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Quick Take

• AMC Global Media has reached a $120 million dollar lawsuit settlement with The Walking Dead‘s creator and producers.
• The lawsuit was first filed back in 2022, with the plaintiffs saying there was a breach of contract in terms of profit participation rights.
• Nerdist’s Take: This is rich people’s business and not ours, but The Walking Dead franchise has made a ton of cash, so AMC Global Media has to pay up.

When The Walking Dead made its TV debut in 2010, it completely shifted AMC’s brand identity. Before the show’s arrival, AMC was mostly known for replaying classic films and having niche prestige dramas. The Walking Dead made the network powerful and a sought after destination for fresh and epic TV shows. At one point, The Walking Dead was easily pulling in 10-15 million viewers per episode, and the franchise continues to be a cash cow for AMC Global Media. But, behind-the-scenes, there has been tension between the flagship show and Fear the Walking Dead’s producers and AMC Global Media, which seems to have come to a conclusion after a $120 million dollar lawsuit settlement. So, what in the world happened? Let’s get into it. 

Jace Downs/AMC

Back in 2022, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman and a host of producers, including Glen Mazzara, David Alpert, Charles Eglee, and Gale Anne Hurd, filed a lawsuit against AMC Global Media about profit participation rights. The collective claimed that the network breached its contract with them and did not pay them their fair share for the very successful show and its first spinoff series. AMC Global Media tried to have the case dismissed but that motion was rejected by a California federal judge in 2024. Now, years later, AMC Global Media and The Walking Dead producers have finally reached a settlement for $120 million, and both sides released a joint statement. 

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“Robert Kirkman, Robert Kirkman, Inc., Gale Anne Hurd, Valhalla Entertainment, Inc., David Alpert, Circle of Confusion Productions LLC, New Circle of Confusion Productions, Inc., Charles Eglee, United Bongo Drum, Inc., Glen Mazzara and 44 Strong Productions, Inc., on the one hand, and AMC Global Media, on the other hand, are pleased to announce the amicable resolution of all their remaining claims and litigation related to The Walking Dead television franchise,” the two sides shared in a statement. “The parties look forward to sharing in the continued success of the franchise for many years to come.” 

Nerdist’s Take: This Is All Rich People’s Business, But We Cannot Be Mad at Robert Kirkman and the Producers for Wanting Their Money 

$85 million will be paid in September, and the remainder will go to the plaintiffs in January 2027. That’s a lot of money for the average Joe or Jill, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to what The Walking Dead franchise has raked in for 16 years overall. The original series paved the way for a host of spinoffs, two of which are actively airing new episodes. There’s a ton of cash that was made from advertising, merchandise, games, streaming revenue, and more. And Netflix bought streaming rights for The Walking Dead for a whopping $500 million this year.

In fact, AMC Global Media shelled out $200 million in a separate lawsuit in 2021 to the original showrunner, Frank Darabont, over withheld profits and streaming revenue. So that goes to show you that The Walking Dead is indeed a billion dollar franchise and one that AMC will continue to profit from for years to come. So yeah, go ahead and run those folks their money and keep the dead train chugging forward, please.

Tai Gooden is the Features Editor for Nerdist, a fictional villain apologist, and a horror aficionado who is forever waiting for her trip in the TARDIS.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 AMC Global Media Settles $120 Million THE WALKING DEAD Lawsuit appeared first on Nerdist.

This summer, the Trump administration celebrated the country’s 250th anniversary with a series of splashy events that it insisted were nonpartisan. Tens of thousands of Americans signed up online to grab free tickets for gatherings like the Great American State Fair, the July 4 fireworks show in Washington, and the Patriot Games in Ohio. When they registered to attend those festivities, online forms requested their phone numbers, email address, and ZIP codes.

But few attendees likely realized that they were handing over their personal information to a private vendor that also works for Trump-linked political organizations. Campaign Nucleus—one of several firms owned by former Trump campaign official Brad Parscale—provided the forms used to register for high-profile semiquincentennial events this year.

