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Rep. Dan Goldman didn’t just lose his primary Tuesday. He got trounced. With roughly 90 percent of votes counted, the incumbent New York congressman is trailing former city comptroller Brad Lander by more than 30 points. Goldman lost the Democratic primary despite his campaign spending more than $7 million—$2 million of which came directly from Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.

Lander’s victory is extraordinary. As a general rule, congressional incumbents don’t lose their primaries by dozens of points, absent personal or professional scandals. Goldman, who was first elected in 2022, has none. The exception to that rule is members of Congress who find themselves severely out of step during times of ideological realignment within their party. That is what happened in New York’s 10th Congressional District, which covers lower Manhattan, the wealthy neighborhoods of Brownstone Brooklyn, and sections of south Brooklyn. 

A related dynamic played out in New York’s 7th and 13th districts, where Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier—two left-wing candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America—defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and longtime Rep. Adriano Espaillat. Valdez leads Reynoso by more than 20 points, while Avila Chevalier—who ran in a less DSA-heavy district and was seen as a weaker candidate than Lander or Valdez—narrowly prevailed over Espaillat.

Israel and Gaza played a major role in the bitter contest between Goldman and Lander. Both men are self-described liberal Zionists who vocally condemned Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. But beyond that, their approaches to Israel diverge drastically.

In November 2023, Goldman was one of just 22 Democrats who voted to censure his colleague Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) after she shared a video that included the line “from the river to the sea” to show her support for Palestinian rights. Last year, Goldman broke with most of his party by voting to sanction the International Criminal Court after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a Hamas military commander. 

During a debate earlier this month, Goldman said he was “proud” to march in this year’s Israel Day parade in New York. Lander chose not to, saying he would not be attending “while Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, violating international law, [and] violating Palestinian human rights.” His differences with Goldman when it came to Israel, he said, were “profound.” 

Lander and Goldman are both Jewish candidates who were running to represent one of the most Jewish congressional districts in the country. But Lander’s views on Israel appear to be much more in line with those of fellow progressive Jews in neighborhoods like Park Slope. (As my colleague Sophie Hurwitz has written, Lander’s children are named after a Jewish leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and a Jewish labor organizer.)

Lander’s victory wasn’t just about Israel. The former city comptroller is about as known a quantity in Brownstone Brooklyn as a politician can be. Before being elected comptroller in 2021, he represented Park Slope and nearby neighborhoods on the New York City Council for more than a decade. While in that role, he successfully pushed a major rezoning in Gowanus that has led to a boom in housing construction in the neighborhood. 

Lander’s background and wonkish affect are also a natural fit in a progressive district that includes the Park Slope Food Coop. After growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, he attended the University of Chicago and became a Marshall Scholar. He later moved to Brooklyn, where he bought his home for a now-unimaginable price of $655,000. He is a quintessential Park Slope dad whose enthusiastic Pride-flag-waving has garnered affection on social media.

When Lander ran for mayor last year, he was considered one of Andrew Cuomo’s top rivals before Mamdani surged in the polls. But he accepted likely defeat rather than try to take Mamdani down. Toward the end of the primary, the two candidates cross-endorsed each other to take advantage of New York’s ranked choice voting system. After the mayoral election, Mamdani endorsed Lander in his bid to unseat Goldman.

Mayoral candidate Brad Lander was cuffed and detained by ICE agents after asking to see a warrant for people who were detained after an immigration hearing. Video from the city comptroller’s press secretary @chloecbristow. She says he’s still being held in 26 Federal Plaza. pic.twitter.com/cW9jIsp35b

— Jeff Coltin (@JCColtin) June 17, 2025

In Donald Trump’s second term, Lander has emerged as a prominent champion of immigrants’ rights. Last June, while running for mayor, he was arrested at a Manhattan immigration courthouse while trying to escort a man out of the building. Shortly before being detained, he told a reporter, “I don’t think there’s any place that’s more important to be right now than bearing witness and trying to stand up for the rule of law.” 

In September, he was arrested again at the same federal building, along with other Democratic officials, after demanding to inspect immigration detention facilities. Earlier this month, he was found not guilty of charges stemming from that arrest.

Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who served as lead Democratic counsel during Trump’s first impeachment, was always an odd fit for the district. When he first ran in 2022, he spent nearly $5 million of an inheritance worth up to $250 million. Doing so allowed him to effectively buy his way through a crowded, low-turnout primary. He prevailed with just 26 percent of the vote—2 points above his closest challenger. 

In 2022, Goldman, a rich Manhattanite, did best in wealthy sections of the island, like Tribeca and the West Village. He did much worse in more left-leaning and gentrified parts of Brooklyn. The dynamic repeated itself in the 2024 primary. Despite not facing a serious challenger—his main opponent spent less than $40,000—Goldman ended up with only 65 percent of the vote. In some areas, he actually lost—an obvious sign that he was vulnerable to being primaried.

