After taking influence from the Three Kings, B.B., Albert, and Freddie (and picking up where they left off), sharing the stage with Gary Moore, and dropping 11 albums since 1990, it’s safe to say that Larry McCray has become a staple of the modern-day blues scene. His albums have been renowned, and he’s influenced just about every young blue player out there, but he remains humble—and utterly talented. These traits are all too apparent on his latest record, 2025’s Heartbreak City, which dropped on June 13, 2025, via Joe Bonamassa’s KTBA Records. Elsewhere, McCray is hitting the road and is The post An Interview With Blues Guitar Legend Larry McCray appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

News Xeno Xeno Trailer Asks Us Not to Judge an Alien by Its Fangs Don’t be what they say you are. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on June 25, 2025 Screenshot: Blue Fox Entertainment Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Blue Fox Entertainment What if E.T. looked like a murderous killing machine and made friends with a teenager (who had an abusive stepfather) when it landed on Earth? That’s the premise of the movie Xeno, writer-director Matthew Loren Oates’ feature debut that showcases creature designs from Jim Henson Company’s Creature Shop. The trailer released today, and its PG-13 rating, suggest that this is a heartwarming story, although it also seems likely there will be some sad and/or bittersweet moments. Here’s the official synopsis: Xeno is a thrilling and heartfelt adventure, proving that the strongest bonds can be formed in the most unexpected places. A teenage girl and a terrifying alien form a powerful bond after a chance encounter in the desert, sending them on an adventure that questions the nature of good and evil. As government agents close in, the girl discovers the alien is not the extraterrestrial she expected. Compelled to protect her new friend, she uncovers a secret that could change the fate of both their worlds. The movie stars Lulu Wilson (Star Trek: Picard), Omari Hardwick, Wrenn Schmidt, Paul Schneider, and Trae Romano. It’s produced by Kevin Hart via his company, Hartbeat, and is distributed by Blue Fox Entertainment. Xeno premieres in theaters on September 19, 2025. Check out the trailer below.[end-mark] The post <i>Xeno</i> Trailer Asks Us Not to Judge an Alien by Its Fangs appeared first on Reactor.

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump does not want to be a wartime president. He wants to be the president who, as he did at Mar-a-Lago in 2017, enjoyed “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you’ve ever seen,” as he informed Chinese President Xi Jinping that the U.S. had just dropped bombs on Syria. Trump wants to be the U.S. president who uses military force sparingly. In 2017, the spark came from then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people. Trump also wants to be the president who brings back the sheen to the U.S. military’s image. This weekend’s brilliantly executed Operation Midnight Hammer rained missiles on three Iranian nuclear sites. For the time being, the threat of Iran’s nuclear ambitions appears to have been arrested. Iran responded by sending missiles toward U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The missiles were intercepted. There was no American body count. Just the way Trump likes it. It’s ironic that Democrat critics like Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., were accusing Trump of trying to gin up a “forever war” in the Middle East. To the contrary, Trump subsequently announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire after 12 days. Will the ceasefire pay off? Time will tell. Meanwhile, Trump pushed for negotiations, not warfare. At the same time, Trump isn’t afraid of a fight. As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Monday after U.S. forces struck Iran’s nuclear facilities, “Past presidents wanted to take this action, but they didn’t have the guts to make the decision.” Leavitt didn’t need to name the former presidents who declared Iran should not have nukes without acting decisively: Joe Biden, Barack Obama, or George W. Bush. Trump doesn’t want to be another Bush. This president doesn’t want to deploy boots on the ground. Monday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei posted a portrait of a burning American flag and a pledge that Iran will not surrender—as he was hiding in a bunker. That was before the ceasefire announcement. Tuesday, as I write, Trump is flying to a NATO summit where Western European leaders seem genuinely in sync with Trump’s actions. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte praised Trump for his “decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do.” From Berlin, Politico reported, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz noted, “There is no reason for us and also for me personally to criticize what Israel started a week ago and also no reason to criticize what America did last weekend. It is not without risk, but leaving it as it was wasn’t an option, either.” NATO leaders also are praising Trump for pushing for them to increase their contribution to NATO’s defense spending to 5% of GDP. It turns out he was right to prod NATO to pony up during his first visit to a NATO summit, when, on paper, membership required a mere 2% of GDP. At the time, Trump’s remarks seemed a shocking breach of decorum. Now they have the ring of an alarm that needed to be sounded. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post 12-Day War Shows Trump Is Not a Warmonger appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A new Senate bill designed to strengthen online privacy protections for minors could bring about major changes in how age is verified across the internet, prompting platforms to implement broader surveillance measures in an attempt to comply with ambiguous legal standards. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (S.836) (COPPA 2.0), now under review by the Senate Commerce Committee, proposes raising the protected age group from under 13 to under 17. It also introduces a new provision allowing teens aged 13 to 16 to consent to data collection on their own. The bill has drawn praise from lawmakers across party lines and received backing from several major tech companies. We obtained a copy of the bill for you here. Supporters frame the bill as a long-overdue update to existing digital privacy laws. But others argue that a subtle change in how platforms are expected to identify underage users may produce outcomes that are more intrusive and far-reaching than anticipated. Under the current law, platforms must act when they have “actual knowledge” that a user is a child. The proposed bill replaces that threshold with a broader and less defined expectation: “knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances.” This language introduces uncertainty about what constitutes sufficient awareness, making companies more vulnerable to legal challenges if they fail to identify underage users. Instead of having to respond only when given explicit information about a user’s age, platforms would be required to interpret behavioral cues, usage patterns, or contextual data. This effectively introduces a negligence standard, compelling platforms to act preemptively to avoid accusations of noncompliance. As a result, many websites may respond by implementing age verification systems for all users, regardless of whether they cater to minors. These systems would likely require more detailed personal information, including government-issued identification or biometric scans, to confirm users’ ages. More: The Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda Mandatory age verification carries significant risks. Systems that request sensitive documentation create new pools of personal data that can be targeted by attackers, misused internally, or sold for commercial gain. Once uploaded, personal information becomes subject to opaque storage and retention practices, often beyond the user’s control or awareness. No method currently in use for verifying age balances reliability with privacy protection. Facial analysis tools and ID upload mechanisms are prone to errors and require the collection of intrusive data. Systems that offer users different verification options do not eliminate the underlying vulnerabilities; they shift where and how those vulnerabilities appear. Without a comprehensive national data privacy framework, users remain exposed. There are no federal requirements mandating clear limits on data retention, transparency around third-party access, or redress mechanisms for misuse. This absence of structural privacy safeguards undermines the very protections that the bill aims to strengthen. When access to online services depends on passing an age check, some users will choose not to engage at all. Public forums, creative platforms, and educational resources may become inaccessible unless users agree to verification procedures. This introduces a barrier to speech and participation that affects more than just teenagers. Age-gating policies can create a chilling effect, especially in communities where anonymity plays a role in safety or free expression. The more sensitive the verification process, the more likely it is to dissuade users from contributing content or seeking out information. This reconfiguration of access doesn’t appear in the text of the bill, but it is the logical result of shifting legal obligations onto platforms without providing clear enforcement boundaries or privacy protections for the resulting data flows. Though the bill’s authors intend to update a law passed more than two decades ago, the proposed mechanism places the burden on platforms to make risk-averse decisions without clear guidance. The cost of avoiding liability could lead to invasive systems that erode online privacy for all users. Efforts to protect minors online deserve serious legislative attention, but those efforts require precise definitions and strong, enforceable rights over personal data. Expanding the scope of regulated users while weakening the clarity of legal standards invites overreach and exposes everyone to new forms of digital scrutiny. The direction of this bill signals an approach that outsources responsibility to platforms while leaving users with fewer protections and more demands. Until federal privacy legislation is passed that addresses the broader environment of data collection and surveillance, piecemeal reforms like S.836 will continue to produce complex and far-reaching consequences. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post COPPA 2.0: The Age Check Trap That Means Surveillance for Everyone appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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"If there was a ritual, we should have found such boomerangs all over Europe"... So why haven't we?

