A post shared on X claims that CNN only aired President Donald Trump’s July 13 Butler, PA rally live. Exactly!!! pic.twitter.com/mIVHjunonN — Fletch17 (@RealFletch17) March 20, 2025 Verdict: False CNN aired several other Trump rallies. Fact Check: Social media users are claiming that CNN only aired Trump’s July 13, 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. This implies […]

'Strongly approve'

'It wasn't a thing in this country at the founding'

'Concerned citizens'

News Doctor Who Reality Is in Danger in the Upcoming Season of Doctor Who The Doctor always takes the long way round. By Molly Templeton | Published on March 24, 2025 Image: BBC Comment 0 Share New Share Image: BBC The new season of Doctor Who (confusingly being referred to as the “second season,” but we can’t do anything about that) is coming our way in just a few weeks. Naturally, that means there’s a new trailer, which like the previous one focuses heavily on Varada Sethu’s character, Belinda Chandra—though when she finds out her new traveling companion is just called the Doctor, she says she’s the Nurse.  “Good team,” Ncuti Gatwa immediately replies. And they do seem like a good team! The trailer is essentially a more mellow remix of the previous look at the season: a little less adventuring, a little more feels, a Phil Collins song with lyrics that are way too on the nose. Belinda really wants to get home, but something seems to be awry with the TARDIS, which keeps not taking them to the right year. And in the future, no one’s even heard of Earth. Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday appears briefly, as does the creepy cartoon voiced by Alan Cumming, who turns our dynamic duo into cartoons too:  “I’m all flat!” Belinda says.  “And this waistline is impossible!” The BBC has also announced the episode titles, writers, and directors for this season: “The Robot Revolution” written by Russell T Davies, directed by Peter Hoar“Lux” written by Russell T Davies, directed by Amanda Brotchie“The Well” written by Russell T Davies & Sharma Angel Walfall, directed by Amanda Brotchie“Lucky Day” written by Pete McTighe, directed by Peter Hoar“The Story & the Engine” written by Inua Ellams, directed by Makalla McPherson“The Interstellar Song Contest” written by Juno Dawson, directed by Ben A. Williams“Wish World” written by Russell T Davies, directed by Alex Sanjiv Pillai“The Reality War” written by Russell T Davies, directed by Alex Sanjiv Pillai Some notable names on this list: writer Juno Dawson has written for Who-affiliated podcasts and is the author of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven and its sequels. Director Peter Hoar previously directed The Last of Us’ “Long, Long Time” and episodes of Altered Carbon and The Umbrella Academy. Amanda Brotchie’s resume includes episodes of Gentleman Jack and Renegade Nell, Alex Sanjiv Pillai returns to Who following last year’s Christmas episode, and Pete McTighe wrote two Who episodes in the Jodie Whittaker era. Doctor Who premieres April 12th on Disney Plus.[end-mark] The post Reality Is in Danger in the Upcoming Season of <i>Doctor Who</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Column SFF Bestiary Bringing Up Cryptids — Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend A classic Disney take on the Mokele-Mbembe By Judith Tarr | Published on March 24, 2025 Credit: Disney Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Disney Since I began writing about the Mokele-Mbembe, I’ve had multiple recommendations of Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. It’s a Disney vehicle, forty years old this year, and apparently a minor classic. It stars William Katt (renowned at the time for his thick curly hair and all-American cuteness), Sean Young, and a family of mechanical dinosaurs created and engineered by Isidoro Raponi and Roland Tantin. Although it predates the MonsterQuest investigation by twenty years, it touches on many of the same points. I wouldn’t be surprised if MonsterQuest knew the film and, in a way, made an homage to it. It seems to have captured the imagination of people who love feelgood monster movies. The plot is simple and fairly generic. Dinosaurs are alive in the African jungle. Scientists are hunting them, some with good intentions and some with bad, but both varieties set out to capture a specimen and subject it to the rigors of science. There are good native people and bad native people, and a fresh-faced young American couple caught in the middle of it all. With bonus and somewhat obsessively filmed naked and near-naked locals drumming and dancing in the city and in the jungle. We immediately know bad guy is bad as the opening credits roll past the dancing parade: he runs down and stabs a man in an alley and steals his collection of photos. The one we see depicts a dinosaur in water, with the distinctive long, curving neck and small head of a brontosaurus. Once the scene is set, we shift to our protagonists. George Loomis is an American sportswriter in Africa for six months with his wife Susan Mathews-Loomis, who is a paleontologist. She’s been working with the eminent Dr. Eric Kiviat, whom we