'Your kid may be in a classroom that doesn’t have a teacher'

News The Legends of Condor Heroes: The Gallants The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants Trailer Brings Jin Yong’s Wuxia to Life The film hits theaters this month. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on February 10, 2025 Screenshot: Sony Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Sony Pictures Sony Pictures has a feature-length Chinese-language adaptation of The Legends of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong, and we’ve got a trailer that gives us a glimpse of it. The Legends of the Condor Heroes trilogy is recognized as a foundational text of wuxia—a genre that blends Chinese history with martial arts and fantasy. As Reactor contributor Alexis Ong describes in her guide to the books, Yong, the pen name for screenwriter, director, and journalist Louis Cha, “left a literary legacy that combined film techniques like flashbacks, fast cuts, and bold changes in perspective, creating a new visual foundation for martial arts today. Many of his scenes have become familiar visual flourishes in kung fu movies, and a distinctive way of telling stories in an age-old Chinese genre: wuxia, the realm of martial heroes.” The film from Sony is titled The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants and focuses on the first book in the series, which you can read an excerpt of here. Here’s the official synopsis for the movie, which was directed by Tsui Hark and stars Xiao Zhan and Zhuang Dafei: Under Genghis Khan, the Mongolian army pushes west to destroy the Jin Dynasty, setting its sights on the Song Dynasty next. Amid internal conflicts among martial arts schools, Guo Jing unites the Central Plains’ warriors to defend Xiangyang, embodying courage and loyalty in the fight for the nation. Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallant premieres in theaters on February 20, 2025. Check out the trailer below.[end-mark] The post <i>The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants</i> Trailer Brings Jin Yong’s Wuxia to Life appeared first on Reactor.

News The Boroughs The Boroughs: Duffer Brothers Move from Stranger Things to… Stranger Things Meets Cocoon The Dark Crystal television series also plays a part in the development of this latest project. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on February 10, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Matt and Ross Duffer, aka the Duffer Brothers, will likely be forever tied to their hit Netflix show, Stranger Things (pictured above). With that series eventually coming to end with the upcoming fifth season, however, the duo are setting their sights on other projects. One of those projects is The Boroughs, which the Duffers are executive producing in tandem with the creators of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. During their appearance at SCAD TVfest (via Collider), Ross shared that the upcoming Netflix sci-fi series “has a lot of DNA of Stranger Things, except it’s set at a retirement community” in New Mexico. He added that the project came about from their love of The Dark Crystal. “I went to the puppet guys, and I was like ‘Do you have any other ideas?’ and they said ‘I had this old person idea’ and I said ‘That sounds great!’ And that happened, like, really fast.” The Boroughs isn’t the first sci-fi project set in a retirement home, of course. Back in 1985, Ron Howard directed Cocoon, where a bunch of retirees get rejuvenated through some extraterrestrial mojo. That movie, according to the Duffers, is very hard to find right now due to rights issues. The world is lesser for it. The good news for us, however, is that we can at least currently watch the trailer to Cocoon while we wait for the next season of Stranger Things and/or The Boroughs to premiere on Netflix. To that end, I’ve included the Cocoon trailer below, for your enjoyment.[end-mark] The post <i>The Boroughs</i>: Duffer Brothers Move from <i>Stranger Things</i> to… <i>Stranger Things</i> Meets <i>Cocoon</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Over the weekend, the National Institutes of Health announced that it would be cutting the rate at which it pays universities for overhead on federal research grants from an average of about 60% to 15%. Not surprisingly, there were howls of protest from university staff and their fellow-travelers in the media. Given their professional commitment to the truth, it is surprising to see how false and misleading those objections have been. The biggest whopper came from a Washington Post story covering the NIH announcement with the headline: “NIH cuts billions of dollars in biomedical funding, effective immediately.” But the NIH didn’t cut a penny from the amount it would spend. It simply limited how much of its funding could go to administrative overhead. Spending the same amount but capping overhead costs actually increases the net amount available for biomedical research. A more accurate headline would have been, “NIH cuts billions in administrative expenses, allowing more to be spent on biomedical research.” Defenders of 60% overhead rates, however, insist that they absolutely need this money to cover things like the costs of buildings, research labs, electricity, and janitorial staff that research projects require but that are not directly listed as expenses in a research grant. Even if it were true that some research expenses cannot be itemized, waving your hands at the need for buildings and janitors does not prove that you need 60 cents for every dollar spent on research to cover those costs. The truth is that no one knows exactly how much overhead on research costs. Universities supposedly calculate their costs and negotiate a rate with the federal government, but university finances are opaque and easily manipulated