Still, the scale of Lander’s victory is shocking. In some election districts (the New York equivalent of precincts), Lander appears on track to win more than 90 percent of the vote. Overall, Lander is winning Brooklyn by 45 points. And in Manhattan—Goldman’s home turf—Lander is up by about 10 points.

From an electoral perspective, the scale of his victory is reminiscent of recent primaries in which moderate Republicans have been ousted by right-wing challengers. In 2022, Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) ended up with 66 percent of the vote against Liz Cheney—the same percentage Lander has now. 

Hageman and Lander, of course, belong to opposing parties and hold wildly different views. But they represent similar intraparty upheavals. In Wyoming, the lesson in Hageman’s race was that the GOP had no room for criticizing Trump, let alone voting to impeach him. In New York, Lander’s victory shows that being the public face of a Trump impeachment is no longer enough for Democrats. The party’s voters are increasingly unwilling to tolerate representatives who enable an Israeli state responsible for genocide.

Less than 24 hours after carrying out the American public’s desires and voting in opposition to President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, a pair of Republican senators joined the majority of their party in voting to support the president’s unpopular “excursion.” Previously, Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted alongside Democrats for a war powers…

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A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | Trump threatens to sue over reporting on Reflecting Pool scandal…

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Un0 is an image-generation system tool that shows for the first time how the company's technology can replicate conventional AI systems.

Market research company Klue told customers that it believes the hacking group that stole their data is now deleting it. The company, however, warned about a second group of hackers wanting ransom.

Is Peter Thiel running the world via a “secret society” called Dialog?

Rumors are swirling after a list of Dialog’s attendees and members leaked to the public. It includes journalists, politicians, tech figures, academics, and corporate leaders.

The revelation inspired a massive outcry because Dialog is an off-the-record conference of elites—a detail which led some to liken it to a Jeffrey Epstein-like conspiracy. That’s an understandable response when people hear that a creepy Epstein-connected billionaire is quietly convening influential figures on both the political left and right to discuss topics like how to prepare for World War III and how to “Build-a-Cult.”

Such a ridiculous format makes an easy target for conspiracy narratives and mockery. But what is Dialog, really?

Here’s what I wrote on BlueSky last week:

This ain’t the Illuminati, but it is an example of social soft power at work. It accelerates networking between chosen elites, who put aside their differences to form a unique social bond. The agreement on secrecy breaks down barriers, uniting participants in a conspiracy.

Not necessarily a conspiracy to rule the world … but a conspiracy of shared elite status...

Beware, however: Secrecy is a powerful marketing weapon. It makes outsiders think something profound is happening—even if it’s just a sappy conference of dorks. Careful not to give the thing more power than it has.

Over at America 2.0, independent journalist and researcher Dave Troy offers a highly informed and thoughtful take. Troy writes that Dialog is “something more consequential, if less sensational: a long-running influence network…built around light-touch social engineering, that trades on Thiel’s name while operating at arm’s length from him.”

Writes Troy:

Thiel himself is barely there—no hand in running Dialog, rarely present—and the network sits at the loose end of a wider web he backs. Others in that web, working far more directly to place allies in positions of power, have drawn little of the scrutiny now falling on it.

Troy cautions against drawing extreme conclusions about anyone who has ever attended Dialog. I encourage you to read the entire essay. Troy talks to Dialog participants who shed light on how they got involved and what really happens there.

Click here to read: Exclusive: Peter Thiel’s Least Secret Network Is Just One Small Part of a Global Influence Machine.

My take: Participation in Dialog certainly raises some questions—especially for journalists who either paid $16,000 to attend an off-the-record conference or else received discounts, which is potentially more problematic (given journalism ethics rules). Now that the guest list has leaked, the promise of discretion that made Dialog attractive is exactly what’s working against everyone on it. The next time someone gets an invitation to a mysterious off-the-record retreat, they’ll likely do some research first.

Dialog provides a window into the process of how wealthy elites like Thiel and his cronies build quiet networks of influence at various levels. While viral Instagram memes comparing Dialog to an Epstein-style scandal went overboard, they show the degree to which Thiel has become a universal boogeyman who symbolizes elite conspiracies for global control. But the reality is more complex—and alarming—than one snotty private dork conference.

25% off The Nerd Reich book at Barnes & Noble!

Today and tomorrow, Barnes & Noble is offering 25% off all pre-orders (hardcover/ebook/audiobook). This is a great chance to buy The Nerd Reich book at a steep discount.

Use the code PREORDER25. To get the discount, you have to sign up for B&N’s rewards program (it’s easy and free). Offer ends 6/26 (Friday).

⚡ Quick Take

• Focus Features unveils the first footage for Robert Eggers gothic horror film Werwulf, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Lily-Rose Depp

Robert Eggers is back to give us more gothic and haunting vibes with Werwulf. This Focus Features film will unleash terror in theaters on Christmas Day 2026, and CinemaCon attendees got our first look at what to expect. Eggers, who wrote and directed Werwulf, is quite the horror maestro, but anyone who saw Nosferatu knows that already. Exactly six months before the release of Werwulf, we have our first look image of the film. Hopefully, that means the trailer is not too far behind.