Campaign Nucleus is one of various vendors with close ties to Trump’s campaign apparatus that was hired by Freedom 250, the group set up last year to help Trump control planning for the anniversary. Rushing to stage the kinds of high-profile events Trump wanted, the operatives running Freedom 250, who are themselves veterans of Trump campaigns, doled out large contracts to fellow MAGA insiders for event planning, public relations, and digital support. As Mother Jones has detailed, much of this was on American taxpayers’ dime.

Citing the cozy ties between annivesarry planners and GOP campaign efforts, House Democrats in a letter Tuesday asked the Government Accountability Office—the investigative arm of Congress—to examine whether pro-Trump political operatives have used data generated from the anniversary events to help Republicans in the upcoming election.

“President Trump and his allies are in a position to use information on American voters, harvested with taxpayer money and government resources, in an attempt to tip the scales in the upcoming midterm elections,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Joseph Morelle (D.-N.Y.), the top Democrats on the House Natural Resources and House Adminstration committees, respectively, wrote in a letter Tuesday asking the GAO to investigate.

USA Today reported in July that Americans seeking tickets to the Great American State Fair had to fill out forms that required them to submit their emails and phone numbers. Registrants also encountered a link to 45.donaldjtrump.com, a site that solicited donations to the pro-Trump political action committee Never Surrender.

Freedom250 has said this link was included in error. But the Democrats’ letter said the committee found that an account used to sign up for the fair continued to receive emails seeking donations for Never Surrender for weeks.

Huffman and Morelle said these solicitations represent “a stunning misuse of Freedom 250 resources.” Freedom 250 has received at least $86 million in federal funds intended for nonpartisan anniversary celebrations.

The emails mean “that either Freedom 250 is so closely tied to the Trump campaign that it is using the campaign PAC’s email for its own regular business purposes, or that Freedom 250’s mailing list has already been shared with the Trump campaign and the campaign is utilizing it for outreach,” the Democrats argued. “In either scenario, it is clear that Freedom 250 and the Trump campaign are co-mingling their activities and using Freedom 250’s collected data to point registrants to a campaign PAC’s website.”

“A national contact list assembled at taxpayer expense, enriched with geolocation and behavioral data and scored for persuadability, is an asset of extraordinary value to a party heading into a midterm election,” the lawmakers said.

Freedom 250 is a limited liability company set up under the National Park Foundation, a nonprofit that is itself run by the Interior Department. This unusual structure has so far enabled the group to mostly avoid congressional scrutiny, including over its data policies. “It is unclear what safeguards exist to prevent data collected by Freedom 250 from migrating to Freedom 250’s political allies,” the lawmakers wrote.

Parscale’s companies did not respond to inquiries from Mother Jones about how they handle personal information provided by Americans who signed up for Freedom 250 events. A Freedom 250 spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jennifer Sey had been waiting for an athlete like Sophie Cunningham.

Sey, the founder of XX-XY Athletics, a sportswear startup that openly calls transgender people’s identity a “lie,” has spent the last two and a half years stoking the flames of the national panic over trans athletes. A former marketing executive at Levi’s, Sey was now running a company that produced viral video ads showing young female athletes pleading for others to defend them against a looming transgender threat. Meanwhile, Sey and the brand offered cash rewards to athletes who boycotted matches against trans athletes or spoke out against them—incidents that fueled right right-wing outrage cycles. And it gave endorsement deals to students willing to denounce trans teammates or competitors.

Yet even as Sey made the rounds on Fox News, XX-XY Athletics remained fringe, with no mainstream athletes endorsing the company message. Its most famous face was Riley Gaines, the former college swimmer who leveraged the story of her fifth-place tie with a trans woman into a career as a MAGA pundit.

