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President Donald Trump has made it clear he doesn’t care about high prices—even at his own Great American State Fair.

Attendees at the first day of the president’s festival were disappointed to discover that what few food options were actually open were far from cheap.

USA Today reported that the only food stall open on Thursday sold turkey legs for $23—almost twice the price of the same offering from a Disney theme park. The stall also offered smashburgers and giant western sausage sandwiches for $20, and lemonade for a whopping $9.

Online, people were particularly outraged by the price of a stuffed pretzel roll—which ranged from $12.48 to $24.96.

One attendee wasn’t impressed by the offerings at the Express Hibachi stand, which offered pizzas and salads for $13 to $14, boneless wings for $15, and rice bowls for $16.

“Do you see a single corndog? No! It’s a tragedy. It’s an affront to American culture,” joked political commentator Alex Cascio.

D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson also expressed her disappointment in the fair’s offerings. “Not a funnel cake, corn dog, bucket lemonade, or fried Snickers in sight. The only ride is the Ferris Wheel,” Henderson wrote on X. “It’s not that kind of state fair, y’all.”

President Donald Trump’s “Great American State Fair” is underway on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and it looks more like the ill-fated Fyre Festival than a celebration fit for the United States’ 250th birthday. Thursday was the first full day of the two-week-long fair, and rather than a crowded, lively scene, it was sparsely attended and wrought with problems related to the food and…

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Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty on Friday to illegally retaining classified information, sealing a deal with federal prosecutors that could allow him to avoid a prison term. Bolton, who became an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump after serving in the Republican’s first administration, is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 28 by U.S.

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Oracle has promised a new phase in its custodianship of MySQL following the creation of a lobby group concerned about its future independence and long-term development. A new governance model, a new steering committee, and support for the MySQL community are among the measures Big Red announced for the open source database whose intellectual property it owns. However, a co-founder of the OurSQL Foundation – an independent organization claiming to represent the interests of MySQL users and developers – says Oracle has yet to make binding commitments about the database's future governance and management. In a blog post this week, Oracle said it was "taking the next step" in terms of transparency in MySQL development and engagement with its wider community. "Our goal is simple: accelerate innovation and contributions, make it easier for the community to participate meaningfully in the evolution of MySQL, and grow the MySQL Ecosystem." In the "spirit of collaboration," Oracle said it would establish a new governance model in which community members can contribute through code, testing, documentation, reviews, and technical discussions. Experienced contributors can take on extra responsibilities as "committers," Oracle said. They would help review changes and maintain code quality. "Stronger governance gives the MySQL community clearer ways to participate and accelerate innovation while preserving the quality, security, and compatibility users expect," said Jason Wilcox, senior vice president, Data and AI Platform Services, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The governance model also includes a technical steering committee, which will serve as a forum for strategic guidance and community representation, bringing together perspectives from across the MySQL ecosystem. The initial steering committee will include cloud giants Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Oracle, with additional perspectives from as-yet-unnamed users of MySQL. Microsoft – provider of DBaaS Azure Database for MySQL – is notably absent. "We are continuing to expand opportunities for engagement through public roadmap discussions, Contributor Summits, GitHub-based collaboration, Early Access releases, technical design conversations, and enhanced developer resources," Oracle said. The OurSQL Foundation formed in May following a period in which the MySQL community expressed concerns about Oracle's long-term commitment to the database and willingness to open its governance to external contributions. In September last year, Oracle made "widespread layoffs" across its core MySQL development team. Michael "Monty" Widenius, who co-authored the original MySQL in the 1990s, said the job cuts had left him "heartbroken," but not surprised. Peter Zaitsev, co-founder of open source consultancy Percona, one of the organizations behind the OurSQL Foundation, welcomed Oracle's new tone and openness around its management of MySQL. "This is a step and in the right direction," Zaitsev said. "We welcome Oracle engaging the MySQL ecosystem as a whole. For the last nine months, Oracle has shown a desire to show more openness to the community in terms of sharing and including the wider community in the decision-making process. This is all great." However, the OurSQL Foundation would continue to hold Oracle to account as questions remained about whether its commitment to open governance was binding. "If you read all those announcements they say, 'we will involve the community in an advisory capacity,' which is of course better than nothing, but it's not really PostgreSQL-type community engagement, where community is really able to plot a path forward for users," he said. Zaitsev expressed concern that any direction set for MySQL could ultimately be changed by new Oracle management. "There's nothing binding in this regard." A test of Oracle's determination to live by its commitment would come when the community wants to make changes to the database that Oracle might consider detrimental to its commercial interests. "Would those be accepted?" Zaitsev asked. Another test would be whether the community was willing to contribute to a system whose future it believed Oracle controlled entirely. ®

A Republican congressman went on a racist tirade Thursday at a conservative town hall on Capitol Hill.

Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the U.S. House Majority Whip, went on an anti-immigrant rant, complaining that “Minnesotans are so afraid that you’re gonna call us a racist, you’re gonna call us an Islamophobe.”

“I am done being careful, even the least bit. And I don’t really care where you come from, but if you come to this great country, you have to understand you’re coming here to be an American,” Emmer said to applause from the audience at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s event.

“We celebrate everyone’s culture. We’re happy with that—as long as you are an American. Celebrate your culture, I don’t care, Italian, Polish—you know, Somali, OK? But they don’t assimilate. And if they don’t assimilate, then they should go the hell back to where they came from,” Emmer continued, to more applause from the right-wing crowd.

Tom Emmer: "Minnesotans are so afraid that you're gonna call us a racist, you're gonna call us an Islamophobe. You know what? I'm done being even the least bit careful. Somalis don't assimilate. And if they don't assimilate, then they should go the hell back to where they came… pic.twitter.com/wsb9taca9K

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 25, 2026

Emmer’s jab at the Somali community carries weight, considering he’s third in the party’s House leadership. He’s definitely not telling Italian and Polish immigrants who don’t assimilate to “go the hell back to where they came from.” Somali-Americans in Minnesota number about 108,000, and almost half of them were born outside of the U.S. The majority of them have citizenship or legal residency.

President Trump has targeted the community in the past year, accusing them of committing fraud when receiving government assistance and amplifying false smears from a right-wing influencer. Emmer seems to be following his lead. The House whip’s comments came the same day as the Supreme Court ruled that the president could end temporary protected status for Syrian and Haitian refugees. Trump’s efforts to ethnically cleanse the U.S. have taken over the Republican Party.

Former White House national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty Friday to charges that he unlawfully kept and transmitted classified national security information. The case is a big win for President Donald Trump, who went after Bolton after he exposed embarrassing details about Trump’s first term.

Bolton admitted to sharing classified details with his wife and daughter, which amounts to one felony count. He was accused of 18 violations, but only pleaded guilty to one. Bolton has agreed to pay a fine of over $2 million, and could face up to five years in prison.

The case centered around notes Bolton took for his 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened, and the information he shared with his family as part of the editing process. During the first Trump administration, the Justice Department tried to prevent the book from coming out, claiming it contained classified information.

The memoir revealed damning details about the first Trump presidency, including Trump’s corrupt foreign policy dealings, his general incompetence, and confirmation that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine until they agreed to investigate Joe Biden, which Trump was impeached for in 2019.