Focus Features

This tale takes place in 13th-century England, and follows a mysterious creature who peruses a foggy countryside. His presence turns folklore into a very frightening reality for a group of villagers.

RELATED ARTICLE

Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU Coming to Digital and 4K UHD With New Extended Cut

Werwulf stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe, and Lily-Rose Depp. We love it when a director finds their favorite actors and collaborates with them frequently. A house is on fire as a voice says to not dread the darkness but rather embrace it. We see Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s family traveling by foot as we hear an ancient tale about werewolves traversing the countryside. Disfigured bodies and blood about as we see Taylor-Johnson roar and begin his frightening transformation into a beast.

Originally published April 15, 2026.

The post WERWULF’s First Footage Scares Up Haunting Gothic Imagery appeared first on Nerdist.

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Michael Boulos, sat in on official meetings in the United Arab Emirates because he’s a good friend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

Rubio met with UAE leaders while on a diplomatic trip to the Middle East. Boulos, Tiffany Trump’s husband, was apparently there to see his brother.

“He was there to see his brother that lives here—he was just there to see me and catch up,” Rubio later told reporters while in Kuwait City.

“But there was a working lunch, right?” one reporter asked.

“There was, but he wasn’t—the conversations around him had to do with—he was just here because his brother lives here, and I’m a good friend of Michael’s, so we had a chance to catch up,” Rubio stammered.

Marco Rubio on why Trump's son in law, Michael Boulos, who has no government role, was in his official meetings in Kuwait: "He was just here because his brother lives here and I'm a good friend of Michael's, so we had a chance to catch up" pic.twitter.com/YsSGoomMe3

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 25, 2026

The working lunch in question was attended by UAE President Mohamed Bin Zayed. Boulos was pictured sitting next to Rubio in the middle of the table.

“Met with UAE’s President @MohamedBinZayed in Abu Dhabi, where we discussed President Trump’s MOU with Iran, efforts to secure full and safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz, and regional stability,” Rubio posted on X Wednesday, sharing a full photo of the group.

Boulos is a businessman with no government role. But that hasn’t stopped the president’s close relatives from meeting with world leaders before. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump broker deals across the globe, which definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that daddy is the president.

A sprawling legislative package aimed at lowering the cost of housing and spurring more home construction won bipartisan approval from Congress this week, but it’s hit a major roadblock in becoming law: President Donald Trump.

⚡ Quick Take

• If you’re a queer fan, or a transformative fan, or just a fan who loves an inclusive space, Flame Con is your can’t-miss, summer destination.
• Flame Con brings fandom to life in the best way, allowing you to experience all the joy of your communities all around you.
• Flame Con is the world’s largest queer comic con. Featuring a two-day comics, arts and entertainment expo, showcasing creators and special guests from all corners of the LGBTQ fandom. It features thoughtful discussions, exclusive performances, screenings, cosplay, and more!

I remember my first Flame Con. Incredibly, that was over ten years ago, back when the con was in its infancy. But from then until now, as a queer lady in fandom always looking for a community with shared interests, I knew I’d found my home. Years of attending various comic cons, including NYCC, SDCC, and others, left me fulfilled but still yearning for something. (And isn’t that the queer lady way?) A yearning that Flame Con, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ comics and pop culture convention, not only acutely understands but fulfills beyond my wildest dreams. You see, in all those other cons, transformative fandom, queer fandom, is always an afterthought. Maybe you cross a cosplay for your favorite ship in the wild. Maybe, among the hundreds of booths at Artist Alley, there will be one that caters to your fandom love of choice in the way you hope for. (A single neon-colored booth popping up among the masses.) Maybe, in the swell of the crowd, you manage to unearth a few like-minded people brimming with love for a work exactly as you feel it. But at Flame Con, those bits and pieces transform into the WHOLE AFFAIR. And so, if you’re a queer person in fandom or, in fact, any kind of fandom lover that engages in fan art, fanfic, and community building, I urge you to put Flame Con at the top of your list of fandom events. You won’t regret it. Flame Con is absolutely your can’t-miss, summer destination.

Flame Con Flame Con Is Like Stepping Out of the Internet and Into a Queer Fandom Reality

As mentioned, there’s a spiritual quality to Flame Con that I don’t think exists anywhere in our reality except at this incredible event. Flame Con is literally the live-event equivalent of distilling your best day in fandom, during your most in-love phase, when the community is on high, and everyone is excited, passionate, and sharing the wealth, and bringing it offline and into the actual world around you. At Flame Con, you are guaranteed to be welcomed no matter who you are, how you fandom, or what you love. But beyond being welcomed, you are almost certain to find friendship there, as your community unfolds around you and you feel the strong bonds of love… IRL, as they say.