Enter Sophie Cunningham, the eighth-year WNBA player enjoying a surge of popularity due to her reputation as a “bodyguard” for her Indiana Fever teammate Caitlin Clark. On July 21, ESPN quoted Cunningham saying that she gets “a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never said that.’” She continued: “I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

The ESPN profile dropped like a bomb in sports and political media. Cunningham was the most prominent pro athlete to adopt talking points of the anti-trans panic: insinuations that trans women are locker room predators (research indicates that they are far more likely to be the victims of violence, including sexual assault) and claims that their bodies are the same as men’s (hormone therapy has been shown to diminish athletic performance, though studies vary on how much).

The right claimed Cunningham as hero, while much of the WNBA fandom reacted with outrage—sensing an assault on the culture of a league whose icons are often queer Black women who defy gender norms. “Being outside of a gender binary is so rarely celebrated with the vigor that a W game brings,” explains Austin, a nonbinary fan of the Phoenix Mercury and Atlanta Dream. “That’s what it is for me—seeing women who are not mainstream society’s idea of a woman, seeing 10,000 people cheer those women on.”

No trans women have ever played in the WNBA, now or at any point in its 30-season history. But MAGA trolls zeroed in on the league’s collective bargaining agreement, which states that “only players who are women are eligible” to compete and does not define “woman.” Clay Travis, the founder of the Fox-owned sports website Outkick, proclaimed he would field an all-trans franchise called the “Nashville Balls.” Then Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White—former NBA players-turned right-wing personalities—tried to declare themselves eligible for the WNBA draft. “I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purposes of basketball, professional basketball,” smirked White, a few days before badly losing the Minnesota Republican Senate primary.

The league announced it would hold a meeting on trans athletes, and emerged with a statement decrying “bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others.” Then, during a game in Chicago, Kanter Freedom nearly stepped onto the court in a confrontation with Sky point guard Natasha Cloud, and was subsequently kicked out by security. “To every trans kid/person, you are apart of MY community…you will always be protected by me,” Cloud posted on social media after the incident.

Who are the winners in this chaos? One answer is XX-XY Athletics. Jennifer Sey’s branded shirts have become a de facto uniform for the anti-trans activists who now stage rallies outside WNBA games. In a two-week period following the ESPN article, the company claimed its sales increased “sixfold,” including nearly 7,000 t-shirts. After a Lynx-Fever game in Minneapolis where she personally hosted a rally, Sey posted a photo of herself and Gaines standing courtside with a beaming Cunningham.

“She’s the brave pro athlete we’ve been waiting for,” Sey wrote on X, publicly pitching Cunningham on leaving her brand deal with Adidas and taking one with XX-XY. “It’s not just that she’s a fantastic athlete, and she’s a currently competing professional athlete,” she elaborated on Fox News. “She’s tough and she says what she thinks, and that’s what we’re all about.”

Decades ago, Jennifer Sey was speaking out for different reasons. In 1986, a year after breaking her femur at the gymnastics world championships, she won the all-around title at US nationals and was on track to head to the Olympics. Instead, she left the sport the following year and went to Stanford. Decades later, she wrote a memoir, Chalked Up, revealing the pain of her gymnastics experience, including abusive coaching and eating disorders. But in 2008, the book met with denials and backlash. Sey would eventually serve as a producer for Athlete A, a documentary about doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse of young gymnasts.

Meanwhile, she pursued a marketing career at Levi Strauss, climbing the ranks to brand president by 2020. But the imposition of Covid public-health restrictions that year sent her on a “right-wing spiral,” says her son, Wyatt Warren, a 23-year-old college student. (Warren reached out to discuss his mother’s politics after Mother Jones co-published a story about Riley Gaines last year with the sports journalism podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out.) Sey started as a vocal critic of school closures in San Francisco, appearing on news shows and posting fiery tweets. Then she started “talking down on Black Lives Matter,” says Warren. “It was just one issue after another, and it became more about calling into question all of these so-called [liberal] orthodoxies,” he adds. “Her family and friends in San Francisco stopped talking to her.”  (Sey did not respond to questions for this story.)

