TikTok has been banned in a French overseas territory called New Caledonia in response to widespread protests. 

Though she’s not yet 20 years old, Grace Bowers is making huge waves with her group, Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge. To that end, if you’ve heard the group’s single, “Tell Me Why U Do That,” which dropped on April 22, 2024, you’ll know that while Bowers might be young, she’s got it dialed in when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll. Few can play like Bowers, who, with a vintage Gibson SG in hand, conjures the ghosts of the players she has been influenced by, such as Leslie West, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eddie Hazel, and more. Indeed, The post Grace Bowers: 10 Albums That Changed My Life appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

An ambitious plan to rewild 2,000 southern white rhino into secure protected areas in Africa over the next 10 years has officially begun, with 40 of these majestic beasts on their way to a new home at the Munywana Conservancy in Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It’s the first relocation of a continent-wide effort organized by […] The post The First of 2,000 Privately Owned White Rhinos Get New Home – Rewilded by South African Conservancy appeared first on Good News Network.

Featured Essays Sugar Sugar and the Challenging Art of Genre Hybrids A speculative noir needs to commit to all of its genres. By Tobias Carroll | Published on May 21, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share [Spoiler warning: I’ll be talking about Sugar here. There will be spoilers. Big, big spoilers.] There’s an exchange in the seventh episode of Sugar that raised far more existential questions for me about the show than I’d expected to have. On one level, the conversation on screen was to be expected in the penultimate episode of the debut season of a series that abounds with mysteries.  The setting was the top of a parking garage in Los Angeles. Sitting in a stunning vintage Corvette are private detective John Sugar (played by Colin Farrell) and sometime rock star Melanie Mackintosh (played by Amy Ryan). Throughout the season thus far, the two have had a slow-burning flirtation; they’d met while Sugar tracked down Olivia Siegel, a missing member of a prominent Hollywood family. Over the course of the investigation, some secrets from Sugar’s past had—if not come to light, then at least been hinted at. And so this was, presumably, the moment when Sugar would explain everything to Melanie. The duo has just escaped from an unnerving showdown with an acquaintance of Sugar’s when she asks for more details about what, exactly, he’s been up to and what his connection is to the man who attacked them. Sugar reveals that “[w]e’re members of a group. An organization that no one is allowed to know anything about.” He reiterates the ways in which he’s been sworn to secrecy, and about how he can’t reveal anything about his mission to anyone. And finally, Melanie puts the clues together and comes up with an answer: “You’re a spy,” she says. “The languages, always watching, always listening, more curious about others than you are than talking about yourself. I should’ve known. Even by Virgo standards, I should’ve wondered at that.” “The only reason I ever asked you any questions was because I wanted to know the answers for myself,” Sugar replies. “You’re a spy. That’s what this is, right? A foreign spy.” “I’m just here to observe.” Here’s the thing: It’s a good guess. We’ve seen Sugar meet with other members of this secret society, known as the Société Polyglotte Cosmopolitaine, including tech genius Ruby (played by Kirby) and university professor Henry (played by Jason Butler Harner). We know that, as befits their name, the members are gifted when it comes to languages; we know that the members have a habit of jotting down observations in Moleskine notebooks. All things being equal, “spy” is an excellent guess. It’s also incorrect; John Sugar and his cohort are, in fact, aliens. We don’t learn too much else about them, though. When Farrell adopts his true form, he isn’t replaced with a blob of CGI but instead turns blue and bald; I’ve seen a few comparisons to Karen Gillen’s Nebula makeup in the MCU, which are pretty spot-on. As for why the aliens are on Earth, it’s not clear—there’s a reference to “preserving [their] way of life” at one point, but unlike Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth, there isn’t a clearly stated motive for why the aliens are here. Or how long they’ve been here. Or how they managed to create new identities for everyone. Or why they traveled in space with this mission to begin with. When Sugar muses about how being around humans is making him act more like a human, it’s difficult to know what he means, because we’ve never seen the society that he came from. We know that he has an absent sister and is sad about her, but that’s a far cry from an alien emotion. And, as the first season of Sugar approaches its endgame, the lack of aliens who feel alien starts to feel like a problem. Here’s where the existential angst kicked in while watching episode seven. At that point, Melanie’s line about spies left me wondering if Sugar would have worked equally well up until that point if Sugar and company had in fact been undercover agents for some international organization. With one exception — Sugar