Trump has called his former national security adviser a “lowlife” and a “sleazebag,” and claimed that if he had listened to Bolton’s advice while in office, the U.S. would be in “World War Six” by now.

Though Bolton is just one of many Trump enemies that have been prosecuted at the president’s fancy, CNN reports that the case against him was more sound than the others.

⚡ Quick Take

• We dove into Halloween Horror Nights 2026’s INVASION: Alien Abduction House and got exclusive insights about this scary, original adventure.
• INVASION: Alien Abduction House doesn’t want to make aliens comedic or campy, it is going to make them terrifying.
• This Halloween Horror Nights 2026 House will utilize new technologies and scares, including a vibrating floor and tentacles that can snatch you.

Our favorite time of year is almost upon us. That’s right. It’s Halloween ALL year, but it’s only Halloween Horror Nights for SOME of the time. And we can’t wait to return to the incredible world of fabulous mist, gore-gous horror, and incredible scares. Universal Orlando Resort is still announcing its full Halloween Horror Nights line-up. But so far, we could not be more enchanted. A Sinners House? We can hardly wait. And today, it’s Nerdist‘s honor to give you an exclusive look at a new original House coming to Halloween Horror Nights 2026 at Universal Orlando, INVASION: Alien Abduction. In the wake of this exciting House annoucement, we spoke to Charles Grey, one of the show directors and creators of this incredible House.

Universal Orlando Resort

The description for Halloween Horror Nights’ 2026 INVASION: Alien Abduction House is simple enough, “Guests witness a terrifying encounter with an aggressive, unseen alien craft that has abducted a family and its livestock from a remote homestead…and they are now plotting to tear everyone apart.” But as we delved into its depths with Grey, we learned just how foundational, scary, unexpected, and NOVEL this House will be. These aren’t your campy, comedy aliens. Oh no. True horror is coming to Halloween Horror Nights in the form INVASION: Alien Abduction House. And that’s complete with tentacles, claws, home invasion, claustrophbia, a vibrating floor, and an incredible amount of delicious chaos. Read our full interview with Charles Grey below and get excited for Halloween Horror Nights 2026 like never before.

Nerdist: We’re always so excited about Halloween Horror Nights, and especially the original houses, which are always so beautiful and so thoughtful. So it’s our pleasure to hear exclusively from you about INVASION: Alien Abduction. It feels like it’s been some time since we saw an original Halloween Horror Nights house take on aliens. What made it the right time to bring aliens back to your original houses?

Charles Grey: We’d actually been talking about this for, gosh, the last five years. And every time we got together as a group, because what we normally do is a bunch of us get together in a room and kind of toss ideas around for what’s best for which year, they’ve never quite made it to the forefront. The reason being is when you do the little gray men or the aliens, it can quickly get humorous. It can quickly get kitsche and cheesy. And we’ve done that type of house before or Scare Zone, too, but, in INVASION: Alien Abduction, we really wanted to tell a story of the horrific moment at night when they are coming to take you. And that’s frightening. We had talked about it and talked about it and finally, I think we came up with a story that really encapsulates that almost home invasion type of horror and fear.

But they have this technology and kind of layering out what the aggressors are. So yes, we have the little gray men, but also there’s different types of little gray men. As you go through the INVASION: Alien Abduction Halloween Horror Nights house, you won’t see the same character over and over again. We have a diverse group of aliens coming at you.

And then we also had the issue of “How do you create a giant, two-football-field-sized alien craft?” So what we decided to do is really use lights to become the character. And then also what is coming out of the ships is an important question?

So we have these big, giant tentacles. And then, out of those big giant tentacles, come these little organic claws that can puncture you, pull you into the ship. So it’s really gory, really violent, and just put that aesthetic on everything. And it really changed our story and we got very excited about it. And just one little nugget of difference, too. It’s always like some Midwestern place in these stories. We’re like, what if it takes place in the Southwest? So it’s got a little bit of that kind of turquoise and cactusy flavor to it. That’s the area where I kind of grew up. So I was like, oh, let’s do that.

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Many original Halloween Horror Nights Houses connect into lore that’s been started or teased in other Houses or Scare Zones. Do you feel like INVASION: Alien Abduction connects directly into existing Halloween Horror Nights lore in any way, or is it starting new lore for you?

Charles Grey: Something interesting we’ve done in the past on anniversary years, because this will be an anniversary year for us… We always incorporate a lot of stories into past, but if you’ll notice, in our history, there’s usually one or two foundational news stories we’re telling during an anniversary year. And INVASION: Alien Abduction is one of those foundational stories. We didn’t want to tie it to anything because most of the event is tied to a something or another tale or a prequel or things like that. So we really wanted this to be the first chapter. And so we’re really excited about that. And then we’ll see what happens after this.

And speaking about the overall theme of this year’s Halloween Horror Nights, the Infernal Carnival of Nightmares, how do you feel INVASION: Alien Abduction has fits into that stained glass window of Halloween Horror Nights this year?

Charles Grey: Well, between the two iconic aggressors we have of Jack and Oddfellow, they represent chaos and control, but are the two sides of the same coin really. And this one most definitely leans towards the chaos. It is super chaotic. We just did an audio walk last week and there’s this stuff all over the place and it’s a very particular audio that draws your attention one way, but then something chaotic’s happening over here. So we’re drawing your attention over here. It really ping pongs you through the experience and people are getting pulled up into the spaceship left and right. So it’s going to be awesome.

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That sounds amazing. So you’re almost making these mini-movies when you create these Halloween Horror Nights Houses. What was the character design process like for all your different aliens here? Like you were saying, aliens can mean all kinds of things. There’s the stereotypical alien, but it sounds like you have a few kinds of aliens. What was the creature creation like for INVASION: Alien Abduction?

Charles Grey: Well, what we wanted to do is tap into people’s expectations, think about what they expect to see. And in a lot of stories, you always see the silhouette outline of the little gray man. So we took that, but then what’s inside the outline is not what you expect.

We get claws, teeth, just very horrific. So if you see it back lit, you’d be like, “Oh, this is what I expect to see. I’ve seen this before.” And then once you get closer, it gets really horrific, especially when they’re right on top of you.

I was especially curious about the part of the description that noted that the aliens abducted some livestock. Are we going to be possessed by alien, terrorized by possessed cows and how do you bring the animal aspect to life here?

Charles Grey: And again, when we were talking about how we create this and what’s the story we want to tell, are these aliens sinister? We thought that the scariest thing would be that they just don’t care. They’re grabbing animals, people. It’s almost like the little kid with the magnifying glass kind of thing. It’s just like they don’t see us as they’re not there to terrorize us. They’re there to take us and they don’t care what wall they puncture through, what kind of animal it is. They just want to do their experiments or whatever, but that’s what makes us so violent is these big tentacles just breaching through walls and grabbing whatever their heat-seeking device sees. So goats and cows and people, it doesn’t matter. They’re just grabbing them all.

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Halloween Horror Nights is always evolving with its scares. I know you mentioned these grabbing tentacles in INVASION: Alien Abduction, but did you feel like you invented any kind of new scares or utilize any new technologies or effects in this?

