'They deserve to have the right royalties on it'

Billy Idol’s journey began in Stanmore, Middlesex, England, and later he spent formative years in Bromley, Kent. Idol, whose birth name is William Michael Albert Broad, first cut his musical teeth in the punk-rock explosion of the late 1970s as a member of the band Generation X. After several successful singles like “King Rocker” and “Dancing with Myself,” the band ultimately disbanded in 1981, setting the stage for Idol’s ambitious solo career. Idol relocated to New York City, seeking a broader stage for his charismatic image and energetic performance style. His early solo efforts were marked by a significant collaboration The post Complete List Of Billy Idol Songs From A to Z appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

Fluorescent chambers inside South Dakota’s Wind Cave has given scientists a pathway into theorizing how life could exist on one of Jupiter’s moons. In a cool, NASA-funded experiment, scientists shined an ultraviolet (UV) light around the rocks inside Wind Cave and found that chemicals fossilised within the rocks shine in brilliant hues of pink, blue, […] The post Fluorescent Rocks in Wind Cave National Park May Show How Life Could Exist on One of Jupiter’s Moons appeared first on Good News Network.

News The Ritual The Ritual Says It’s Time for Another Very Serious Exorcism Movie “Emma is not well” is an understatement By Molly Templeton | Published on March 26, 2025 Screenshot: XYZ Films Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: XYZ Films At some point, religious horror fans, do you begin to feel you’ve seen one exorcism movie, you’ve seen them all? Or do the small nuances of priest and possessed continue to awe and amaze? If it’s the latter, you may be quite delighted to hear that there is another very serious exorcism movie on the way. The Ritual stars Al Pacino, Dan Stevens, Abigail Cowen, and Twilight’s Ashley Greene, and the trailer suggests it is shot entirely in the sort of muted tones that would not be out of place on the robes in a monochromatic dystopia. The Ritual is “based on true events,” and the website for the film is a lot. You can read all about Father Theophilus Riesinger (Pacino), Reverend Joseph Steiger (Stevens), and Emma Schmidt, also known as Anna Ecklund, who was allegedly possessed for decades. The site will also take you to a post about the Catholic Church’s views on exorcisms, or lead you to a place where you can request your very own exorcism. It’s a lot. After all that, the trailer is barely a minute long. But you’ll get the gist. The Ritual is directed by by David Midell (The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain) and co-written by Midell and Enrico Natale, whose previous screenplays include WTF: World Thumbwrestling Federation (which he also directed) and a series called Cartoon Hook-Ups. Watch The Ritual for yourself in theaters June 6th.[end-mark] The post <i>The Ritual</i> Says It’s Time for Another Very Serious Exorcism Movie appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Daredevil: Born Again Matt Murdock Foils a Heist and a Serial Killer in Daredevil: Born Again’s “With Interest” and “Excessive Force” One part fluffy fun, one part dark n’ gritty By Leah Schnelbach | Published on March 26, 2025 Credit Marvel Studios / Disney+ Comment 0 Share New Share Credit Marvel Studios / Disney+ The fifth and sixth episodes of Daredevil: Born Again, are “With Interest”, directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and written by Grainne Godfree, and “Excessive Force”, directed by David Boyd and written by Thomas Wong. I am guessing some people will be divided on Daredevil this week, with some viewers deciding the first episode is too fluffy, while the second one is the DARK GRITTY EXPLORATION OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY. Others might think the second hour is a little too dark’n’gritty. Personally I loved both. I actually had to go back and watch part of “With Interest” over because I was having so much fun I forgot to take notes. The episode was cute with some nice character work—I really enjoyed the larger MCU tie-in, and I liked getting to see Matt be a hero in a fairly straightforward situation. And “Excessive Force” is everything I want this show to be. The only complaint I have is that I wish it was about a half hour longer—or that this hour was the first half of a cliffhanger. But we’ll get into that in the spoiler section below. A Quick Recap with Spoilers! Credit Marvel Studios / Disney+ “With Interest” — It’s St. Patrick’s Day and Matty Murdock is neither wearing green, nor honoring his ancestors with a pint: he is at a bank trying to get a loan to expand the practice. And who is helping him but Mr. Yusef Khan, the father of Kamala Khan! (Who is in California, presumably on Young Avengers-related business.) Mr. Khan talks more about Kamala than about Matt’s loan application. He also brags about Jersey City’s very own superhero, Ms. Marvel, coming right up to the edge of being like, “And she’s my daughter, rando who just walked in off the street!” He keeps a fucking homemade Funko Pop of his daughter’s superhero persona on his desk. I love Mr. Khan more than I love a lot of real, non-fictional people. But Matt says he hasn’t heard of Ms. Marvel (is that true, or is he just actually trying to keep his superheroic identity fully hidden?), and then Mr. Khan regretfully turns him down, telling him that while helping the poor is good, it doesn’t make the law firm a terribly good investment for a bank. As Matt leaves he overhears a ridiculously over-the-top Irish gang invade the bank, turns around and goes into his “I am but a helpless polite blind man” act, and blunders into the heist. He disrupts the heist in small ways. First by explaining how much worse the gang’s prison sentence will be if anyone dies, then by refusing to leave when they try to send him out as a peace offering, insisting