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More states are pulling out of President Trump’s “Great American State Fair,” citing financial constraints.

Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and North Carolina—the last of which Trump won in 2024—have each declined to send a representative to the festival, which is supposed to feature a 600-square-foot themed booth on the National Mall for each state and kick off on Thursday with sixteen days of festivities. The six states all have Democratic governors.

“Given the significant costs associated with participating in the Great American State Fair, we chose to focus on supporting local efforts here in Washington state for this very important commemoration,” Washington Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck told The Hill. Fair organizer Freedom 250 has claimed that there are no cost requirements per state.

Luke Harkins, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s press secretary, pointed to “growing concerns that the event in Washington, D.C., is shaping up to be a more partisan affair than originally presented.” And Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy proclaimed that “everybody’s bailing on” Trump’s fair. Fellow blue states California, Colorado, and New York will be present.

This Freedom 250 festival has been a mess from the beginning, and it really hasn’t even gotten started. From the first wave of announced performers pulling out, to entire states, it’s becoming less and less clear what this event will even look like. Nevertheless, Trump is insisting that the show must go on.

“On July 4th, at The Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, in beautiful and safe Washington D.C., we are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “Starting at 7 P.M. EST, this HUGE Celebration will honor our Country’s People, Spirit, Strength, Resolve, and Triumphs. With the backdrop of the Lincoln Memorial and surrounding the beautifully new Reflecting Pool, more than 300 Members of our strong and talented Military Bands, Orchestras, and Ceremonial Units, will perform Patriotic Melodies and American Classics, and my Playlist.”

⚡ Quick Take

• The year is already halfway over, and plenty of good movies have come out so far! Here are our favorites of 2026.

This year has been a great year for movies. From horror stunners like Obsession to nerdy favorites like The Mandalorian and Grogu, 2026 has covered a wide scope of genres—and it’s only halfway over! At Nerdist, we hold movies near and very dear, and so we have compiled a list of our favorites, in no particular order. Here are the best movies of 2026 so far.

Project Hail Mary Amazon MGM Studios

Project Hail Mary kicked off the year with a feel-good space drama. It offered a little bit of everything. The deep emotions of an astronaut lost alone in deep space, complemented by star Ryan Gosling’s quippy humor and—who could forget—a lovable alien creature, Rocky.

This movie knew when to be serious, and it definitely knew when to be funny. It was heartwarming, too, exploring complex relationships between humans as well as humans and aliens, and the meaning and significance of sacrifice.

RELATED ARTICLE

PROJECT HAIL MARY Made Me Romantic About Movies (Review) Hokum NEON

Switching gears entirely, supernatural horror film Hokum will have you chilled to your core. Adam Scott of Severance and Parks and Rec stars as Ohm Bauman, an author who decides to spread his parents’ ashes where they took their honeymoon. He finds himself in a haunted hotel in Ireland where he must face the evil trapped there.

Hokum was created by Damian McCarthy, an Irish filmmaker. He drew inspiration from Gaelic myth, where he got the cailleach concept. In mythology, a cailleach is a mythical “hag” with power over the landscape. While not an inherently evil being in myth, she certainly felt evil in this movie. Bauman faces the witch herself alongside visions from the past.

RELATED ARTICLE

HOKUM Is a Delightfully Chilly Haunted Hotel Flick (Review) Is God Is Orion Pictures

Is God Is was an emotionally moving tale of twin sisters on a journey to kill their abusive father. Aleshea Harris’ directorial debut, based on her off-Broadway stage play of the same name, is a thriller, a dark comedy, and a revenge film rolled into one. It also explores the tensions within a cycle of abuse.

The two girls suffered life-changing first-degree burns at their father’s hands when they were children. Despite its characters’ traumatic backstory, the movie manages to be darkly comedic.

RELATED ARTICLE

IS GOD IS: A Cathartic and Brutal Exploration of Black Girl Rage (Review) The Devil Wears Prada 2 20th Century Studios

Picking up where the first installment of Andy’s story left off 20 years ago, The Devil Wears Prada 2 was a glorious return to Runway magazine. Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, and, of course, Anne Hathaway graced our theater screens once again. Despite two decades passing, we could be convinced the second movie had been filmed the day after the first—the stars appeared almost identical to their 2006 counterparts.

The story follows Andy and Miranda, both down on their luck. It deals with the realistic struggles of print magazines in moving to digital, clickbait-heavy formats. It also discusses the looming threat of A.I. taking over the journalism field (gulp). Amidst these heavier issues, the characters navigate the complex reality of their careers, their relationships with each other, and their own personal flaws.

RELATED ARTICLE

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 Is 2026’s Most Important Movie—Here’s Why It Matters (Review) Backrooms Kane Pixels

After his YouTube series The Backrooms gained immense traction, a creator known as Kane Pixels found himself directing a feature-length psychological horror based on the story he had been developing for years.

He created his YouTube series in a found-footage style, exploring a liminal, empty mass of endless hallways. The landscape resembles an abandoned department store, with fluorescent ceiling lights to boot. Parsons’ first episode was a “short film” published in 2022, and the story developed from there as he continued making videos for three years. You can read more about the internet “creepypasta” that inspired his work here.

The movie is set in the same location as his shorts and follows researchers as they investigate the realm of “the backrooms.” Getting lost in the hallways is scary enough, but when it turns out some sort of entity is there with them, the scientists have to fight for their lives.