In February 2022, Sey resigned from Levi’s, claiming that that the company had pressured her to stop her commentary on pandemic restrictions. In an essay published on Bari Weiss’ Free Press, Sey wrote that she turned down $1 million in severance and declined to sign a nondisclosure agreement. “Today I’m trading in my job at Levi’s. In return I get to keep my voice,” she wrote. (Levi’s did not respond to a request for comment.)

Two years later, she launched XX-XY Athletics, which would sell leggings, sweatshirts, and graphic tees designed to send the message that “sex is binary, biological, and immutable.” “I am launching the first athletic brand to stand up for women’s sports,” Sey wrote in a blog post. “We hope to start a movement of truth-telling and bravery.”

But she didn’t build the company alone. As Foiaball first reported, business registration forms indicate that the company was first incorporated by Ryan O’Shaughnessy, the president of an oil and gas company president and a GOP donor, as well as his wife Griffen, the founder of a business consulting firm. The two were listed as its treasurer and secretary in SEC documents of last December. (Their role in the company remains unclear. The O’Shaughnessys and XX-XY Athletics did not respond to a request for comment.)

From its start, XX-XY earned outsize attention, especially on social media, where it plunged headlong into the culture war, misgendering trans adults and children alike in its advertising. “To get [its] message through the noise, XX-XY Athletics uses its platform to draw attention to men and boys who compete in women’s sports,” the company said in a legal complaint seeking to block parts of a Colorado anti-discrimination law. “XX-XY Athletics refers to them with masculine pronouns and terms, often using their given name, rather than their chosen names…These references are integral to the company’s message.”

An Inc. profile noted that the nine-person business generated $1 million in revenue within its first year, boosted by social media shares from the likes of J.K. Rowling, Bill Ackman, and Megyn Kelly. XX-XY put its earnings to use in amplifying other parts of the anti-trans movement. According to its complaint, the company has donated revenue to Gays Against Groomers, an organization described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group and by the Anti-Defamation League as “an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist coalition.” It gave more money to a Riley Gaines-branded project to train young conservatives to speak out against transgender people. And it helped fund the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) a group that in turn has paid for lawsuits attempting to trigger a nationwide ban on transgender girls playing girls’ school sports. When President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening to defund schools that let trans girls compete on the girls’ team, Sey was standing behind him, applauding.

XX-XY sued the state of Colorado last year over its civil rights law, which among other things forbids businesses from discriminating on the basis of gender expression. The company took issue with an amendment clarifying that “gender expression” includes a person’s “chosen name” and “how the individual chooses to be addressed.”

“They want to silence anyone who disagrees,” Sey said in a statement to Fox News at the time. “We are filing this lawsuit to fight for our—and every Coloradan’s—right to free speech.”

A judge declined to block the Colorado law this spring, but the case is already on its way to higher courts. XX-XY Athletics, along with a slate of other organizations suing on similar grounds, are represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Best known for its role in ending the right to abortion, ADF is powerful religious-right legal group that since 2018 has won three Supreme Court cases challenging Colorado protections for the LGBTQ community.

Now, ADF has waded into Sophie Cunningham controversy in support of XX-XY. In late August, it sent a threatening letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, writing that the league had “betrayed its commitment to equality, women, and open dialogue” and may be exposed to “legal liability.”

At issue were a string of incidents involving people wearing XX-XY shirts to games. First, in Seattle, in late July, a group of anti-trans activists held a small rally ahead of a Fever-Storm game to support Cunningham and promote a ballot initiative to ban trans girls from girls’ school sports. Sey had tried to send shirts to rally organizers, and after the gathering, two teenage rally attendees wearing the XX-XY logo sat courtside. One was Ahnaleigh Wilson, a high schooler with an XX-XY brand deal. Brandi Kruse, a right-wing podcaster who reportedly accompanied the girls to the game, later said on X that their tickets were purchased by a “generous donor” for $1,300. (In an X post, Sey said she did not buy the tickets, though she did host another XX-XY ambassador at a game and offered to give away free tickets to people who attended another pro-Cunningham rally.)