recognize immediately as Bad Stabby Guy. Susan has found a most interesting bone, which she has identified as the cervical vertebra of a brontosaurus. What’s unusual about it is that it’s not a fossil. It’s much more recent. Eric and his minion Nigel gaslight her by telling her it’s not a dino bone, it came from a giraffe. She grudgingly accepts the eminent doctor’s decree, but we’ve heard him telling Nigel it’s the real deal and it’s only eighty years old. While George and Susan are on their way home to the States in time for George to start his new job at the Washington Post, Eric and Nigel are setting off for the remote jungle where the late photographer’s pictures were taken. They’re looking to capture a live specimen of a supposedly extinct species. Just as Susan is about to leave, Eric sends her to the lab to talk to a delegate from the Red Cross. He’s in a hurry to catch his dinosaur, and he’s fobbing off this last chore on his soon to be ex-assistant. That turns out to be a mistake on his part. Dr. Dubois has come to report a series of deaths in a remote village. His normal remit is cholera, but this is something else: food poisoning. The people of the village consume a diet that’s been unchanged for a thousand years, but something different has entered their food chain, and it’s killing them. He’s brought a sample of the animal they ate, a bone that he’s asking the bone doctor to identify. It’s identical to the “giraffe” bone that Susan is in the process of sneaking into her luggage. It’s brand new and still stained with blood. George and Susan have been having an argument. George wants kids. Lots of kids. Susan is like, no, forget it, have them yourself. (One wonders why they didn’t have this discussion before they got married. But I digress.) The one thing he thinks they’ve agreed on is that they’re leaving in the morning so he can be in his new office on Monday. They are not going to take a detour to investigate the situation in the village. He wakes up to a note on his pillow. Susan has left with Dr. Dubois. After some considerable drama, he manages to charter a plane piloted by the endlessly cheerful Kenge “No Problem!” Obe. When they reach the village, with George bitching and moaning the entire way, they find a funeral in progress, with five shrouded bodies and the Chief close to death in his house. Susan has been extracting the story of how villagers found a huge animal dead in the river and brought back its to meat to eat, and everyone who ate it has become sick and died or is about to die. With his dying breath and a nicely dramatic knife, he draws a picture of the animal in the dirt. It is, of course, a brontosaurus. (This is same thing MonsterQuest did with a book of animal pictures and a request to draw that witnesses saw. The knife and the dying man are Extra Movie Drama.) That’s it. Susan has to find what remains of the animal. George is only along for the ride, and sulking mightily about it. She wants—needs—to do something big and spectacular with her career. This will more than do it.    They charter Kenge’s plane to the site where the animal was found, but it’s gone. Kenge leaves them there for two days with set of comms equipment (no cell phones in 1985) and a very reluctant native guide. As soon as the plane takes off, so does the guide, but he leaves them with a rubber raft and a few supplies. They blithely set off along the track of something enormous that’s leveled a swath of jungle. This is squeaky-clean jungle. No insects, snakes, or dangerous predators apart from humans, just occasional picturesque wildlife: monkeys and lizards, mainly, and a native tribe that appears to have had no contact with the West. After a lengthy interlude with naked and near-naked hunters and dancers, during which Susan makes friends with the women and children by taking Polaroid portraits and George engages in a session of mutual “Look, I’m trying to like your food, but eeuuww” with Cephu, the chief, Susan shows them her book with the drawing of the brontosaurus—and the tribe evaporates. Vanishes. Gone, leaving the Americans alone with the fires still burning. And a weird moaning in the jungle. We’re about to get to the point of the whole film. It’s a family, Disney style: mom and dad brontosaurus, and tiny adorable baby. The parents are small for sauropods but huge compared to the humans. Baby is about the size of a pony. Meanwhile, we’ve been following a second expedition. Eric and Nigel have acquired a noisy and barely controllable military escort. They find the bronto family shortly after George and Susan. The escort shoots and kills the dad, and Nigel darts the mom. Baby is safe with Susan, who has lured her with fruit and more or less tamed her. The rest of the film is all about rescuing the mom, trying to keep Baby safe, and Susan having to make a choice between turning Baby into a science experiment (and setting up her career for life) or letting her be free. Since this is Disney, we know how it will end. Raponi and Tantin’s dinosaurs are an impressive feat of engineering. They’re Mokele-Mbembe-sized, probably thirtyish feet (10 meters), with elephant-like smooth skin, black