to inflate the overhead rate. And the federal government doesn’t bother to haggle over giving someone else’s hard-earned money to their buddies in academia. While we don’t know the true rate for overhead, we have many reasons to believe that it is nowhere near 60%. Universities act like it is impossible to produce research with less than a 60% rate for overhead, but they have managed to produce research with much lower overhead rates in the past. The historic rate universities charged for overhead was as low as 8% following World War II and has typically been less than half what it is now. The costs of research and overhead have certainly gone up over time, but there is no reason why overhead should consume a significantly larger portion of the total expense. Did the costs of buildings and janitors rise more than twice as fast as the costs of researchers? In addition, if the overhead rate is supposed to cover fixed costs that cannot be allocated to individual research projects, it should be the case that overhead rates would go down as research funding went up. But the opposite is true. Overhead rates have risen as the government has massively increased spending on research. And universities that receive significantly more research funding actually charge higher overhead rates than institutions getting less funding. Overhead cost rates are driven more by accounting shenanigans than economies of scale. The claim that a 60% overhead rate is absolutely necessary is also undermined by the fact that universities regularly accept research grants from private foundations that pay 15% or less for overhead. If universities can manage to do research for George Soros or Bill Gates for little or no overhead, maybe they can do it for taxpayers for a lot less than 60%. There is also the problem that universities often get donors to pay for the fixed costs of buildings and research labs. Asking taxpayers to cover those same expenses a second time creates an unaccountable slush fund that administrators can use to advance their personal ambitions or political agendas. In fact, we observe that for every $100 million universities receive in overhead, they hire an additional 15.5 people to work as diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucrats. Capping the overhead rate makes research spending more accountable. Classifying an expense as overhead simply means that the expense is not itemized in the grant so that the university does not have to demonstrate that the money is spent on that specific thing. Some expenses that are not currently itemized could be if the cap limited the non-itemized amount to 15%. For example, universities could charge research projects rent for their lab space or allocate a fraction of shared equipment to different projects. Legitimate costs could still be covered but forcing more of them to be itemized would protect taxpayers from having their money siphoned off for DEI or other unnecessary nonsense. Even if capping overhead at 15% left some fixed costs uncovered, it is also the case that research generates benefits for universities that justify those expenditures. For example, universities that get more federal funding enjoy enhanced reputations that help them recruit faculty and students and raise money from donors, which can be worth significantly more than any loss on the fixed cost of research. Universities also have missions to advance research, which federal funding helps them accomplish even if taxpayers don’t cover every last dime. It is unseemly that universities with billions in endowments are hounding taxpayers to pay for every pencil and administrator partially devoted to producing research. And these rich institutions, concentrated in coastal cities, are often using the war chests provided by overhead to snap up promising researchers from universities in flyover states to create research monopolies to extract even more from hard-working taxpayers. Yes, ordinary taxpayers can benefit from medical research breakthroughs, but they already pay quite a lot to pharmaceutical companies and hospitals for those innovations. They don’t need to pay another fortune to universities sitting on billions in endowments and rich enough to indulge radical nonsense. The post Lies, Damn Lies, and University Research Overhead Costs appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The combined aroma of this DIY laundry detergent with lavender and the sweet satisfaction of countless bucks saved from not buying expensive commercial soap will definitely make doing laundry more relaxing and enjoyable. DIY Lavender Laundry Detergent DIY lavender laundry detergent is so easy to make, costs just a few pennies (especially if you still have some ingredient left after making your own homemade laundry detergent), and smells fantastic. There's no reason not to make it. Here's our simple DIY lavender laundry detergent recipe in 3 easy steps.   Supplies and Ingredients via mind body green 4 cups of Borax 4 cups of washing soda 2 cups of baking soda 2 bars of Dr. Bronner's Castille soap, grated 20 drops of lavender essential oil   Step 1.  Combine baking soda, borax and soap flakes. via apartment therapy Run the grated soap in a food processor until it becomes smaller, finer pieces.   Step 2.  Add essential oil and mix with a wire whisk. via apartment therapy Mix all ingredients well and store in a sealed container.   Step 3.  Enjoy using! via apartment therapy Remember to shake the container well before using. Use 1-2 tablespoons per load.   Have you ever used homemade laundry soap before? What other scents have you used for your soap? Tell us all about it. Want more awesome DIY projects and homemade all-natural home cleaning recipes? Sign up for our mailing! Thanks for checking us out. We hope you enjoyed making your homemade lavender laundry soap.  