Instead of hunting for scraps among a sea of thousands of people who may or may not understand pop culture as you do, the whole affair is designed for YOU. And that includes everything from content to panels to guests to merchandise to event design. And there’s nothing like being in a space that recenters the experience you dream of as a queer fan, or a fan from any other diverse community. While LGBTQ+ fans may be the last to be invited to most other fan spaces, and indeed, are finding the world to be a more and more unfriendly place, at Flame Con, they are uplifted and celebrated. And the queer, fannish joy is uproarious and felt.

Flame Con

As Gay City News writes, “Resistance through queer joy was felt across the event on both days among vendors, attendees and cosplayers. Cosplay, or dressing up like a person’s favorite characters from a story, has proven for many to be an artistic expression of individual empowerment.” A sentiment echoed by Otakus & Geeks, who share, “The best part of this con is just how welcoming, accepting, and accommodating the entire experience is. There was an area for people to chill, if (more like when) all the noise and people were too much, there was free water on site, clearly labeled wheelchair access, and just a general vibe of positivity despite the current climate. I left feeling inspired to consume and create more diverse stories and I hope I can go again next year!”

And Just in Case…

Just in case that was a little too poetic for you, here’s the actual description of Flame Con, as shared by its organizers: “Flame Con is the world’s largest queer comic con. Featuring a two-day comics, arts and entertainment expo, showcasing creators and special guests from all corners of the LGBTQ fandom. It features thoughtful discussions, exclusive performances, screenings, cosplay, and more!”

Flame Con arrives at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square on Saturday, August 15 and Sunday, August 16, 2026. Tickets are available now.

Flame Con Brings You THE Best In Queer Comics (And a Ton of Other Queer Shopping Fun) Flame Con

Okay, that was the sentimental stuff (and that is IS important). But, let me square with you, if you’re in fandom and you want to discover comics and shop in a marketplace that’s designed to cater to EXACTLY your ship of the moment, (and I know you do), I have never found a place quite like Flame Con.

In 2026, there will be over 290 artists, creators, authors, and other makers at Flame Con. That is the BIGGEST year yet. And when I say, this Artist Alley HAS your number. I do not play. When I was in love with Stranger Things‘ Steddie, Flame Con provided. When I wanted nothing more than some Hannigram merch, Flame Con was there for me. When it was Stucky that owned my heart—you guessed it!! And I bet we’ll see so much great stuff this year. The Vampire Lestat creators out there, I am LOOKING at you.

But Flame Con wasn’t just serving me great ship merch (although, oh my god, the endless ship merch is so amazing). There’s also just an awesome, generally queer aesthetic that is tailored to queer people of every kind. I found my favorite clothing maker through Flame Con and bought handfuls of gorgeous enamel pins with flowers, swords, bones, and all those great hallmarks that are just queer, we can’t explain it. Especially queer ladies don’t really get that many designated shopping spaces that see them. And Flame Con’s Artist Alley… It really sees you.

Additionally, Flame Con brings over 20 community tables to support our community from a broader perspective. This year, there will be non-profits, charities, outreach groups, education groups, public health groups, and other similar mission-based organizations attending the event.

Also, the Twisted Spine will be the official bookseller at the con. And you know a con is good if there is an official bookseller.

Flame Con Is Only Growing

Sometimes, it feels like fan-oriented efforts lack a certain level of stability. Can they withstand the test of time against other comic con giants? Well, fear not! Flame Con is celebrating 12 years of existence in 2026. And 2026 also marks its second major moment of growth, as it moves into the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, a hotel which currently hosts the darling of Broadway (and fandom), Stranger Things: The First Shadow.

Flame Con shares, “The motivation for the move was to make more space for an increasingly diverse and inclusive Artist Alley, more tabletops for the Gaymer Lounge, more breakout rooms for panel discussions, and more runway space for cosplay and drag. All weekend long, queer comics artists, animators, and accessory designers will share the convention floor with authors, illustrators, publishers, and performers.”

That means 2026 is the best time ever to attend… And you’ll be sorry to miss out!

Flame Con Is Full of Top Notch Queer Guests and Panels Flame Con

Of course, no con is complete without guests and panels! And Flame Con has brought some of the best of the best queer folks to the stage! Below is just a sampling of the cool queer people you’ll see join you at Flame Con. You can check out the rest of the guests here:

Casey McQuiston, nonbinary New York Times bestselling author of queer romantic comedies including Red, White & Royal Blue, which was adapted to an Emmy-nominated film produced by Amazon Prime Video. In addition to receiving honors from the Stonewall Book Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, and the American Library Association, McQuiston has been published in Washington Post, New York Times, and Bon Appétit.

Kosoko Jackson, queer Black Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the USA Today bestseller The Forest Demands Its Due.

Al Ewing, the bisexual British comics writer who won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book for Empyre and was nominated twice for his work on Guardians of the Galaxy.

In addition, your fellow queer fandom peers will be running some exceptional panels. The Flame Con panel schedule isn’t yet released, but you can bet it will be full of the topics that are on the tip of your tongue, helpful discussions of queerness in the industry, and more delightful fannish fun.

