Jenna Ortega Is an AI Robot in KLARA AND THE SUN’s Weird Trailer
- A trailer for a new dystopian dramedy dropped today—Klara and the Sun will feature Jenna Ortega as an AI companion robot.
Surely there are a lot of Gen Z people who would love to be friends with Jenna Ortega. She’s very famous and seems to be a cool person. The trailer for Klara and The Sun turns Ortega into a friend, but not in the way you’d imagine. The film features her as a quirky companion robot who is learning about the world through her new owner.
The story is based on a 2021 book by Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro. He also wrote the award-winning Never Let Me Go, which got its own movie in 2010.
Taika Waititi, who worked on Jojo Rabbit, and various Avengers films, will be directing the movie.
Jenna Ortega plays the story’s main character, a childish “artificial friend.” Of course, Ortega starred in Netflix’s popular Wednesday series, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and the Scream franchise. The human by her side is Mia Tharia, whose credits include Phoenix Rise (2023-2024) and September Says. Here’s a synopsis to go with Klara and the Sun‘s trailer:
Klara and the Sun introduces audiences to Klara, an Artificial Friend who wants nothing more than to find the perfect home. When Klara meets Josie, each immediately senses a kindred spirit in the other. Josie has a fraught relationship with her mother, and they’ve suffered great loss, but Klara’s innocent wonder and unwavering loyalty begin to heal the family and bring light to Josie’s complicated world.
Sony Pictures
The story seems to be uplifting and heartwarming, as robots learn from the humans that care for them, and care for them in return.
“We come out of the lab with the intelligence of a toddler, and then we learn everything from our humans.”
This premise does bring to light a shift in the way robots and artificial intelligence are being portrayed in media. From the 1980s to the early 2000s, movies like Blade Runner, I, Robot, and The Matrix warned of the dangers of a machine-dominated world. But over the last decade, society has seemed to warm up to integrating artificial intelligence into our daily lives. With this, more content has come out as part of a trend of humanizing robots.
Companion (2025), though it was an entirely different genre, personified robots and made the main AI character relatable. Another example is Detroit: Become Human, a 2018 video game following several main AI characters who have developed emotions. Both examples are darker in theme than Klara and the Sun appears to be. However, they all humanize robots and AI and deal with issues of discrimination against and mistreatment of these entities.
This makes for a complicated issue in the modern day, with people delegating everything from research and organization to critical thinking and life advice to ChatGPT. The question I ask is whether, despite the emotional depth and significance of these stories as well as the discrimination issues within human society they allude to, we should be seeing AI in a humanistic light at all. The warnings from robot films of the 1980s-2000s certainly still haunt me. I am interested to see if they address this issue.
Klara and the Sun has no set release date yet, but the trailer claims it is “coming soon.”
The post Jenna Ortega Is an AI Robot in KLARA AND THE SUN’s Weird Trailer appeared first on Nerdist.
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New Book Reveals Trump’s Wild Sleep Habits
After watching President Donald Trump nod off during meetings over and over and over again, we may finally have some answer as to why.
In Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, a new book by New York Times writers Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Trump’s bizarre sleep schedule has been exposed, reports The Daily Beast.
According to the new book, the octogenarian reportedly barely sleeps at all. He goes on Truth Social posting sprees at all hours of the night—something we’ve all had the misfortune of witnessing—and stays up late watching TV.
The president has grown even more erratic since his last term in office.
More than just gilding fireplaces and building ballrooms, the authors describe how Trump has fundamentally changed “the rhythms and structures and operations” of the White House. Where the president used to arrive predictably by 10:30 or 11 a.m., now it’s anybody’s guess. Sometimes he’s up in the morning making phone calls, and other times White House staff find him still asleep between 8 and 10 a.m.—a sign that he probably stayed up all night watching TV and scrolling.
Privately, aides told Swan and Haberman that, for the first time, Trump was “beginning to seem old.”
“Those who spent time with him could see the signs—the moments of fatigue, the cupped hand behind the ear.… The repeated bouts of drowsiness during mid-afternoon public events,” the authors write.
Regime Change also revealed that the president and his wife, Melania, sleep (or in Trump’s case, don’t sleep) in different bedrooms.
