrible gutteral scream that I think has been building up in her since her dad died. Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO Back at the Airmen’s Club, Hank Grogan has a serious question for the boy who wants to date his daughter: What is his favorite movie? Will tells Hank that he saw War of the Worlds back in Shreveport, and loved it, and this passes muster. “It’s good to know someone of your character is looking out for my baby girl,” he says, and holy shit is it emotional to see this man try to just be a solid dad in the midst of all the horror that’s being done to him. Out front, Rich attempts to order himself and Margie Cokes at the bar, and they’re given what the barkeep calls “Air Force Coke” which I’m gonna assume is straight rum. “That’s the taste of freedom,” he says. “Freedom tastes weird,” Margie muses. The bandleader notices that (a) his drummer is passed out with a bottle in his hand, and (b) Rich has drumsticks in his back pocket. The kid tries to play with brushes, but soon switches back to his sticks, and he’s actually good and the adults are all excited to let him have a solo. “I love Air Force Coke!” Margie sighs. But obviously the Good White People of Derry can’t allow this harmony and justice bullshit to continue. The armed mob—alerted to Hank’s whereabouts by an anonymous tip from the recently fired police chief—drives up, shines their headlights into the front of the building, and gets out of their cars to reveal that they’re all wearing Halloween masks. Reggie—one of Dick’s airmen friends—tells the girl he was flirting with to get behind him. Do We All Float? Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO There’s so much going on here! First of all, I kind of like how everything comes back to DADS. No matter what else is going on, Ronnie is always, always, always terrified for her father. Lilly is always grieving her father. Will finally pushes back on his father’s comparative coldness, and gets slapped for doing exactly what his dad has always taught him to do. And then there’s Ingrid. For a second I was annoyed about this because it seems so ridiculous, but then thinking about this woman wearing a vaguely Elizabethan clown get up just to try to find her father, whom she believes is still inside IT somehow, and will just have to “break free”—it’s been nearly 60 years and she still hasn’t accepted that the man was eaten. There’s no “breaking free” of EATEN. I love the mirroring of Ingrid donning her clown apparel just as the masked mob shows up. I love getting to see Margie’s actual personality after so long—and how touching is her Weird Kid romance with Rich? I will ding the show slightly for letting Rich be that good at drums. That felt a little over-the-top for the show about a child-eating alien spider clown. And I really really love how blatant the show is in its thematic work. The posters of missing children are replaced with posters of an innocent scapegoat. The teachers are still scolding the children like they’re actual children. Major Hanlon is still blathering on about duty and country as though any of that matters in the face of IT—and as though his country gives a single shit about him or his rights. At the end of this episode we’ve been invited to a joyful, sexy, happily interracial party—and of course the stalwart white men are going to storm in and try to kill it like a cockroach on a kitchen floor, and of course their nice white wives would never dream of asking where they were all night. How are any of these people going to survive the mob violence that’s coming? Why does Major Hanlon still care about his mission, after everything that’s happened? Of all the white women in town, why did Hank have to get involved with an extremely unstable kinda sorta clown-worshipper? Where the hell is Lilly’s mom? Also, how old is Ingrid meant to be? Is this some IT magic, where she’s staying suspiciously youthful even though she should probably be older than Rose and Shaw? Or is she actually simply a puppet of IT already? I feel like no, but there’s definitely something off there. #JustKingThings Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO So much clown stuff in this one! And I love the multiple iterations of the voices in the pipes that only kids can hear. That is some prime King—the horror isolates the most vulnerable people, and then feeds on them once they’ve been locked away for being “crazy”. Also the constant tonal shifts between young romance, and kids dealing with the idiocy of their peers, contrasting with all the horror. The kids are still trying to continue their normal lives, and they’re extremely resilient. Although I think Lilly’s nearing her breaking point. Turtles All The Way Down Lilly’s turtle charm was prominently displayed as she wrenched her hands away from Ingrid, and the shard seems to be doing a fine job of protecting her. I am a bit nervous about her increasing Gollumization, however. Mike Hanlon’s Photo Album Courtesy of HBO We see another literal photo album! We get to see Ingrid’s dad out of makeup at the circus (you know, where clowns live) and then in his full Pennywise get up. (As my beloved colleague Sarah mentioned, IT sees Ingrid’s Papa and thinks: “this guy’s vibe is SO GOOD I gotta steal it.”) We also, obviously, spend a lot of time at the club that the show has so far called “The Black Spot” rather than the Ink Spot, and we see the arrival of the mob that will presumably set the place on fire. Ridiculous Alien Spider, or Generationally Terrifying Clown? Pickle Dad has already been done too many times, as has Pennywise’s Super Scary Run. But the vibe in Ingrid’s house is creepy as hell, and calls forward to Bev’s encounter with her decades later. And watching the mob gather and radicalize is almost as terrifying onscreen as it is in life. I’m dreading next week. But scariest of all might be Ingrid’s devotion to her father, and her willingness to feed IT as many helpless children as it wants, as long as IT keeps reality at bay.[end-mark] The post <em>IT: Welcome to Derry</em> Deals With Daddy Issues — “In the Name of the Father” appeared first on Reactor.