Flame Con Is for Everyone, and That Includes our Young People

The bottom line is that Flame Con is for EVERYONE. And that also includes our young people. Queer youth need a safe place to exist, and queer elders need to be able to bring their children on their adventures! But rest easy, Flame Con has once again thought of everything.

Sunday, August 16, is actually Youth Day, a day when folks 21 and younger can attend for FREE! Isn’t that just the most incredible idea ever? Youth Day tickets are available in advance on TicketLeap & will be available at the door on Sunday.

Flame Con

Additionally, the con is expanding its youth programming with activities like Zine Making, DIY Pride & Pronoun Pins, cosplay creation, crafting sessions, and an exciting presence from the Queens Public Library. On Saturday night, Flame Con will also host Camp Fire, which is a “cozy Saturday night alternative to the Fire Ball for indoor cats with crafts, group coloring, puzzles, and other fun activities. All activities take place on-site at Flame Con after the floor closes.” This event is an all-ages, sensory-friendly, after-hang on August 16.

Flame Con shares that it “remains committed to being an all-ages event and making sure that young people have the opportunity to engage positively with queer community.” And we can all agree that is one important mission.

“Flame Con prides itself on being a convention for everyone,” says Nic Gitau, Geeks OUT President. “But, at a time when queer and trans youth are being targeted, we want them to know that their community is here for them — now more than ever. We’re excited to expand programming for youth at the show this year, and we hope connections made at Flame Con will stay with our guests long after the show is over.”

Flame Con Is Sweet, But It’s Also a PARTY

Of course, if you want to party, no one parties like folks at a queer fandom gathering! Fireball, the official Flame Con after party, is happening on Saturday, August 16, at Industry Bar. Join your fellow fabulous friends for an evening of wild, geeky, and sexy fun at this 21+ event. Expect geek-themed drag, burlesque, boylesque, dancing, and more! The event will be hosted by Megami, a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16. The event is 21+. And it promises some crazy, sexy, and geeky fun. And hey, what’s better than letting loose in cosplay? Make your own fanfic fantasies come to life.

So, Where and When Is Flame Con?

Okay, let’s give you some of the facts.

• When is Flame Con? Flame Con will take place Saturday, August 15, Noon – 8 PM & Sunday, August 16, Noon – 6 PM
• Where is Flame Con? Flame Con will be held at the Marriott Marquis New York – 1535 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.
• Where Can You Stay During Flame Con? Flame Con offers a special event rate for those who stay at the con hotel. Take advantage of it here.

Snag Your Flame Con Tickets Today

If you’re convinced that this is the right place for you to be, tickets for Flame Con are available now for Saturday, Sunday, and the full weekend. Sunday is Youth Day, which means guests 21 years and younger can attend for free.

Fireball tickets are also available via TicketLeap. If you’d like to volunteer at the con, you can check out how to do so here. If you’d like to be a Flame Con sponsor, you should also reach out.

The Time Is Now to Attend Flame Con

What more can we say? If you’re a queer nerd, a fandom lover, a person who visits AO3 every day, then you DESERVE to attend Flame Con. The event will feed you, heal you, give you hope, and bring you joy. I’ll be there, and I hope to see you soon!

Editor’s note: This post is sponsored by Flame Con

The post Flame Con is Your Can’t-Miss, Summer Fandom DESTINATION appeared first on Nerdist.

General Intuition has raised $320 million to scale AI trained on millions of hours of gameplay, betting action data can help AI develop something closer to human intuition.

"There were employees doing things like, 'Claude is so helpful for me — it analyzes my calendar and my email and puts together a plan for me,'" he says. "That person was spending at a run rate of $30,000 a year for this."

Users will be able to access their watchlists, real-time market data, live financial news, and Google's AI-powered "Key Moments" feature, which explains why stocks moved.

The Supreme Court has delivered President Trump two significant victories in his mass deportation campaign.

On Thursday, the court’s conservative majority voted 6-3 in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado to approve the “metering” policy, which allows Border Patrol agents to turn away migrants seeking asylum from the Mexican side of the southern border. The policy—introduced under the Obama administration and heavily expanded under Trump—will put the asylum hopes of hundreds of migrants and refugees at risk.

“We hold that an alien who is standing in Mexico does not ‘arriv[e] in the United States’ by attempting, and failing, to set foot in this country. An alien ‘arrives in the United States’ only when he crosses the border,” Alito wrote in the majority opinion.

In another 6-3 ruling, Mullin v. Doe, the conservative majority approved the Trump administration’s decision to end Temporary Protective Status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants, putting them at greater risk of being deported back to the dangerous situations they fled from under TPS. These are both countries that the State Department has deemed too dangerous for Americans to travel to.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to strip TPS from Haitian and Syrian communities is a betrayal of our values and of the promise our country made to protect people from displacement and harm,” New York Attorney General Leticia James wrote after the ruling. “I’ll never stop fighting for our immigrant neighbors and loved ones.”