Trump Spirals as Iran Exposes His Lies About the Deal
Donald Trump began his Tuesday morning by melting down over the status of his agreement with Iran.
“Despite their protestations and false statements to the contrary, coupled with the drumbeat of the Fake News, which is doing everything possible to make the U.S. Victory as small and insignificant as possible, Iran has fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections long into the future (Infinity!!!). This will insure ‘Nuclear Honesty,’” he wrote on Truth Social. “If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations!”
Well, Mr. President, I have some bad news …
Speaking at a press briefing Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei denied the Trump administration’s claim that the country would allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit its nuclear bombed sites.
“We have not had a meeting with the director general of the IAEA, nor do we have any plans for the agency to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities damaged by the US and Zionist military aggression,” Baqaei said.
That also contradicts Vice President JD Vance’s claim on Monday that Iran had agreed to allow IAEA inspectors, who could visit Iran “this week, maybe as soon as today.”
The vice president did not offer specifics on what kind of access IAEA inspectors would be granted, or how frequently their inspections would take place. Last week, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly assured U.S. lawmakers that in agreeing to the MOU, Tehran had drafted a letter inviting IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to bring inspectors into the country.
In the 14-point memorandum of understanding, Iran has only agreed to commit to “down-blending” its enriched nuclear material under the supervision of IAEA inspectors. In return for that commitment, the U.S. has offered Iran unprecedented waivers allowing them to sell their previously sanctioned oil.
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON’s Abubkar Salim on Filming The Battle of the Gullet
- House of the Dragon star Abubakar Salim told us why filming the Battle of the Gullet was like being a kid, Alyn’s emotions during the fight, and more.
After a much longer wait than viewers expected, House of the Dragon finally delivered the Battle of the Gullet. It was big, bold, and bloody. But what was it like to actually film it? We asked one of the infamous Dance of the Dragon conflicts biggest players exactly that. When we spoke to star Abubakar Salim before the season about what to expect from Alyn of Hull and the show this year, we also asked him about shooting the seismic sea fight. Now that the episode is aired we can share his insights into bringing the Battle of the Gullet to HBO.
Ollie Upton/HBO
Nerdist: What’s it like getting to film a big, giant, epic sea battle on these massive sets with all of these people?
Abubakr Salim: It’s bonkers. The closest description I can give is remember when you’re at school as a kid and you’d be playing with your friends? All these fantastical sort of games, be it like you’re playing with sticks and you’ve got swords and you’re chasing one another and screaming and shouting because you’re so enraptured in this world? That was the feeling. That was what it was. Filming that whole sequence was like being a kid again.
The hardest part of it was to not smile at every single take, because it was just pure elation and joy and ridiculousness. You’re swinging t
hese swords pretending to kill people, and then also jumping and seeing explosions. I recently went to Disney World in Florida and there’s a show, the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. It’s watching that and being like, “Oh man, that’s so cool!’ Well, you’re in it. And it’s like, “Oh my God, what do I do? ” That’s the best way I can describe it. It’s just mad and great fun.
HBO
What can you tell us about shooting that episode that a viewer would never know just from watching it?
Salim: We we spent a good six to eight weeks doing that whole sequence. And it was chopped and chewed. Different sets, different environments. There was a massive gap before Lohar’s ship crashes into our ship. We didn’t film that bit until I think another two, three, or four weeks even afterwards. It was a completely separate session.
The amount of detail that was put into everything, into this huge set piece, was mad. For something that happens and kind of erupts, it took so much time. And the amount of explosions and people that were set on fire. I think we broke a record because of the amount of people that we set on fire on set. It’s nuts.
In terms of what viewers can see, what do you most hope they will notice from the Battle of the Gullet that might not be obvious?
Salim: The one thing I remember Loni (Peristere), the director of the sequence, shouting at us was “fear.” It was the idea that going into battle isn’t this cool, epic thing. It’s fear. And that’s something I think you see and feel in everyone’s performance. Even the stunt guys. If you look and you watch people’s expressions and you see the way people fought, there is almost this primal animalistic fear that permeates through it all. That’s a big one.