Liberal Magazine: Hitler Knew How to Fund Science, Unlike Trump

A federal judge ruled against the Trump administration and said that the president was violating an order to unfreeze federal funds over a lawsuit from nearly two dozen states. U.S. District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island said the administration has not followed his previous order on Jan. 31 and ruled that the administration must immediately unfreeze funding. 'The Defendants now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud. But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud.' The lawsuit was filed by a coalition of 22 states including New Jersey, New York, California, Massachusetts, and Arizona. "The States have presented evidence in this motion that the Defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds," wrote McConnell. Attorneys from the Justice Department argued that the order was far too broad and was under review to see if it was "appropriate" for some funding. McConnell disagreed. "The Defendants now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud. But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud," the judge wrote. "The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country."McConnell ordered that funds be unfrozen until a hearing about a preliminary injunction is held later in February. New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin applauded the ruling. "A federal judge ruled that Trump has continued to illegally freeze funds. Now he is being ordered - again - to comply and restore critical funds. Contrary to what @JDVance says, you don't get to pick and choose court orders to follow. We'll keep fighting for you.McConnell was appointed to the court by former President Barack Obama in 2011. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Tucker Carlson said he knows for a fact the Ukrainian military is selling upwards of half of the armaments it receives from the United States.Carlson made several big claims during an episode of "The Tucker Carlson Show," including that the CIA is profiting off the sale of arms that are meant to go to Ukraine.Carlson was speaking with Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a retired United States Army officer who was awarded a Bronze Star, his second, during the war in Afghanistan. About halfway through their conversation, Carlson stated that Ukraine has been selling U.S. weapons to Mexican cartels.'Our intel agencies are fully aware of this.'The host said it was a "fact," not a "guess," that the "Ukrainian military is selling a huge percentage, up to half, of the arms" the United States sends it."And I'm not guessing about this," he continued. "I know that for a fact. A fact, OK? Not speculation.""They're selling it, and a lot of it winds up with the drug cartels on our border," Carlson went on. "So this is a crime, what's happening. Our intel agencies are fully aware of this. You tell me they're not profiting from this? Of course, you think [the] CIA is not profiting from this? Yes, they are. I can't prove that, but I believe that. What, they don't know this? I know this, but they don't know this? They know this. And no one is saying it."Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had recently stated in an interview that he hadn't received more than $100 billion in U.S. aid."As the president of a warring country, I tell you, we received just over $75 [billion]. That is, $100 billion of these 177, or 200, some people even say, we have never received," Zelenskyy said, according to a translation of the video on X.However, multiple reports have denied that this was evidence of any nefarious use of the money. Outlet Voice of America painted the claim as Russian propaganda, while PolitiFact claimed any accusations were based on a misunderstanding of how the aid has been distributed.At the same time, a June 2024 study by Harvard said it was "highly likely that some weapons will go missing over the course of the conflict" but admitted it would be hard to prove the extent of which illicit weapons were being sold.Harvard, too, stated that sales of arms to sources like "Finnish gangsters, French rioters, Nigerian fighters, and Mexican cartels" were debunked as "Russian propaganda" and cited a report from the Global Initiatives Against Transnational Organized Crime as evidence.'The richest people are the Ukrainians. That money is ours.'Carlson also said during the same episode that while attending a meeting at a ski resort in the Alps, he noticed that the "whole town" was filled with Ukrainians. He said the Ukrainian nationals were spending upwards of a million dollars at a time on luxury items. The money they were using, Carlson claimed, belonged to the U.S. taxpayer."It's all through Europe you see this. The richest people are the Ukrainians. That money is ours. It belongs to me and you and every other American taxpayer. That's where it's going."Carlson remained flabbergasted throughout his remarks, stating plainly that "everything about this [war] is a lie.""They're selling weapons to drug cartels? Are you kidding? This is a nightmare."He added that he didn't understand how he could have these facts but American news outlets didn't. Carlson went on to state that the New York Times possessed the capability to go online and buy weapons from Ukraine but didn't elaborate on how that was possible.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