The girls’ presence on the floor led to a flurry of media coverage when Seattle Storm minority owner Celeste Keaton approached and reportedly cursed at them—earning her a five-game suspension. The Storm owner apologized for the incident, saying the team is “committed to creating an inclusive environment where every fan is treated with respect.”

Then, during a Fever game in Atlanta, security guards told a mother and daughter wearing XX-XY shirts to cover them. A post about the incident by an Outkick reporter went viral, leading the WNBA to issue a statement that “this should not have happened.” (At least one fan wearing a trans-rights shirt that night was reportedly also told to cover it, according to ESPN.)

A few days later, ahead of a Fever game in New York, Outkick reported that the Liberty’s sales department had proposed changing a message an XX-XY superfan had paid to have displayed on the scoreboard at halftime, from “Thank you Jennifer Sey! XX-XY Athletics will Save the Day!!” to “Thank you for all you do for XX-XY Athletics.”

“It’s just censorship after censorship,” a Sey told an Outkick reporter on video that day, grinning outside the Barclays Center. “The commissioner needs to stand up and she needs to say, ‘We’re going to test for sex,’ put all of this chaos behind them, and focus on basketball.”

“I question whether people actually care about the league…I know my mom isn’t that invested. But, when it can be used for whatever your cause is, I guess the vultures will circle.”

Sey, of course, had spent a month helping gin up that chaos, hosting a rally in Minneapolis, while an XX-XY brand ambassador hosted another in Toronto.It’s not just XX-XY profiting from the surge of attention. Last month, the company launched a collaboration with Outkick founder Clay Travis, selling “Nashville Balls” merch. Three days after the ESPN article, Adidas released a Cunningham-branded basketball shoe colorway—coincidentally in pink, white, and light blue, the colors of the transgender pride flag—and it sold out immediately.

Nor is this controversy going away: On September 3, Kanter Freedom, represented by lawyers from the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, sued the Chicago Sky for ejecting him from the game.  

Sey’s son Warren, himself a WNBA fan, takes a cynical view of his mom’s political and business activities. “I think on a lot of issues, she’s a pretty middle of the road liberal,” he says. “I think she goes hard into trying to build a fan base that’s almost exclusively on the right-wing. This coincides with her promoting her products more and more.”

“At the end of all this, she does want notoriety, she does want to be a celebrity,” he added. “I question whether people actually care about the league, [who] are talking about these things. I know my mom isn’t that invested. But, when it can be used for whatever your cause is, I guess the vultures will circle.”

As the season approaches its end, for some trans WNBA fans, a space that had felt welcoming has been hijacked.  Valerie, a fan in California, says WNBA games offered her a rare sanctuary from growing anti-trans pressure and hate in the news—“a nice, fun two hours, completely safe.”  

“It doesn’t feel that way now,” Valerie says. “Some days I’m defiant and angry, and some days I’m scared and just really, really sad.” The last time her favorite team was playing nearby, she opted to skip the ticket.

The Smithsonian’s chief official, Lonnie G. Bunch III, will retire by the end of the year.

The 73-year-old historian said Tuesday that his decision to step down was not tied to the various pressures stemming from the Trump administration, which has spent the last year and a half strong-arming Smithsonian officials into revising portions of U.S. history.

Bunch founded the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and became the Smithsonian’s first Black leader in 2019, overseeing 21 museums, 21 libraries, the National Zoo, numerous research centers, and several education units and centers. Over the course of his career, Bunch spent 38 years working for the institution, advancing public education.