RELATED ARTICLE

The 8 Scariest Levels of the BACKROOMS Obsession Focus Features/Universal Pictures

2026 truly is a year of good horror, with Obsession being another box office smash. It has also had its moment on the internet, with stills of star Inde Navarrette’s intense frown going viral, alongside her other facially uncanny moments.

More is disturbing about this movie than just the “be careful what you wish for” trope. In some ways, it is about the world of romance we live in today, the idealization of being in a relationship or being loved. Having a partner who has no personality outside of loving you may, in fact, be more terrifying than the natural character flaws that being an individual, an independent person, would bring.

The underlying messages of the movie are what take it from scary to horror.

RELATED ARTICLE

OBSESSION Is a Classic Story with an Uncanny Horror Twist (Review) The Mandalorian and Grogu Lucasfilm

For the Star Wars nerds out there, your favorite world has never stopped expanding. The Mandalorian show has been wildly popular in the years since it began its run. And now the creators have taken a more cinematic direction with The Mandalorian and Grogu.

The two-hour long feature film actually replaced the show’s fourth season. Director Jon Favreau mentioned that writing for season four was underway in 2023 but, in a statement to SFX Magazine, said they trashed those scripts entirely to write the feature film.

The episodes would have been aiming to continue where season 3 had left off and set up the Ahsoka show. However, the movie took a different direction, something that would be appealing to the audience whether they had watched the previous content or not.

“As long as you understand the archetypes of this hardened warrior with their vulnerable young apprentice, you’ll know these characters well, even if you’ve never seen the show,” Favreau said. “But there’s still a lot of Star Wars in there.”

Masters of the Universe

Based on the 1980s animated show, He-Man and The Masters of The Universe, this nostalgic movie did the series justice. He-Man, played by Nicholas Galitzine, is your average Joe working in an office cubicle and yearning for the day he can return to Eternia. Luckily, he does—it would have been boring otherwise—and along the way encounters Skeletor, the classic villain, along with other characters from the series.

Amazon MGM

This is the second time He-Man has been adapted in live-action. In 1987, the first adaptation was made, featuring an oddly shiny blonde man and a tacky skeleton mask. On the surface, not much changed, but this film is a step up.

RELATED ARTICLE

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE Is a Colorful Retro Adventure (Review) Toy Story 5

If you thought Toy Story 4 was the end, you’ve officially been proven wrong. Despite what seem to be repeated conclusive finales to the series, fans love Toy Story enough to bring it back to the theaters a fifth time. Nostalgic characters accumulated over the first four movies return and grapple with their place in the age of the internet.

Pixar

1990s toys meet electronics, and parents face criticism in this new story. A review from Indiewire points out the blatant complacency with which many parents now operate, surrendering their children to the teachings of mindless internet use. This movie calls that out and emphasizes the importance of imaginative play in childhood, and this makes it one of the best movies of 2026.

RELATED ARTICLE

TOY STORY 5 Cements the Franchise as Cinema’s All-Time Best

Originally published on June 22, 2026 with additional reporting by Ella R. Dunn.

The post The Best Movies of 2026 (So Far) appeared first on Nerdist.

Never mind the fact that datacenter environmental concerns have come under growing scrutiny across the United States. Microsoft has just inked a deal with fossil fuel giant Chevron to supply one of the largest single-capacity additions to its datacenter fleet with 2.67 gigawatts of natural gas power for a full two decades. Chevron said today that it signed a two-decade power purchase agreement with Microsoft through its subsidiary Energy Forge One to supply 2.67 GW of power for a new datacenter project in West Texas dubbed Project Kilby. The natural gas turbines to be constructed on the datacenter’s site will sit behind-the-meter (Microsoft gets access to the power without it flowing through the grid first) and will be “among the largest co-located natural gas power and data center developments in the U.S.,” according to Chevron. Microsoft’s own press release on the matter, which doesn’t mention Chevron or Energy Forge One by name but does admit the new facility “will operate with a co-located natural gas power facility,” identified Pecos as the West Texas location where the bit barn will be built. The self-proclaimed birthplace of the rodeo is also a West Texas hub for agriculture and ranching, among other Texas-sized industries. Microsoft confirmed to The Register that, despite it not mentioning Chevron in the announcement, the power purchase agreement does concern the Pecos facility. The facility will be “one of the largest single-capacity additions” to Microsoft’s datacenter fleet “in our history,” according to Redmond’s release, and the company is trying hard to lean into its desire to be a good neighbor to the people of Pecos as it spends the next few years building the massive facility. Shouldn’t good neighbors care about air and water quality? “We know that being a good neighbor isn’t something you say,” Microsoft wrote in an open letter to the people of Pecos alongside its announcement of the new datacenter. “It’s something you prove over time.” That letter and the announcement take pains to point out all the good things Microsoft has done for the communities where it plunked down massive datacenters, and it wants the locals to know that the Pecos facility will be no different. Why, the very fact it’s building multiple gigawatts of natural gas power for itself proves just that! Building its own energy infrastructure, says Microsoft, will prevent locals from having to pay more for power. Additionally, the company anticipates eventually connecting its turbines to the grid and serving as a broader energy source, too. According to Chevron, the turbines being deployed for the Pecos datacenter include noise and light impact mitigations as well as “selective catalytic reduction” systems that reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. Not eliminate, mind you - just reduce. To get an idea of the scale of what Microsoft is planning to deploy with Chevron in Pecos, let’s consider the gas turbine generators that xAI’s Colossus AI datacenter installed in Memphis, Tennessee. That facility saw the installation of just 150 megawatts of gas turbines - roughly one eighteenth the size of Microsoft’s planned Pecos gas plant. Even at that small a scale, the xAI datacenter has still become the subject of a lawsuit [PDF] alleging that the facility is belching way too much smog into local communities for the air to be healthy and calling for it to be shut down. Emissions mitigations or not, one can't imagine the prairie sky around the Pecos datacenter will be as clear and high as it once was after the facility is completed. It’s worth pointing out that some of the turbines being deployed to Pecos will be manufactured by the deceptively named Solar Turbines, which actually builds gas power systems. According to reports and photographs out of the xAI Memphis facility, Solar Turbines also supplied gas turbines for Colossus. Then there’s the water concerns: Microsoft and Chevron both called attention to their plans to minimize water usage in Pecos, which lies in a part of Texas prone to drought and with limited access to fresh, potable water. “We are also designing our operations to minimize reliance on freshwater sources by utilizing nonpotable water where possible,” Microsoft noted. The company will rely on closed-loop cooling systems that will “significantly reduce water requirements.” As for the gas plant planned for the site, Chevron said that its facility will use “non-potable, brackish groundwater sources for power plant operations” instead of freshwater, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Brackish groundwater, located in massive, salty, underground aquifers, is a major source of water for dry, dusty West Texas, and has been for some time. Desalination of brackish groundwater has been suggested [PDF] as a source of drinking water for the town and the surrounding region, raising questions about whether datacenters and gas power plants sucking it up to cool their jets are sustainable. Microsoft didn’t want to answer any of the questions we put to it aside from confirming Chevron’s press release related to the Pecos datacenter; Chevron didn’t respond. ®