Charles Grey: Yes, we have two new things, but I can’t talk about them. That’s the problem. I can’t give away the scare. But we have one technological thing we’re experimenting with this year and one new scare for this location. So I can say that much.

To me, some of the most resonant parts of Halloween Horror Nights is how you create a true immersion of horror. Can you tease any unexpected sensations we might encounter in the house like scents or textures or temperatures?

Charles Grey: One thing I can share is we found a way to use vibration and floors, so it’s a little bit, we’re trying to work with what you’re feeling below you. A lot of times with subwolfers or anything low tone, you feel how it kind of hits you in the chest, but a lot of times it just gets eaten up by the people and the scenic parts and things like that. We’re trying to incorporate it into the floor itself so that way you feel the ship and the power of the scanning lights just really shaking the house apart, which is actually part of the story as you go through scene by scene, you’ll see more and more destruction.

Can you give us an overall idea of how brave you need to be to go through this house? Do you think INVASION: Alien Abduction will be one of the scarier Houses at the park during this year’s Halloween Horror Nights?

Charles Grey: I do because I do because of the unexpected amount of gore and violence and also the tightness and levels of attack, we’ll say. I think we’ve done a good job of keeping things confined and feeling very close to you, which works to our advantage

We also did some video shoots and we created a unique way for these aliens to move, too. So they’re shuffling and moving in their own way, which is something that was fun to work with the performers on. And it looks really creepy when they’re moving towards you.

And gore wise, if you have a weak stomach, you should prepare?

Charles Grey: Yes, you’ll be hanging onto your friends very tightly, but you’ll have a great time.

Every Halloween Horror Nights House has hidden Easter eggs and it can be hard to find them all when you’re busy being scared. Do you have a favorite small Easter egg from INVASION: Alien Abduction that you can tell us about and maybe alert our readers to where they might keep their eyes out for it?

Charles Grey: I’ll say look at family photos.

What’s your favorite memory of putting this House together?

Charles Grey: Just that it took a while for it to grow legs and I’m just excited to finally see it happen. I’m excited to see what a lot of us had championed, a lot of creators and scenic designers. So again, it sounds stereotypical, but it takes a village. It really did. It took the whole farmhouse to create this one.

What would you tell longtime fans of Halloween Horror Nights to get them excited about this original INVASION: Alien Abduction House?

Charles Grey: For longtime fans, I would say this has the flavor of old HHN. It really does. This is most definitely kind of a love letter for those who’ve been here for coming back for a long time and also the guy or the lady who’s coming in and bringing their kid for the first time that they’ve been for a long time. I would say this is most definitely for that fan to be like, “Hey, this reminds me of when I first came to the park and let me share this experience with you.”

And then conversely, what would you tell to somebody who’s never been to Halloween Horror Nights to get them excited about coming to this original house?

Charles Grey: Well, for somebody new, and I think of myself here, because my daughters are very new to this event, this will only be their second year. I think the facade and the tone and just before you get into the House itself will be quite the adventure. You’ll be able to feel and hear the story before you get into the House, and I think will be something new fans of Halloween Horror Nights could really appreciate, that storytelling before you even encounter the first scare.

Well, if we weren’t excited before, we are EXCITED now. INVASION: Alien Abduction comes to Halloween Horror Nights this year at Universal Orlando Resort. Tickets for the event are on sale now.

The post INVASION: Alien Abduction Will Make Aliens TERRIFYING at Halloween Horror Nights 2026 appeared first on Nerdist.

Every day, for more than three weeks running, tens of thousands of Albanians have taken to the streets, a peaceful mass movement seeking nothing less than a complete overthrow of the government.

The “Flamingo Revolution,” as local activists have dubbed it, was set off by the luxury resort projects that Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, plan to build on nature reserves in Albania. At the beginning of May, a barbed-wire fence was erected in the Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape in Zvërnec, restricting access to one of the most treasured natural coastlines and one of the Mediterranean’s last untouched coastal ecosystems.

Activists, residents, and members of the Levizja Bashkë political party gathered to protest the fences, and after security guards violently dragged a demonstrator through the property, more protests erupted and the story went global.

A protester speaks his mind during the early days of the so-called Flamingo Revolution. Protesters gather nightly in the Boulevard of Martyrs, even in the rain.

The Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape in Zvërnec, Albania, one of the Mediterranean’s last untouched coastal ecosystems and home to hundreds of protected species, is where Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump aim to build a new luxury resort.

The Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape is home to flamingos, pelicans, migratory birds, and hundreds of protected species. It includes lagoons, wetlands, and habitats of exceptional ecological value. And it is one of many protected nature zones now at dire risk of destruction.

In February 2024, led by Prime Minister Edi Rama of the center-left Socialist Party, Albania’s parliament passed Law 21/2024, which allows the National Territory Council to grant permits for luxury tourist resorts anywhere in the country, even inprotected landscapes. Three days later, Kushner went public with plans to create two luxury developments in the region, including a resort on Sazan, a protected nature zone and one of Albania’s only major islands.

Javanka’s vision includes up to 10,000 “units of villas,” priced far beyond what most Albanians can afford, to be built in an area where many locals lack access to 24-7 running water. Albania, which has set a goal of 2030 for admission to the European Union, is obligated to repeal Law 21/2024, which clashes with EU conservation standards, but so far has failed to do so.

The ongoing protest movement set off by the Kushner projects, has turned into something much larger, with youth chanting “Çohuni nga kafja! (Get up from the cafes!)” each night as they flood the streets of Tirana, Albania’s capital.

Protesters atop the Skanderbeg statue in Tirana’s main square. Skanderbeg was a national hero who fought for Albania’s independence from the Ottoman Empire. A view from the crowd at the foot of the Skanderbeg statue.

Their immediate goal is Rama’s resignation and the dissolution of his government; in its place, the protesters are demanding a year-long, interim technocratic leadership to prepare Albania for new elections, along with a two-term limit for prime ministers, nullification of Law 21/2024, and legislative reforms related to foreign investment and elections.

You can tell a lot about a movement from protesters’ chants. One that has united Albanians left and right is “Rama Burg, Berisha Burg” (Rama jail, Berisha jail), a call for the imprisonment of the country’s two most predominant political bosses, Socialist Rama and Democrat Sali Berisha, whose parties have been mired in corruption scandals ever since Albania transitioned from state socialism to democracy in 1991.

Berisha has been charged with corruption directly, while Rama’s Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku, her predecessor, Arben Ahmetaj, and Tirana’s mayor, Erion Veliaj, have all been indicted by Albania’s Special Anti-Corruption Prosecution agency. Among the other chants: “Revolution!” “The end has come for you!” “We are the opposition!” “Cancel the Project!” “Rama, resign!” And “A new Albania!” 

During a nightly march, protesters encourage bus riders to join in. An elderly resident shows support for the protesters.

Savvy Gen Zers, content creators, and influencers have flooded Instagram with protest videos, memes, informational content, and revolutionary posters and artwork that are helping to fuel the movement—and prompting Rama to blame the protests on social media algorithms he says are being hijacked and fueled by foreign agents.