Ollie Upton/HBO
When Alyn goes after Lohar, it seems like he’s full of rage. What is actually driving him in that moment? And what I mean by that is how much of it is duty versus admiration for a great sailor versus concern for a father?
Salim: The way I played it was in my mind, I didn’t know how much I loved Corlys until you see him gone. That flash of realizing what you have just lost or what you were about to gain. Because the scene just before that, before everything escalates, was us reconnecting and having a drink in his quarters and almost seeing each other eye to eye for a moment.
And there was something really beautiful that day when we filmed that scene. To then have that ripped and stripped from me so viciously and violently and chaotically, that’s the thing that drives Alyn. Especially when you’re so that far deep into the fight. It doesn’t even become about beauty, it becomes about survival and it becomes about really trying to ensure that you can at least breathe and return home.
Actually, you don’t even care about that. You simply are just present, you are there. And Alyn at that moment, seeing that being taken away from him, just evokes this pure age. This pure sense of a childish tantrum of something being taken away from him that he deeply loved and he didn’t realize how much he loved until he got into it.
I’d say there was no duty there. There was no duty. There was no sense of avenging. It was almost purely selfish of you have just taken something away from me that I might not ever know about.
Ollie Upton/HBO
(Note: While House of the Dragon has made major changes to George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, he following portion of the interview alludes to Alyn’s future based on the source material. They can be considered spoilers.)
Every actor always tells they try to stay in the moment and they try to use what’s in front of them, but considering you know who Alyn of Hull becomes, and you kind of referenced this a little bit, the esteem that he is held in both by readers and within the world of A Song and Ice and Fire, does that help you shape your performance because you can say to yourself, “What kind of person becomes that?”
Salim: Yes, it absolutely does. I’m such a big fan, or big believer, of giving us the arc and the story from the beginning to the end. Because if I look at a play like Hamlet or Othello, or even a film script, you know where the character begins and you know where they ends. And the fun part is seeing the journey of how they get from A to B.
The beauty of what George (R.R. Martin) has crafted and what he has created, and also what (showrunner) Ryan (Condal) cares for is honoring this stuff. And we know where we’re going, we know where we’re playing, so let’s have fun on the journey and lay little seeds there. Then when audiences do come back to watch it all at once, they can see that full arc and really revel in it. Because you can really tell when audiences definitely can tell when stories shifts and turns and goes in a direction that feels almost like it had to make sense in the moment.
HBO Max
There is a real beauty of knowing where the story ends. And again, to those who know the stories and those who don’t, there is a comfort in knowing like, “Oh, there is a source material, a truth that we can always rely on,” which is great.
It’s funny, it’s how I approach a lot of things that I hope that I create, be it with my game studio, or even whenever as I work as an actor, I always want to know, “What’s the end goal here?” Because then I can really have fun and push boundaries and push the limitations of where I’m going as a character to then come to the middle ground or make sense of where I end and feel satisfying with that and go on that journey with an audience.
So knowing that the noble accomplished, respected person he becomes, what’s the most meaningful way that’s shaping your performance now?
Salim: It’s the stoicism and the discomfort that you’re seeing me play with. And really sort of seeing Alyn almost learning from what he’s seeing. He isn’t reacting or engaging or pushing to be the star. He’d rather learn and soak up. Then when the time is right, act. And I think there’s a really lovely moment actually in episode one, which will hopefully make … do you know which moment I’m talking about?
Is it when Corlys is lost and he just takes over?
Salim: Exactly.
It’s your best moment in the whole episode.
Salim: Thank you. Thank you. Because that is exactly the moment where I felt like that’s where you plant the seed for where he is about to go. Where he sees there’s a moment, there’s an opportunity here of taking all that he’s learned, what he’s seen from his father, and stepping up to the plate.
It was so great, because I remember talking with Loni about that, that specific moment being like, “This is key.” To the people who are watching this who don’t know about the book and where Alyn goes, it’s a pretty cool moment of like, “Oh man, he’s stepping up to the plate.” For the people who do know, they’re like, “Oh, kid, this is it!”