President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision not to sign a landmark housing bill that was overwhelmingly passed by the House and Senate, saying that he doesn’t want to lower housing costs because it would hurt people who have gotten rich off their home purchases. “You have to understand—I don’t want to hurt people that own houses, too,” Trump said in the Oval Office…

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The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the biotechnology corporation Monsanto on Thursday, saying the company did not have to include a cancer warning on a pesticide label. In a 7–2 ruling which crossed ideological lines, the justices wrote that a federal pesticide regulation shields the company from lawsuits from people who allege that their cancer was caused by Roundup, the weed killer in question.

Regulating glyphosate, the potentially cancerous ingredient in question, is a hot-button issue for the Make America Healthy Again crowd. And they’re not happy.

In April, Vani Hari, also known as The Food Babe, rallied outside the Supreme Court against Monsanto. On Thursday, she wrote on X, “I am literally sick. This is a devastating blow to every family that trusted our justice system.”

“Every elected official now has a choice: stand with families harmed by toxic chemicals or stand with the corporations that profit from them,” she wrote.

For MAHA, the Supreme Court case is a betrayal: The White House sided with Monsanto in the case, and President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this year promoting glyphosate production. Glyphosate is one of the most common pesticides used in agriculture, and Trump framed his executive order as a way of protecting Americans’ food supply.

Alex Clark, a “wellness” podcaster and Turning Point USA member, similarly lamented the ruling on X.

“Today the Supreme Court made it impossible for people who develop cancer after using Roundup to sue Bayer for failing to warn them about the potential cancer risk,” she wrote. “The Trump administration URGED and PLEADED the Court to reach this result to protect a FOREIGN chemical company—and it did at the expense of Americans. What happened to America First?”

Bayer, the company that owns Monsanto, is German.

If MAHA feels like the Trump administration has abandoned them, it may mean trouble at the polls. Kelly Ryerson, an activist who goes by “Glyphosate Girl,” told MS NOW that the ruling may not push MAHA to the left—but that doesn’t mean they’ll keep backing Trump.

“They’re not going to vote; they’re going to be done with voting,” she warned before the ruling.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson just accused the Supreme Court of caring more about guns than the actual law.

The court issued a 6–3 decision Thursday along ideological lines to scrap Hawaii’s law prohibiting gun owners from taking their weapons onto private property without obtaining express permission. In a dissent written by Jackson and joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Jackson argued that the court had failed to faithfully apply its own jurisprudence.

“Today’s decision makes one thing clear: The Court’s objective is protecting guns, not consistently preserving any principle of law,” she wrote.

Jackson argued that the court had incorrectly applied, and obscured the purpose of, a two-step legal test to prove if the Second Amendment had been violated, established in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen.

At step one of Bruen, the court must determine whether the “plain text” of the Second Amendment covers the challenged action. Jackson claimed that it didn’t. The law being challenged, Act 52, required gun owners to receive affirmative consent from a property owner before bringing their firearm onto private property.

“This case is about property rights, not gun rights,” Jackson wrote.

“There is no constitutional right to enter private property without the owner’s permission, let alone with a firearm,” she added. “So the question this case presents is merely how a property owner must communicate his decision to exclude or to invite armed carry, including whether a State may alter the background property-law rules that set the default as one or the other. The Second Amendment has nothing to say about that.”

Additionally, Jackson argued that the challenge also failed at step two of Bruen, which requires the government to justify the regulation by showing it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of regulating firearms. But Hawaii’s history must also be taken into account, Jackson argued, as there is no tradition of concealed carry on the islands. “In this way, Hawaii’s use of its prerogative to protect the interests of its residents is consistent with its own traditions,” she wrote.

In obscuring Bruen, Jackson argued the court had opened the door to more chaos. “From this day forward, it will be difficult to view Bruen as anything more than a fig leaf,” she wrote. “The Court’s effort to rein in judicial discretion has resulted in an arbitrary rule that unleashes judges to thwart gun regulation at every turn.”

On Thursday, the Supreme Court dealt a blow to a humanitarian program that protects immigrants who can’t safely return to crisis-stricken countries. The decision effectively allows the Trump administration to move forward with terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 350,000 nationals of Syria and Haiti who are living and working in the United States.

It also paves the way for the administration to potentially end the protection for several other countries experiencing wars, environmental disasters, and extraordinary circumstances. That push, which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called the “largest de-documentation event in US history,” could strip away legal status from more than 1.3 million TPS holders from 17 designated countries.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court’s conservative supermajority sided with the federal government’s arguments that the executive branch’s determinations about TPS aren’t subject to judicial review. The Trump administration claimed that Congress, in enacting the 1990 statute that created the program, gave the Department of Homeland Security secretary full discretion to designate a country for protection, as well as to extend or terminate that designation.

The justices held that the federal law bars the courts from reviewing “non-constitutional” claims related to the humanitarian program. They took a broad view of the judicial bar provision in the TPS statute, which states that “[t]here is no judicial review of any determination of the [Secretary of Homeland Security] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.” They said “determination” encompasses not only the secretary’s final decision, but also the process to get there.