rather than elephant grey, and big green eyes with catlike vertical pupils. They make a number of noises, including rumbling, moaning, and whining. Their feet are round, wrinkled on the bottom, and have four claws, which doesn’t quite fit either the Mokele-Mbembe or what we know of sauropods, but may have been an engineering decision. Although they appear to be mainly fruit-eaters, they will chew up an evil scientist if he threatens their baby. They’re very expressive and seem to be intelligent. Baby is doglike in her attitude, happy to follow the humans who feed her and determined to find her mother after the bad guys take her away. They’re friendly monsters, only lethal if threatened or if eaten as roadkill. Whether there are more of them, we don’t know. Susan notes that the family are far south of where they’ve historically been reported. We don’t know how they got there or why. Food scarcity? Habitat destruction? Nor do we know where mom and baby go after they’re rescued from the bad guys. Off into the jungle, but whether they’re continuing to move on or if they’re going back home, we aren’t told. The focus is on the humans who make the choice. We can assume that George and Susan went back to the States, George started his new job, and Susan did—something. More paleontology? Making babies? A combination of both? They can’t ever tell anyone what they found in the jungle. That’s going to be hard for Susan, but I’m sure she’ll find ways to adapt what she knows for sure about dinosaurs to the fossils she officially studies. After all, even the evil and patronizing Eric concedes that she’s a brilliant scientist.[end-mark] The post Bringing Up Cryptids — <i>Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Amidst President Donald Trump’s comments about acquiring Greenland, Second Lady Usha Vance plans to visit the country on Thursday with one of her sons and a United States delegation. Vance will spend Thursday, March 27, to Sunday, March 30, in Greenland to “visit historical sites, learn about Greenlandic heritage, and attend the Avannaata Qimussersu, Greenland’s national dogsled race,” according to a news release from the vice president’s office. “Ms. Vance and the delegation are excited to witness this monumental race and celebrate Greenlandic culture and unity,” the statement says. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are also expected to visit the U.S. military base in Greenland for briefings from U.S. personnel, reports say. The trips follow Trump’s statements about annexing Greenland due to its strategic location and rich mineral resources. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., toured the island prior to his father’s January inauguration. Greenland’s outgoing Prime Minister, Mute Egede, described the visits from Vance, Waltz, and Wright as  “highly aggressive,” adding that the Americans were not invited for meetings. Greenland’s likely incoming leader, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, accused the U.S. of showing a lack of respect through the visits. The Kingdom of Denmark, which currently owns Greenland, has been clear the island is not for sale. This is not Vance’s first overseas trip since her husband became vice president. The lawyer and mother of three has already visited India, Italy, and Paris. Vance is a civil litigator who has clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was then on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Vice presidential spouses have a long history of official foreign trips. Former second lady Karen Pence hosted a tree planting ceremony at the Espaco Israel Pinheiro in Brazil. Other foreign trips included Tallinn, Estonia; Tbilisi, Georgia; and Podgorica, Montenegro. Former second gentleman Doug Emhoff traveled to the capital of Samoa, Apia. As second lady, Jill Biden traveled to nearly forty countries. The post Second Lady to Visit Potential Future US Territory Amidst Annexation Controversy appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will visit El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center on Wednesday, just over a week after the U.S. transferred hundreds of illegal aliens to the prison, Fox News first reported.   Noem will tour the detention center with Salvadoran Minister of Justice Héctor Gustavo Villatoro and will later meet with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.   The trip “underscores the importance of our partner countries to help remove violent criminal illegal aliens from the United States,” Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary for Public Affairs, told Fox News Digital on Sunday.   According to the Trump administration, the more than 250 illegal aliens deported to the prison in El Salvador are members of the violent Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua.   “President [Donald] Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message for criminal aliens considering entering America illegally: don’t even think about it,” McLaughlin told Fox. “If you come to our country and break our laws, we will hunt you down, and lock you up.”  