HBO
That was exactly how it came across to me. I was like, “There it is. There he is. That’s our guy.
Salim: I’m glad you saw that. I’m glad you saw that because that was a real powerful moment. That was an enjoyable moment for me.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He would have immediately drowned during the Battle of the Gullet. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post HOUSE OF THE DRAGON’s Abubkar Salim on Filming The Battle of the Gullet appeared first on Nerdist.
The AI Industry Is Spending an Insane Amount to Tank This NY Democrat
As New Yorkers head to the polls on Tuesday, a crowded Democratic primary in the state’s 12th congressional district could serve as a referendum on tech money in politics. But why this race has drawn quite so much money is a little mysterious. To some, it’s an intra-industry disagreement about the best approach to regulation—or, more cynically, a fight about which companies will get to influence future law. To others, it’s a sign that certain pro-AI interests want to make an early and brutal example of anyone who stands against them.
AI industry political action committees have flooded this race with cash since it started. Leading the Future, a PAC funded in part by tech giants like Andreessen Horowitz and the co-founders of OpenAI and Palantir, has spent over $7 million against one particular candidate: two-term New York Assemblymember Alex Bores. Other PACs then jumped in on Bores’s behalf, including Public First Action PAC, which is supported in part by Anthropic and spent $10 million in Bores’s race.
Bores, a former Palantir employee himself, might seem like an oddly small-fish target for one of the country’s richest, most powerful industries. His troubles with the PACs started with the Responsible AI Safety and Education, or RAISE, Act, an AI regulation bill he co-sponsored last year in the state legislature.
The act, Bores’s own team acknowledges, is merely a “first step” toward robust AI regulation. Yet it’s also one of the strongest AI oversight laws currently on the books in the U.S.
The bill, which New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law in December 2025, is somewhat aligned with California’s Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, signed into law earlier that year. Both laws only apply to the largest AI companies, like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. New York’s RAISE Act requires these large frontier developers to write and publish a yearly framework that explains how the company will assess risk, mitigate any safety threats, and comply with national and international standards. The law also requires these companies to disclose serious safety incidents within 72 hours of learning about them, and introduces an enforcement mechanism, empowering New York’s attorney general to bring civil actions against companies that fail to submit the required reporting or make false statements. Bores and State Senator Andrew Gounardes—the bill’s other champion—originally wanted the penalty for the first violation to be $10 million, with up to $30 million in fines for subsequent violations, but the lawmakers brought those fines down to $1 million and $3 million to better align with California’s law.
The bill was wildly popular with New Yorkers—84 percent of respondents supported it in a June 2025 poll—and it passed handily in both the state Senate and Assembly. But it quickly received pushback from the AI industry; Leading the Future announced its plans to target Bores in November 2025, before the bill had even been signed.
“They want to send a message to any member of Congress that the cost of trying to regulate the AI oligarchs is complete political destruction,” said Alyssa Cass, a communications strategist working with the Bores campaign.
The Trump administration also attempted to get out in front of the law, publishing an executive order on AI regulation just eight days before Hochul signed the RAISE Act. The executive order directed the Department of Justice to challenge “onerous” state AI laws that it believes conflict with a “minimally burdensome” national AI policy. In the order, the administration specifically said that state AI regulation hampers the country’s ability to “win” its “race with adversaries for supremacy” and called state laws “cumbersome.”
Asked about the PAC’s heavy spending against Bores, a Leading the Future spokesperson provided a statement arguing that “Anthropic and its allies” started the spending war: “Their network of outside groups has spent $21 million across 5 dark-money super PACs to prop up Alex Bores’s campaign. Leading the Future is proud to stand against that unprecedented effort and for a transparent, national AI framework that serves workers, families, and the country.” The statement added that “any claim that we oppose regulation is flat wrong.”
Public First Action explicitly markets itself as a pro-regulation PAC. One of its main principles is to support federal AI regulation, but ensure that it would not preempt state laws until the federal guidelines are robust enough to stand on their own. Anthropic, which has positioned itself as the safety-first tech company, gave $20 million to the PAC this February. The PAC’s other funders are less clear.