In interviews, the PM has downplayed the opposition. Rama says the Kushner-Trump project will proceed even if 500,000 Albanians take to the streets—and that the Socialist Party’s sweep in 2025 is evidence of his popular support. He also has referenced the investment of roughly $4.6 billion in the Vlorë region, with an estimated $1.6 billion just for Sazan island—a no-brainer, he says, for a nation whose GDP is only about $33 billion.

But the unprecedented youth protest movement signals something else—widespread discontent. It has spawned the largest public demonstrations since the collapse of the communist regime in 1991. Since then, approximately 40 percent of the population has left Albania, and more than 50,000, mostly young adults, still migrate abroad annually—an exodus driven by official corruption, Albania’s high cost of living, and the lack of economic opportunity.

A sizable diaspora has spawned sister protests in several European and American cities; on June 20, hundreds of Albanian expats flew in and descended on Tirana in support of the protesters, leading to the movement’s largest rally yet, with more than 100,000 in attendance. Outside the city, in beach towns such as Kakome and Rrjoll, protesters followed the example set by their peers in Zvërnec, tearing down the fences and barriers blocking coastal access to protest the privatization of natural areas by powerful business interests.

The movement has attracted many young families with children, thanks to its nonviolent nature. Protesters impersonate Sali Berisha and Edi Rama, heads of the two main political parties, complete with chains and prison colors.

The movement is grassroots and decentralized, with no clear leaders, only protest “coordinators.” It is a revolt against the status quo and the political establishment that has ruled Albania for the past 36 years. It is a protest against corruption, and oligarchy.

It has united people across the political spectrum—youth, environmental activists, pensioners, young families, and influencers coming together to build momentum and pressure Rama to resign. Nightly rallies at the Boulevard of Martyrs are family-friendly, with a dedicated children’s drawing area run by local artists and volunteers, and a “people’s podium” where citizens can voice their discontent. Each night, after the rallies, protesters march through the streets of Tirana, with residents waving them on from balconies, taxi drivers honking their horns, and tourists looking on from cafes—and sometimes even joining in.

In a country as small as Albania, with just 2.3 million residents, 100,000  protesters is the equivalent of 12.7 million in the United States. And it doesn’t appear as though the movement will lose steam anytime soon.

Cafe patrons watch as thousands of protesters march through Tirana. Protesters on the march after a nightly rally. For three weeks now, thousands of people have come out on Tirana’s streets every night. Protesters call it the Flamingo Revolution. Hundreds of Albanian expats returned home to join the protests on June 20. Many plan to do the same over the July 4 weekend. A young woman displays a Monopoly box with “Albania” written on it during one nightly march.

The “people’s podium” is a key part of the nightly rallies, open to anyone who wants to speak.

A protester waves an Albanian flag atop the Pyramid of Tirana, which was originally built as a museum to Communist leader Enver Hoxha. Now it’s a cultural hub and tourist attraction. On Day Three of the protests, police unleash water cannons and teargas after protesters stormed through barricades set up to thwart them. There have been no such confrontations since. Environmental activists march with hand-painted flamingos in protest of the Kushner-Trump resort plan. The protests are widely seen as family friendly, which has added to the appeal.

There’s a lot of work that goes into being a student-athlete nowadays.

Most have to juggle between practice, workouts (sometimes twice a day), school work and perhaps other responsibilities on a daily basis.

Pajaro Valley High graduate Olivia Contreras knows this all too well seeing that she had first-hand experience in not just one, but three different sports for the past four years. 

“It is a lot to balance,” she said. “You really do just have to put in a lot of work and make sure that you can have boundaries for sports and for school because it does get a lot sometimes.”

In those four years, Contreras believes she’s grown a lot in both academics and athletics.

However, it wasn’t until her junior year when the Grizzly star athlete truly began to sparkle for the girls volleyball, basketball and softball teams.

“I was still learning, and I continue to learn, but I think junior year is really where I started to feel more comfortable,” Contreras said. “Then senior year was probably one of my best years.”

No doubt about it.

Contreras found success across multiple sports, earning all-league first team honors in all three that she competed in while also being recognized as the top player in one.

It was a testament not only to her natural talent, but to her relentless work ethic, dedication to her teams and unwavering commitment to excellence. 

Contreras was an inspiration while setting an example for younger athletes. She represents the very best of what it means to be a student-athlete, which is why Contreras was named The Pajaronian’s Female Athlete of the Year for the 2025-26 school year.

“I definitely wasn’t expecting it,” she said. “I think there’s a lot of other super talented people in the area, and for me to be able to accept this award, and to be given this award, is such an honor.”

PV athletic director Joe Manfre had a front row seat throughout most of Contreras’ career.

Manfre said he was always impressed by her tenacity and willingness to do anything to help make the team better, and win.

“She wasn’t one of those people that was gonna throw the bat down when she struck out,” Manfre said. “It was her calm demeanor that helped lead the other kids in all those sports that she played. She never really got too high, and she never really got too low. Just her consistency and her temperament helped out in all three sports.”

Contreras said it also helped to have her father, Adrian, watching from the grandstands in just about every game, even the ones that added mileage to the car.

“He’s always there to motivate me and to talk about games after if I have a bad game or anything,” Contreras said. “And he’s super supportive, so he’s somebody I really look up to.”

Contreras quickly made a name for herself in her favorite sport after becoming a member of the girls volleyball team her freshman year. 

“Just the love for it really pushed me to be better, and I loved the feeling of when I was succeeding in it,” she said. “That feeling also really kept me going, and just putting in hard work.”

The hard work paid off as she earned All-Pacific Coast Athletic League First Team honors in the Cypress Division to cap off her senior year in dominant fashion.

Unlike a real grizzly bear, Contreras did not hibernate during the winter. She continued to grind on the hardwood court as one of the team captains for the girls basketball squad.

Former PV head coach Darren Jackson praised Contreras for being a well-rounded student-athlete that was passionate about anything she set her mind to.

“It speaks to her character and how hard she works,” Jackson said. “I’m glad that she was noticed and being recognized for that [athlete of the year] award. I think she deserves it.”

Contreras went from earning All-PCAL Cypress Division Second Team honors her junior season to earning first team honors, and receiving the co-Most Valuable Player award this past winter campaign.

“[Jackson], with his different strategies, he’s helped me a lot,” she said. “He pushed all of us to be a lot better, and we pushed ourselves.”

The Grizzly standout finished with an average of 12 points and 10 rebounds per game while playing lockdown defense on the opposite side of the court.

What’s even more jaw dropping is she was still successful despite playing out of position, going from down in the paint to up top as a guard.

“She’s that kind of athlete that gives me that full court drive, that pressure that I needed,” Jackson said. “She accepted her new role and she became very good at it.”

Contreras demonstrated a high level of skill, strong leadership and relentless heart in every game.

On top of an MVP season, she helped lead the Grizzlies to a share of the PCAL Cypress Division crown with Pacific Collegiate as both teams went 12-2 in league play this season.

“This year was definitely a shock, but I’m really happy about the outcome,” Contreras said. “[MVP] wasn’t really something I was aiming for, but it’s something I’m super excited that I was able to get.” 