President Donald Trump’s approval rating is nearing doomsday levels for the GOP, with the pollster American Research Group on Monday releasing a survey showing just 30% of Americans approve of the job he’s doing in office. It’s difficult to put into words just how bad things have to get in this polarized political climate for a president to reach 30% approval. To get that low it means you’re…

Source

Supergirl stars Milly Alcock (Supergirl), Eve Ridley (Ruthye), and Jason Momoa (Lobo) sit down with Nerdist’s Maude Garrett to talk Supergirl vs Superman, bringing Lobo to the big screen, and their secret fandoms!

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The post SUPERGIRL Cast Reveal Their Secret Fandoms! appeared first on Nerdist.

A Watsonville Police officer was hurt on the job Monday morning during a foot pursuit of a woman suspected of shoplifting.

The incident began when WPD got a call regarding a woman that had stolen items from the Dollar Tree at 1010 Main St. around 9:50am. As police infiltrated the area officers were updated that the suspect, described as a female in a gray hoodie top and black pants, was walking past the Grocery Outlet toward downtown Watsonville.

Then an officer spotted her trying to flee officers around Rodriguez and Main streets, where she reportedly ditched the stolen items. As one officer gave foot pursuit, he appaently at the intersection of Freedom Boulevard at Main Street and suffered a serious injury to his leg. 

As police called for emergency medical and firefighter response, other officers managed to take the 34-year-old suspect into custody.

Police then shut down Main Street in the area and several surrounding lanes in the heavily travelled intersection to allow for the rescue effort.

The incident is still under investigation. No names have been released.

Farm workers harvest berries off West Beach Street near Watsonville on July 3, 2025. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)

WATSONVILLE >> Noticias Watsonville contributor Pedro González Rentería tells the story of Antonia Vega González, owner of Dulce Organic Farms in Watsonville, through a short documentary film. Antonia’s story is especially powerful because her journey to owning her own farm started with being a fieldworker for more than two decades.

She was born in San Martin Peras, Oaxaca before making her way to Watsonville. As an Indigenous Mixtec woman, Antonia shares about the deep pride she has in her path from fieldworker to business owner.

“The documentary is a tribute to the resilience and pride of all farmers,” Rentería said of his reasons for pursuing the story.

Watch the video on InstagramWatch the video on Instagram

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Learn about membership Santa Cruz Local’s news is free. We believe that high-quality local news is crucial to democracy. We depend on locals like you to make a meaningful contribution so everyone can access our news. Learn about membership

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What does an AI company do after one of those not-acqui-hire deals? Groq raised money, is leaning into its neocloud business, and hiring new execs.

A federal judge has blocked the Department of Homeland Security from continuing to “haphazardly” create a database of millions of Americans it knew was “inaccurate” in order to purge noncitizens from voter rolls.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan on Monday sided with the League of Women Voters, who’d challenged Trump’s directive to expand the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE.

In order to update the SAVE database, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services obtained Americans’ Social Security numbers from the Department of Government Efficiency—where some employees were accused of misusing Americans’ sensitive information—and combined it with citizenship data that “they knew to be unreliable,” Sooknanan wrote.

“Since then, states have partnered with the federal government to access the database and are actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information,” she wrote in a 75-page ruling. “All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.”

Sooknanan ruled that the Trump administration had violated protections enshrined in the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act.

Since SAVE was updated, numerous voters have been falsely declared noncitizens, threatened with removal from voter registration rolls, and in some cases, referred to the DHS for possible criminal investigations. Sooknanan found that these misidentifications qualified as, at the very least, “a lesser form” of defamation, and said the administration’s arguments to the contrary “border on absurd.”

Nvidia announced a new cooling system that cuts water use inside the data center. But it does nothing to address AI's biggest water use — fossil fuel power plants.