Asked about Public First’s involvement in Bores’s race, a spokesperson for Jobs and Democracy, a subsidiary of Public First Action, wrote that opposing PACs were trying to “end [Bores’s] political career” in retaliation for the RAISE Act. “We’re in this race because candidates who champion AI guardrails shouldn’t have to stand alone against Big Tech. The fact that this race has gone from a crowded primary to a two-way race between the author of the RAISE Act and a cosponsor is proof that Leading the Future’s plan has backfired.”
While Bores is betting that his strong stance on AI and public battle against AI PACs will win him the election, his opponents are focusing on other issues. Bores has three main competitors—State Assemblymember Micah Lasher, Jack Schlossberg of the Kennedy family, and the formerly Republican, anti-Trump crusader George Conway (once-husband of Trump 1.0 adviser Kellyanne Conway).
Lasher—who also supported the RAISE Act—has been described in the media as a “nerd” or “wonk,” and is running a strong if somewhat bland campaign. He was in the lead in one mid-May poll. Schlossberg’s campaign has reportedly been disorganized, and the candidate seems to be banking on his family legacy to overcome his relative lack of political experience. Conway has framed his campaign as an effort to impeach Trump.
If Bores loses, it may simply be because voters were drawn to the allure of a Kennedy or inclined to vote for a policy wonk. Then, too, some voters may remain put off by Bores’s former work for Palantir—a company whose AI software has reportedly been used to identify military targets. To his supporters, though, a Bores loss would show that the AI industry has a powerful grip on our elections, and can push out any candidate it doesn’t like. And if that message gets around, Cass said, it will be that much harder to get politicians to stand up to the industry.
“Members of Congress are rarely known for their acts of political bravery,” Cass said. “And there is a really limited window, given how fast this technology is moving, for regulation.”
Trump pulls endorsement switcheroo to avoid looking like a loser
South Carolinians head to the polls on Tuesday for a spate of primary runoffs, most notably to decide on the Republican gubernatorial nominee. And President Donald Trump is desperate to avoid looking like a loser, pulling a desperate, last-minute endorsement switch as his preferred candidate appears on track to get walloped. At the end of May, Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette in the…
CBS Takes Major Nosedive After Bari Weiss’s 60 Minutes Purge
CBS News is losing heads, both in the newsroom and across America.
Viewership plummeted at CBS News weeks after its chief, Bari Weiss, fired numerous producers and correspondents from 60 Minutes, according to Nielsen ratings data obtained by Status.
Damage was particularly bad at CBS Mornings, hosted by Gayle King, which has long held the third place ratings spot among network morning shows. But that changed dramatically: CBS Mornings averaged 1.8 million total viewers earlier this month, and then immediately dropped to 1.59 million following June 3, the day after executives fired Scott Pelley, the de facto face of CBS News.
That amounted to an 11 percent slip in audience following what was already the “worst-rated May on record” in CBS Mornings history, according to the ratings data.
The dip was short-lived, but nonetheless “alarmed some officials” since morning shows typically produce the lion’s share of ad revenue for the major news networks, according to Status reporter Oliver Darcy.
Change at 60 Minutes, the network’s famed investigative weekly program has been rapid and corrosive. Late last month, Weiss simultaneously fired executive producer Tanya Simon, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi (who criticized Weiss’s decision to delay her report on Trump deportations to the notoriously brutal CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador), correspondent Cecilia Vega, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich. That same day, she appointed Nick Bilton—a former Vanity Fair columnist with no broadcast experience—to lead the venerated newsmagazine.
But Weiss may not be running the place for much longer at all. CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, is pursuing a merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, a monumental industry shift that could see Weiss’s brief tenure atop the network come to an end, according to some longtime 60 Minutes staffers.
“I have a feeling that Bari will not be overseeing 60 Minutes for very much longer. I think once the deal gets done with Warner Bros., people will demand that she be let go or move into another position,” Steve Kroft, a 30-year veteran of the show, told Variety earlier this month. “Everything she’s touched has turned to shit. Everything she’s touched has gone colossally wrong. And I don’t think she’s showed any talent for this position. She’s only fulfilling other people’s agendas.”