“I have spent nearly half of my life working at and being part of the Smithsonian family, and what a privilege it has been,” Bunch wrote in a statement. “There is no place like the Smithsonian—it has been one of the great loves of my life, and I am extraordinarily proud of what we have accomplished together. I leave with pride and sadness, gratitude and joy, and with enormous confidence in the people who will carry this remarkable institution forward.”

Bunch’s exit will nonetheless catapult the institution into another era of tumult and change, at a time when federal forces have already placed dramatic emphasis on the organization’s restructuring.

Last summer, the White House sparked alarm amongst Smithsonian staffers after officials laid out detailed plans to eliminate exhibits that they determined represented “improper ideology.” The memo challenged the application of educational lenses on race, gender, and oppression in U.S. history, and accused the Smithsonian directly of advancing a “divisive, race-centered ideology.”

The administration’s critiques were eugenics-adjacent, torching a specific Smithsonian exhibit for accurately describing race as something that is “not a biological reality but a social construct.” The White House further flamed the institution for emphasizing that “race is a human invention.”

Failure to correct these wrongs would turn the faucet off on funding for the world’s largest educational institution, effectively crippling the Smithsonian and nixing two-thirds of the organization’s revenue. Smithsonian staffers described the situation as an “impossible position,” arguing that the Trump administration had ordered them to be non-partisan while forcing them to follow an extraordinarily partisan directive.

Around the same time, the Smithsonian removed Donald Trump from its exhibit on impeachments under direct pressure from the White House. The “American Presidency” wing’s revised signage explained that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal” over the course of American history. The change was the result of a White House-initiated content review in the wake of an art director’s ousting.

Much of the institution’s compliance was a part of a broader effort to save Bunch’s job, as staffers have described him as “loved” and “respected.”

The pressure has not let up. In June, Trump signed an executive order offering his administration officials unprecedented control over the independent organization’s operations in an effort to “restore trust.” The executive order cited a report by the president’s Domestic Policy Council that claimed the Smithsonian “does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a ‘prime tool’ to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society.”

President Donald Trump has spent months falsely claiming that the United States has already won its war against Iran—until now.

“Oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropping (but more!), when we WIN the war with Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday. “Three Dollars a gallon, but ultimately, below Two Dollars a gallon. It will all happen quickly, and Iran will never have a Nuclear Weapon.”

Trump has previously claimed the U.S. had already “won” the war against Iran at least 66 times, according to an analysis by The Daily Beast.

Trump’s pledge to bring gas prices down came after Americans saw record high fuel prices for Labor Day weekend, and diesel prices jumped to their own record high.

Now Trump is promising to get gas prices down to less than two dollars a gallon—but that’s not going to happen any time soon. The White House is secretly planning to escalate military action against Iran after the midterm elections in November, which Republicans may find a lot harder to win without Trump securing a decisive victory in the Middle East.

A federal court ruled Tuesday that the IRS broke the law when it shared taxpayer data with the Department of Homeland Security.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia called out the Trump administration for violating federal law over the data sharing, writing in its ruling that “The IRS is now on notice twice over regarding the inadequacies of its summer 2025 disclosures.

“The government and its personnel face steep civil and criminal consequences for willful disclosure of information in violation of section 6103,” the ruling states, referring to the law in question.

The IRS argued that a preliminary injunction against sharing taxpayer information is “highly unusual and harmful” because it requires the IRS to provide the district court with “prior notice of criminal investigatory activity,” according to court documents. The ruling panel called this argument “weak sauce,” as a lower court is allowing the IRS to file notifications “‘under seal,’ thereby shielding any criminal investigative activity from disclosure.”

It’s quite a rebuke for administration officials, and is another example of the White House rushing to find targets for its mass deportation machine without any regard for the law. The information sharing in question targeted thousands of taxpayers, ensnaring many people who didn’t commit any crimes. Undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes every year.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency also appears to have been involved in the information-sharing effort, and another court ruled last month that DOGE has to disclose its internal communications related to the questionably legal deal between DHS and the IRS. The Trump administration is trying to stall disclosing to the public how private tax information was shared with immigration agents, who was involved, and whether it will comply with the law going forward.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warned of a potential large-scale attack from Hamas nearly two weeks before October 7. He refused to pass that warning down to anyone else in the government.