Cloudflare on Monday said that it has joined with the three leading commercial browser makers to create a privacy-preserving protocol that websites can use to separate desirable web traffic from undesirable network requests. Cloudflare, along with Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox, have committed to develop Private Access Control Tokens (PACTs), a way for websites to generate a digital token that asserts a given browsing session is being run by a human or bot with legitimate intent, as opposed to network requests from people or software deemed abusive or improper. PACTs will let websites "with strong knowledge of 'personhood'" issue anonymous tokens that browser users and designated bots can present at other websites, so that fewer identity checks are necessary. Think of PACTs as a shareable, privacy-preserving CAPTCHA test result, where the desirability of the web traffic is being tested rather than whether the visitor is a human or bot – an increasingly difficult distinction. While the technical details are still being hammered out and harmonized between related proposals, it isn't immediately clear what constitutes "strong knowledge of 'personhood'" in this context, particularly since "personhood" appears to extend to software that has been authorized to act on behalf of a legitimate person for an authorized purpose. It may be that the test criteria puts certain browsers, behaviors, or network signals at greater risk of being denied the dispensation of a PACT, though past technical discussion by developers from Google and Mozilla suggests that excluding certain hardware, platforms, or user-agents is not a goal. Dane Knecht, CTO of Cloudflare, argues that the way people interact with the web is changing and increasingly may involve autonomous agents. "As AI-powered traffic becomes widespread, existing tools to support its use are too generic and coarse," said Knecht in a statement. "Now this collaboration lets us eliminate the friction caused by security protocols for every visitor – whether they are human or agent – without sacrificing privacy." The claim "without sacrificing privacy" is a bit of an overstatement. PACT tokens, it appears, will not contain personal details. But they won't do anything to repair all the other ways browsers can facilitate digital fingerprinting and tracking. And if implemented poorly, they may introduce novel risks. Fundamentally, they divide the internet traffic into welcome and unwelcome traffic – something already widely done through firewalls and other technical measures but not easily reconciled with the notionally open web. "Mozilla is committed to defending openness and user privacy on the web," said Bobby Holley, CTO for Firefox at Mozilla, in a statement. "An avalanche of automated traffic is pushing sites to adopt blunt defenses – paywalls, identity checks, CAPTCHAs, and invasive tracking – simply to tell whether a request comes from a human." While Cloudflare touts the privacy benefits of PACTs, it's clear from the company's announcement that the technology is designed to "empower businesses to identify genuine visitors, ensuring they can focus their resources on the traffic that matters to them." Essentially, this is an anti-fraud initiative. Many website operators have complained about the burden of handling unwanted network traffic from disrespectful crawlers. PACTs may be the answer to their prayers. At the same time, they may also become an access barrier that demands negotiation with site publishers to have one's site visits or software deemed worthy of "personhood." ®

Despite Vice President JD Vance’s claims, Iran’s state media says it will not allow nuclear inspectors into the country, complicating the agreement made between the U.S. and Iran.

“The US Vice President’s claim regarding the return of [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors to Iran is false.… In the Swiss negotiations, there was no discussion about the presence of inspectors in the country,” an X post from the state-affiliated Fars News Agency said in Farsi on Monday, citing an unnamed “informed source.”

Earlier on Monday, Vance announced that as part of the ongoing peace talks between Iran and the U.S., Iran would allow IAEA inspectors back into the country for the first time since July 2025. Iran suspended cooperation with the agency after the U.S. bombed its nuclear enrichment facilities.

Alongside the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, allowing IAEA inspectors into Iran was a condition of the peace deal, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. In exchange, the U.S. planned to temporarily lift sanctions on Iranian oil.

“In line with the ongoing productive talks in Switzerland, Iran has committed to free and open transit in the Strait of Hormuz and to permit International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into their country,” Bessent posted on X Monday morning. “As part of the framework, Treasury has issued a temporary 60-day general license authorizing the production, delivery, and sale of Iranian oil.”

However, the White House and Tehran don’t seem to be on the same page. According to the “informed source,” inspectors were never on the table as part of the negotiations. Meanwhile, Iran may soon be able to finally reap the benefits of selling its oil at market price after years of U.S. sanctions.

This deal was already pretty sweet for Iran—but if it doesn’t have to let inspectors in, it’s even more unbalanced. Isn’t it great to have such an accomplished dealmaker as president?