In addition to her visit to El Salvador, Noem will also stop in Colombia on Thursday to meet with President Gustavo Petro and the Colombian National Police. On Friday, Noem will make her final stop in Mexico to meet with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.  Noem’s trip to Latin America comes as the Trump administration continues aggressive deportation efforts focused on the arrest and removal of criminal illegal aliens.   On Friday, DHS announced the arrest of 68 Tren de Aragua gang members in less than a week.  Trump has designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization, allowing the government to access additional resources to find, arrest, and deport the gang members.   “Tren de Aragua is a terrorist organization whose members are rapists, drug traffickers, and murderers,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement Friday. “We will continue to make sure these dirtbags are removed from America’s streets and face justice.”  While the Trump administration’s focus remains on the deportation of criminal illegal aliens, DHS is encouraging all illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. to self-deport. In mid-March, DHS launched an international ad campaign warning migrants to stay out of the U.S., and encouraging illegal aliens to leave the U.S.   “Trump has a clear message: if you are here illegally, we will find you and deport you. You will never return,” Noem says.   DHS has launched a mobile app called CBP Home to help illegal immigrants leave the country in an orderly manner. Noem tells illegal immigrants, “if you leave now, you may have an opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American dream.”  The post DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to Visit El Salvador Prison Holding Deported Illegal Aliens appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A wave of account suspensions on X has drawn criticism as Turkey faces intensifying anti-government protests. Many of the affected users are affiliated with opposition movements, especially those mobilizing around universities and sharing protest information. These bans emerged in the wake of a politically explosive arrest: Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, President Erdoğan’s chief rival, was detained shortly before his official nomination as the presidential candidate for the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). The arrest triggered immediate and widespread demonstrations across major Turkish cities. Though Turkish authorities responded with a ban on public gatherings, unrest has continued unabated. Now, the digital sphere is facing its own crackdown. Numerous grassroots organizers report being locked out of their X accounts — an alarming development on a platform whose billionaire owner claims to champion free speech above all else. Yusuf Can, a Middle East analyst at the Wilson Center, described the majority of these suspensions as targeting “university-associated activist accounts, basically sharing protest information, locations for students to go.” According to him, these aren’t major influencers but “grassroots activists” with relatively small followings. While some accounts have been completely removed, others appear to be only hidden from Turkish users—raising suspicions of region-specific censorship. What the accounts look like in Turkey. The Turkish government, meanwhile, has been actively pursuing what it calls “incitement” online. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced the identification of 326 social media accounts allegedly spreading “hatred.” Turkey’s legal framework enables this kind of digital suppression. A controversial 2022 law allows authorities broad latitude to block content and suspend users. While such takedowns may technically adhere to local laws, critics argue the legislation itself is designed to silence dissent. While X is complying with the government censorship orders, in a statement the company did say that it objects to the orders from the Turkish Information and Communication Technologies Authority to “block over 700 accounts of news organizations, journalists, political figures, students, and others within Türkiye.” The company added that, “Providing a platform committed to defending everyone’s right to free speech is paramount at X, and we believe this decision from the Turkish government is not only unlawful, it hinders millions of Turkish users from news and political discourse in their country.” The company also said that it looks forward to defending these principles through the legal system. This isn’t the first time Musk’s platform has cooperated with Erdoğan’s government. In 2023, during a heated election season, X restricted access to certain content in Turkey, citing the need to “ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey,” according to the company’s official government affairs account. Musk defended the move by saying, “the choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post X Suspends Opposition Accounts Amid Protests Over Istanbul Mayor İmamoğlu’s Arrest in Turkey appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Australian Universities in Crisis Mode After US Budget Cuts?