'You have carved out an all-white, whites-only enclave'

'There will be no exceptions'

Books Murderbot Read a New Murderbot Story for Free, Right After the Season Finale The new novelette will be released on Reactor immediately following the final episode of AppleTV+’s Murderbot By Reactor | Published on July 7, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re excited to reveal a brand new Murderbot universe novelette by series author Martha Wells—and you can read it here for free immediately after the season finale airs on AppleTV+! The new novelette “Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” will go live here on Reactor at 10:00 PM ET on Thursday, July 10th. It can be read as a standalone story for anyone who has finished Artificial Condition, the second book in The Murderbot Diaries. In “Rapport” we catch up with Peri (short for Perihelion) and learn a bit more about what this galaxy does to people and the machine intelligences that have to deal with them…. Here’s a sneak peek! Peri’s anger was made of ice and steel, but it thought at speeds that a human mind couldn’t match, in multiple directions at once. It was incapable of acting on impulse, in conversation or in any other way. This wasn’t even you getting annoyed. With just a hint of amusement in its tone, Peri said, What gave me away? Iris let out a breath. The admission was a good first step. You don’t jump to wrong conclusions like a human. It said, I’ll have to work on that. Iris winced. It would, too. Remind me not to critique your performance again. I value your input, Iris. Iris absently started to pace. She was too tired and jumpy to play this game right now. Is it something you can tell me at some point? It’s just that I’m worried about you. And I think I’m not the only one. Our dads have noticed, too. She hesitated, then tried to lighten the mood. You aren’t evolving into a new being, or something, are you? It was an in-joke for their department, that there were always popular press articles about advanced MIs transcending their programming and becoming gods. Peri usually liked the joke, because it gave it a chance to be mean about stupid people. This time, it said, Iris, did you sustain damage to your neural tissue? She let out her breath. Come on, that’s your favorite joke. You’re really scaring me now. What’s wrong? Did something happen? Peri was silent for six whole seconds. Then it said, Explaining would in effect be violating a confidence. Want more Murderbot while you wait? Check out “Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory” — a Murderbot short story set after the events of Exit Strategy! The post Read a New Murderbot Story for Free, Right After the Season Finale appeared first on Reactor.