that another man take his place. Already annoyed, the leader demands his name, and when he says “Matthew Murdock” the man laughs in frustration “not just a blind solicitor but an Irishman???” He asks where Matt’s family is from, and when Matt snaps back “Hell’s Kitchen” he laughs at him again and clarifies that he meant before “The Big Swim”. Matt, fudging his history slightly, says he grew up in an orphanage. (Which, sure, but weren’t you like 11 or 12 by that point, Matt? I remember you reading Thurgood Marshall to your dad.) The bank robber calls him a Dickens character, but also focuses all his anger on him, sending the other man out like Matt wanted, and promising that Matt will be sorry he’s stayed. But then the only way I can read this episode is that Matt puts himself in danger intentionally, a couple times, keeping a stone face as the gang members hold guns to his face and his chest. The gang leader goes into an office to speak with the cops, while another takes Mr. Khan downstairs to open the vault. Matt divides them further, getting another robber to take him to the bathroom, where we finally get a pretty good stairwell fight. Having incapacitated one man, Matty manages to get down to the vault just before the other guy shoots Mr. Khan. And then he cracks the vault’s intricate lock system, while talking to Mr. Khan about the difficulties of raising kids in this modern world. There’s just one problem: the vault isn’t a vault, it’s a room full of safety deposit boxes. The gang member has a key in his pocket, and after many long tense moments (and a delightful scene of Charlie Cox breaking out a Belfast accents over a walkie talkie) Mr. Khan finds the right box so they’ll have something to take back up with them. Outside, Detective Angie Kim (Ruibo Qian, aka Zheng Yi Sao from Our Flag Means Death!!!) tries to talk the gang leader into surrendering. She keeps up a deadpan “let’s just get everyone through this alive, buddy” schtick, and he lets her think she’s in control of the situation while seemingly having some piece of info that gives him the upper hand. But of course he didn’t account for Matt. Matt comes up, shows everyone the diamond, tosses it to the robber, and just then the cops storm the bank and toss smoke bombs into the room. Matt takes two more robbers out in the ensuing chaos—one just as he’s getting a bead on one of the officers—but the leader slips into an office, changes into a cop uniform, and walks out the front door. Matt’s obviously not going to stand for that. He once again feigns helplessness, and once the cops send him outside to a medic he does his other classic move: turning a corner, folding his stick up, and breaking into a sprint to hunt down a bad guy. Whom he brutally takes down on a side street a few blocks away. I’m pretty sure he snaps the man’s leg in half? And I get the sense that gang leader only had a occasional acquaintance with violence, because does not fight back terribly well. And then I guess Matt just… leaves him there? To be found eventually? Meanwhile the gang’s inevitable “inside person” discovers that the diamond has been swapped with a piece of butterscotch candy. Matt goes to the bank to check on Mr. Khan, and ends up accepting an invitation to come out to Jersey City for dinner. (A thing we’d better see next season, writers. I need this.) After Matt leaves Mr. Khan finds the diamond placed carefully amongst the bowl of candies on his desk. Credit Marvel Studios / Disney+ “Excessive Force” — The episode sets its tone immediately by showing us another BB Report of kids talking about graffiti artists, and sharing a video of “Swordsman”, right before a sanitation worker finds the corpse of one of Muse’s victims! Another worker (one of the hostages from previous episode’s bank robbery, actually) power-washing a mural. It’s one of Muse’s—this couldn’t possibly be connected with that corpse, could it? Meanwhile, Matt’s sitting in his bedroom praying and holding Foggy’s Mass card—a thing that surprises Heather when she comes into the room. But wait, no time for an in-depth conversation about faith, because we have to check in with the Mayor’s office, as Shiela informs Fisk he’ll volunteer at Bowery Mission until 4:00, then back to Gracie Mansion, and then there’s some sort of children’s art event, and won’t that be fun. Fisk is twitching more with each episode. Now we’re back with Matt and Heather—she’s trying to get Matt to open up about being a hostage in the bank robbery. He assures her that he knew he was going to be OK, and she replies with “Faith” and then drops it. I thought she might interrogate him about whether he’s suddenly praying again because he thinks his faith got him through the bank robbery—when actually it was being Daredevil that got him through the bank robbery—but then she changes tack. Which I thought was interesting. Heather’s next book project is a book about the psychology of vigilante-ism. Her working title is Vigilantes: Why We Revere the Mask. Ah, so they’re about to talk about Daredevil after all, just in a different context. Heather muses aloud about whether the masks protect vigilantes, or whether we like them because they “allow us to act like animals.” Matt is super happy about this conversation. Meanwhile, back in Mayorland, one of Fisk’s old “business” associates shows up and refuses to pay the 1.8 million he owes to another crime boss. Fisk twitches even more, and raises the man’s debt to 2.8 million. Luca makes the spectacularly interesting choice to say, into Wilson Fisk’s twitching face: “You’re out of the game, old man. Stay out of it.” So at least somebody doesn’t have to plan for retirement. But terrible life choices abound today, apparently, because right at this same moment, Heather asks Matt to help with her interviews for her book, specifically if he could set her up with his old client, Frank Castle. Matt laughs the first genuine laugh I’ve heard out of him all