The athleticism continued in the spring on the softball field.

Contreras earned All-PCAL First Team honors in the Santa Lucia Division, proving once again her competitive spirit knows no boundaries.

“I love sports, but [softball] just wasn’t really my sport,” she said. “I wanted to do the best that I could in that sport, and I think it showed.” 

In 19 games played, she finished batting a .327 average (17-for-52), including three home runs, a pair of triples, 25 RBIs, 19 runs scored, 10 walks and 16 stolen bases.

PV second-year head coach Daisy Ortiz mentioned that Contreras gained confidence at the plate by putting in extra work at the batting cages.

“She wouldn’t stop taking reps until she felt they were good or started getting good swings on the ball,” Ortiz said. “She’s a really hard worker, a leader since she stepped on our field, as well.” 

On defense, Contreras stepped into a new role behind the plate as PV’s newest catcher. She finished with 103 put outs on 111 total chances while tallying just seven errors.

A true example of what sportsmanship ought to be. 

“She’s a really good athlete, but I think the most important thing is that she’s a really good teammate,” Manfre said. “I think she lifts up all the girls around her. Whatever sport she’s playing, whether it’s volleyball, basketball, or softball, she brings a lot of energy, hard work and dedication.”

In fact, Contreras earned a spot on the PCAL’s Richard Chamberlin All-Sportsmanship Team, while the Grizzlies were named the Elgi Bellizio All-Sportsmanship team. 

“I would have to move a lot of girls around, and whatever position I had to put [Contreras] at that day, she would just own it and do whatever was best for the team,” Ortiz said. “We pride ourselves on good sportsmanship.”

When it comes down to it, Contreras simply loves the competitiveness and seeing everybody get along to be able to play together. 

Contreras is also hopeful the athlete of year award will bring more attention to PV’s athletic department, and encourage others to give sports at least a try.

“It’s really a great community,” she said. “I think sports helps people open up, and it’s really important. Sports are a big part of my life.”

#tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item1 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Olivia-Contreras-PV-girls-hoops-2025-26-season-2-WEB-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item2 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Olivia-Contreras-PV-girls-hoops-2025-26-season-WEB-1-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item3 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PAJ2553-PV-hosts-toy-drive-web-8-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item4 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Olivia-Contreras-PV-softball-2026-season-WEB-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item5 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Olivia-Contreras-PV-High-AOY-2025-26-season-WEB-1-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } 1 of 5 Pajaro Valley High graduate Olivia Contreras, left, led the Grizzly girls basketball team in scoring during the 2025-26 season. (Raul Ebio/The Pajaronian) Pajaro Valley High graduate Olivia Contreras, right, was a huge presence on defense for the Grizzly girls basketball team during the 2025-26 season. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian file) Pajaro Valley High girls basketball player Olivia Contreras, left, poses with an elementary school student during the First Annual Toy Drive event organized by Pajaro Valley High's ASB student body and girls' basketball team inside the gymnasium on campus in Watsonville on Tuesday, Dec. 23. (Raul Ebio/The Pajaronian) Pajaro Valley High graduate Olivia Contreras, earned All-Pacific Coast Athletic League First Team honors in the Santa Lucia Division for the 2026 spring season. (contributed) Pajaro Valley High graduate Olivia Contreras was named The Pajaronian's Female Athlete of the Year for the 2025-26 school year. Contreras competed for the girls volleyball, basketball and softball teams for the past four years. (Juan Reyes/The Pajaronian) The Pajaronian’s Female Athlete of the Year 2025-26 candidates

Adelaide Friedley (Sr.), Aptos

Cloe Morrow (Jr.), Monte Vista Christian

Olivia Contreras (Sr.), Pajaro Valley

Peyton Orradre (Sr.), St. Francis

Esperanza Sigala (Jr.), Watsonville

As President Trump holds a popular bipartisan bill hostage, Democrats say that the issue is out of their hands, and that the onus is on Republicans to stand up to the president and get the legislation signed.

On Wednesday Trump was set to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which had passed the Senate and House easily. On the Hill, Speaker Mike Johnson was preparing to tout the legislation. But by lunchtime, Trump had thrown a wrench into the works, announcing on Truth Social that he wouldn’t sign the bill into law until Congress passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, America Act. That afternoon, Democrats held a press conference urging Trump to pass the bill. None of their Republican colleagues joined them.

“What a mess,” Senator Tina Smith said on Thursday.

The SAVE America Act would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID when voting. Trump has claimed that the bill will prevent noncitizens from voting in elections (an illegal and incredibly rare phenomenon), while opponents of the bill say it would functionally disenfranchise citizens who don’t have passports or other eligible documentation. The bill passed the House in February, but has stalled indefinitely in the Senate and is widely viewed as unpassable. Senator Jon Ossoff called it a “poison pill” that sinks any legislation it’s attached to.

On Thursday, Democratic lawmakers emphasized that dealing with Trump is Republicans’ job.

“We have to just keep on pounding on the idea that you need to sign the damn bill,” Smith said. “I don’t have a lot of clout with the President, but I believe that Senator Scott does, and others who worked so hard to get this bill passed.” Republican Senator Tim Scott sponsored the bill alongside Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Reporting suggests that Johnson might be working on a solution. On Thursday afternoon, he headed to the White House to speak with Trump about the SAVE Act. “We passed the SAVE Act three times in the House. We’ll do it again. We’re working on that, and I’m going to talk with the president about these issues and how to get the agenda moving again. It’s going to be very productive,” Johnson said.

At least one Democrat, Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, expressed hope that Johnson will find a work-around and get Trump to sign the housing bill: “Mr. Johnson has a bill, he has to get it to [Trump]. I think he’s going to get it to him, and that they’re going to work it out,” she said. “I’m very optimistic.”

There’s a clock ticking in the background. When a bill passes both houses, the president has 10 days to sign it before it automatically becomes law. The 10-day countdown only starts once Johnson officially presents the bill to Trump—which on Thursday evening he said he would do, but as of early Friday it was unclear whether he had actually done so yet.

Warren says that it’s up to Republicans to officially present the bill and start the clock. “There’s plenty that the Republicans in Congress could do if they have the backbone to,” she said.

But there’s also a second complicating factor. If both chambers aren’t in session when the 10 days expire, the bill is automatically pocket vetoed. It’s legally ambiguous whether the recess in early July counts as an adjournment and would trigger a pocket veto. If it does, the bill will be killed. Congress cannot override a pocket veto, and would have to reintroduce and revote on the legislation.

When asked if they thought a pocket veto was Trump’s ultimate goal, Warren and Smith had similar answers. “You’re asking me to get in Donald Trump’s head and figure this out. Sorry, that’s a crazy place,” Warren said.

“I am so not qualified to look into this man’s mind and understand what it is that he is trying to accomplish,” Smith said. “But what he did was sabotage a bill that was strongly supported by Democrats and Republicans in some sort of a fit, because he was mad about the War Powers Act and the Reflecting Pool, and the fact that Republicans don’t support his voter suppression bill.”