The majority also found that the Haitian TPS holders challenging the termination of the protection were likely to fail when they argued that the Trump administration violated the Equal Protection Clause by discriminating against them based on race. “None of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial,” Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, said of the Trump administration’s disparaging public comments about Haitian migrants, “and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.”

The consequential ruling comes in a case that consolidated two lawsuits—Trump v. Miot and Mullin v. Doe—challenging the termination of TPS for more than 300,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The Court agreed to hear the case in March after the Trump administration applied for a stay of lower court decisions postponing the terminations. Unlike in other similar TPS cases, the justices preserved the status quo, keeping protections against deportation for these groups in place while reviewing the government’s arguments.

Under the statute, the DHS secretary can designate a country for TPS for up to 18 months, after which time they’re required to conduct a review and assess whether country conditions continue to merit this designation before determining if it should be terminated, extended, or re-designated. Haiti was first designated for TPS in 2010 after a devastating hurricane, and its designation has been repeatedly extended. 

On June 16, lawyers representing Haitian immigrants asked the Supreme Court justices to dismiss the case and allow the lower courts to resolve it in light of new evidence supporting their arguments that then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s termination of TPS for Haiti was a “preordained outcome” and that she had moved to end the protection even without receiving a recommendation from the State Department. 

During her tenure, Noem tried to end the program for as many as 13 nations, including Venezuela, Yemen, and Afghanistan. District courts found that Noem violated requirements of the statute when terminating or, as in the case of Venezuela, vacating an existing extension of TPS designation, including by failing to properly consult with other relevant federal agencies on country conditions.

Then-Secretary Noem took “a hatchet to the TPS system,” US District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla of New York wrote in her decision finding that the termination of TPS for Syria was arbitrary and capricious. “Once the Secretary was confirmed, she endeavored to terminate TPS status whenever presented with an opportunity to do so, resulting in termination decisions that are grounded not in law and not in fact, but that are in political considerations simply not relevant under the TPS statute.”

In the case concerning Haiti, District of Columbia federal Judge Ana C. Reyes concluded earlier this year that the evidence suggested that Noem’s decision to end the protection for that population was motivated, at least partially, by racial animus, given President Donald Trump’s disparaging comments about Haitian migrants. She also noted that while Congress gave the secretary ample discretion to make determinations about TPS, the goal in passing the statute was to standardize discretionary temporary protections and insulate them from political whims.

Last year, the Supreme Court twice tossed district court rulings blocking Noem’s actions against TPS for Venezuela, allowing the Trump administration to revoke protected status from hundreds of thousands of people pending appeal. In a dissent last October, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson chastised the Court for granting the government’s application for a stay in the Venezuela case.

“I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in lower courts while lives hang in the balance.”

“I view today’s decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Justice Jackson wrote. “This Court should have stayed its hand. Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly misjudges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the stability our Government has promised them.” She added: “I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in lower courts while lives hang in the balance.”

During the oral arguments for Trump v. Miot and Mullin v. Doe in April, the liberal justices expressed skepticism at the government’s theory that the secretary’s decision-making process regarding TPS isn’t reviewable by the courts. “What was the point of Congress putting this statute into being and having requirements for the Secretary if there was no ability for anyone to challenge the Secretary’s compliance?” Justice Jackson challenged Solicitor General D. John Sauer. Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that Congress could have been explicit about terminations of TPS being unreviewable, but it didn’t.

The lower courts found that Secretary Noem had failed to adequately consult with the State Department about country conditions, in violation of procedural requirements. Justice Jackson offered a hypothetical, asking if the secretary could use a Ouija board when deciding to terminate the protection, or randomly pick countries for designation from slips of paper in a hat.

They also addressed the plaintiff’s claims that the government’s push to terminate TPS for Haiti had been motivated by racial animus against non-white migrants. Justice Sotomayor said it was hard to see how Trump calling Haiti and other countries “shithole” places and accusing migrants with TPS of “poisoning the blood” of the United States as indicative that a “discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision.”

The conservative justices, on the other hand, appeared receptive to the government’s arguments that TPS “determinations” are beyond the federal court’s review power. The plaintiffs counter-argued that the DHS secretary’s final decision about terminating TPS may be immune to judicial review, but the procedural steps to make such a determination aren’t.

“After today,” Justice Elena Kagan dissented in Thursday’s ruling, “a Secretary can announce to the world that she didn’t consult with anyone—more, that she didn’t evaluate country conditions at all—before making, extending, or terminating a TPS designation.”

Todd Schulte, president of the advocacy organization FWD.us, called the Court’s decision “an astonishing human tragedy.” The ruling, he said in a statement, was “an awful harbinger for what we expect this administration to try to do for other TPS designations. Hundreds of thousands of people who have lived here for decades now see heartbreaking chaos ahead.”

“We’re talking about the power to mass expel people who have done nothing wrong to countries that remain unsafe,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, the attorney arguing for the Syrian plaintiffs. “And our view is it is unlikely that a refugee protection statute would have given that power to the Secretary.” The question before the Court, Arulanantham said in a statement following the April oral arguments, was whether the government could “ignore the law when it tries to take away someone’s immigration status.” Judging by the justices’ ruling on this case, the answer appears to be yes.