I Asked My Fictional Nemesis Criston Cole a Question (and the Greens Booed Me)
- The world’s #1 Ser Criston Cole hater finally got to ask his fictional nemesis a (loaded) question. House of the Dragon’s Greens booed him.
I have detested Ser Criston Cole from the moment I first read about him. George R.R. Martin’s histories, especially Fire & Blood, might debate what motivated Rhaenyra’s sworn protector to turn on her. But I never had any doubts. I always knew the Kingmaker was a pathetic, oath-breaking baby who helped start a civil war because the heir to the Iron Throne rejected his offer to run away to Essos to sell oranges. My well-established hatred of Criston Cole is why I was overjoyed when House of the Dragon saw the obvious truth about him. It confirmed its handsome knight was really the lowlife punk I always knew he was.
I have not been shy about sharing my thoughts on the infamous knight in my posts and on Nerdist‘s talk show Maesterminds. But recently, I finally got a chance to do something I’ve long hoped to do. I got to ask Ser Criston Cole himself, Fabian Frankel, what it’s like to play the infamous knight/villain. And it went better than I ever could have hoped. Because before he gave me a thoughtful answer, I got a truly wonderful gift. The Hightowers booed me.
Then I went ahead and turned a win into the ultimate loss.
HBO
Before House of the Dragon‘s season three premiere, I took part in a series of virtual media roundtables with the stars of the show. That included speaking to Olivia Cooke (Alicent Hightower), Freddie Fox (Gwayne Hightower), and Frankel. Before things started, I knew my pro-Rhaenyra stance was going to be at odds with the people who play her enemies on the show. Frankel was wearing a custom Gwayne shirt while Fox was wearing the most disgusting shirt ever made. His celebrated Criston Cole. Truly vile.
While I waited for my turn to ask a question, I listened to the three stars being downright silly. The roundtable began with Fox and Frankel referencing That’s So Raven. They then talked about their characters having huge crushes on one another and being intimidated by the others’ physique. The atmosphere was lighthearted and fun. This is very important to understand. Partly to know I wasn’t out of line with how and why I asked my question, but more so you can appreciate how genuinely funny their response was to my query.
HBO
While I can’t fully convey the clearly absurd tone with which I asked my question, you’ll get a pretty good idea of how intentionally ridiculous it was. even in print This is what I asked Ser Criston Cole the very first chance I got to speak to him:
Fabian, I’ve had some very strong feelings about Ser Criston Cole that long predate the show. So I worked very hard to ask what I think is a fair question: What’s it like getting to play the worst person in the history of Westeros?
Dear reader, and hopefully dear fellow hater of the Greens, Olivia Cooke’s reaction to this question is a true career highlight. It was half groan/half boo. “Ooooh, that’s unfair,” she said. Freddie Fox responded the same way at the same time.
HBO
As for Frankel, he made me laugh as he calmly said, “It’s a loaded question. It’s a loaded question.” I insisted, it wasn’t. I claimed, with the innocence of Ramsey telling Theon he was safe, I had worked really hard to make sure it wasn’t loaded. Frankel said, “No no no.” And, I mean…..yes. Obviously. The obvious loaded-ness was the point. But it was also sincere, since Cole is a major villain on the show.
And that’s exactly how Frankel took my question when he talked about playing the part. Here’s what he said:
It’s funny. I actually remember Sara Hess our writer saying something like, “Be ready.” Because [Cole]’d been set up as such a different character in the first season. As this kind of quite noble knight who’s going to protect Rhaenyra and help her manage the expectation. Then obviously he turns so quickly. And what I think is kind of a shame, not a shame, but what I would’ve been interested to see is how that 20-year gap would’ve unfolded.
The way it starts, he’s just such a different person in the sixth episode of season one. Obviously over the course of 20 years, a bunch of shit happened, which we don’t tackle as a show, but it would’ve been something I would’ve found very interesting to read about. But I tell you, I take it with great pride and it’s a great joy to play this kind of a villain. I have enjoyed every moment of it.
It was a great answer loaded with insights into both his character and the show. But my duel victory—one personal for upsetting the Greens, the other professional for asking a question that garnered a thoughtful response—came at a cost. I wasn’t really worried anyone was upset. All three understand the spirit of my silly question.