Yuri Zaporozhets of QRV Systems is a busy chap. He's built a new RISC-V-based personal computer, a mainframe on an FPGA, and rewritten QNX – twice. Seemingly every month or two, The Reg FOSS desk gets an email telling us about some astonishing project that he has just got working. We're delighted to see that his most recent one, a new OS called QSOE, is winning some attention in the FOSS world at present. But first, we thought we could tell a more complete story of how he got here by describing some of his previous projects. (By way of a disclaimer, we feel that we should say up front that he does use Anthropic's Claude LLM to help. To his credit, he does clearly state this.) GateMate Personal Computer At the end of 2025, Zaporozhets wrote to tell us about his GateMate Personal Computer. The GateMate PC is something similar to a fairly high-end late-1980s IBM PC-compatible, but instead of a 286 or 386 CPU, it has a 25 MHz RISC-V core. He told us the main inspiration for the GateMate PC: "The very first computer I saw in my life: an IBM PS/2 Model 30, in 1992. It also started in text mode." We worked on a few of those, and they were not great machines. The GateMate machine should easily outperform the later, faster Model 30-286. He also acknowledges another project: "the NeoRV32 softCPU by Stefan Nolting is great." It has a VGA port that can output 80x30-character text in what back then we used to call Hi-Color, 8 KB of ROM containing a BIOS, and – although it's still in the early stages – its own OS, which he calls GMDOS. The characters are double-byte ones using UCS-2 Unicode. The GateMate gets its name from the host hardware because the design is mostly software: it's implemented on an inexpensive FPGA board, the €50 Olimex GateMate A1-EVB (that's about £42 or $57). Its video controller is an original design, and he has added extra RAM: the machine has 8 MB of additional PSRAM on two chips, via a QSPI interface. He blogged about the project, from receiving the board last August to getting a PLL working, to getting video out of it. The Olimex GateMate board can do a lot more, though – which leads us to his next project. GateMate System/359 Also implemented on the same FPGA board is Zaporozhets' miniature mainframe, the System/359. This isn't a clone of the IBM System/360 mainframe series, the machines that introduced the idea of different computers being software compatible – it’s more of a tribute to it. For starters, the S/359 is a little-endian machine, while the S/390 is big-endian. So it's not binary-compatible with the mainframe architecture, but it's similar. He started the project in January, and later that month, writing about its assembler, said: "GMS/359 keeps what's beautiful about S/360 – the channel I/O model, the clean instruction formats, the PSW concept – while quietly modernizing the rest. Little-endian bytes. Opcode-first encoding. PC-relative addressing. No more base register juggling. The '/359' isn't a typo. It's a declaration: inspired by, not compatible with." Zaporozhets told The Register: "There is a working assembler with the POWERFUL macroprocessor – from NASM. I was a NASM contributor from 1999 to 2004 and maintained its RDOFF2 part. Now RDOFF2 is removed from NASM 3.0, but it continues to live in my asm359 project. "Currently the processor can execute the simple IPL; channel I/O controller works (PS/2 kbd, UART, SYSINFO, even crypto processor (!)). Once I finish the PSRAM module, I will start working with SYS1.NUCLEUS." So we can take it that as well as RISC-V and FPGAs, he has some familiarity with low-level systems design. His next project was with an OS that a lot of folks admire: QNX. Porting QNX 6.4 to RISC-V Although Zaporozhets wrote to us about this back in March, he also went public with it in a Reddit post: QNX 6.4 kernel ported to RISC-V; petition to BlackBerry to relicense old QNX sources under Apache 2.0. QNX has an on-again-off-again relationship with FOSS. QNX has been around since the 1980s, as we reported when the company made QNX 8 non-commercial freeware in 2024. In that article, we mentioned that QNX published the source code of an earlier version back in 2007. Back then, QNX was self-hosting and had its own desktop environment – we showed a screenshot of its Neutrino GUI in our roundup of non-Linux PC OSes back in 2013, and GUIdebook has a whole screenshot gallery. The next year, that QNX 6.4 source code was mirrored from SourceForge over to GitHub, and it's still there. Zaporozhets took this long-obsolete codebase and ported it to RISC-V, targeting his own FU740 "workstation." It's not the whole OS, just "the kernel, the process manager, the C library, the runtime linker." And the license is very restrictive: you can study it and compile it, but not redistribute it. He started this effort over Christmas 2020. "The timing made sense in a particular way. RISC-V had matured. The toolchains were stable. The original QNX sources were 32-bit ILP32, targeting x86, ARM, MIPS, SH, and PPC – no 64-bit port existed, let alone RISC-V. Doing the LP64 transition and the architecture port in a single effort seemed like exactly the kind of large, difficult, satisfying project that a long holiday lockdown invites." But after the initial effort, it languished for five years. When he came back to it, he ended up with a substantial rewrite. He calls the result QRV. In March, he described this in a blog post, QRV Operating System: First Publication. As he puts it: "For clarity: QRV is not a patch on the original QNX sources. It is a ground-up reworking of the 32-bit ILP32 codebase into a 64-bit LP64 system for RISC-V, with deliberate simplifications." By the end of April, QRV v0.27 could boot to multi-user login. A month later, he declared the project finished with version 0.43: "This is the last development post for QRV. The project set out to port QNX Neutrino 6.4 to RISC-V 64-bit, run it on real hardware, and explore what it would take to bring a clean microkernel architecture to a modern open ISA. Those goals are met. v0.43 is the final release." Where next? Well, as the QNX kernel is not truly open source, then the only path forward is to switch to another kernel, one that is truly FOSS. Well, we say "one"… ¿Por qué no los dos? QSOE – Quick and Secure Operating Environment The result is QSOE: "QSOE ships in two variants that share one userspace and one build system. QSOE/N runs on Skimmer, a microkernel written from scratch for this project (SMP by design); QSOE/L runs on seL4 as its kernel." As The Register covered back in 2014, Secure Embedded L4 is a formally verified microkernel OS. We have written about other OSes that use it before: in 2022, we described the new Neptune OS project, which is a combination of seL4, ReactOS, and Wine. Then, in 2025, we looked at Ironclad, which combines seL4 with the C-based Gloire and an Ada layer. There are some very serious precedents for building around seL4, but QSOE doesn't stop there: it also has its own homegrown kernel, called Skimmer, that’s designed for multiprocessor machines. Zaporozhets has been working in this area for a long time. On the QSOE site, he mentions his effort to build a free QNX-like operating system back in 2003. It's still online – it is called RadiOS. In How QSOE started, he describes the inspiration: as a fallback option, a Plan B, if his petition to BlackBerry did not succeed. We sympathize. When we wrote about QNX 8, we got nothing useful back from the company either. Instead, he took all he learned from writing RadiOS and building QRV – via the GateMate PC and mini-mainframe – and did it himself instead. Now he has released QSOE version 0.1. It's under the Apache 2.0 license, and its source code is on GitLab. He also has a new development blog. Yes, Claude may be involved, but he was already developing these ideas 20 years before ChatGPT launched. ®

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Thursday decision to allow a wider cancellation of Temporary Protected Status, Venezuelans are grappling with a stark reality: There are only remnants of a country to return back to. On Wednesday, twin earthquakes—the first with a magnitude of 7.2, the second 7.5—centered on the nation’s state of Yaracuy, which is west of its capital, Caracas.