moving at lightning speed to get out of a threatening situation in episode six — it wasn’t remotely difficult to imagine a version of this show without any science fictional elements at all. And when you have a series that’s nominally a combination of an LA noir and science fiction, having half of those genre elements feel superfluous seven episodes into an eight-episode first season is a little worrying. The second half of Sugar’s season finale does take strides to make the case for itself as both a science fiction show and a detective show. There’s a long tradition of works that blend the two: books as stylistically different as Isaac Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw/Elijah Baley novels, Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, With Occasional Music, and Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries have all blended SF with mystery elements. And the idea of humanlike aliens living covertly among humanity also has plenty of history; it’s not hard to imagine Sugar being elevator-pitched as “The Man Who Fell to Earth meets The Long Goodbye.” Which, to be fair, is an excellent elevator pitch. I’d watch that show. But instead, we get a lot of (well-acted, admittedly) drama among the family whose paterfamilias hired Sugar to find Olivia. It’s in the eighth episode that we finally get a few glimpses of Sugar’s home planet, via a flashback in which Sugar watches an otherworldly murmuration along with his sister Jen. Earlier in the series, John revealed that his sister was gone, and that her loss fueled the intensity of his search for Olivia. One of the other running threads in the season involved John struggling to maintain a sense of detachment—something he arguably failed at when he killed a trio of human traffickers, one of whom was unarmed at the time. Over the course of Sugar’s search for Olivia, it becomes clear that some part of the Société Polyglotte Cosmopolitaine is interfering with his investigation. In the seventh episode, we find out the reason why: Olivia was kidnapped by the son of a powerful politician, and for Sugar to pursue the investigation further would put the aliens at risk of being revealed. Also relevant here: The kidnapper is also a serial killer with a body count in the dozens and a habit of making audio recordings of his ruminations on torture and murder, as well as his actual torturing and murdering. It’s at this point that Sugar threatens to veer into a much more sensationalistic vein. To counterbalance that, much of the cast plays things relatively naturalistically, and that goes a long way towards keeping the mood of the show grounded. The same is true for the visuals, which abounds with natural light and shot compositions that offer a grand sense of the landscape, whether a luxury hotel or a scrapyard for airplanes. Finally, in the second half of episode eight, Sugar—having seemingly solved the case—followed in the footsteps of countless fictional detectives and realized that he missed one critical detail. The kidnapper wasn’t working alone; there was another man in the basement with him where he went about his gruesome acts—and the other man there was Henry, one of Sugar’s alien colleagues. Which, presumably, explains how a well-connected politician became aware of the existence of aliens in the first place. As another alien living on Earth recently pointed out, there is indeed always a twist at the end. And, look—the reveal that the hero’s sympathetic buddy is actually a much nastier customer than they’d first appeared to be is a device that’s worked well in fiction of all sorts for decades. It also brings together the mystery and science fictional elements of Sugar in a cohesive way, rather than treating them as something to run in parallel. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the last ten to fifteen minutes of Sugar’s eighth episode feature a lot of exposition. Sugar learns that Henry is responsible for taking his sister, and that she might still be alive. Henry also gives the impression that he’s about to go full serial killer on his own. As the rest of their people head back to the stars, John and Henry remain on Earth, presumably setting up a second season that’s radically different from the first and finds the two of them at odds. While a season finale essentially blowing up the premise of a show to reveal something different at its core isn’t easy to do, it is doable; the presence of The Good Place alumnus Kirby in the cast is a reminder that it can be done well. On the other hand, “alien detective chases alien serial killer in Los Angeles” is also the premise of the 1987 film The Hidden, perhaps best known for being the non-Twin Peaks project in which Kyle MacLachlan plays an FBI agent. The Hidden is a fun movie, but it said its piece in 97 minutes. And it’s in this potential status quo change that Sugar reveals the flaw at the heart of its attempt at genre hybridization. Where does it leave us? With a rogue detective trying to track down the bad guy who did something terrible to a woman he loved. That description could apply to dozens of shows, movies, and books. If you’re adding science fiction into the mix, that should expand the boundaries of what’s possible. The note Sugar ends on should feel limitless; instead, it seems all too constrained. [end-mark] The post <em>Sugar</em> and the Challenging Art of Genre Hybrids appeared first on Reactor.