But I still wanted to make clear that my feelings about Criston Cole were limited to the fictional knight. In fact, the question came from a place of admiration for Frankel. He gives one of my favorite performances on the show. Thanks to his portrayal of Cole, the whole world knows exactly why I have always hate the dishonorable knight.
HBO
“I know everyone groaned,” I told Frankel, “But honestly, you have played this character in all the ways I hoped for. If you would have made him sympathetic or likable, I’d have been furious.” Nothing loaded in that comment. I was being completely honest.
Then, Ser Criston Cole—Ser Criston freaking Cole, my fictional nemesis I’ve always hated and always will—thanked me for the compliment. The compliment I paid him. Ser Criston Cole told me he appreciated that I said something nice about him. Total disaster.
Now I have to live with that. And really, in some ways—maybe the biggest way—that makes me the final victim in the Dance of the Dragons.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. Despite his appreciation of Fabian Frankel’s performance, Mikey remains the world’s leading Criston Cole hater. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post I Asked My Fictional Nemesis Criston Cole a Question (and the Greens Booed Me) appeared first on Nerdist.
Bold move, Cotton: Trump administration tells US techies it expects American quantum computer by 2028
Tuesday morning traffic: Highway 9 one-way traffic, SR-152 lane closed, overnight Hwy 1/9/17 work
This post is updated throughout the day to reflect the latest incidents. It was last updated at 6:31 a.m..
Here’s what’s happening on the roads this morning…
▼︎ new incidents ▼︎ long-term incidents
Road incidents as of 6:30 a.m. on June 23- Highway 9 at Cascade Avenue in San Lorenzo Valley has one-way traffic due to ongoing work. This closure will last until August 31.
- A lane on westbound SR-152 at Clifford Drive/Ohlone Parkway in Watsonville and Pajaro is closed for asphalt paving. The closure will last until July 3 at 5:59 a.m.
- There will be alternating lane closures on Highway 9 at Pool Drive in San Lorenzo Valley because of bridge work. The closures will continue until April 30 at 6:59 a.m.
These have been going on for a while, but are still worth keeping in mind.
- Mill St. between Main St. and Highway 9 in Ben Lomond will be closed to vehicles from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on 6/6, 7/4, 8/1, 9/5, and 10/3 for the Ben Lomond Village Market event. Traffic control and detour signs will be posted.
- Overnight road work to improve bridges and ramps on Highway 1, Highway 9, and Highway 17 in Santa Cruz County will start Tuesday, May 26. There will be overnight closures at different times and locations through July.
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 Tuesday morning traffic: Highway 9 one-way traffic, SR-152 lane closed, overnight Hwy 1/9/17 work appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
Arrests of immigrant parents create mental health crisis for children
By Claudia Boyd-Barrett for KFF Damian Zermeño, 15, sensed something was wrong the moment he got home from school. His aunt sat at the dining table, sobbing. His father, who’d walked him to the bus stop that morning and promised to take him to dinner when he got back, wasn’t there. Saúl Zermeño, a 45-year-old single dad, had gone to a routine check-in appointment at an…
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Downballot Democrats Are Smashing Recruitment Records
When the Kansas legislature took up a bill in early 2026 that would strip transgender residents’ driver’s licenses and bar them from government bathrooms, Bobby Joe Robertson Jr., a financial analyst at a petroleum refinery in the small town of McPherson, about an hour north of Wichita, decided to write her state representative a letter.
“Technically, I wrote three,” Robertson says. There was the original letter, asking her legislator if he’d be up to meet with her, a trans woman, to discuss the painful effects the law would have on her family. And then a follow-up asking the legislator if he could please respond. “The third one,” she recalls, “was me telling him that I’m going to take his job.”
It will be an uphill battle. President Donald Trump carried McPherson by a more than two-to-one margin in 2024, as Robertson’s current Republican state representative was running unopposed in HD-73. A different Republican legislator had run unopposed in 2022. And 2020. And 2018. But this year, the incumbent has chosen not to seek re-election—and Robertson has been knocking doors after work for months, organizing her neighbors, and raising money for the race ahead. “I don’t think it’ll be a landslide or anything,” she said. “But I think I have the potential.”
