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Books publishing news Revealing This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews The start of a new epic fantasy series — arriving March 2026! By Reactor | Published on July 8, 2025 Photo credit: Helen Gordon Comment 0 Share New Share Photo credit: Helen Gordon We’re thrilled to share the cover of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, the start of a new epic fantasy series from Ilona Andrews—available March 31, 2026 from Tor Books. When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy, and naked in a gutter, it doesn’t take her long to recognize Kair Toren, a city she knows intimately from the pages of the famously unfinished dark fantasy series she’s been obsessively reading and re-reading while waiting years for the final novel.Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic, and mayhem? Her encyclopedic knowledge of the plot, the setting, and the characters’ ambitions and fates. But while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters she’s coming to love—a motley band that includes a former lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures, and a dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes—and attentions—of dueling princes, dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the way she knows their stories will end: in a cataclysmic war.For fans of Samantha Shannon, Danielle L. Jensen, Sarah J. Maas, and isekai and portal fantasy, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is the beginning of the most epic adventure yet from genre powerhouse author duo Ilona Andrews. Cover art and design by Andrew Davis Buy the Book This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me Ilona Andrews Book 1 of Maggie the Undying Buy Book This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me Ilona Andrews Book 1 of Maggie the Undying Book 1 of Maggie the Undying Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Ilona Andrews is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team. Ilona is a native-born Russian and Gordon is a former communications sergeant in the U.S. Army. Contrary to popular belief, Gordon was never an intelligence officer with a license to kill, and Ilona was never the mysterious Russian spy who seduced him. They met in college, in English Composition 101, where Ilona got a better grade. (Gordon is still sore about that.) Gordon and Ilona currently reside in Texas with their two children and many dogs and cats. They have co-authored several bestselling series, including the #1 New York Times bestselling urban fantasy of Kate Daniels, rustic fantasy of the Edge, paranormal romance of Hidden Legacy, and weekly serial Innkeeper Chronicles. For a complete list of their books, fun extras, and Innkeeper installments, please visit their website. The post Revealing <i>This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me</i> by Ilona Andrews appeared first on Reactor.

Today’s higher education accreditors let colleges and universities get away with mediocrity: low graduation rates, highly negative return on investment, and activism that looks little like scholarship. Accreditors are meant to vouch for college quality and to recommend improvements—but they rarely hold institutions accountable for such travesties as a four-year graduation rate under 15 percent, a negative ROI in six figures, and pervasive antisemitism. Instead, they often require “diversity” practices that bleed into illegal discrimination. Fortunately, university systems in six states have formed a new accreditor to focus on “academic excellence” and “student outcomes.” The new entity, the Commission for Public Higher Education, is a product of efforts led by the State University System of Florida and state systems in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas. (Texas has multiple state systems—the partner here is the Texas A&M University System.) It joins a small number of new accreditors bringing competition and innovation to higher education accreditation. Today, accreditation is one of the core elements of quality assurance enabling a college to operate in a state (with few exceptions) and to participate in government programs like student loans. That shouldn’t be the case. Decoupling accreditation from financial aid would benefit students, empower states, and let accreditors refocus on quality improvement. The HERO Act, as Heritage’s Lindsey Burke wrote when it was proposed, would do this by allowing “states to establish flexible accreditation models that would infuse a level of customization in higher education [because it] would empower states to allow any entity to credential courses.” The act also would give students “the flexibility to use their federal aid for specific courses, rather than aid being conditioned on a student attending a degree-terminal institution.” The act was originally proposed in 2014 by then-Rep. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Mike Lee. For now, however, since institutional accreditation remains the only route to federal financial aid, attention has focused on reform of existing accreditors and accreditation rules on the one hand and on the creation of new accreditors on the other. President Trump’s executive order on accreditation in April 2025 outlined “new principles” for a “student-oriented” accreditation system. Meanwhile, the six state systems have been developing the new consortium. It’s notable that public universities in all six states have traditionally been accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, known as SACSCOC or SACS. Time and time again, SACS has interfered in university governance. North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Virginia (which is not yet in the consortium) all suffered at the hands of SACS overreach. But the era of regional monopolies in accreditation has come to an end. In the first Trump administration, new regulations permitted “regional” accreditors to work anywhere in the country. From the federal point of view, they all became national accreditors. That change enabled Florida and North Carolina to mandate that public institutions change their accreditor when the time came for reaccreditation. The increase in competition for accreditation is a welcome change—one that could enable universities to specialize in student outcomes rather than on inputs like the number of books in the library. Soon, the Commission for Public Higher Education will be one of the new options. But CPHE must be recognized by the U.S. Department of Education before students from its accredited colleges can get federal financial aid. What is more, states generally require that a college be accredited by a federally recognized accreditor to be authorized to operate in their states. That means institutions will need to spend a couple of years “double accredited,” with their current accreditor considered primary and CPHE considered secondary. Under current rules, CPHE must demonstrate two years of experience before it can be officially recognized by the Education Department. Then, institutions can drop their previous accreditor in favor of CPHE. However, the two-year rule does not appear in the Higher Education Act but in the Education Department’s regulations. That means the department can and should reconsider the rule. One year of experience may be enough, particularly in a case where existing state systems with extensive, relevant assessment experience are responsible. In Trump’s April executive order, he required the department to “resume recognizing new accreditors to increase competition and accountability in promoting high-quality, high-value academic programs focused on student outcomes.” The department has good reason to quickly commence and conclude rulemaking so that CPHE will be recognized before the end of Trump’s current term. At the same time, CPHE needs to act quickly to be ready to accredit, and it should start providing accreditation as soon as possible. After all, the two-year rule might not change, and a 2029 Democrat administration could renew the Biden administration’s antagonism toward accreditation reform. Taxpayers should be grateful for these reforms, but they should also be clear-eyed about what accountability for student outcomes means. Institutions that have low graduation rates or whose programs produce poor financial outcomes will no longer get a pass they don’t deserve. If CPHE does its job, large amounts of resources wasted by appropriators and students will be curtailed—but citizens may have to accept that their favorite local football team may no longer be able to operate if its attached college isn’t performing or reforming. CPHE initiates a new era of choice and accountability for colleges in the southeast—an era free from political activism. This is a chance to refocus many of America’s public universities on education instead of indoctrination. Let’s hope the standards stay high and more states join the consortium. The post University Systems Create Accreditor Focused on Merit and Outcomes appeared first on The Daily Signal.

USAID Staffers Plot Insurrection and Brag About It

'Superman' Reboot to Zegler: Hold My Kryptonite

What new methods can be developed in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence? This is what a recent white paper hopes to address as a pair of researchers from the Breakthrough Listen project and Michigan State University discussed how high-energy astronomy could be used for identifying radio signals from an extraterrestrial technological civilization, also called technosignatures. This study has the potential to help SETI and other organizations develop novel techniques for finding intelligent life beyond Earth, Universe Today reports. For the white paper, the researchers evaluated why high-energy astronomy, which involves celestial objects emitting cosmic rays, gamma rays, and X-rays, could be used by SETI for identifying technosignatures, noting how its use has grown in recent years. Additionally, they discussed the potential sources of high-energy emissions, including neutrinos, X-rays, cosmic rays, gamma rays, pulsar wind nebulae, neutron stars, black holes, solar flares, and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Regarding how this contributes to specifically identifying technosignatures, the researchers note how high-energy signals could be indicative of a form of communication, industry, and habitat. For communication, high-energy signals could be indicative of a technosignature since high-energy signals are often needed to send large amounts of data. For industry, high-energy signals could be indicative of specific activities, including rockets, reactors, nuclear