series. “The Punisher. You want to interview… The Punisher. That’s, uhhh… that’s a solid idea.” It’s nice to know Matt can still be a catty bitch when the occasion calls for it. But then Heather follows up with: “How about Daredevil? You’ve worked with him, right?” Oh noooo Matty’s personal life and his secret identity are crashing into each other again! It’s almost as if the life he leads is impossible, oh noooooo… I really enjoyed this episode. Meanwhile, the sanitation worker we saw in the first scene, Johnny Santini, has arrived at Fisk’s office with an emergency. He tells Fisk he has “bad news and worse news” about the mural Fisk wanted removed, explaining that the paint isn’t coming off after all, but gets sidetracked talking about different solvents and epoxy to his increasingly agitated Mayor. Even Sheila loses patience and snaps: “Johnny! Tell him what you told me! The worse news?” “Oh, oh right. Yeah, it’s blood. It’s made outta human blood.” Matt’s attempt at actually doing his day job is interrupted by Angela del Toro. She believes her Tio Hector was onto something, that he was investigating disappearances along the old Q line. Naturally these disappearances haven’t been talked about by anyone official, but the people in Angela’s neighborhood know they’ve been happening for a while, and she’s coming to Matt for help. But Matt doesn’t understand what she wants him to do. She laughs harshly. “The police killed my uncle. I’m not going to them.” Matt replies “OK fair. Fair enough.” because, to his credit, has never pushed back on Angela’s assertion that it was the cops who killed Hector. But then he follows up with “But what do you want me to do about it?” And Angela laughs scornfully in the way only a furious teen can. “How about literally anything.” OUCH. “Mister Murdock, Attorney-at-Law. Here to help the little guy—but only on your terms.” DIRECT HIT. And then Angela says the most ominous thing a teen in a superhero show can ever say: “Two days before he died, my Uncle Hector told me, ‘Don’t rely on anyone to do what you can do for yourself.’” Credit Marvel Studios / Disney+ Fisk has a meeting with the police chief, where they confirm that there are at least twelve Muse murals, made up of the blood of as many as 60 victims. This makes Fisk roar with laughter. Not because of the victims—he doesn’t care enough about them to laugh, come on—but because he finally has an easy way to break the police department. “When the sanitation figures out there’s a serial killer before the NYPD, maybe its time to switch up protocol,” he booms, and I fear for my fictional city.   That night: Two girls find Muse mid-painting, and ask to take his picture. This does not go the way they hope. Fisk attends a gala where the elite of New York City insult him to his face and refuse to fund his Red Hook project. PI Cherry pours Matt a glass of whiskey and tells him there’s a serial killer on the loose, with the chaser that he should let the police handle it. (Did you think that was going to work, Cherry, or are you trying to push him back onto the streets?) And Fisk sees the pictures of the two girls who have been murdered, and puts his plan into motion. The next day he builds his “Anti-Vigilante Task Force”—a collection of the most corrupt and violent cops on the force, who are going to be armed to the teeth with everything except bodycams, and will answer only to Fisk. Their Mayor gives them an introductory pep talk that ends with the chilling words: “This city is yours.” And of course, later that very same night, Angela ventures down into the abandoned Q train tracks to look for a serial killer, since no one else was going to help her neighborhood. She doesn’t get far. Her aunt Soledad calls Matt, and then we get the best sequence of the series so far. The show cuts between Matt, finding Muse in his underground lair and fighting him, as Angela’s blood drains out of her a few feet away, and Fisk, in his own underground lair, tossing Adam an axe, and fighting him. Matt damn near kills Muse. He has a wire around his neck and is, in effect, hanging him. But then he hears Angela’s heart stop, and in an inversion of the first episode, that sound drags him back from the edge. He drops Muse, runs to Angela, and does chest compressions until she comes back to consciousness. (And yeah, the opening scene prayer does play in voiceover as he does this, which is HILARIOUS—but more on that below.) Fisk does kill Adam. And then he sits in a shaft of glowing light, with a face of relief, regret, and joy—pretty evenly intermingled—as a choir sings in the background. MAN is it ever fun when this show commits. But our complicated hero gets the last word: “Daredevil?” Angela whispers as she wakes up. “It’s OK, I’m here,” he says. “I’m here.” Grace Credit Marvel Studios / Disney+ How great was that moment where Matt chokes a guy out with his thighs while leaning out over a stair railing to silently catch the man’s gun before it clattered to the floor??? The fight scenes were better here than in earlier episodes—they’re not quite as intricate as they were in the Netflix days, but they have much more weight and feel more potentially deadly. I enjoyed Detective Kim’s joke, and the bank robber’s gradual, grudging laugh at it. I really appreciate that the writers are building detailed worlds for their characters. It’s one thing to say a character is a “Catholic lawyer” and then give him a couple of stereotypical “Catholic” things to do and a couple of thin “lawyer moments” in a courtroom that no real lawyer would get away with. It’s another to have him actually debate carceral ethics with another attorney, as he did last week, and to recite an actual prayer to a specific saint, as he does this week. To that point, the gradual introduction of Muse’s murals pays off really well in the conversations about how many victims he’s probably killed. Once again: the common folk of New York are fed up. The cops aren’t