Column SFF Bestiary When Orcas Strike Back In 2020, something strange started happening off the coast of Spain… By Judith Tarr | Published on July 7, 2025 Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen [via Unsplash] In 2020, something strange started happening off the coast of Spain. Orcas were attacking boats and in some cases sinking them. Most of the boats were sailing yachts, 30 to 50 feet (9 to 15 meters) long, and the orcas tended to aim for the rudders, though they were also chasing after boats and ramming them. These attacks have continued for years and run up in the hundreds. They’ve occurred as far south as the northern coast of Africa and as far north as the Shetland Islands. They’re still happening. What is going on here? In spite of their nickname, killer whales, and their role as apex predators who can take down a great white shark, no wild orca has ever been recorded attacking, let alone killing a human. One speculation, that they’re taking revenge on humans for damaging their environment, doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If that’s what they’re doing, why aren’t they going for the humans instead of their boats? Orca experts have a couple of theories. They’ve identified three pods that have been going after boats, the largest of which is led by the matriarch Gladis Lamari. These orcas’ territory is centered around Gibraltar and up toward the Bay of Biscay. One possibility is that the matriarch was in labor and in pain, and a yacht just happened to be there when she needed to take it out on something. Which is fine as a one-off, but how did it blow up into hundreds of attacks, multiple attackers, and no apparent end in sight? Orcas learn by observation. If one does something, the others will imitate her. That still doesn’t explain why ramming boats and breaking rudders became a years-long habit, game, crusade, whatever it is. Maybe it is a game. Many of the perpetrators appear to be on the younger side. Are the teenagers wilding? Is it an initiation rite? A hazing ritual? A contest? Are they going after rudders as part of the game, because they’re these mobile objects sticking out of the bottom of the boats and offering a convenient target? Orcas are highly intelligent and extremely social. We’ve discovered that they use tools. A population of orcas on the other side of the world from Gibraltar, the Southern Resident orcas of the Pacific Northwest in the Salish Sea, have been observed using stalks of bull kelp to massage one another’s skin. They play games with kelp, too, draping it over their heads and playing keep-away with fronds, but this kicks it up a notch. An orca will insert the stalk between itself and a podmate of any age or gender and wiggle and rub back and forth. They seem to be using it to exfoliate. Tool use is one of the indicators of high intelligence. There’s something else, too, that’s catching the attention of orca experts, and it’s maybe the most remarkable thing we’ve seen. Over the past couple of decades, orcas have been known to offer food to humans. It’s not restricted to a single pod or regional population. It’s happened all over the world. Orcas will approach a human in the water or in a boat or even on the shore, and offer a piece of fish. If the human refuses, they may repeat the offer. It’s not accidental. It’s clearly intentional. Is it altruism? Attempt to communicate? Manipulation of some sort—trying to train the human? Are orcas trying to make some sort of connection? Orcas share food with each other within their pods. It may be they’re trying to invite humans into their world or their culture. Maybe it’s a peace offering. A form of diplomacy. An experiment—to see what the weird little land animal will do next. Maybe the attacks on boats aren’t attacks. Maybe they’re attempts to communicate. They may be trying to get the boats to join in a race or a game of tag. Orcas will grab each other’s fins with their teeth; if one of them is sick or injured, they’ll pull her up to the surface and support her there, and keep her from sinking back down. Maybe they’re grabbing rudders to try to get the boats’ attention. What it’s not reading as, to experts who understand orcas (as far as humans can at this point), is hostility. The boats may be doing something that sets the orcas off, either in play or in some form of annoyance or frustration, and it’s probably become a fad of sorts to chase and ram them, but it’s not about the humans. They’re not out to get revenge on the species that’s burning up the planet. In fact, when they do interact directly, it seems they come in peace, and bearing gifts.[end-mark] The post When Orcas Strike Back appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. As Canada’s government hints at reviving its shelved Online Harms Bill, concerns are mounting that this could signal a renewed assault on free speech. The legislation, once known as Bill C-63, had been left behind when Parliament was prorogued earlier this year. Now, under Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Liberals appear ready to give their controversial plan another try, leaving civil liberties groups on high alert. The Democracy Fund (TDF), a leading voice in the fight for free expression, has been quick to sound the alarm. Mark Joseph, TDF’s litigation director, argues that no sweeping new regime is necessary. “There are laws in place that the government can, and does, use to address most of the bad conduct that the Bill ostensibly targeted,” he pointed out. In Joseph’s view, any genuine gaps in the Criminal Code could be addressed with targeted amendments, rather than broad measures that risk suffocating debate. “The previous Bill C-63 sought to implement a regime of mass censorship,” he warned, adding that TDF remains determined to resist efforts to criminalize speech and punish lawful debate. The government, for its part, insists it is simply reassessing its approach. Justice Minister Sean Fraser has described the current review as a “fresh look” at how best to address online harms. But for those who value open dialogue, such language offers little comfort, raising fears of government overreach cloaked in promises of safety. Fraser has acknowledged that fast-evolving technologies, such as artificial intelligence, are reshaping both the online world and the policy challenges that come with it. “We will have that in mind as we revisit the specifics of online harms legislation,” he said. Despite this, the details of what Ottawa intends remain unclear. Fraser noted that no decision has been made on whether to reintroduce the original legislation, revise it, or break it into separate bills. In their campaign promises, the Liberals had committed to making the spread of non-consensual deepfakes a criminal offense and pledged to give law enforcement stronger tools to combat this content. Earlier versions of the bill drew sharp opposition due to provisions that would have compelled platforms to delete content within 24 hours of it being flagged, a requirement seen by many as incompatible with the basic tenets of free speech. Although later drafts tried to narrow the scope of these takedown demands to cover intimate images and content involving the sexual victimization of children, concerns persisted. The bill also sought to amend the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act to tackle so-called hate speech, sparking fears that such changes would chill lawful expression. Fraser has indicated that discussions with other ministers, including Steven Guilbeault and Evan Solomon, will shape the next steps. Whether the government chooses to package online harms measures within a single bill or separate them remains undecided. He suggested that some elements could be folded into a broader crime bill expected this fall. Central to the original legislation was a provision that would have empowered authorities to impose house arrest and internet-cutoffs on individuals, not for crimes they had committed, but based on fears of what they might do in the future. In what critics saw as an alarming overreach, Canadians could also have been forced to wear electronic monitoring devices under these preemptive restrictions. Then-Justice Minister and Attorney General Arif Virani defended this approach, describing it as a tool for safeguarding the public. “(If) there’s a genuine fear of an escalation, then an individual or group could come forward and seek a peace bond against them and to prevent them from doing certain things,” Virani explained. He suggested that such measures could keep people away from places like synagogues or mosques, or limit their internet access and other forms of conduct. According to Virani, this would contribute to deradicalizing individuals exposed to harmful ideas online who might later commit violent acts. “That would help to deradicalize people who are learning things online and acting out in the real world violently, sometimes fatally,” he said. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Canada Eyes Revival of Online Censorship Bill appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Behold the Power of Independent Media: NYT Rushed Mamdani Scoop to Beat Rufo