For the second time in less than a week, a federal judge has issued a restraining order against the mass buyout the Trump administration has offered to millions of federal employees.On Monday, a handful of unions made their case that the "deferred resignation" offered by the Office of Personnel Management is a veiled "ultimatum" leveled "to solicit blanket resignations of federal workers." The Trump administration countered that the buyout was necessary to "transform the federal workforce."The Trump team also claimed that further pauses in the process would have "remarkably disruptive and inequitable repercussions" on restructuring the federal government, something Trump has promised to do since he ran for office the first time in 2016.Judge George O’Toole Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Boston, appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, decided to extend the restraining order he first imposed against the buyout last Thursday. He said Monday the restraining order will remain in effect until he can "respond to the issues presented."'It’s one of the many tools that [Trump's] using to try to achieve the campaign promise to bring reform to the civil service and changes to DC.'The lawsuit relates to an OPM memo issued on January 28 and entitled "Fork in the Road," seemingly an homage to a memo sent by Elon Musk shortly after buying the social media platform then called Twitter. In exchange for leaving their federal post and promising to fulfill "reasonable and customary tasks and processes" associated with their exit, employees will retain all pay and benefits through the end of September. Those who accept the offer will reportedly be placed on paid administrative leave by March 1 and will be exempt from any in-person work mandates.Military personnel, employees of the U.S. Postal Service, and those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security are not eligible for the buyout, leaving about 2.3 million federal bureaucrats who are.As the buyout deadline has been extended, more and more federal deep-staters have decided to give it a go. Early last week, only 20,000 employees had accepted it. By Thursday, that number doubled to over 40,000.By Monday, the number had crested 65,000 — over 3% of the federal workforce. While 3% is a sizable group, it is still a far cry from the 5% to 10% the Trump administration had originally hoped would accept the buyout.While many deep-staters have accepted another eight months of pay for just a few more weeks of work, others are skeptical that the offer is a "trick." Democrats and unions have warned that approved funding expires next month, so the government cannot guarantee funding that extends beyond that point. Other reports indicate that a loophole in the agreement allows the government to rescind the offer, even after it has been accepted."It’s a scam and not a buyout," Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, insisted last week, according to the AP."If it was me, I wouldn’t do it."Rachel Oglesby, chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Education and previously of the America First Policy Institute, assured doubters that the offer is no Trump "trick.""It’s exactly what it looks like. It’s one of the many tools that he’s using to try to achieve the campaign promise to bring reform to the civil service and changes to D.C."To encourage more participants, the administration warned that those who decline the offer may still be subject to layoffs or furloughs as "the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Woke Army recruitment advertisements featuring LGBT parades are out. Army recruitment ads featuring gun-toting warriors rejecting the limits suffered by other mortal men are in. The shift in messaging was swift and dramatic — and may prove to be part of a winning combination that will continue to drive up recruitment. When Gen. Lloyd Austin, Biden's secretary of defense, was running the show, the Army released a recruitment ad on May 4, 2021, about a female University of California, Berkeley, graduate's decision to find herself in the Army. The controversial ad featured an LGBT activist parade, a lesbian "wedding," and the suggestion that supporting non-straight couples was somehow comparable to defending the nation. Things