doing their jobs, but meanwhile, people are thrown in terrible prisons for petty crimes. (Why did the cops spend so much time arresting Leroy Bradford over Fiddle Faddle while there’s a serial killer stalking Washington Heights???) In this context, Fisk’s election makes total sense—an act of desperation by a desperate people. And now we see that his “solution”, the Anti-Vigilante Task Force”, is only going to make things worse for everyone, including the people who voted for him. Retribution Credit Marvel Studios / Disney+ “With Interest” is a little too light—the inside person was pretty obvious, the idea that no one there was as violent as they were pretending to be, Matt repeatedly being able to talk them down, go to the bathroom, Mr. Khan stalling for an interminable amount of time with no consequences—it needed to be a little tighter and a little scarier, I think. And in “Excessive Force”—um, Angela really shouldn’t be able to talk after what’s happened to her, right? Saintly intervention or no, that girl needs to be in an emergency room immediately. Finally, as my beloved colleague Sarah pointed out, “Excessive Force” felt a bit patched together during the gala scenes, as it looks like Vanessa was somewhat shoehorned in—but I suppose they had to show us Vanessa to set up Fisk going HAM on Adam in the secret underground wine cellar. But those aren’t too many complaints, overall I thought this week was fun as hell. Fiorello’s Desk It’s fun watching Fisk twitch and hold his rictus smile through the whole Gala, only to see him figure out a way to create his own private army by the end of the night. And of course by the end of the episode, gloves both literal and metaphorical have come off, so I can’t wait to see what he does next. How’s Lent Going, Matty? Screenshot: Disney Plus Hang on before we even get into Matt’s whole drama: Excuse me, why the hell is Mayor Fisk going to do an afternoon of service work at Dorothy Day’s old mission on the Bowery???? ? But yeah, apart from that, the show dives into Matt’s Catholicism here, maybe more even than the Netflix era show did—or at least more specifically. The episode opens on Matt holding Foggy’s mass card and praying, a specific prayer to St. Ivo of Ivo of Kermartin, the Patron Saint of Lawyers, who lived in Brittany in the second half of the 13th Century, and was canonized by  Pope Clement VI in 1347. (And yes I had to look this up, I’m a good half-assed former religion scholar, but I’m not that good.) So, not a prayer for the dead, or for the bereaved, which user-friend Catholicism helpfully provides its followers. He’s not praying to get Foggy out of Purgatory, or to get himself out of mourning. He’s praying to be a good lawyer, while rubbing his thumb pensively not on a rosary but on his dead friend’s face. A lot going on here! What I liked in the scene is that Matt is thinking back through Karen, Foggy, Hector Ayala, the bank robber holding a gun to his head and his chest—a rapid fire catalogue of images of people he’s lost (or he feels he’s let down), and then moments when he was a breath away from dying. And then we see Fisk’s face during their diner meeting, and suddenly the images shift into all the fights he’s been in, culminating in him straight up trying to murder Bullseye as Foggy’s heart stopped. An interesting thing to be thinking of! What I didn’t like is that these scenes are for the audience, to show us what Matt’s feeling, since obviously this isn’t how he’d remember any of these scenes. I like what they’re trying to do, but it would have been even cooler to intersperse scenes of darkness punctuated by sound, or even the “world on fire” imagery that’s closer to how Matt experiences the world. But still, I appreciated that this episode gives us Matt doing something that is hyper-specific to being a Catholic lawyer, beyond just “troubled guilty vigilante sits in a confessional.” And then Heather walks in, and she’s surprised to see that Matt’s “checking in” as he puts it—which is also interesting, since he’s sure hiding lots of personal stuff from the girl who sleeps over sometimes! But this is why I thought it was hilarious that this was what played over the scene of him rescuing Angela—why is he praying to a specific lawyer saint while he’s doing chest compressions? There are at least three other guys he should talk to before The Lawyer Saint! Quotes! “A leprechaun might pinch you!” —Mr. Khan warns Matt Murdock about the dangers of forgetting your green on St. Patrick’s Day. “I prefer it to Hoboken.”“That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard anyone say about Jersey City.”—Matt makes Mr. Khan’s day   “Rangers, Jets, and Mets!”—Johnny Santini, telling Matt about his fandoms, and his signed Mark Messier hockey puck. “Exactly what kind of a lawyer are you?”—Mr. Khan, upon seeing Matt crack the bank vault. “A really good one.”—Matt, just being honest. “You pray? Still?”—Heather, to Matt, with a reasonable enough question, given everything. “Oh, oh right. Yeah, it’s blood. It’s made outta human blood.”—Johnny Santini, New York City Sanitation Worker, with the greatest line delivery I’ve ever heard. “A lotta shitbags in the world sir.”—a member of Fisk’s new Anti-Vigilante Task Force, deploying Frank Castle’s favorite pejorative. Closing Argument Credit Marvel Studios / Disney+ I enjoyed both of these quite a bit for different reasons! I kind of hope that they lean into the darker tone going forward, but it’s nice to see that Matt can be light—it’s cool if he ends up being a mentor to any of the Young Avengers later—but also it’s just nice to see Matty Murdock having a human conversation with someone as warm as Kamala Khan’s Abbu. Oh and if Matt goes to the Khan’s for dinner that damn well better be an entire hour-long episode.[end-mark] The post Matt Murdock Foils a Heist and a Serial Killer in <em>Daredevil: Born Again</em>’s “With Interest” and “Excessive Force” appeared first on Reactor.