energy, accelerators, or even Dyson spheres and star engines, with the last two being far beyond Earth’s technological capabilities. For habitat, high-energy signals could be indicative of life on the surface of neutron stars that survive from nuclear energy and the radiation that neutron stars emit. Finally, the researchers discussed next steps for integrating high-energy astronomy into SETI, including using machine learning, searching X-ray images, neutrino bursts, and gamma-ray observations. The study notes, “High-energy SETI by and large must be a commensal effort for the foreseeable future. Dedicated programs will only be feasible after much further investigation. At this stage, our efforts will be like those of the early radio and optical SETI pioneers who developed methods and infrastructure that took decades to grow into the robust subfield it is today. An even more basic reason for commensal studies is the difficulty in building optics for some kinds of radiation. Because we cannot make neutrino lenses, every neutrino detector is sensitive to large sky areas, making it a commensal SETI facility.” The driving force behind SETI is the SETI Institute, which was founded in 1984 with the goal of scanning the heavens for signals that could indicate intelligent life beyond Earth. While no definitive signals have been identified, arguably the closest humanity has come to receiving a signal from another world that occurred seven years before the SETI Institute was founded. This was quickly known as the Wow! Signal, which was a radio signal that lasted over one minute and was received by the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University. This signal was so powerful that the discovering astronomy intern, Jerry Ehman, wrote the word “Wow!” across the data readout. Despite repeated attempts, the astronomers at Big Ear were unable to identify the same signal again, and a signal of this strength and length has yet to be identified since then. As the search for technosignatures continues, this white paper demonstrates how SETI could enhance and adapt its techniques for identifying intelligent life beyond Earth, specifically using methods that perhaps once seemed unnecessary or unreliable. Since traditional techniques of searching for radio signals on specific frequencies have shown zero results, perhaps high-energy astronomy could open the door for helping astronomers better understand the universe aside from searching for technosignatures. How will high-energy astrophysics help astronomers identify technosignatures in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! The post Exploring Alien Civilizations Through High-Energy Emissions appeared first on Anomalien.com.

President Donald Trump joined a long line of presidents who complained that the NATO countries fail to pay their fair share and therefore take advantage of the United States. In 2014, the European NATO countries agreed to a target of spending 2% of their GDP on defense by 2024. In 2014, only the United States, the U.K. and Greece were spending at least 2%. In a recent interview, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said just 23 of NATO’s 32 countries met the 2024 target of 2%. President Barack Obama complained. In March 2014, the AP reported, “President Barack Obama says he’s concerned that some NATO allies are reducing their spending on defense.” In February 2015, Defense News wrote, “US President Barack Obama warned British Prime Minister David Cameron against allowing defense spending to slip below NATO’s target of 2 percent of gross domestic product ...” President George W. Bush complained. In an April 2008 speech in Romania, he said: “Building a strong NATO Alliance also requires a strong European defense capacity. So, at this summit, I will encourage our European partners to increase their defense investments to support both NATO and EU operations.” Trump not only complained. He raged. At the 2018 NATO breakfast meeting in Brussels, Trump delivered a beat down: “Just look at the chart. Take a look at the chart. It’s public. And many countries are not paying what they should. And, frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them. So, if you go back 10 or 20 years, you’ll just add it all up. It’s massive amounts of money is owed. The United States has paid and stepped up like nobody. This has gone on for decades, by the way. This has gone on for many presidents. But no other president brought it up like I bring it up. So, something has to be done ...” Trump was just getting warmed up. He continued: “And I think that these countries have to step it up not over a 10-year period; they have to step it up immediately. ... So, we’re going to have to do something because we’re not going to put up with it. We can’t put up with it. And it’s inappropriate.” Fast forward to the June 2025 NATO summit. The BBC reported: “NATO allies promised to raise defense related spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. ... NATO’s chief Mark Rutte heaped praise on Trump and gave him the credit: ‘America expects European allies and Canada to contribute more. And that is exactly what we see them doing.’” Several factors pressured the NATO countries to go from dragging their feet to hit 2% to agreeing to the much larger target of 5%. President Joe Biden’s abrupt and chaotic pullout from Afghanistan