The list of Klue customers whose Salesforce data was stolen in the latest supply-chain heist keeps growing, with an increasing number of cybersecurity companies disclosing that they are among the victims of a new data-theft and extortion crew called Icarus. Klue, which provides market intelligence to more than 250,000 companies worldwide, hasn’t said how many of its customers were caught up in the breach and didn’t immediately respond to The Register’s inquiries. Huntress was one of the first cybersecurity vendors to sound the alarm, and, in an email to The Register, said that it was among the “hundreds of Klue customers” affected. However, it said that the breach did not affect its tools or highly secure information such as passwords. “Huntress believes in radical transparency about security incidents, including when it affects our company,” the security shop wrote on Thursday. “The data that was copied from our Salesforce account includes business contacts, price quotes, and other sales-related data and messaging. No threat data, passwords, payment card information, or engineering data relating to the Huntress agent or telemetry we collect was affected.” Huntress, along with the other victim companies, said that there is no indication that any of its products or infrastructure were compromised, and that this security incident was specific to CRM data. Since then, several other security and software vendors including Recorded Future, Tanium, Jamf, Gong, HackerOne, Kudelski Security, Snyk, Insurity, and Sprout Social have revealed that the data thieves also accessed their CRM data via the Klue integration with Salesforce. Here’s what we do know about what happened and who is behind this latest extortion campaign. The breach occurred on June 11, and Klue spotted the intrusion a day later. This unauthorized activity affected “a portion” of its integration infrastructure, according to the software provider. Klue has since disconnected all of its integrations with Salesforce, Gong, HubSpot, SharePoint, and Google Drive. It also hired CrowdStrike to assist in the investigation and security response. “Our investigation determined that an attacker gained access through a compromised legacy credential associated with an integration service,” Klue CEO Jason Smith said in a Friday blog post. “The attacker used that access to obtain OAuth tokens used to connect Klue with certain third-party platforms, including Salesforce, and subsequently accessed data within a number of connected customer environments.” Mandiant CTO Charles Carmakal urged organizations using Klue integrations to “immediately audit their systems and monitor application logs for evidence of compromise over the past few weeks. Rotate credentials as appropriate based on the scope of compromise.” While the attack “resembles the 2025 and 2026 third-party OAuth abuse campaigns against Salesforce,” as ReliaQuest noted, a group called Icarus began posting victims on its data-leak site. It soon became apparent that this new extortion crew - not ShinyHunters, which has frequently targeted Salesforce and stolen data from hundreds of the CRM giant's customers in attacks over the past few years - was behind this latest supply-chain incident. Icarus, according to the group’s leak site, has been active since April 28. After compromising Klue, the criminals began emailing affected customers. Huntress shared its extortion message, with the subject line “top secret email” purportedly sent from “mr bean,” with The Reg, and we are leaving the misspellings, and poor grammar, as is. “This email is being written to you because your data as exfiltrated due to a breach happening to your partner, Klue.com (as them),” it reads. “Your Salesforce data has been downloaded. We advice you to write us on Session @” with a Session address, the email continues, and threatens to make the data public within 48 hours unless Huntress initiates communication with the criminals. “Do the right decision,” it says, “xoxo.” There’s a subsequent email that simply says “wrong session lol” and then lists the correct Session ID. Researchers don’t know too much about Icarus - yet - but this type of large-scale supply-chain attack typically paints an equally large target on the intruders’ collective backs. So we expect to hear more from law enforcement and third-party security sleuths in the upcoming days. “There is very little publicly known about [Icarus],” Huntress' Lindsey O'Donnell-Welch told us. “IP addresses from which they are known to have accessed sensitive information include the Netherlands, France, and Ukraine. But we cannot draw any conclusions based on that information alone as these may have been VPN concentrators or Tor exit nodes.” And while this intrusion “bears some surface-level similarities with prior Salesforce-focused extortion activity, we have not seen any evidence at this point linking Icarus to ShinyHunters,” O'Donnell-Welch added. ® Correction: An earlier version of this story stated ReliaQuest was a victim. That company has since clarified it was not.

⚡ Quick Take

• Actor Joseph Potter is particularly interested in the dynamics between Armand and Nicholas de Lenfent.
• Speaking to Nerdist, Potter revealed he’d love to delve into the time from The Vampire Lestat when Nicki and Armand were left alone without Lestat.
• He shares, “It’s a fascinating place.”

In The Vampire Lestat episode three, we met a familiar face again in a whole new way. In Interview with the Vampire, we briefly saw Nicholas de Lenfent through Armand’s perspective. But in The Vampire Lestat, with Lestat telling his version of events, we got to see a lot more of Lestat’s first… or is that great… love. Fans of the Anne Rice books will know that some aspects of Nicki’s story changed for The Vampire Lestat series, one of which is the idea that Lestat left Nicki alone with Armand for a period of time, although not without arranging for his care, and in this time, Armand’s emotional and mental manipulation of Nicki drove his inner struggles to an even worse place, eventually leading to his death by walking into fire. But, as we know, there are no reliable narrators in the world of The Vampire Lestat/Interview with the Vampire. And if you ask Nicki actor, Joseph Potter, it’s too soon to give up on the idea of the time that Armand and Nicki (Nickimand, if you will) spent together. Potter, for one, would love to explore it.

AMC

Speaking about Armand and Nicki, here’s what The Vampire Lestat actor, Joseph Potter, had to say. “I’d love to revisit the role. I’m always up for revisiting anything. It has been such a privilege to play this part with this amazing team of actors and creatives. But yeah, there’s a lot of the history between Armand and Nicki that I’m really intrigued by, that we haven’t necessarily seen too much of there.”

He continues musing about the character of Armand, noting, “Without sounding too strange, I was always fascinated by when Lestat goes away in the book, and Nicki’s just left with Armand in the theater. That dynamic is… I’m really fascinated by that. And that kind of power dynamic at play between them, with Armand in control. I think it’s a fascinating place. I mean, you don’t know what’s going on there. I mean, I’d be intrigued.”

AMC

Well, wouldn’t we all? If there’s one thing about Armand, it’s that he has fascinating dynamics with pretty much everyone. The time Potter speaks about is one that’s left murky in both the books and in the series (for now), so it would be a great place to explore and adapt the two characters. What did Nicki and Armand get up to while Lestat was away in The Vampire Lestat? There’s always been a great deal of confusion around the particulars of Nicki’s devolution and death, even among book readers. And though we have some vision of it from the series now, it’s hard to trust that events were recounted with exact truth. More points of view for us all to dissect, debate, and debrief about are always welcome.