Featured Essays Superman Superman and the Question of Race Kal-El, Clark Kent, identity, and acceptance. By James Davis Nicoll | Published on March 26, 2025 Action Comics #1 cover art by Joe Shuster Comment 0 Share New Share Action Comics #1 cover art by Joe Shuster Someone once quipped “Superman is a fantasy comic book about a powerful straight white man who is nice.” Which is pretty funny and also probably correct about some versions of Superman. There are other versions, though. Guess which I want to talk about? One could argue that Superman (or at least some versions) isn’t white. He’s not even human. He’s an alien from the planet Krypton. His marvelous powers derive from that fact. OK, I hear some of you say, but he looks exactly like a white guy1 and everyone treats him or at least his persona Clark Kent as white. How is that not being white2? It might be useful, if one were a member of a deprecated non-white ethnic minority, if it were possible to present oneself as white. News flash: it is possible and people have done this frequently enough that there’s an accepted word for it. Perhaps several words. One is “passing.” Historical examples abound. Some who have opted to pass have done this so effectively that their descendants had no idea that their ancestors had been considered non-white. Pre-Crisis Superman is more like someone consciously passing for a white American better than he is like someone who believes he is one by default. He reserves his birth name, Kal-El, for use by family and close friends. The public knows him by an adopted stage name. To his co-workers, he uses the unremarkable (in an American context) Clark Kent. If you were to ask his co-workers what religion Clark Kent is, they might guess Lutheran or Methodist or some other sort of Protestant. None of them would suggest the correct answer, “Raoist,” because that’s not a detail Kal-El shares with co-workers. Additionally, because he possesses abilities no standard model human has, from super-strength to invulnerability to super-senses, Kal-El has to be continually on guard lest he accidentally reveal he is Kryptonian by, say, casually lifting a truck out of his way3. Not only is Kal-El an alien but in many continuities, he is an undocumented alien, having been rocketed to Earth as a baby. He never passed through any formal immigration process. Now, the border policies in place when the 1938 version of Superman would have landed on Earth were considerably less stringent than they are now, but they did exist and Kal-El was in violation of many of them4. Later versions of Superman broke the law to an even greater extent. Having arrived as a child on Earth, Kal-El has done his best to assimilate into and be a constructive member of the dominant culture5. He not only embraces his adopted nation’s values; he uses his unique abilities to exemplify them. This is in no way unusual for immigrants, although the manner in which Kal-El pursues this goal is unusual. However, his public faces (Clark Kent, and to an extent Superman) are different from the Kryptonian one would encounter in the Fortress of Solitude. Kal-El is a true blue American! And he’s also a Kryptonian born and bred, who finds it prudent to be judicious about how he presents himself to his fellow Americans. It’s probably not entirely coincidental that Superman was created by two Jews6, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who were both sons of immigrants (and Shuster was an immigrant himself, having moved from Toronto to Cleveland at a young age), in a time when prejudice against immigrants was on the rise, when antisemitism was rife7 and most white Americans did not question the numerus clausus policies then in place. Their creation, Kal-El, can be an inspiration to Americans, celebrated across the nation… as long he first circumvents reflexive white American xenophobia by convincing them he is one of them.[end-mark] It’s pretty weird that most Kryptonians look just like white Americans. It’s probably due to something the Guardians of the Universe did. Most of the weird stuff in the DC Universe seems to because of the Oans, one way or another. Of course, if Kal-El had been purple and be-tentacled, Siegel and Schuster couldn’t have told the stories about him that they wanted to. ︎Who is and who isn’t white varies considerably by era. Ben Franklin, for example, dismissed the “swarthy Swedes” as very definitely not white. Within living memory, Italians weren’t considered white. Given this, it’s most reasonable to assume white means what we point to when we say it. And I am not pointing at any Kryptonians just now. ︎Interestingly, the old Superman radio show, Kal-El is a lot more casual about using his powers while in his Clark Kent persona than in his comic book version. In the “Clan of the Fiery Cross” serial, Kent thinks nothing of leaping through a window to save a boy from certain death. The show seems to think speed and blatant gaslighting can preserve Superman’s secret ID, but it is hard to believe his co-workers don’t know Superman and Clark Kent are the same man. It is fortunate that infant Kal-El was found by the Kents. If Superman had landed in front of William Joseph Simmons, “Clan of the Fiery Cross” would have played out quite differently. ︎If you want to be depressed, read this article on Paddington’s legal status in Britain. ︎Since Crisis on Infinite Earths, the assimilated immigrant passing aspect of Superman seems to have been largely transferred to his colleague J’onn “The Martian Manhunter” J’onzz. Post-Crisis Kal-El was decanted on Earth, with no personal experience as a child of Krypton. J’onn J’onzz arrived on Earth as an adult, is very much a Martian, and while he can pass as a white American, this is a conscious choice to better blend in with humans, if only because his human colleagues are in habit of keeping the corpses of dead aliens as trophies. Also, J’onn isn’t particularly enamored with the US. ︎I should point out there are parallels between Superman and Moses but also significant differences. Moses, for example, while raised as an Egyptian royal, rejoined the Jews to led them out of Egypt, whereas Kal-El remains on Earth with the humans. Yeah, yeah, Krypton blew up. There were an astonishing number of Kryptonian survivors. ︎In the context of institutionalized antisemitism, Lois Lane’s incessant “Yeah, you claim to be a white guy from Kansas and you look like a white guy from Kansas, but what are you, really?” takes on an entirely different tone. ︎The post Superman and the Question of Race appeared first on Reactor.