On Wednesday during his press conference on the sidelines of the annual NATO summit, President Trump tag-teamed with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to obliterate the new Deep State leak to CNN’s Natasha Bertrand — who penned the infamous article declaring Hunter Biden’s laptop to be Russian disinformation — that claimed the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has deemed the weekend U.S. military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities a failure. Trump first called out “Fake News CNN” during his opening remarks (along with MSNBC and The New York Times): Reminding those watching of his accessibility as President (in comparison to the last one), Trump called on CNN host and chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins and took a dig at her network by saying she “should really say how great our soldiers and our warriors are.” The former conservative reporter insisted CNN feels that way: The rest of the questions by reporters — both U.S.-based and foreign — were respectful and on a slew of foreign policy topics that weren’t looking to play semantics with Trump vis-à-vis the smear job to CNN (and then spread elsewhere) by the Deep State. However, NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell predictably went down that road. In response, Trump pointed to the reality this DIA report was preliminary and only a few days after the strikes, so it shouldn’t be seen as definitive (click “expand”): TRUMP: Kelly, go ahead. Here  we go. Here’s another one. O’DONNELL: Hello, sir. Thank you very much. TRUMP: We got them all today. O’DONNELL: Okay, so, Mr. President, you talked about expecting some on-the-ground assessments at Fordow and other sites — TRUMP: Yeah. Here we go — O’DONNELL: — is that Israeli — TRUMP: — again — O’DONNELL: — and U.S. — TRUMP: — it’s — it’s been obliterated, Kelly. It’s been totally obliterated. O’DONNELL: What is your message, then — sir — to the intelligence community when they present reports, you’re not disputing the DIA report. You’re just — they [inaudible] — TRUMP: They presented a report that wasn’t finished. We’re talking about something that took place three days ago. O’DONNELL: I understand that’s a preliminary assessment. TRUMP: The report was done days ago. O’DONNELL: So, what’s your — TRUMP: Wait a minute. Yes. TRUMP: They didn’t see it. All they can do is take a guess. Now, if you take a look at the pictures, if you take a look how it’s all blackened and you know, the fire and brimstone is all underground because it’s granite and it’s all underground. You don’t show it. But even there, with all of that being said, the whole area for 75 yards around the whole where it hit is black with fire. The group that’s run by this gentleman, in fact, you may want to talk about it for a second, because we’re going to issue a report and I think it’s not even a very exciting report at this point. It’s been obliterated. Totally obliterated. And they did a report, but it was like, if you look at the dates, it’s just a few days after it happened. O’DONNELL: Understood, sir. TURMP: So they didn’t see it. They said it may be very severe. O’DONNELL: Understood. Do you have a message for the intelligence community, though, in terms of unvarnished information getting to you that it’s not [inaudible]. TRUMP: I don’t really have a message. I would say issue the report when you know what happened. I wouldn’t say that it could be severe or maybe not. They used the word severe. It could be severe or maybe it’s not — O’DONNELL: And briefly — TRUMP: — so people like you picked up and said, oh, it’s not severe. O’DONNELL: We’re just reporting. TRUMP: No, the report was not a completed report. Yeah. The message was probably wait till you know the answer before you answer. Hegseth then took a turn and lambasted the Deep State leak as “fake news” and acknowledged the “the instinct, the instinct of CNN, the instinct of The New York Times” after this heroic mission was “try to find a way to spin it for their own political reasons, to try to hurt President Trump or our country” and not “car[ing] what the troops think.” He added this came about to CNN because “leakers...have agendas”: Trump then took back the podium after O’Donnell asked whether Trump was “disputing the [DIA] report...even though it was initial.” The President turned it around on O’Donnell saying she “should be proud of those pilots and you shouldn’t be trying to demean them” as they “flew at great risk.” When O’Donnell replied “very much, sir” and “there’s a difference, sir, between asking about an assessment and the skill of the U.S. pilots,” Trump replied there was a “[b]ig chance that they’d never come back home and see their husbands or their wives.” “No one is questioning the skill of the U.S. military,” O’Donnell asserted. The President had enough and tore into the liberal media as “sick” for refusing to praise the heroism of those involved: To see the relevant transcript from the Trump press conference on June 25, click here.