⚡ Quick Take

• Will Ferrell is out to recapture old glory and earn golf redemption even if it comes at the expense of his own son in The Hawk’s new trailer.

The world’s greatest golfer, the one known by his animal nickname, is back! Uh, no, no not that guy. We should probably clarify we mean the world’s greatest fictional golfer. And in the new trailer for Netflix’s comedy series The Hawk, Will Ferrell is out to recapture old glory even if it comes at the expense of his own son.

Fly Hawk, fly! Or, at least put on a shirt with some sleeves. You’re not fooling anyone with that look. Besides, this trailer makes clear The Hawk isn’t about trying to hold on to your past. It’s about trying to secure your future legacy with some good old-fashioned redemption. And in this case, that’s a long time coming. Here’s the show’s official synopsis from Netflix.

Lonnie Hawkins, 2004’s number one golfer, struggles on the back nine of his career to recapture his magic. His body says retire, but his heart says he’s not done yet. His ex-wife and his son Lance, golf’s new golden boy, know he’s through. But with one more major to win to complete golf’s Grand Slam, Lonnie refuses to believe he’s anything other than one stroke away from the greatest comeback in golf history.

Netflix

The series also stars Molly Shannon as Lonnie’s ex-wife Stacy. Jimmy Tatro plays his talented son Lance. Fortune Feimster caddies as Sam. Luke Wilson plays his old rival Golden Fisk. The Hawk also features Chris Parnell, Katelyn Tarver, David Hornsby, Gabriel Hogan, and Aida Osman.

Ferrell created the show, the first of his career where he’s the star. He also executive produces alongside T-Street’s Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman, and Nena Rodrigue. Additional executive producers include Gloria Sanchez Productions’ Jessica Elbaum and Alix Taylor, Chris Henchy, Harper Steele, David Gordon Green, and Andrew Guest. And The Hawk made it official by partnering with the PGA Tour.

Will The Hawk complete the career Grand Slam and find the redemption he seeks? We’ll find out when the show tees off at Netflix on July 16, 2026.

The post Will Ferrell Seeks Golf Redemption in THE HAWK Trailer appeared first on Nerdist.

Neither LLVM nor GCC directly support the BASIC programming language – but a former Microware boffin proposes fixing that. An interesting new proposal on the Discourse forum of the LLVM compiler suite has turned into a new standalone BASIC compiler. The original RFC was Adding BASIC09 frontend tool to LLVM. Author Boisy Petre proposed adding a front-end to enable LLVM to compile BASIC source code, and this has now turned into a standalone compiler called basic09c, which uses LLVM as a library. We are irresistibly reminded of the recent addition of ALGOL-68 to GCC. As we said in 2023, BASIC is anything but dead, and, for BASIC’s 60th birthday, the following year we covered new versions of three modern FOSS dialects. The late Dr Thomas Kurtz would have been proud. It’s not just any old home-computer BASIC, either. Dr Petre is working on a compiler for Microware BASIC09. This was one of the compilers that Microware offered for its multitasking, multiuser Unix-like OS, called OS-9. Way back in 1999, many users of Apple’s then-new MacOS 9 – often just called “OS 9” – confused it with the already 20-year-old Microware OS-9, and they pestered OS-9 newsgroups and communities with Mac questions and chatter. As The Register reported back then, Microware even sued Apple over the trademark. BASIC09 is a structured BASIC: it has named procedures with local variables, supports constructs such as IF…THEN…ELSE, user-defined variable types – and no, it did not need line numbers. The best reference we can find to BASIC09 today is its Wikipedia article, but you can also read the manual [PDF]. Microware is still around and still supports OS-9, which is marketed as an RTOS these days. Home microcomputer users, though, might have known OS-9: it was an optional OS for the British Dragon 32 micro and was on the list for the first British laptop too. For Stateside readers, the Dragon 32 was a relative of the American Tandy Color Computer, which had the same Motorola 6809 CPU and could also run OS-9. Aside from its technical merits, there are other good reasons he chose this particular BASIC: Although Boisy Gene Petre became Dr Petre last year, he has been in the industry for quite a while. He worked at Microware early in his career, and even quarter of a century ago he was writing articles about the Tandy CoCo. This is not the first time that the Reg FOSS desk has been bamboozled by boffin Boisy’s brilliance. That was way back in 2012, when he created one of our favorite ever retrocomputing projects: the astonishing Liber809. This performed a total brain transplant on the original Atari 8-bit machines, installing a 6809 CPU and supporting firmware. As he explained in a post called The Beginning, the goal was to marry the most advanced eight-bit CPU with the most capable eight-bit computer of its time. Retrocomputing blog The Byte Cellar described it well. This would of course render the machine incompatible with all existing Atari software, but the plan was to make it able to run NitrOS-9 – a community distribution of the original 6809 version of the Microware OS. ®