Last month, President Trump issued an executive order that might prove to be one of the most significant actions ever taken by any administration to protect Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Among other things, the order instructs Attorney General Pam Bondi to thoroughly review all existing executive branch policies and regulations involving firearms to identify and eliminate any that are “designed to curtail the clear right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.”  The order also called for a review of all legal positions taken by the federal government in ongoing Second Amendment-related litigation, to ensure that such positions are consistent with safeguarding the right to keep and bear arms. President Trump is right to insist that the federal government’s policies get out of the way of lawful gun owners who’d like to exercise their constitutional rights and protect themselves and others from criminal violence—something they successfully do far more often than many people realize. Almost every major study has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, according to the most recent report on the subject by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2021, a professor at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business conducted the most comprehensive study ever on the issue, and concluded that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States every year. For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes a monthly article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read accounts from past months and years here.) The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use during crimes that we found in February. You may explore more by using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database. Feb. 2, St. Louis, Missouri: Police say that a resident of a four-unit apartment building kicked in the door of the unit above his own, prompting the upstairs neighbor to grab a rifle and fatally shoot the intruder in self-defense.  Feb. 4, Texarkana, Arkansas: A 15-year-old boy walked into a terminal for private jets at a regional airport, pointed a rifle at a staff member, and demanded access to a plane. When the staff member went into a back office, the armed teen “forcefully pushed open a door leading out to the airfield,” where an armed pilot confronted him, ordered him to the ground, and disarmed him. The airport’s director praised the unnamed pilot’s heroic actions and ability to “remain[] calm despite being openly threatened.” Feb. 5, San Antonio, Texas: Employees at a beauty salon credited an armed customer with saving lives after a gunman with a lengthy criminal record rushed into the business and demanded “money and cell phones” from everyone inside. The gunman grew increasingly agitated over a perceived lack of loot from his victims and pistol-whipped a customer who, unbeknownst to him, had fortuitously “delayed” his haircut that day in order to retrieve a handgun from his home. That customer quickly drew his weapon and fatally shot the gunman.  Feb. 10, Pensacola, Florida: A legally-armed woman shot and wounded a man who police say stalked her using social media, followed her to the hotel where she worked, cornered her in a laundry room, and assaulted her. This allegedly wasn’t the first time the man had shown up at the woman’s place of employment. He was arrested and charged with a slew of offenses, including battery, stalking, and drug possession.  Feb. 11, Orangeburg, South Carolina: Police say that a woman returned home from a 14-hour work shift to find her house in a state of “disarray,” which caused an argument between her and her adult son, who also lived there. The son became “very irate” and poured gasoline around the home while threatening to burn it down with his mom inside. He started a fire in the laundry room, but his mom and a third person were able to put it out. When the son attempted to set the house ablaze a second time, his mom drew a handgun, threatened to shoot him in self-defense, and held him at gunpoint until police arrived. He’s now charged with attempted murder and second-degree arson. Feb. 15, Manchester, Kentucky: Two intruders forced their way into a home with the intention of stealing firearms from a safe. A juvenile resident heard the break-in, saw that the intruders were armed, and retrieved his father’s handgun. He then fatally shot both intruders before escaping through a bedroom window.   Feb. 17, Crozet, Virginia: Just twenty seconds after a rifle-wielding gunman opened fire on shoppers outside of a grocery store, an off-duty federal officer intervened, bringing the rampage to a swift end by using his personal weapon to fatally shoot the gunman. While two victims unfortunately died in the shooting, local officials told reporters that “there’s no doubt the casualty count could have been much higher” had the off-duty agent not “selflessly placed themselves [sic] in harm’s way to stop the gunman and prevent further loss of life.”  Feb. 20, Clinton Township, Michigan: When a would-be robber entered a donut shop and demanded cash from the register at gunpoint, one employee responded by drawing his own firearm and shooting the robber. The robber was wounded and fled, but crashed his getaway vehicle at a nearby gas station and ultimately succumbed to his injuries. No one else inside the store was injured. The next day, “a steady stream of customers” showed up to the store to show their support for the employee, with many hailing him as a “hero.” Feb. 23, Grand Junction, Colorado: Police say that a burglar broke into a church, shattering the front door and firing shots at a person living inside before fleeing. A short time later, the same suspect broke into a nearby home and again shot at a resident. This time, however, the resident was also armed and returned fire until the suspect fled. Police eventually located and arrested the suspect, who now faces nearly two dozen criminal charges.  Feb. 25, Kennewick, Washington: A teenager crawled through the drive-thru window of a coffee shop and brandished a gun at the barista while stealing money from the register. The barista initially backed away, but after the teen continued moving towards her, she drew her own legally owned firearm and demanded that the teen leave—something he only did after she fired a round at him. Police eventually arrested the teen, whom they believe may have been connected to another robbery in the area, as well.  