Source

Somehow President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair keeps getting worse.

As temperatures topped 80 degrees Thursday, the festival’s food hall lost power, causing all the ice cream to melt, according to Fox 5 DC reporter Homa Bash.

Food hall at Great American State Fair has lost power - they have food but tell me all their ice cream has melted 😭 pic.twitter.com/5sQXOEvUVl

— Homa Bash (@HomaBashNews) June 25, 2026

The food hall wasn’t the only attraction affected by power outages. The much-hyped Ferris Wheel temporarily stopped running Thursday due to generator issues.

In order to cool off, attendees crowded under one of the only sources of shade on the National Mall—Trump’s Temu Arc de Triomphe.

The Great American State Fair was already off to a rocky start Wednesday evening when dozens of attendees were seen flocking toward the exits in the middle of Trump’s address, which was meant to kick-start the two-week event.

The line for admission appeared to dwindle on the festival’s second day.

Also on Thursday, Pennsylvania joined nine other states to pull out of the Freedom 250 gala on the National Mall, including Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, North Carolina, and Vermont.

A stall celebrating Maine remained empty Thursday, as the state did not send a delegation to Trump’s festival. Connecticut, too, was just “chairs,” according to Bash.

All in all, it seems like Trump’s festival isn’t a resounding success, but who can be surprised when the president has shrunk the meaning of patriotism to be more about him than about the country he leads?

Watergate wasn’t even that bad, according to JD Vance.

The vice president spoke at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California Thursday, and expressed his admiration for Nixon.

“I joked … backstage if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story,” Vance said. “The idea that it would’ve taken down a presidency is crazy.”

JD Vance: "I think Nixon's historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so. I joked that if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hours news story. The idea that it took down a presidency is crazy." pic.twitter.com/osy0V3QLyN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 25, 2026

The 1972 Watergate scandal began when operatives associated with Nixon’s reelection campaign were caught attempting to bug the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate Hotel. It was then uncovered that Nixon knew about the break-in, and had secretly diverted payments in order to cover it up. The two-year scandal ended with Nixon resigning during his impeachment proceedings.

The galling conduct by a president—lying to the American people, sending hush money to burglars to conceal their connection to his campaign, using executive privilege to try and withhold evidence—shocked the nation, and resulted in a series of government reforms to create more oversight for the president, including more independence for inspectors general.

The idea that Watergate would have taken down a presidency is not at all crazy. But Vance’s assertion shows that the Overton window for acceptable conduct has shifted. And not by accident: Americans have to wade through a constant barrage of offenses, from Trump being convicted on 34 felony counts for hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, to normalizing political prosecution of enemies, to creating a slush fund for all the January 6 insurrectionists he pardoned after encouraging them to attack the Capitol. That’s to say nothing of his White House ballroom, his gifts to his political donors, and his turning the presidency into a crypto crash grab for himself and his family.

Nixon knew that if the country heard the things he said in private in the Oval Office, his presidency would be over. Trump regularly says far worse out loud.

Vance went on to say that he sees himself in Nixon: “Young senator, vice president, writes some best selling books, is hated by the media — it kind of sounds like JD Vance,” he joked to the crowd on Thursday.

Hopefully America is smart enough to see Nixon in him too.

This post is updated throughout the day to reflect the latest incidents. It was last updated at 7:02 a.m..

Here’s what’s happening on the roads this morning…

▼︎ new incidents

Road incidents as of 7 a.m. on June 26

• Highway 9 at Cascade Avenue in San Lorenzo Valley has one-way traffic because of ongoing work. This closure will last until August 31.
   
• There will be alternating lane closures on both northbound and southbound Highway 9 at Pool Drive in San Lorenzo Valley because of bridge work. This will continue until April 30 at 6:59 a.m.
   
• A lane on westbound SR-152 at Clifford Drive/Ohlone Parkway in Watsonville/Pajaro is closed for paving work. The closure will last until 5:59 a.m. on July 3.
   
• A traffic collision happened on northbound Highway 1 near 41st Ave. in Capitola/Soquel. No one was hurt. Debris like a trash can, metal bar, and toolbox was scattered on the road, making cars swerve to avoid it. A large truck dropped a metal object, and another vehicle ran over debris and got a flat tire. The debris was later moved to the right-hand shoulder for removal. The incident was reported today.
   
• A traffic collision happened at the intersection of San Juan Rd and Murphy Rd in Watsonville / Pajaro at 5:36 a.m. today. A white Toyota pickup and a dark blue or black Yukon were involved. Tow services and the fire department responded to remove the vehicles and clean up fluids. No injuries were reported.
   

Disclosure: Traffic incidents are partially generated by artificial intelligence. We are constantly working to improve the accuracy and quality of our AI-generated content. However, there may still be errors or inaccuracies. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

The post Friday morning traffic: Highway 9 one-way traffic, debris on Hwy 1 after crash appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

⚡ Quick Take

• Nerdist Features Editor Tai Gooden spoke with writer and pop culture figure Preeti Chhibber about Scarlet Witch: House of Harkness, a witchy YA graphic novel.
• The story follows Wanda Maximoff as she attends a magical new school where Agatha Harkness is the queen bee.
• Together, they solve a big issue by combining their forces.
• Preeti talks about this graphic novel, what she nerds out about, and how sports fans and nerd fans are more alike than most people think.

When it comes to comic book characters, there’s endless possibilities for the types of stories that writers and artists can tell. Sure, there may be certain timelines and story beats that a film universe or TV franchise must abide by. But graphic novels have the choice to create wholly unique backstories and adventures that are separate from established canon, whether in previous comics or in current on-screen appearances. That’s exactly what we get with Scarlet Witch: House of Harkness, a YA graphic novel written by longtime Marvel collaborator and pop culture mainstay Preeti Chhibber, with artwork by Jodi Nishijima and Kiichi Mizushima. 

Scholastic/Marvel/Jodi Nishijima

The story follows Wanda Maximoff, a 16 year old student who just arrived at House of Harkness, a famed school of magic for talented teens. Things quickly go awry when she makes a fast enemy of Agatha Harkness, whose family just so happens to own the school. Their ongoing feud soon takes a back seat to a bigger mystery that forces the duo to combine their powers to save everyone. We caught up with Chhibber to chat about crafting this wonderfully witchy tale and so much more. 

Nerdist: Tell us about House of Harkness and why this witchy adventure between Wanda and Agatha felt like the right one for you to write.

Preeti Chhibber: It is a magical kid alternate universe with all of our favorite magic users from Marvel where a lot of them have been de-aged to being teenagers. There’s this mystery that’s going on at the school. Wanda’s the new kid, and Agatha’s the legacy. Marvel approached me and was like, “We want to do this kind of dark academia YA, manga-inspired Scarlet Witch story.” I was like, “That sounds awesome! I’m super into it. ” 

One thing I’m really interested in on the kidlit side of storytelling is the heightened experience you have with friendships and relationships when you’re in school. And so bringing some of that fraught energy that exists in the comics between Wanda and other people, including Agatha, into a school setting was something I was really excited to do.