Featured Essays Wicked: For Good There Is Only One Explanation for Elphaba’s Cardigan in Wicked: For Good When you’re trying to make a scene really unsexy, add a drapey sweater, I guess? By Molly Templeton | Published on December 1, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share It’s the unsexy sartorial choice that astonished the Wicked world: the sweater in which Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) wraps herself at a key moment in Wicked: For Good. “I’m Being Driven Insane by Wicked: For Good’s Sex Cardigan” says a Vulture headline. “What Is a Chunky Knit Doing in Wicked’s Sexiest Scene?” asks a headline at The Cut. People, of all places, has an Instagram post about it. “Perhaps the frumpy sex cardigan is the best possible metaphor for the film as a whole,” muses Them’s critic. (This is fair, actually.) I watched the “As Long As You’re Mine” sequence with a growing sense of incredulousness. I may even have muttered, “Is this really happening?” (Look, there were six other people in the theater, none of them anywhere near me. An exhausted Wicked-the-book lover can do a quiet mutter or two now and again.) This sequence is meant to be horny as fuck. At least we were warned that director Jon M. Chu did not understand the point of the scene at all.  The sex cardigan is distracting. It is cozy as hell. I would absolutely wear it. Maybe not to a treehouse tryst with the person I’m ostensibly in love with, but I’d wear it around the house for sure. That is a TV-marathon cardigan. An “I’m staying on the sofa all day and reading three books” cardigan. You could probably comfortably lie on the floor while wearing it, if you were having a bad day. But it’s not sexy. What it is, though, is handmade. The sex cardigan drove us so bananas that we went and created an origin story for it: Elphie made that damn thing herself. She’s proud of it! I would be, too! And there is evidence for this theory. In an interview with The Cut, brilliant, Oscar-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell said of Elphaba’s surprisingly cozy forest home “And in that treehouse, she has the ability to re-create her life. She has a loom and she has ways of knitting and sewing. She’s creating furniture for herself, and she’s creating a life and a space of wellness and safety for herself.” She has ways of knitting and sewing. See? What has she been doing for the past year(ish)? Making cozy garments! One can’t wear shredded black all the time.  Tazewell is even more clear about this in a conversation with Harper’s Bazaar: Her tree house becomes a reflection of how she wants to live and the freedom that she wants to live within. It also allows for her to not be guarded, to feel comfortable in her own skin. There are elements that give us clues that she’s weaving her own fabric and possibly spinning her own thread. She’s knitting a garment to be her robe. She is searching for creature comforts in the middle of the forest, and who knows what access she has with the animals that are in the forest as well? When you think about her life in Munchkinland and how she was raised, it comes out of this Victoriana sensibility. Then you think about the world of embroidery and lace making and knitting from that time, where handwork and creating in your home was prioritized. It provided creativity. There’s no television or cell phones there, and so really it was expanding on that as an idea and allowing for Elphaba to be really good at all of this stuff. This activity is not, I must add, canon in Gregory Maguire’s novel. There, only the amas and Elphaba’s Nanny busy themselves with knitting. However, the cardigan/knitting project itself could have its origin in the text. It’s a stretch, but it’s not like she never wears messy knits. In a section written from Boq’s point of view—Boq is notably less annoying in the novel than he is in the musical—Maguire writes: It was his first time to see the funny green jumping bean since arriving back in Shiz. And there she was, on time, arriving at the café as requested, in a gray ghost of a dress, with a knitted overpull fraying at the sleeves, and a man’s umbrella, big and black and lancelike when rolled up. Elphaba sat down with a graceless fromp, and examined the scroll. “A knitted overpull fraying at the sleeves” is not exactly how I would describe the sex cardigan, but it’s not all that far off. Anyway. She made it herself, and it’s comforting, and it still doesn’t belong in that scene, but at least she didn’t spend too much on it in some ridiculous Emerald City boutique. Elphie, can you make me one?[end-mark] The post There Is Only One Explanation for Elphaba’s Cardigan in <i>Wicked: For Good</i> appeared first on Reactor.