Additionally, Potter referred to Armand affectionately as a “Cheeky Gremlin” and “That Naughty Armand,” elsewhere in our talk, which is probably of interest to the people reading this right now.

The Vampire Lestat airs on AMC and AMC+, Sundays at 9 pm ET/PT and midnight, respectively. You can snag The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice to read, if you’d like to know a little bit more about what’s going on.

Rotem Rusak is the Editor-in-Chief of Nerdist. Devil’s Minon is her endgame in The Vampire Lestat, but she’s never opposed to other ships on the side—Nicki and Armand, why not?

This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!

The post Joseph Potter Wants More Armand and Nicholas Dynamics in THE VAMPIRE LESTAT appeared first on Nerdist.

The incident comes as Tata Electronics expands its role in global technology supply chains.

House of the Dragon‘s season three premiere changed the Dance of the Dragons forever with the highly-anticipated Battle of the Gullet. It was a massive conflict that saw fire and blood meet salt and sea. What was it like to actually be a part of an episode of this scope and scale? We found out from both those who fought in the sky and those who fought on the water when Nerdist took part in a series of virtual roundtables ahead of the series return to HBO.

Here’s what we learned from stars Harry Collett and Bethany Antonia about Jace and Baela’s role in the conflict along with what Abubakar Salim and Steve Toussaint had to say about Alyn and Corlys’ emotional, dangerous journey.

⚡ Quick Take

• House of the Dragon stars Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Steve Toussaint, and Abubakar Salim on what it took to film the Battle of the Gullet.

Henry Collett and Bethany Antonia HBO

Whether Jace is naive about going to fight and doesn’t really think things through before going to the Battle of the Gullet.

Harry Collett: 100%. He’s got a rough plan in his head, but everyone would probably think they have their ideas about battle and not really realize how difficult it is. And he can be quite cocky sometimes in thinking about how good he is at certain things. So he’s not really thought this through massively. He’s like, “Okay, mother’s safe.”

This is probably the first time we see Jace smile throughout the entire series. He’s just been a grumpy teenager before, but it shows what he really loves and what he’s been waiting for. This is the moment where he can prove that he’s not just a bastard. He wants to be hero Targaryen like everybody else.

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What was it like as performers filming a lengthy, difficult sequence that required them to be at such an intense emotional level the whole time.

Bethany Antonia: It was definitely quite a step up this season learning how to sustain that kind of feeling over a few days. Generally, if you’re shooting something like that you’ll do it in a block for two or three days. Then it’s finished. You get to be in that emotional headspace for three days and then it’s done. Whereas the Battle of the Gullet we filmed over weeks. So it was really about learning pacing and learning how to get there and how to get there safely and then how to get out of it safely as well. For me, it felt like a really big turning point as an actor, which was really cool.

Collett: Something new, something fresh, and something that my character’s never done before. And something that me as an actor has never done before. It’s like Bethany was saying, it just felt good to finally do something new and be in the full frontal-ness of this absolute madness and not be not in it and stuck at home.

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On the added layer of having to look out for each other as dragonriders while also trying to avoid getting hurt yourself.

Antonia: I really loved that added layer, especially for me. Because last season I had so many things where I was dragon riding, but I was just scouting. I was out sort of mindlessly looking for nothing in particular. Whereas having the added layer this season of actually having something to do and something to protect and something to follow meant that movement-wise, it really changed everything. We sort of had to imagine that you were looking over the wing as opposed to just being in your saddle.

It really changed the way that we operated on the buck, which was really cool. It meant that you had to think a lot about direction instead of just going with the dragon. You really had to steer a lot more intentionally. And Loni (Peristere), our director, was really brilliant for that. He was really, really clear and he would also move around the buck to be like Jace for me. He would show me where he wanted my eye line and stuff, which was really cool.

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Collett: Same for me. There’s a lot more thinking in place than you think because we’re just sitting on the buck. Like Bethany said, the biggest surprise for me was when he’d tell me to look at something and I’d just look that way, but the dragons are huge, aren’t they? You’ve got to really exaggerate every move to look over.

Antonia: Sometimes [Loni]’d say “Look,” and then he’d be like, “No, you’ve not cleared the wing.” You’re still looking at the wing.

Their expectations for what playing with dragons would look like.

Collett: I was obviously expecting it to be fun. Again, did not expect it to be that challenging, but I was so excited to see how it would look when it was finished. That was all that was in my mind and I was just really trying to use my imagination of what is around me at that time and what could possibly be coming my way. And I just knew they had temporary visual effects in place and even that looked incredible. I’d be happy if they released that on its own, but obviously they hadn’t even started doing the proper visual effects yet. So I went into it with the expectation it was going to be fun, but it exceeded expectations with the way it looked on the final product, I’d say.

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The pressure Baela feels in season three considering she’s one of the few people who seems to trust Rhaenyra.

Antonia: Baela really craves a relationship with Rhaenyra that feels mutual. Because she lost her mom at such a young age and because she witnessed this union when she was a child, really Rhaenyra has been her stepmom now for almost as long as [Baela] would’ve had her mom. And yet I do think there’s a part of her that feels like it is not the relationship she would have hoped for. That’s where that sort of unquestioning belief comes from. I think she’s like, “If I just support you in everything and I am loyal and I’m committed and I show you that I’m here, then you will want me at this table as much as I want to be here.”