“The power that is built in November in our state capitals…is going to have a national impact.”
Robertson is one of 18 Kansas Democrats contesting a state house seat this fall that went unopposed in the last election. Some of these districts have gone years without even token Democratic opposition—two will feature their first contested election since 2006. You have to go all the way back to 1990 to find this many Democrats running for Kansas’ legislature—incidentally, the last year they won a majority. Most of these races, in deep-red areas, will likely stay out of reach for the party. But Brandon Woodard, the Democratic minority leader in the lower chamber, believes another goal is achievable: that at least five out of the party’s more than 100 local recruits can flip districts—enough to break the Republicans’ supermajority—while turning out extra voters to keep the governor’s mansion in Democratic hands.
It’s not just Kansas. Across the country, Democrats are smashing downballot recruitment records, fielding more candidates in more races than they have in decades—or ever. For the first time, the party has a candidate for every Minnesota state legislative race, as it hopes to build on a one-vote majority in the state senate and break a 67–67 logjam in the house. In Texas, where Democrats are looking to make inroads in a Republican-dominated legislature and get out the vote for Senate candidate James Talarico and other statewide candidates, the party is also fielding candidates for every legislative seat for the first time in history. They’ve got candidates in every race in North and South Carolina (where the party hopes to break Republican supermajorities), and in Arizona (where it’s seeking to flip both chambers).
And in New Hampshire, in a bid for a governing trifecta, Democrats are contesting every state senate race, and at least 361 of 400 state house seats—57 more than Republicans. According to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which invests in state-level downballot races, the party is also contesting a 21st-century record number of races in Indiana and Georgia.
As I reported previously, the DLCC has ambitious targets this fall, with hundreds of seats in play across the country. Democrats have been buoyed by dominant showings in 2025’s off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey, and a string of victories and overperformances in special elections—including, this spring, a win in the Florida state house district that includes Mar-a-Lago. DLCC president Heather Williams has argued this November has the potential to be “2010 in reverse”—a reference to Barack Obama’s first midterm shellacking, when Republicans picked up 700 legislative seats that allowed them to gerrymander their way to enduring majorities in states like North Carolina. Now, with both parties in the midst of a redistricting arms race, these elections could help determine which politicians control the next stages of the battle—a significance that will be felt far beyond any state’s borders.
“On the other side of this election, we’re going to sharply go into a continued conversation about redistricting, the need to shore up the path to the presidency, and ensure that our voting laws and our certification processes are strong as we go into a big 2028 presidential cycle,” Williams says. “On top of all of that, this Republican administration continues to move policy work of dealing with the issues of today into the states.
“The power that is built in November in our state capitals is not only going to affect those that live in those communities,” Williams adds. “It is going to have a national impact.”
Downballot recruitment is no guarantee of success—particularly in the sorts of ruby-red areas Democrats like Robertson will be contesting. Republicans’ power in Kansas’ legislature will likely hinge on a small number of competitive districts. But the presence of candidates in almost every race is a useful barometer for an energized base and party organization. In Kansas, Woodard said, the numbers reflect, in part, a strategic shift. Last year, his caucus hired a political director earlier than it ever had, as the state party launched a tour of Republican-dominated areas to drum up interest from local parties and activists.
“If we’re having a wave year, some of those districts that are having the candidate on the ground doing the work might end up in picking up a seat that maybe wasn’t on our radar,” Woodard says. “More than anything, if we can move the needle on a district that we lose by 20 percent, and someone does the work and we only lose by 15 percent, that’s a win in my book as well.”
Other Kansas Democrats, like Pete Ferrell, a rancher and self-described “former Eisenhower Republican” who threw his hat in the ring for a seat east of Wichita, are running for less tangible reasons. No one has contested the district in ten years, and while Ferrell told me he hadn’t raised any money and wasn’t yet sure what his campaign would look like, to him it’s about the principle of the thing.
“I’m 73. I’ve probably got no business doing this,” he said. “But my God, I wasn’t gonna open that ballot up and not see a Democrat.”
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