raised questions about America’s competence, leadership and willingness to stick to its commitments. The Russian invasion of Ukraine brought to Europe’s doorstep the possibility of Russian aggression. But the biggest factor was Trump himself. When Rutte praised Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, he admitted NATO deserved Trump’s kick in the pants for not spending a larger percentage of their GDP on defense. Rutte, in a private message Trump made public, said: “Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world. You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.” Not only did Trump demand and obtain a commitment from the NATO countries to spend 5% of their GDP on defense, but he also said the United States need not do so. Trump said, “I don’t think we should, but I think they should. We’ve been supporting NATO so long. ... So, I don’t think we should, but I think that the NATO countries should, absolutely.” Apparently neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama were available for comment.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was indicted by a federal grand jury in May on charges of concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of the law.Dugan — who has been characterized by Democratic lawmakers both as a courtroom hero and as a victim of the Trump administration — is desperate to avoid going to trial for allegedly helping Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an illegal alien from Mexico charged with three misdemeanor counts of battery, get away from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Dugan, whose actions on April 18 were largely caught on courthouse cameras, evidently figured the Supreme Court's ruling in Trump v. United States condemned by Democrats last summer was her ticket out of trouble.'This, however, is not a civil case.'Citing the court's determination that the president "may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts," lawyers for the Milwaukee judge claimed in a May 14 motion to dismiss the case that "the government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts." Dugan's lawyers suggested further that her prosecution violates the limits of federal power under the 10th Amendment.A federal judge suggested otherwise this week.U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph recommended on Monday that Dugan's motion to dismiss be denied and torpedoed the Milwaukee judge's arguments for dismissal one by one.RELATED: Courthouse footage spells trouble for Wisconsin judge accused of helping illegal alien evade ICE Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images"It is well-established and undisputed that judges have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits for monetary damages when engaging in judicial acts," wrote Joseph. "This, however, is not a civil case. And review of the case law does not show an extension of this established doctrine to the criminal context."'Trump says nothing about criminal immunity for judicial acts.'"Does judicial immunity shield Dugan from prosecution because the indictment alleges she violated federal criminal law while performing judicial duties? The answer is no," wrote Joseph.The federal judge underscored that there is "no firmly established absolute judicial immunity barring criminal prosecution of judges for judicial acts."Joseph also made mince meat out of Dugan's attempt to use Trump to avoid criminal prosecution for alleged improper conduct within her courtroom. — (@) "While Dugan asserts that Trump simply extended to the president the same immunity from prosecution that judges already have, this argument makes a leap too far. Trump says nothing about criminal immunity for judicial acts," wrote Joseph."And in Fitzgerald, while the Supreme Court looked to the historical jurisprudence regarding civil judicial immunity, the Court was clear that the grant of absolute immunity for civil damages for 'outer perimeter' acts of the president was due to the 'special nature of the president's constitutional office and functions,'" added Joseph.Joseph further recommended that the court declines Dugan's invitation to dismiss the indictment on the canon of constitutional avoidance.RELATED: Trump fighting 'unconstitutional power grab' by Obama judge who reopened the floodgates Photo by Scott Olson/Getty ImagesWhile the U.S. magistrate judge made abundantly clear that Dugan's motion to dismiss has no legs to stand on, the decision rests with U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman.As Blaze News previously reported, Adelman is a Clinton-appointed U.S. district judge and a former Democratic state senator with 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."Dugan, relieved of her duties as a judge in April by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, was originally scheduled to go to trial later this month, but Adelman took the trial date off the calendar last month pending the outcome of her motion to dismiss."We are disappointed in the magistrate judge's non-binding recommendation, and we will appeal it," Dugan attorney Steven Biskupic said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press. "This is only one step in what we expect will be a long journey to preserve the independence and integrity of our courts."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!