In season three, maybe we start to see that changing a little bit and maybe Baela’s suddenly starting to realize, “Actually, do I want to be here? Or am I just wanting to be here because I support you and because I have faith in you or do I want to be here because I believe that you’re doing the right thing?

So I would say yes, at the start of the season, she is one of Rhaenyra’s few true allies and it will be interesting for people to see if that changes as the series goes on.

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On saying goodbye to a show like this versus having to continue working on it after longtime co-stars leave.

Collett: I’m just very grateful I was even on it in the first place. I would be content even if I went in season one. It’s such an amazing show and such a once in a lifetime experience.

Walking into that audition room all those years ago, being smaller than I am now and not looking like a prince at all, thinking I’ve not got this role and then walking out and getting the role. I mean, I pinch myself every day because of it. So yeah, forever grateful. I’ll never look at it and go, “Damn, I’m dead in season three.” I’ll never ever look at it that way.

And what a good way to go. It’s not boring. It’s quite an impactful death, sort of like a Red Wedding vibe death. So I will take it. I’m very, very happy and thank you to (showrunner) Ryan (Condal) and the whole team for even having me in the first place. I’ve had an absolute joy and I’ve met friends for life.

Antonia: I would echo everything Harry said. It just feels like an absolute privilege to get to do this for so many years now and to have watched our characters evolve and to have watched our friends evolve.

I guess going into the next season for me, this is the first time that I’m going to feel the shift. I’ve spent so much time with [Harry] and I do think it’s going to be really strange. It’s going to feel like a different job for me. So much of what we do is together and so much of what we do as a paor is with Emma (D’Arcy). And I think for Baela, both of those connections are going to be very different come season four. So I think it’s going to be really new and fresh for me and maybe a chance to find a different side of Baylor going forward.

HBO Steve Toussaint and Abubakar Salim

How filming the wars in the Stepstones compared to shooting the Battle of the Gullet.

Steve Toussaint: The Stepstones was very interesting. It was on land and it was a lot of running around and bashing people’s heads in. The Battle of the Gullet was that much more technical.

One of the things we did as preparation for both is you spend some time in a large room, like a gym, with the stunt guys and you choreograph the moves. Then, of course, hopefully you get to do it and it looks reasonably good.  On this occasion, the space that we had to learn the choreography was much bigger than the actual space we had to do the fighting in. On the Gullet, we were doing it on a ship that was moving up and down. The area was much more narrow. There was water and blood on the ground. There was the odd corpse that they threw down in front of you as well. So a lot of the choreography went out the window and I just basically swung my sword and hoped that the stunt guys would make me look good.

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What viewers won’t be able to know from just watching the Battle of the Gullet.

Toussaint: In the water beneath us, there were divers who were there all day and they never got out to go to the toilet. So we made sure we didn’t drink any of that water. :both him and Abubakar Salim laugh:

No, I’m not sure what I can say. If it looks good, that’s down to the stunt performers because I was literally just flailing away and helping to survive and somehow they managed to make me look good. And there’s a bloke whose balls I cut off and I worked with them on another job later on, so you wouldn’t know that either.

Salim: It took us many, many months to actually film the whole battle. So it was quite shocking for what was seen on the show.

Toussaint: Yeah, that’s my answer. Forget that you’re in urine stained water.

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What it was like for them to further explore the father-son dynamic between Corlys and Alyn.

Salim: It felt great because season two was very much a buildup to this. We were getting the foundations of who these two are, where they are. Then it came to a real climax in episode eight of season two where Alyn is telling Corlyswhat he thinks and where he’s at. He almost threw down the gauntlet, a challenge for Corlys to step up and be like, “If you really want to face the music of this, this is where we are. “

So to have that then explored in episode one (of season three), where everything is still very tense but then he’s invited into the cabin and we have that moment of hope in a way between these two, for it to then almost be ripped and taken away from them because of the battle it’s quite raw and emotional.

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Toussaint: Any story that you watch, we call them all different genres, thrillers, action, but they’re all dramas, basically, somebody wants something and someone’s trying to stop them from getting it. But ultimately all of them, I think the best of them, they all stand on the human relationship. So yes, we do have dragons and Night Walkers on Game of Thrones, all those things. But ultimately what we cared about was the interpersonal relationships. Those are the things that make you then care about what happens to somebody. It’s always much more rewarding to explore that emotional connection. And I really enjoyed this story of these two individuals.

The fact that we see Corlys showing humility, showing vulnerability with his son, particularly in that cabin scene where he says, “It was my fault and I’m really sorry,” in the best way that he can, that’s a huge step for him. If I was somebody who was just watching it as a fan, I would love that. And those things then hopefully make you care more about them in that battle because you know a bit more about them.

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On what it’s like to watch the finished episodes.

Salim: Oh, it’s so great. You go through the readthrough and you hear the stories and you’re like, “Oh, that’s interesting. Oh, that’s exciting.” And then for a very long time you see no one. The story is just yourself and you’re going through your own little arc. Then to come back together and see the finished product, and see all the other stories, it’s almost like watching it anew. I feel like it makes the whole premiere experience and seeing these episodes, you’re watching it then now for your castmates. You’re watching it for their story and to see what they’ve done. It’s a really wonderful experience.

Toussaint: I was talking to Matt Needham (who plays Larys) just now and he was saying, “Yeah, basically I was just with Tom the whole time, so I didn’t see much.” And so then you get to watch it and you’re like, “Oh, so that’s what you guys were doing while we were doing this thing. It’s crazy. Wow. It’s so crazy. So you and you did that?” And so yeah, it is exactly as Abu said. It is just like watching it anew. It’s wonderful. And also because they’re all just so good to watch, which helps.