Haaretz reported that Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet was warned on September 15, 2023, about the threat of an impending “earthquake” and a “huge surprise” from Hamas, a warning that was relayed to Netanyahu. The defense ministry held a meeting two days later, but no decisions were made. After seeing a lack of action, United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed spoke to Netanyahu directly for 45 minutes, trying desperately to convince him of the likelihood of an attack from Hamas after Netanyahu had scuttled talks earlier that year. Netanyahu had reduced the amount of Palestinian prisoners he agreed to release and postponed the committee intended to facilitate the prisoner and hostage exchanges—leading frustrated Hamas head Yaya Sinwar to end negotiations entirely in September, just weeks before the October 7 attack.

This breakdown led to a further destabilization of relations, with bin Zayed warning Netanyahu that “something there is about to explode.” But Netanyahu assured him that he was ready for anything.

“The emir hoped that despite his reserved response, Netanyahu would take the message seriously and take action,” an adviser told Haaretz. And yet Netanyahu chose not to brief anyone in the IDF or Mossad about bin Zayed’s warning. About 1,200 Isrealis were killed on October 7, and their deaths that were then used to justify a genocide of nearly 75,000 Palestinians.

“If we had known about the warnings, there’s a chance it would have given more weight to the first message we received from Sinwar,” a senior Shin Bet official told Haaretz. “Perhaps it would also have clarified what was behind his sudden withdrawal from the talks in early September. It’s possible we would have put two and two together and reached a completely different conclusion from the one we did, one that would have changed our entire assessment picture.”

This report of Netanyahu’s prior knowledge of an impending attack and his lack of action against it elicited countless reactions.

“Netanyahu bears personal and direct responsibility for the failure that led to the deaths of thousands of Israelis on his watch. His ignoring of the warnings is criminal negligence, and therefore he is doing everything to prevent the establishment of a state commission of inquiry that will expose the truth,” former Israeli Prime Minister and opposition leader Naftali Bennet wrote on X. “He did not go to the field, did not warn the heads of the security system, did not prepare Israel for the attack, and did not convene the cabinet.”

“Netanyahu cannot continue to serve in his position for another minute, and he certainly is not capable of fixing it,” Bennett continued. “If we do not replace this government, we will never know the truth that will only be revealed in a state commission of inquiry, because they are preventing its establishment out of fear of discovering the terrible truth.”

“It’s crucial to remember that the Nova music festival was supposed to end on Friday, October 6, but the organizers reached out to the IDF to get permission to extend it for an extra day. We know that warnings were everywhere at that point, yet the IDF approved the extension and added no security,” Drop Site News’s Ryan Grim wrote. “Now we know, from new reporting in Haaretz, that Netanyahu had explicitly been warned 10 days earlier that Hamas was planning an ‘earthquake’ of an attack.’

“Insane story. He was warned two weeks before the Oct. 7th attacks by the Emiratis about an imminent attack by Hamas—and did nothing,” Zeteo’s Medhi Hasan wrote. “No wonder Netanyahu has always wanted to drag out this war and block any chance of a proper independent investigation into Oct. 7th.”

President Donald Trump hosted his own early-bird 9/11 tribute after deciding to skip the official ceremony in New York City where politicians aren’t allowed to speak. His speech Tuesday demonstrated why that kind of rule is necessary.

The president hosted first responders and officials at the White House for a deeply unserious speech intended to commemorate those lost in the deadly attacks on September 11, but mostly focused on boosting his own disastrous agenda.

Trump began by ranting about his shameful militarization and beautification efforts in Washington, D.C., which have cost taxpayers nearly two billion dollars.