Feb. 27, Miami Beach, Florida: Armed with a handgun and flashlight, a bathrobe-clad homeowner confronted an intruder who broke into his home and set off alarms. The intruder fled once he realized the homeowner was armed, succeeding in stealing nothing more than a few yogurts from the family fridge. Police arrested the suspect after a short manhunt.  These examples highlight the importance of the right to keep and bear arms, and demonstrate the many ways lawful gun owners help “maintain the security of a free state.” The Trump administration is correct to recognize that, when it comes to lawful armed self-defense, the people are often best served when the government simply gets out of the way.    The post Defensive Gun Uses Show Trump Order on 2A Is a Step in the Right Direction appeared first on The Daily Signal.

U.S. inflation fell last month, with core prices at their lowest level in four years. It’s a harbinger for future price drops to come, thanks to planned spending cuts and tax reforms that will drop inflation further.  Inflation will also likely decline thanks to President Donald Trump’s herculean deregulation efforts. The White House estimates that already since the start of the second Trump administration, Americans are saving $180 billion in regulatory costs—$2,100 for a family of four. In 2024, the Biden administration set an all-time record by publishing 107,262 pages of final rules, proposed rules, and other public notices in the Federal Register that have the force of law. The Trump White House estimates that during its four years, the Biden administration added more than $1.8 trillion, or $21,090 per family of four, in new regulatory costs, far surpassing any other administration. The Trump administration estimates that 72% of that Biden regulatory burden ($1.3 trillion or $15,457 per family of four) came from rules at the Environmental Protection Agency. Under the Biden regime, the EPA slapped on several draconian Green New Deal measures. Even after the flurry of initial executive orders from Trump after his inauguration, this month, Zeldin announced even greater regulatory reforms, which the White House is calling the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history.” The Institute for Energy Research noted this would entail reviewing 31 of the costliest regulations EPA regulators imposed—with the intent of reversing them. These regulations include backdoor electric vehicle mandates, the greenhouse gas endangerment finding, the Clean Power Plan, the social cost of carbon, and the mercury and air toxicity standards. Other Trump executive orders also have the potential to reduce inflation by repealing regulations that choked or outright banned energy production and the mining of critical minerals. In addition to unleashing American energy, the Trump administration also suspended enforcement of invasive, burdensome reporting requirements that saddled small businesses with unnecessary red tape. The National Federation of Independent Business, a group of nearly 300,000 small and independent business owners, heralded this move, saying it “greatly appreciates President Trump’s strong support in this important effort to protect America’s small business owners from what he correctly labeled an ‘outrageous and invasive’ Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting requirement.” This reporting requirement created burdensome paperwork (e.g. documentation filings about a business’ ownership structure required by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the Treasury Department) without much proven public benefit, yet failure to file could have resulted in fines up to $10,000 or more and possible jail time. Trump’s Small Business Administration also implemented a series of reforms to put American citizens first—including requiring citizenship verification on loan applications and relocating offices out of so-called “sanctuary cities.” As agency heads work with the Department of Government Efficiency to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, they should not be halted by any future needless government shutdown. A whopping 75% of Americans support the Trump deregulatory, cost-cutting agenda. They want Democrats to join that mission. The regulatory red tape added during the Biden administration alone would have cost each American family nearly $50,000 over 10 years, according to a Committee to Unleash Prosperity report by Trump economist Casey Mulligan, a University of Chicago professor. But under executive orders from Trump, these burdensome regulations are beginning to halt. Trump’s key changes to lower inflation through deregulation and increased energy production—in addition to his plans for spending and tax cuts—offer a more prosperous future for American families. Carrie Sheffield is a senior policy analyst for the Center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women’s Forum. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.  The post Trump’s Economic Agenda Reduces Inflation by Reversing Biden Regulations appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Three of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members defended the administration’s conduct at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday, shortly after a follow-up report from The Atlantic showing messages related to a military attack on Houthis in Yemen that were inadvertently sent to its editor-in-chief. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe both rejected Democrats’ claims that the Signal chat’s exposures constituted a leak of classified information. At the end of her opening statement, Gabbard acknowledged the unfortunate nature of the leak. “It was a mistake that a reporter was inadvertently added to a Signal chat with high-level national security principals having a policy discussion about imminent strikes against the Houthis and the effects of the strike,” said Gabbard, who added that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz had taken responsibility and was investigating the incident. .