did not improve a great deal in messaging in the years that followed. For instance, the Army published a makeup tutorial on its YouTube page, showing the world how a soldier moisturizes her face; applies concealer, blush, and bronzer; how she properly sets her ponytail; and how she completes her warrior look with mascara and lip liner. The Army failed to hit its recruitment targets in fiscal years 2023 and 2022. While it hit its lowered goal of 57,500 for the Regular Army in 2021, it hit only 73.6% of its target for the Army Reserve. Things have evidently changed, not just for messaging but for recruitment numbers. Rather than try to appeal to LGBT activists or to those prospects anxious about how they might manage their skin-care routine behind enemy lines, the Army has recently shared a number of promotional posts to social media emphasizing lethality, the "warrior ethos," and strength. A Feb. 5 Army video captioned, "We fight to WIN," shows men firing different kinds of guns while rock and roll blares in the background. The ad appears devoid of ideological message — just the suggestion that recruits will be transformed into warriors capable of hitting soft and hard targets at range. — (@) 'Hear what FREEDOM sounds like.' Other ads released in the days since are similarly clean-cut and to the point. A post with a graphic that depicts one soldier taking aim at a potential threat off-screen while another progresses with gun at the ready was shared to X on Feb. 7 with the caption, "The Warrior Ethos is a set of principals [sic] by which every Soldier lives, it shapes our character, and is a way of life. The Warrior Ethos defines how a Soldier trains, lives, and fights." An Army video shared to X on Feb. 8 and captioned, "Strong Soldiers = Effective Warfighters," features a hulking soldier handily dead-lifting 450 pounds before telling the camera, "Stronger people are harder to kill." — (@) Another video shared the same day showed a soldier firing what appears to be an M240 machine gun in a desert setting, with no mention of race, sexual preference, or political activism. The caption reads, "Sound on to hear what FREEDOM sounds like." A Feb. 9 post emphasizing the need for persistence and the warrior ethos shows a soldier firing above text that reads, "I WILL NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT." — (@) While this simplified and unwoke style of Army ad may do a better job of moving the needle on recruitment than LGBT agitprop and makeup tutorials, the big catalyst so far appears to have been President Donald Trump's re-election. Army recruiters recently revealed that during the month of December, they were enlisting 346 soldiers a day. This recruitment surge led into a month that saw what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth indicated was the Army's best recruiting number in 15 years. The defense secretary, who suggested during his confirmation hearing that Trump's re-election got the ball rolling on a renewed interest in the military, stated on Feb. 4 that "America's youth want to serve under the bold & strong 'America First' Leadership" of the 47th president. After all, Trump promised to eliminate woke ideologues from the military; to take an axe to racist DEI initiatives in the federal government; to reinstate thousands of service members discharged for refusing COVID-19 vaccines; and to pick a defense secretary who prioritizes efficacy over diversity — promises he has largely made good on already. Before hitting the bricks, former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth attempted to pour cold water on the notion that Trump's election and "concerns about the Army being, quote, woke," were significant factors when it came to recruitment in either direction. Wormuth suggested instead to the Associated Press last month that the Future Soldier Preparatory Course at Fort Jackson, South Carolina — a remedial program launched in 2022 with the aim of helping recruits who previously failed to meet the Army's physical or academic requirements squeak by to basic training — has been a major driver of the Army's recruitment success and will account for roughly 30% of this year's recruits. Time will tell to what extent this fiscal year's recruitment numbers eclipse those seen during Biden's tenure. During a Pentagon town hall last week, Hegseth stated, "I think we've seen an enthusiasm and excitement from young men and women who want to join the military actively because they are interested in being a part of the finest fighting force the world has to offer." He further underscored the attractiveness of the military as a meritocratic institution, noting, "Our strength is our shared purpose, regardless of our background, regardless of how we grew up, regardless of our gender, regardless of our race." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!