CNN is aerobically back-patting national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand for her "incredible reporting" suggesting the Trump team wasn't very successful in it's bunker-busting of Iran's nuclear facilities. She always finds anonymous sources inside the intelligence community who assist in the anti-Trump spin.  They don't mention her previous "incredible" intel disinformation. Bertrand was promoted from Politico to CNN after she "fortified" the 2020 election against Donald Trump by hyping the disinformation campaign by 51 intelligence officials who claimed that the highly damaging (to the Joe Biden campaign) information on Hunter Biden's laptop about the family influence-pedding business was actually the result of Russian disinformation. So instead of eternally bearing the Scarlett Letter "D" for "Disinformation" for spreading a fake news story about Hunter Biden's laptop, Bertrand is back at it again with the same antics. In fact, her latest story again based supposedly on intel sources has a title which sounds like an eerie throwback to her discredited 2020 laptop story. Here is the title of her CNN story originally published on Tuesday, "Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, sources say." If that title sounds vaguely familiar, it is because Bertrand's fake news published in Politico has a similar format: "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say." "Sources say." "Former intel officials say." Hopefully the co-authors of Bertrand's latest story, Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen, have invested in a set of very sturdy worry beads because they are sure to get a workout over intense rubbing and praying that Natasha Bertrand has not led them into yet another fake news quagmire. Adding to their worries is the fact that both the 2020 fake news story and the latest Bertrand story sound very much alike in tone as you can see the following quotes in which the CNN story excerpts are followed by the 2020 Politico disinformation tidbits in italics. The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it. The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said. The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.” And now for a Bertrand 2020 fake news throwback: More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” The letter, signed on Monday, centers around a batch of documents released by the New York Post last week that purport to tie the Democratic nominee to his son Hunter’s business dealings. Under the banner headline “Biden Secret E-mails,” the Post reported it was given a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who said he got it from a Mac shop owner in Delaware who also alerted the FBI. While the letter’s signatories presented no new evidence, they said their national security experience had made them “deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case” and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin’s hand at work. You have to wonder if members of the Defense Intelligence Agency are so clueless as to risk their careers and reputations (and desire to stay out of prison) as to leak top secret information to someone who has been publicly discredited for perpetrating fake news supposedly based on intelligence sources.  What Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said in reply to Politico's Dasha Burns asking him about CNN reporting that the Iranian nuke sites have not been completely destroyed could cause Bertrand's writing partners to add a heavy Xanax dosage to their frantic worry bead rubbings. ...intelligence leaks are one of the most frustrating things anywhere, not just because you’ve got somebody who has access to this putting stuff out there, but because it’s so often mischaracterized. An intelligence report, for anyone who’s ever seen it, sometimes is an assessment. Some analyst will make an assessment, or analysts will make an assessment. And in these leaks, what you typically have is someone who read it and then leaks it to the media, giving it the spin and the angle they want it to have because they’ve got some purpose: embarrass the administration, they were against the action, whatever it may be. Others have noted the irony of Natasha Bertrand being allowed to once again report on a story based on supposed intelligence sources: Also, this same Natasha Bertrand making claims about the Iran strike kicked off the “Hunter Biden’s laptop is Russian disinfo” conspiracy. https://t.co/Le1RYdOtjW pic.twitter.com/cYPrfrDQWW — Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 24, 2025

NBC’s Seth Meyers is not happy that President Trump is taking credit for ending the war between Israel and Iran, which he falsely claimed on Tuesday's edition of Late Night that Trump started and is now trying to claim he deserves praise for simply cleaning up his own mess. Introducing a clip of first term White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Fox News, Meyers claimed, “So, Trump claimed there was a ceasefire in the war he started. Now, most normal human beings might think to themselves, ‘You don't get credit for cleaning up your own mess unless you're under the age of five,’ but for Trump supporters this supposed ceasefire was the single greatest achievement of any president ever.”     