@DNIGabbard: "I want to address, briefly, the Signal chat issue… As the President and National Security Advisor stated, no classified information was shared. There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared." pic.twitter.com/thuE1aKs49— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 26, 2025 However, Gabbard also rejected the idea that classified material was transmitted. “The conversation was candid and sensitive, but as the president’s national security adviser stated, no classified information was shared. There were no sources, methods, locations, or war plans that were shared,” she said. Much of the hearing became a back-and-forth between Gabbard and Democrat members of Congress over whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s message laying out the time frame for the attack on Houthis in Yemen should be considered classified information. When Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., questioned Gabbard on whether the exposed messages would be classified under her own standards as DNI, Gabbard replied that Hegseth’s standards for classification are his prerogative. “Ultimately, the secretary of defense holds the authority to classify or declassify,” she said. Ratcliffe also pushed back against The Atlantic’s reporting, accusing its Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg of deliberate falsehoods and exaggerations. .@CIADirector: "My answers haven't changed. I used an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information. It was permissible to do so … and at the end of the day, what is most important is that the mission was a remarkable success." pic.twitter.com/Mas5YKrz5a— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 26, 2025 “Those messages were revealed today and revealed that I did not transmit classified information and that the reporter, who I don’t know, I think intentionally intended it to indicate that,” said Ratcliffe. “That reporter also indicated that I had released the name of an undercover CIA operative in that Signal chat. In fact, I had released the name of my chief of staff, who is not operating undercover. That was deliberately false and misleading.” Ratcliffe concluded by categorically rejecting all claims that he had acted improperly. “I used an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information. It was permissible to do so. I didn’t transfer any classified information. And at the end of the day, what is most important is that the mission was a remarkable success. … Because that’s what did happen, not what possibly could have happened.” The post Gabbard Rejects Claims of Classified Info Leak on Signal Chat appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The judge who ordered that flights carrying suspected Tren de Aragua gangbangers to El Salvador must return to the U.S. was assigned a lawsuit against Trump administration national security officials regarding a Signal chat. A far-left government watchdog is suing Trump administration national security personnel for discussing the forthcoming strike on the Houthis in a Signal chat, the subject of a torrent of news reporting this week. District Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, was randomly assigned to the case. American Oversight, a non-partisan watchdog which routinely opposes Republicans, is saying national security adviser Mike Waltz and other personnel violated the Federal Records Act by using the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss attack plans. This comes after the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, broke a story saying Waltz added him to a group chat called “Houthi PC small group” on March 15 that included Vice President JD Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, chief of staff Susie Wiles, and other officials. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that no war plans or classified material had been discussed. In a Biden-era document, the federal office in charge of ensuring cybersecurity cited the use of encrypted messaging app Signal as a “best practice” for “highly targeted” government officials. Boasberg, a 2011 appointee of then-President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, issued a restraining order against Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1789 to deport alleged Tren de Aragua gang members. JUST IN: Judge James Boasberg has been assigned to the Signalgate lawsuit. pic.twitter.com/nrLv9EQNyO— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 26, 2025 Boasberg barred the Trump administration from deporting “all non-citizens who are subject to the [Alien Enemies Act] proclamation” for at least 14 days. “I think there’s clearly irreparable harm here given that these folks will be deported and many – or the vast majority – to prison or back to Venezuela where they face persecution or worse,” he said. The 238 illegal immigrants on the deportation flights were members of designated terrorist organizations Tren de Aragua and MS-13, according to the Trump administration. Prominent Republicans in Congress are calling for the impeachment of Democrat-appointed judges amid a slew of injunctions against President Donald Trump’s executive actions. I’ll be filing Articles of Impeachment against activist judge James Boasberg this week. pic.twitter.com/kh4vfooS2A— Congressman Brandon Gill (@RepBrandonGill) March 16, 2025 American Oversight, the group bringing the lawsuit, is also suing President Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency and has attacked several Trump cabinet nominees, including FBI Director Kash Patel, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins. The watchdog launched an investigation in January into “the national rise in legislation targeting gender-affirming care as part of its larger investigation into attacks on LGBTQ+ rights.” This included several public records requests from Texas officials about Texas’ ban on “minors’ access to gender-affirming care,” a euphemism for irreversible transgender medical interventions for children. On March 24, American Oversight announced an investigation into Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s contacts with “far-right anti-abortion rights groups” including Missouri Right to Life, Project Veritas, and The Heritage Foundation. American Oversight did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. The post Judge Who Ruled Against Deportations of Venezuelan Terrorists Assigned Signal Case appeared first on The Daily Signal.