The devastating floods in Kerr County, Texas were breaking news on Sunday morning, and with it came desperate spin that somehow the human lives lost in the flood could be blamed on Trump budget cuts. On ABC’s This Week, former Democrat press secretary George Stephanopoulos launched into the claim of “staffing shortfalls” in National Weather Service offices in Texas: STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Mireya, we're also learning that there were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Service’s offices in the region. MIRAYA VILLARREAL: You know, George, as of right now, the local county officials really didn't want to address that just yet. What they are telling us is they expected between four and six inches of rain. That is what weather experts told them. The National Weather Service as well. They also knew that in remote locations, they might get anywhere from eight to ten inches. But this amount of rain, in such a short amount of time, it was very difficult to navigate. And when the Department of Homeland Security Secretary was here just yesterday, she acknowledged this was an issue. She was going to take these concerns to the White House as well and try and see if there was anything they could do to revamp the system. She says the president is committed to it. George wasn't paying any attention to the Associated Press account, which said the NWS had extra staff on the ground, according to local meteorologist Jason Runyen:  The National Weather Service office in New Braunfels, which delivers forecasts for Austin, San Antonio and the surrounding areas, had extra staff on duty during the storms, Runyen said. Where the office would typically have two forecasters on duty during clear weather, they had up to five on staff. “There were extra people in here that night, and that’s typical in every weather service office — you staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over,” Runyen said. On CNN’s State of the Union, host Dana Bash relied on a “director of the NWS union” for her claims, as if a union officials was totally objective about federal job cuts: BASH: And just talking about the federal government and even the local government, two Texas National Weather Service offices involved in forecasting and warning about flooding on the Guadalupe River are missing some key staff members. A director of the NWS union told CNN that the Austin, San Antonio, office is missing a warning coordination meteorologist due to the Trump administration's buyouts. Do you have any indication whether those or other cuts helped play a role in the fact that the people in the flood zone were not prepared and certainly not evacuated? REP JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): No, I can't say that conclusively. As the Maze Moore X account pointed out, last October, Bash was furiously spinning the other way after Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. Any spin against the Democrats was "raw politics, and dangerous politics." Lara Trump came on the show to blame Biden-Harris FEMA money going to illegal aliens. How dare Lara spread "misinformation"! 