The top House Republican is warning that the Democratic Party is trying to jail its chief political rival before November’s election. Appearing with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Saturday morning’s episode of “This Week on the Hill,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., declared, “Donald Trump is being targeted because of who he is. If he was not running for president again, I don’t think you’d see any of this barrage of prosecutions, these local district attorneys and state attorneys who are after him … .” Referring to the myriad state and federal indictments leveled against former President Donald Trump over the past 15 months, Johnson added, “They have targeted him because he is soon to be officially the nominee of the Republican Party for president, and this is their only way to stop him.” “Everybody around the country can see this for what it is, anybody who looks at what is happening objectively has to reach the same conclusion. They are targeting him because of who he is,” Johnson explained. He continued, “And the real threat to this … is it is the weaponization of our system of justice itself. … You have to understand this is something that would undermine a very foundational principle of our country. The people have to trust that the justice system is fair, that there really is equal justice under law. And if we don’t have that, we lose something very important to maintain a constitutional republic.” Perkins added, “The former president says it’s not just about him, but it’s what he represents, the people that he represents, the fact that he has stood up to the Left, to the media. That’s the reason he is the target.” Johnson agreed: “I think he symbolizes a pushing back against that federal corruption and the Deep State and the bureaucracy and all the things that frustrate the American people. They see in Donald Trump someone who is unafraid to sort of crash through those barriers in a certain respect.” He further noted, “I think that’s why he is such a threat to them, and that’s why they pulled out all the stops.” Over the course of 2023, four criminal indictments, amounting to a total of 88 felony charges, were issued against Trump. The first, consisting of New York state charges, alleged that the former president had falsified business records. That trial is currently underway in Manhattan. The Department of Justice indicted Trump last June for allegedly illegally keeping classified documents pertaining to national security—after having left the White House in 2021. A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., then indicted Trump for allegedly attempting to “defraud the United States” by overturning the 2020 election results. Almost immediately afterward, Trump was indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, for alleged racketeering related to the 2020 election results. “What they’re doing here really is a travesty of justice,” Johnson said of the Democrats’ campaign against Trump, which critics have characterized as “lawfare.” “Very practically speaking, this was [Trump’s] fifth week of trial in Manhattan on this charge, a crime that they can’t even adequately define. Prosecutors passed on bringing these charges eight years ago. They did it now for political reasons, and they kept him off the campaign trail.” Perkins noted that left-wing lawfare extends far beyond just Trump, pointing to the 57-month prison sentence handed down to pro-life activist Lauren Handy for blockading the entrance to a Washington, D.C., abortion facility in 2020. Handy is reportedly the first person to be sentenced to prison under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, although the Biden administration’s DOJ is actively prosecuting other pro-lifers, too. Johnson said that the Biden administration’s targeting of pro-lifers is an “instance of priorities being exactly in the wrong place.” “They’re aggressively prosecuting people who are exercising their First Amendment freedom to talk about the sanctity of human life on a public sidewalk. And meanwhile, they catch and release dangerous criminals, persons who come across the border illegally, and people who are violent offenders multiple times over,” Johnson stated. “And yet they’re targeting people that have a different political viewpoint. I just think it’s such a blatant example of exactly what we’re talking about. And the people see this. They see a two-tiered system of justice, and that’s a real threat to us.” “If you lose the rule of law, if you lose the foundational underpinnings of a constitutional republic, what you ultimately result with, again, is a return to tyranny, because the people who are in charge have abused their authority,” the speaker explained. “And we know that power corrupts, and as Lord Acton observed, absolute power corrupts absolutely. You have to have all these checks and balances. You have to have the separation of powers, and you have to have the maintenance of law and order.” Recent polling suggests that a supermajority of Americans agree that the Biden administration is carrying out a lawfare campaign against the former president. A March survey from McLaughlin and Associates found that nearly 70% of voters believe the slew of indictments against Trump are politically motivated, and almost 60% of voters (including close to 40% of Democrats) think Biden has played a role in the crusade against Trump. Additionally, 56% of voters (including a third of Democrats) said they believe that “Joe Biden wants to stop President Trump from winning the election by putting him in jail.” The monthly Harvard CAPS/Harris polls have found some shifting over the past few months on whether voters would still support Trump if he were convicted on various charges, with voters typically being split 50-50 with a slight advantage in Trump’s favor, but the latest poll’s findings demonstrated that the flurry of lawsuits against the former president isn’t helping Biden’s popularity. Originally published at WashingtonStand.com The post ‘A Travesty of Justice’: House Speaker Dissects the Left’s ‘Lawfare’ Campaign Against Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Israeli authorities conducted a raid on the premises of The Associated Press, based in the southern town of Sderot, where they confiscated broadcasting equipment and a camera on Tuesday. Israeli officials justify their enforcement action, claiming infringements of the country’s recent ban on Al Jazeera, of which the AP is one among thousands of clients. The Associated Press condemned the Israeli government’s decision emphatically, viewing it as a serious violation of their commitment to visual journalism. Lauren Easton, the Vice President of Corporate Communications at the AP lambasted the Israeli authorities stating, “The Associated Press decries in the strongest terms the actions of the Israeli government to shut down our longstanding live feed showing a view into Gaza and seize AP equipment.” She further explained that the shutdown did not relate to the content of the feed but amounted to an ill-advised use of the country’s novel foreign broadcaster law by Israeli officials. Easton called for the returned equipment and the immediate reinstatement of their live feed. Before the Israeli Communications Ministry officials made their way into the AP premises and confiscated the broadcasting paraphernalia, which was authorized by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, the feed exhibited a generic view of northern Gaza. The seized live shot regularly portrayed smoke billowing over the territory. Unheeding a verbal directive given last week to terminate the live transmission, the AP chose to continue its broadcasts. The seizure of the equipment came as a subsequent enforcement action. Utilizing the novel law, Israeli officials had already forced the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network to shutter its offices, seized their equipment, and placed a ban on their broadcasts on the 5th of May. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post AP Condemns Israeli Raid, Seizure of Broadcast Equipment appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Rubio Delivered a Master Class on Handling the MSM