It is simply false to say that Trump started the war. A progressive like Meyers could try to claim that Israel started the war, while a more sophisticated thinker may say this is just a new phase of the same war that began with Hamas’s October 7 attack, which set a series of events in motion that saw the Gaza War expand to Lebanon and Hezbollah, Yemen and the Houthis, Syria, and Iran itself. As it was, McEnany was shown claiming, “Rather than 34 felony counts, President Trump may end up with 34 Nobel Peace Prizes. That was for the leftists so you can clip this and make it go viral and go nuts.” Meyers initially reacted by quipping, “Well, joke's on you, we're on at 1:00 in the morning, which is the opposite of viral. That clip is gonna go bacterial.” Getting back on track, Meyers continued, “The funniest part of that clip is that in order to say the thing about the 34 Nobels, she had to remind everyone of Trump's 34 felony counts. That's not a good idea. Also, a Nobel doesn't erase a felony count. When Obama won his in 2009, he didn't say, "Oh, the best part is now I can knock over a liquor store." So, Trump scrapped the deal we had in the first place, then illegally bombed Iran. And now, he wants credit for stopping the thing he started.” The strikes were not illegal because the president has commander-in-chief powers to defend the country and its interests. Even the War Powers Act allows the president to commit the armed forces for 60 days before going to Congress for longer missions. And again, Trump did not start the war, but even if Meyers wants to continue to claim he did, what would be so bad about having an objective, achieving that objective, and then declaring victory before falling into some form of mission creep? Here is a transcript for the June 24-taped show: NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers 6/25/2025 12:48 PM ET SETH MEYERS: So, Trump claimed there was a ceasefire in the war he started. Now, most normal human beings might think to themselves, "You don't get credit for cleaning up your own mess unless you're under the age of five," but for Trump supporters this supposed ceasefire was the single greatest achievement of any president ever. KAYLEIGH MCENANY: Rather than 34 felony counts, President Trump may end up with 34 Nobel Peace Prizes. That was for the leftists so you can clip this and make it go viral and go nuts. MEYERS: Well, joke's on you, we're on at 1:00 in the morning, which is the opposite of viral. That clip is gonna go bacterial. The funniest part of that clip is that in order to say the thing about the 34 Nobels, she had to remind everyone of Trump's 34 felony counts. That's not a good idea. Also, a Nobel doesn't erase a felony count. When Obama won his in 2009, he didn't say, "Oh, the best part is now I can knock over a liquor store." So, Trump scrapped the deal we had in the first place, then illegally bombed Iran. And now, he wants credit for stopping the thing he started. Well, I guess we have no choice but to start clearing room in the Oval Office for those 34 Nobel Peace Prizes. 

President Donald Trump's participation in this week's NATO summit was well-received and represented a significant victory for him, contrasting with similar meetings during his previous administration.'This has been a hugely successful summit for President Trump.'In 2018, when Trump was pushing NATO allies to meet their then-target of 2% of GDP for defense spending, he got into a spat with German officials after he scolded the country for cutting an oil and gas deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He accused Germany of being "totally controlled by Russia," calling it a "very bad thing for NATO."The following year, several allies — then-Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, then-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson, and President of France Emmanuel Macron — were caught on camera mocking Trump.In contrast, this year's NATO summit in the Netherlands was notably successful for Trump.RELATED: Trump to take on NATO summit: Will allies step up or stall? G7 summit on June 9, 2018, in Charlevoix, Canada. Photo by Jesco Denzel /Bundesregierung via Getty ImagesDr. Nile Gardiner, director of the Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom and Bernard and Barbara Lomas fellow, told Blaze News, "This has been a hugely successful summit for President Trump and a demonstration of real U.S. leadership on the world stage — a dramatic difference to the weak-kneed Biden presidency."At one point, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte even praised Trump for striking Iran's nuclear enrichment sites."I just want to recognize your decisive action in Iran. You are a man of strength, but you are also a man of peace. The fact that you are now also successful in getting this ceasefire done between Israel and Iran, I really want to commend you for it. And I think this is important for the whole world," Rutte told Trump on Wednesday.Rutte also credited Trump for securing substantial defense-spending increases to 5% of GDP."Without President Trump, this would not have happened," he remarked.RELATED: Canada's solution to reliance on US? Increasing commitments in Europe U.S. President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesDuring a Wednesday afternoon press conference in the Netherlands, Trump reported that his NATO allies were "so respectful" toward him. He celebrated the increased defense-spending commitments from the ally countries."I left here saying that these people really love their countries. It's not a rip-off, and we're here to help them protect their countries," Trump said.The only conflict Trump expressed was with Spain, the only country that refused to commit to the defense-spending targets. He vowed to negotiate "directly with Spain" on a trade deal, adding that it would have to "pay twice as much" to make up the "unfair" difference in defense spending. Trump also confirmed that he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who he stated "couldn't have been nicer" to him.Trump mentioned that he and Zelenskyy had previously experienced some "rough times," likely referring to the tense exchange he and Vice President JD Vance had with the Ukrainian president earlier this year at the White House.Trump remarked that he had a "good meeting with Zelenskyy" at this week's NATO summit, adding that Zelenskyy and Putin would like to see an end to the ongoing war. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!