Could the rules behind your car’s fuel economy be hiding a big secret? Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says Biden-era fuel economy standards were illegal, and he’s rolling them back. This move could lower car prices and give you more options. But what does it mean for your wallet and your drive?Biden’s rules, Duffy argues, assumed massive EV growth, inflating fleet efficiency targets and effectively mandating more EVs.The Trump administration is shaking up the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, which set miles-per-gallon targets for automakers. In June 2025, Duffy announced that Biden’s rules requiring an average of 50 mpg for light-duty vehicles by 2031 were illegal. Those standards, finalized in 2024, demanded 2% annual efficiency gains for cars starting in 2027 and light trucks in 2029, banking on a surge in electric vehicle sales. Duffy’s new interpretive rule, “Resetting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program,” doesn’t change standards yet but empowers the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to revise them soon. It argues that Biden’s team violated federal law by factoring EVs into CAFE calculations, something banned under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.Adding fuel to the fire, Senate Republicans proposed scrapping fines for automakers missing CAFE targets with gas-powered vehicles, part of a June 2025 tax bill. These moves aim to ease burdens on carmakers and shift away from EV-heavy policies, but they’re sparking fierce arguments about cost, choice, and environmental impact.Why ‘illegal’?At the heart of Duffy’s claim is how Biden’s CAFE standards were set. Federal law requires NHTSA to establish “maximum feasible” mpg goals for gas-powered vehicles, weighing technology, cost, and energy savings. But it explicitly prohibits counting EVs — classified as “dedicated alternative fuel vehicles” — in these calculations. Biden’s rules, Duffy argues, assumed massive EV growth, inflating fleet efficiency targets and effectively mandating more EVs. This raised costs for automakers, who had to invest heavily in electric models or face hefty fines.Supported by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, Duffy says this approach broke statutory limits, making the standards unlawful. Major automakers like GM, Ford, and Stellantis agree, arguing that Biden’s targets were unrealistic and forced them to prioritize EVs over popular gas-powered SUVs and trucks. The Trump administration claims resetting CAFE will cut manufacturing costs, make cars more affordable, and let you choose what you drive, whether it’s gas, hybrid, or electric.Inside Biden’s ambitious planTo grasp the rollback, consider what Biden’s rules demanded. Set in June 2024, they aimed for 50.4 mpg for light-duty vehicles by 2031, saving 64 billion gallons of gas and cutting 659 million metric tons of emissions by 2050. Heavy-duty pickups and vans faced tougher goals, with 10% yearly efficiency jumps from 2030 to 2032. These standards were part of a push to halve vehicle emissions by 2032, with EVs expected to dominate new car sales.Biden’s team argued the rules would save drivers about $600 per vehicle in fuel costs over its lifetime, reduce dependence on foreign oil, and fight climate change. Environmental groups like the Environmental Defense Fund cheered, citing cleaner air and energy security. But automakers weren’t convinced, citing sky-high compliance costs and a market where EVs, despite heavy investment, remain pricier and less popular than gas vehicles. A credit-trading system let EV makers like Tesla sell excess credits to others, earning billions but adding costs for traditional carmakers, who called it unfair. Duffy’s rule challenges this system, aiming for a fairer market.How this affects youThis isn’t just a policy debate — it impacts your next car purchase. Duffy says scrapping Biden’s rules will lower production costs, letting automakers offer cheaper vehicles, especially affordable models for families and small businesses. High CAFE standards drove up prices by requiring costly tech like turbochargers or hybrids. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation suggests this could revive entry-level cars. However, less efficient vehicles could mean bigger fuel bills, potentially wiping out savings.The rollback could also expand your choices. Strict standards pushed carmakers toward EVs, sidelining gas-powered SUVs and trucks that lead U.S. sales. Looser rules might bring more variety, including heavier, safer designs, as data shows these fare better in crashes. But environmentalists like Katherine Garcia of the Sierra Club warn this could limit clean vehicle options, frustrating eco-conscious buyers. Older, less efficient cars — more common if prices drop — may also pose safety risks, creating a complex trade-off.Biden’s rules promised major cuts in emissions, but in some cases they could actually stall progress. In coal-heavy regions like the Midwest, EVs aren’t always cleaner than efficient gas vehicles. Curious? The EPA’s Beyond Tailpipe Emissions Calculator shows how your local grid affects EV emissions — it’s worth a look.Policy meets politicsThis fight goes beyond mpg — it’s a battle of priorities. Biden used CAFE to speed up EV adoption, tying it to climate goals and the Inflation Reduction Act’s EV subsidies. Trump, backed by automakers and oil interests, sees it as government overreach. His January 2025 executive orders “Unleashing American Energy” and “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions” directed agencies to ditch EV mandates and boost fossil fuels.The timing adds intrigue. Duffy’s rule landed amid a public clash between Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with Trump suggesting that Musk opposed a budget bill cutting EV tax credits. Musk pushed back, but it highlights tensions as EV policies unravel. The EPA, now led by Lee Zeldin, is also rethinking emissions rules and California’s 2035 gas car ban, signaling a wider retreat from green policies.Environmentalists are alarmed. Garcia warns that weaker standards will raise fuel costs, increase pollution, and harm health. Automakers, however, see relief after struggling with EV investments and sluggish sales. Stellantis, for instance, delayed its electric Ram pickup and doubled down on gas models post-election, reflecting the industry’s shift.What's next?Duffy’s rule is a starting point. NHTSA will soon propose new standards, likely easing mpg targets and excluding EVs. Senate plans to eliminate fines could further relax enforcement, giving carmakers room to breathe. But legal battles are brewing — environmental groups may sue, arguing that NHTSA must set “maximum feasible” standards. California’s tougher rules could also trigger a federal-state clash.For now, the rollback aligns with Trump’s promise of affordability and choice. Whether it delivers cheaper cars or dirtier air depends on NHTSA’s next steps and consumer response. Fuel economy standards, born during the 1970s oil crisis, remain a flashpoint for energy, economics, and the environment.Why you should careThis story hits your driveway, your budget, and the world you live in. Biden’s CAFE rules aimed high but, per Duffy, broke the law by banking on EVs. The Trump rollback could make cars cheaper and give you more options, but it risks higher fuel costs and emissions. Stay tuned for NHTSA’s next moves and tell policymakers what matters to you. Whether you love gas, lean electric, or ride hybrid, you deserve rules that balance cost, choice, and a cleaner future.

YAAAS! Eric Swalwell's Fake 'Oh, You SURPRISED Me With That Question' Videos May Soon Get EXPOSED and LOL

BREAKING: LEO Sources Report Active Shooter with Rifle and Tactical Gear Ambushed Border Patrol Agents