The Indiana State House is set to convene this afternoon to discuss a redistricting effort to boost Republicans chances in the 2026 midterms. President Donald Trump has taken a particular interest in the state matter declaring that Indiana Gov. Mike Braun “must produce on [redistricting], or he will be the only Governor, Republican or Democrat, who didn’t.” The president is trying to win two House seats from Indiana’s congressional delegation for the GOP, which currently sends seven Republican members and two Democrat members to the federal House of Representatives. The move comes after Texas state Republicans changed the Lone Star State’s congressional map, and California Democrats gerrymandered their own congressional lines in response. Missouri has also jumped into the fray with Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signing redistricting legislation in September. That new map could give Republicans an additional House seat from the state. According to the media outlet Axios, Indiana State House Republicans will need 67 of their members to show up on Monday to ensure a quorum is made to conduct state business. There are presently 70 Republicans in the state house meaning that the party can only afford to lose three of its members. Axios reported that State Rep. Mitch Gore thought five Republican state representatives could break ranks. Two of those five confirmed to the media outlet that they would in fact try to be present for the quorum call suggesting that Republicans will likely get their wish for a legislative session in the state house to discuss redistricting. Any legislation would only need 51 votes in the state house to pass through the chamber. The Indiana State Senate is expected to convene next week to take up legislation passed by the state house. Several Indiana state senators have expressed opposition to the redistricting effort. Sen. Michael Bohacek said he would not back the redistricting attempt after Trump called Minnesota Governor Tim Walz retarded. Bohacek has a daughter with Down syndrome. “Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone. The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both,” Trump had said in a post on Truth Social.  As the redistricting debate has raged, several Republican state senators have received threats including “swatting,” which is when someone sends a false report to police leading law enforcement to dispatch to a particular address. State Sens. Andy Zay, Jean Leising, Kyle Walker, Greg Goode, and Linda Rogers are among the Indiana lawmakers that have been targeted with threats.  Even if Republicans get their way and a new congressional map is implemented in Indiana, some GOP lawmakers have raised concerns that the new congressional district lines will not guarantee that Republicans are able to pick up all nine House seats in next year’s elections. “In Indiana, redrawing our Congressional maps mid-cycle is not the best way for us to do that. Spreading out all of the Democrats in Lake and Marion counties across the rest of our districts will in no way guarantee a 9-0 map,” Republican State Sen. Blake Doriot said in a statement. “There are no well-established Republican candidates working those hypothetical districts—they haven’t walked a parade, haven’t raised a dollar, and there will likely first be a primary race before we even get to the General Election,” Doriot added. The post Trump Pressures Republicans as Indiana Mulls Redistricting appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Department of Education on Monday notified universities that they will be required to disclose foreign funding to the agency as is required by law. Higher education institutions will be required to use a new foreign funding reporting portal, set to launch on Jan. 2, to disclose foreign source gifts and contracts with a value of $250,000 or more, The Daily Signal can first report. “The Trump administration is launching a new state-of-the-art system for colleges and universities to more efficiently and securely report their foreign gifts and contracts as required under the law,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told The Daily Signal. “After years of neglect by the Biden administration, the new portal will assist our institutions of higher education in fulfilling their statutory responsibilities and enable us to protect our national security by facilitating improved compliance.”   The move is in line with Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires colleges and universities to biannually disclose foreign source gifts and contracts to the Department of Education. Institutions that don’t comply could face Department of Justice enforcement, including civil actions compelling compliance and recouping the full cost of enforcement.    “America’s taxpayer funded colleges and universities have both a moral and legal obligation to be fully transparent with the U.S. government and the American people about their foreign financial relationships,” McMahon said. “We are grateful to the many stakeholders for their feedback in designing this portal and look forward to vigorously protecting our educational institutions from potentially harmful foreign influence.” The current reporting portal has not been meaningfully updated since the first Trump administration, according to an agency official. The Biden administration did not prioritize enforcing Section 117 or monitoring potential foreign influence at American universities, the agency says. The new portal, a top priority for the Trump Education Department, has already undergone internal and external testing by universities, and it was designed based on years of comments and feedback from university filers. Nine universities, including the University of Texas at Austin, MD Anderson, the University of Texas Medical Branch, the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University, Purdue University, Indiana University, Washington University, and the University of Arizona, beta-tested the portal and provided feedback. The portal’s improved features include the ability to upload foreign funding disclosures in bulk rather than individually; executive summary visualizations to improve public transparency; and other tools for drafting, reviewing, and submitting reports to the department.  Trump’s April executive order, “Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities,” makes it a priority “to end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions and safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation.” The new reporting portal represents an “important step” to carry out the directive, according to the agency. A senior Department of Education official previously told The Daily Signal the agency would undertake more investigations into universities that fail to accurately disclose funding from foreign adversaries. Trump’s Department of Education has already launched investigations into Harvard, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania for what it says are untimely and inaccurate foreign financial disclosures, in violation of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. There’s only a 40% compliance rate with Section 117 among universities, the official said. Universities that are funded by foreign adversaries can allow that to influence their decision-making, according the official. Foreign governments use donations to get sought-after lab seats in Ivy League science, technology, engineering, and math programs. Universities funded by Middle Eastern adversaries have often been hesitant to condemn antisemitic, anti-Israel activity, the official said. The post Exclusive: Education Department Ramps up Pressure on Universities to Disclose Foreign Funding appeared first on The Daily Signal.

TSA is preparing to roll out a new method for travelers to confirm their identity if they do not have a Real ID or a passport. For a $45 fee, domestic air travelers can prove their identity ahead of scheduled travel through the TSA Confirm ID process.   Providing travelers who do not have a passport or Real ID with another option to confirm their identity is part of Transportation Security Administration’s “multilayered security approach,” a senior TSA official told press during a phone call Monday. The new option maintains TSA’s standards, the official said, and ensures the agency will keep “bad actors off the airplanes” and TSA knows the true identity of all passengers.   Beginning on Feb. 1, travelers who have yet to obtain a Real ID or another acceptable form of identification, can visit pay.gov or TSA.gov to use the new identification process. The Confirm ID application, according to TSA officials, will typically take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete, but could take up to 30 minutes.  TSA is encouraging travelers to complete the process ahead of time, but it can be done at the airport. TSA warns this could lead to travel delays for the individual. The $45 fee is nonrefundable even if the application is denied, or the traveler misses their flight.   Once a traveler completes the Confirm ID process, they can proceed to the TSA security checkpoint and present the agent with the receipt for the application. An approved Confirm ID is good for 10 days from the first day of travel.  TSA officials stressed that taxpayers will not be saddled with the cost of the new program, but expenses for operating and processing the new identification travel option will be covered by the $45 fee.   TSA is working with the airlines to help facilitate the new process and make travelers aware of the option ahead of the Feb. 1 implementation. The new identification system will remain in place indefinitely, according to senior TSA officials.   In May, TDS began enforcing the new Real ID policy. A Real ID is a traditional state driver’s license that meets new, higher standards of security. The physical card has a small gold star in the top right corner.   Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the U.S., the 9/11 Commission recommended the federal government raise security standards through identification cards. In 2005, Congress passed the REAL ID Act. More than three million people fly domestically in the U.S. every day, according to the Federal Aviation Commission. While about 94% of U.S. travelers are compliant with the new travel guidelines that took effect in the spring, senior TSA officials say they are working toward 100% compliance and hope the TSA Confirm ID process will remind more Americans to schedule time at the DMV to acquire their Real ID card.  Children under the age of 18 are not required to present an ID at the security checkpoint.   The post No Real ID? No Problem! TSA to Rollout Alternative Identity Verification Method for Air Travel appeared first on The Daily Signal.