It’s also a great entry point for kids who maybe don’t know where to start with Marvel. What’s so fun about comics is that there are a lot of ways you can come into it. But in this day and age, it can feel really daunting to find a place to begin. So I hope this is a really fun intro to the characters that will inspire kids to be like, “Oh, I want more. Let me go see what else is out there.”

I love that! Of course, a graphic novel isn’t a project that a writer tackles alone. How did you partner with the illustration team to craft something that feels both narratively and visually compelling? 

Chhibber: [Artist] Jodi Nishijima came on board and created these incredible character studies for a lot of the main characters like Wanda, Agatha, Stephen Strange, and Loki. Jodi thought about the look and feel of the uniforms and how they would be wearing them differently given their personalities. And we all went back and forth. She sent over a bunch of ideas and we were like, “Oh, we like this one. We like the pants from this one, the shirt from this one.” 

When I write my scripts, what I hope for is a true partner. I try to leave some room where I drill down what I need in a panel for the story to keep going. And then everything else is like, have fun with it as the artist!

Courtesy of Preeti Chhibber

It all came together beautifully, you make a great team. And I love that all of the students are diverse. There’s queer representation, which is so important for kids because it reflects the world they live in and maybe their own identity, too. What were some of your favorite characters to develop, outside of Wanda and Agatha? 

Chhibber: Loki was particularly super fun. I was so excited. When I pitched the idea, I was like, “This is going to be Team Wanda. This is going to be Team Agatha.” Team Chaos always existed as is with Nightmare and Loki. Loki was really fun. And then also I love Nico Minoru in Runaways, and so I wanted to bring her in. I’m sure some people might be like, “That’s kind of a weird pairing between her and wildly different characters from wildly different eras of comics.” 

But that’s the great part about comics! You can create alternate realities and play with known characters. I love the way that Wanda and Agatha teamed up together to solve a big problem, which I’ll let people figure out when they read it. The ending does leave room for more stories. Do you have plans to continue with these characters or is this more of a one-shot deal?

Chhibber: I would love to! I left it open because I think the characters are so fun and it would allow for the opportunity… I think it’ll depend largely on if people will come to the table for this kind of book. Will it get a foothold with younger readers? And that will dictate if there’s more, but there’s definitely ideas for more.

Very fair. Let’s have a little fun. Which House of Harkness character are you most like and which one would you want to be more like? 

Chhibber: I mean, obviously I wish I was more like Wanda. I think Wanda has such confidence and she has true belief in her own abilities. A lot of us, including me, have to deal with imposter syndrome and things like that. Wanda has her moments of wondering, “Did I do the right thing?” But largely she really believes in herself and she believes in her work, which I love. In terms of who I’m really most like in the book, I don’t know. I think there are aspects of me in Shri and Loki. Some of the more kooky chaos pieces are me, but also some of that part of Agatha where she has to question everything that her parents have told her. That re-learning what the truth is and how you engage with that when all of a sudden your worldview is shifted.

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The Tarot Deck From AGATHA ALL ALONG Is Finally Available

Yeah, that part of Agatha’s story will definitely resonate with teens and adults, too. Sometimes, kids can see their adults as infallible or not capable of making really bad choices. They have to reconcile that and it may come a time where they have to push back against authority figures in their lives in the name of what’s right. 

Chhibber: Yeah, I think learning your parents are people and people make mistakes and difficult choices and maybe choices you don’t see as right. And what do you do when that happens?

Right. I know you’re a big comic fan, obviously a big Marvel and Wheel of Time fan. But, of course, we know that nerding out goes far beyond those things. What do you nerd out about that most people wouldn’t expect you to? 

Chhibber: I am deep into the World Cup right now. I love the World Cup, my friends, and I do a draft every year, every World Cup. Sports are maybe not necessarily expected from me. But I like to be a nerd about everything that I like! Crafting, LEGO, sports, this is what it looks like for me. 

You can totally be into all sorts of sportsball in a nerdy way. I think there’s more overlap to how sports fans interact with each other and celebrate their favorites and how, say, nerdy fandoms interact with others and celebrate what they like. People are basically cosplaying at NFL games.

Chhibber: Yeah! Everything has a narrative. There’s a reason I love sports movies and shows. I love them because it’s the triumph, it’s the determination, and the training montage. I love all of that. And when you have real life sports like volleyball or basketball or whatever, there are these wonderful story narratives that come out of it like the Knicks.

I’m not a huge basketball person, but I love the sort of joy and excitement and the culmination of catharsis that came out of that win for New York City. And that is all narrative and story and the connection you feel. And that through line absolutely exists with all fandoms.

I totally agree. If you could describe House of Harkness in three words, which ones would you use?

Chhibber: Friendship, magic, and chaos.

Scarlet Witch: House of Harkness will release on July 7, and you can order your copy right now.

The post Preeti Chhibber on Her New Graphic Novel SCARLET WITCH: HOUSE OF HARKNESS appeared first on Nerdist.

Collaboration platform Notion is shutting down its AI-powered Gmail client, Notion Mail, on September 22 after users increasingly handed control of their inboxes to the company's agents. "As Notion agents have gotten more capable, we've seen more users hand off email workflows to them," the company wrote on X. "Today, more than half of Notion Mail users manage emails without ever opening their inbox. So, we're going all in on using agents to run your inbox." Notion Mail, which became widely available in April 2025, used AI to organize users' Gmail accounts. It followed Notion's 2024 acquisition of email and collaboration startup Skiff. It has been an interesting if short-lived experiment, but a polished inbox is of limited value when more than half of users manage their email without opening it. The good news for users facing the shutdown is that all the emails in Gmail will remain intact, although drafts and scheduled emails will be deleted if not saved first. The company has published an FAQ for customers wondering what to do next, and warned that custom views and sorting set up in Notion Mail won't transfer, that files attached to snippets would need to be manually downloaded, and that reminders set on emails in Notion Mail wouldn't transfer to Gmail. Furthermore, while the end will come on September 22 for most users, customers relying on HIPAA coverage must plan to transition off the service by June 30. Yes, that's next week. Notion, like many tech companies, has made AI agents a central part of its product strategy. The agents can, for example, perform enterprise tasks, such as managing workflows. As such, it isn't surprising that the company has found users aren't going near the inbox and are therefore ditching the Notion Mail concept. The company concluded: "We're grateful to each and every one of you for building your routine around Notion Mail and trusting us with something that mattered as much as your email," followed by a perky "More to come!" Notion customers would be forgiven for wondering whether that means more services in the pipeline, or more of the company's products on the chopping block. ®

Aseon Labs, which came out of Y Combinator's 2026 spring cohort, has raised $10 million from Crane Venture Partners and others.

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By Julie Appleby for KFF Sen. Ron Wyden and 14 Democratic co-sponsors introduced legislation Thursday to cap consumers’ potential out-of-pocket costs in traditional Medicare, resurfacing a long-running debate over why the program doesn’t limit beneficiary spending. Even the bill’s backers say securing passage this year is a long shot. But the effort is one more opportunity for…

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