AP Alarmed That We Are Being Overrun by 'Election Deniers'

At a flashy mall in South Korea’s capital, shoppers can gather round for selfies with a lonely beluga as she swims around her tank. Despite promises the whale will be released as soon as possible, campaigners are continuing to push for her release before she suffers the same ill-fate as her former tankmates.Bella the beluga lives in a tank at the Lotte World Aquarium, located within a towering shopping complex in central Seoul, South Korea. It’s owned by Lotte Corporation, one of South Korea's largest conglomerate corporations involved in everything from food manufacturing and construction to retail and tourism.There were originally three beluga whales in the tank, but the two other inhabitants have reportedly died in the past eight years at young ages: a 5-year-old male beluga named Bello passed away in April 2016, followed by the death of 12-year-old Belli in October 2019.Lotte announced that it would release Bella after the demise of her last tankmate in 2019, although they are yet to do so – and protestors are growing impatient.Activists say Bella is showing signs of boredom and distress in her small tank.Image courtesy of Hot Pink DolphinsOne of the groups leading the charge to free Bella is Hot Pink Dolphins. Along with staging frequent protests outside the Lotte World Mall, they have teamed up with the Dolphin Project to launch a petition calling for the beluga to be released back into the ocean.“Jo Yak-gol, co-founder of Hot Pink Dolphins has stated that Bella exhibits behavior of stress and boredom due to her solitary confinement. She is often seen spinning in small circles in her tank, or floating listlessly on the surface of the water,” reads the petition.“It is time for Lotte to stand behind their commitment to rehabilitate and evaluate Bella for release. She deserves to regain the freedom that was stolen from her,” it adds. Beluga are a species of cetacean native to Arctic and sub-Arctic waters. They’re known for their all-white color, their squishy melon-shaped heads, and the absence of a dorsal fin, which helps them to swim under ice. They are one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, an elusive species known for their curiously long tusks that stick out from their heads.Just like all cetacea, beluga whales are incredibly intelligent and sensitive animals. They have a reputation for being curious, gentle, and social – characteristics that make them appealing to humans, but also incompatible with living in captivity.Hot Pink Dolphins and other groups frequently protest against Bella's captivity.Image courtesy of Hot Pink DolphinsSouth Korea passed a law in 2023 that banned the purchase of new dolphins and whales for display. However, the legislation doesn’t cover animals that are already in captivity. In November 2023, the Lotte Corporation told CNN they were working to release the beluga to sanctuary in Iceland, but there were several setbacks due to “environmental issues within their facility”.“Accordingly, we are discussing various alternatives, including (other) overseas sanctuaries and domestic ones, with experts from the discharge committee,” they added.In the meantime, activists are trying to keep the pressure up to ensure the lonely whale is not forgotten about.“It is time Bella was given the freedom she was promised,” reads the petition for her release. 

We sat down with Chris and Mika, who told us all about their perilous voyage to the most remote place on Earth. Come for the epic adventure, stay for the story of what attacked them when they got there.