On whether they had a safe word during battle scenes the way Kit Harington did on Game of Thrones.

Salim: That’s because Kit is weak. :Steve laughs: Unbelievable. Safe word. I have a word.

Toussaint: I’ve got a safe word.

Salim: What’s your safe word?

Toussaint: It was a safe phrase. “F**king stop!” Which I always find quite effective.

Salim: Definitely, that would stop a lot of things.

Ollie Upton/HBO

Salim: Honestly though, the thing that I really, really respect and love about the whole sequence of the Gullet was that it was so choreographed and rehearsed to death that the safest place was in front of the camera. Genuinely, everything had been really, really meticulously thought of and taken into consideration. The stunt team was totally on it. There was never a moment or a point where we felt like we were in danger. There’s lots of blood and dead bodies everywhere and sometimes the helmet goes over your eyes. But the stunt team were all there to ensure that we were okay.

There was no safe word.

Toussaint: Safe word.

Salim: Safe word. God.

Toussaint: Thanks for that information. We’re going to use that against him.

Salim: Next time I see Kit I’m going to say, “What’s your safe word, mate?’

(Note: Harington’s safe word during Game of Thrones was “banana.”)

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How they kept their performances centered and emotionally consistent while filming the Battle of the Gullet for months.

Toussaint: There are various things. Obviously there are script supervisors on set. As of course is Loni and sometimes Ryan. So sometimes I would find myself asking them, “Where is this sequence in the battle? What has just happened? What have I just seen?” Then with that information, then you start to think

You do the choreography, but also you have to chart your emotional journey through this battle. That is what I think keeps an audience engaged. So that’s what you do.

Toussaint: Abu said when we were doing fight training, it was always-

Salim: The intention to kill.

Toussaint: Yeah. Every blow is the intention to kill.

Salim: Yeah, it’s the final blow. Yeah.

Ollie Upton/HBO

Toussaint: You watch a movie and the fight goes on for six or seven minutes, but in reality, they don’t want the fight to go on for six or seven minutes. They want the next blow to be the [last one]. So you have that in mind when you’re doing it emotionally. And then also, what does that do to you when that blow isn’t the one that kills? What does that do to you? Are you disappointed? Do you suddenly regroup? All those things are questions that I ask myself.

Salim: In the moment. And I think that’s what keeps it alive.

Toussaint: Hopefully those of us who are watching those moments, we are like, “Oh my God, that was a setback and he wasn’t expecting that.”

Salim: Also the brilliance of shooting something so technical is the fact that it is performs like a sprint rather than a marathon. So you have those short bursts of being able to throw everything you can in that moment. Then be cut and you can reset and gather and then you go again. It is tiring, but it’s a lot easier to maintain than to do a shoot for God knows how long to do a whole sequence. So that helps massively. Also the great editing, the music. There are so many other aspects that add to the emotion of a piece that just aids the performance massively.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He is glad no one drank the pee water on set. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post HOUSE OF THE DRAGON’s Cast on Shooting the Battle of the Gullet appeared first on Nerdist.

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The White House has insisted that acquiring Greenland is necessary for America’s national security—but it seems that some Trump officials believe it would primarily benefit American seafood buffets.

A Trump official and Texas venture capitalist, Thomas Dans, was identified by the Danish government as one of three Americans running private “influence operations” in Greenland, according to The New Yorker. (Dans is the twin brother of Project 2025 author Paul Dans.)

Dans was appointed by Trump in December to serve as the chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, a federal agency founded in 1984 to establish national policy as it relates to scientific advancement in the Arctic. Dans had previously held the position during Trump’s first term, as well.

In 2024, Dans founded American Daybreak, a nonprofit promoting U.S. business abroad. He continues to run the nonprofit, according to his LinkedIn profile, and has leveraged both positions to venture to Greenland numerous times.

But the take that Dans offered The New Yorker regarding the proposed foreign takeover was less than inspiring. In a predominantly off-the-record interview, Dans offered the potential commercial benefits to seafood franchises like Red Lobster as the primary reason to take over Greenland.

“My view is that the United States could take all the seafood Greenland could produce, and cut out the middleman, and keep it from China—and you could bring back all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster,” Dans said.

Dans has been a significant fixture in MAGA world’s Greenland agenda since before Trump returned to power. He was the organizer of a “tourism trip” that sent Donald Trump Jr., far-right political pundit Charlie Kirk, and Trump administration staffer Sergio Gor to the island in January 2025, according to an analysis by Responsible Statecraft. That trek ended in several humiliating revelations, including reports from local media that Trump Jr. reportedly convinced homeless residents to wear MAGA merchandise in exchange for food.

Two months later, in March, when Greenlandic outrage stumped his efforts to send Usha Vance to a dogsled race in Sisimiut, Dans was irate.

“American Daybreak, and I personally, were very disappointed by the negative and hostile reaction—fanned by often false press reports—to the United States supporting Greenland and hoping to learn about its culture, tradition, and people,” Dans wrote in an extended missive on X at the time. “These press stories and Greenlandic officials’ overreaction are harmful to the strong relationship, based on mutual respect, shared interest, and courtesy, that the United States has long enjoyed with Greenland and hopes to expand upon.”

Days later, Greenland’s various political parties set aside their differences to unite under a singular goal: opposing U.S. aggression.

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