He then tied the deadly terrorist attacks on 9/11 to his ongoing military campaign in Iran. “A certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it,” Trump said, claiming Iran had been “punished greatly.”

After giving some shout-outs to various Cabinet members and Republican lawmakers in the audience, Trump briefly recounted his experience of watching the Twin Towers fall before veering into observations about something else entirely: The U.S. Steel Building, known as One Liberty Plaza, also “creaked a lot,” according to the president.

“We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big strong guys—and I’m not the smallest guy in the world—they grabbed me under the arm, and they said, ‘Gotta get out of here,’ and they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I’m big, they lifted me up and started running with me,” Trump said.

Of course, One Liberty Plaza did not fall down, and Trump’s anecdote only served to make light of the experience of New Yorkers who didn’t have their own skyscrapers from which to survey the damage and chaos of 9/11.

Trump also took a moment to thank law enforcement, before turning it into a political jab.

“Our law enforcement holds our country together in light of some threats, we have some very real threats right now. We have people that want to go a different way. They want to go a communistic way, well that’s not gonna work,” Trump said. “Number one we’re not gonna let it happen, but that’s not gonna work.”

Trump reportedly decided to ditch the official memorial at Ground Zero on Friday after organizers told him he would not be invited to speak at the event. While Trump is not known for giving solemn speeches, and regularly detours into the political and absurd, in this case the organizers’ decision was merely a matter of precedent.

As part of its “Steel Across America” tour, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation will display a 21-foot, 16,9000-pound steel beam recovered from the World Trade Center on the White House Ellipse, which has been closed to the public.

Quick Take

• Several iconic Star Trek actors spoke to us about the legacy of Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi franchise, which is now celebrating 60 years.
• TOS’ George Takei, TNG’s Michael Dorn, Voyager’s Robert Picardo, DS9’s Cirroc Lofton, Discovery’s Doug Jones, and Lower Decks’ Jerry O’Connell all spoke with Nerdist about Star Trek’s past, present, and future.
• Gene Roddenberry’s son, Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, also spoke hopefully about Star Trek’s future in entertainment.
• Nerdist’s Take: For sixty years, Star Trek has been the bedrock of genre fandom, and we don’t see that going away any time soon.

Few pop culture franchises are as resilient as Star Trek. No matter how many times it “dies,” it always finds a way to come back. And it’s been that way since September 8, 1966, when it premiered on network television to middling reviews and mediocre ratings. At Comic-Con in San Diego, Nerdist got to sit down with several Star Trek luminaries from across the six decades (and several series) of the iconic franchise.

Paramount

Among those we chatted with were Lower Decks’ Jerry O’Connell, Discovery’s Doug Jones, Voyager’s Robert Picardo, Deep Space Nine’s Cirroc Lofton, The Next Generation’s Michael Dorn, and George Takei, the original series’ Mr. Sulu. Rod Rodennberry, son of original Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, was also on hand to honor 60 years of his father’s legacy. We spoke with each Star Trek icon about the franchise’s past, present, and possible future.

George Takei (Hikaru Sulu) Paramount Pictures

At 89 years old, George Takei is truly a living legend. He starred in all three seasons of the original Star Trek, along with the first six feature films. And he parlayed that fame into becoming a major advocate for several social causes, such as LGBTQ+ rights, as well as keeping the memory alive of Japanese-American internment during WWII. But he also brought his activism into Star Trek itself. And he did so by making sure his character, Hikaru Sulu, got the promotion he’d earned. We asked Mr. Takei about the battle to win his Captain stripes.

Nerdist: For years, you lobbied for Mr. Sulu to get a proper promotion. And after 25 years, you got your wish granted in 1991’s Star Trek VI. What did it feel like for you to have Sulu finally get his due, and his own starship command?

Paramount

George Takei: Well, I noticed that for each new movie, we all kept getting raises in rank. I was a lieutenant, then I became a commander. But that’s all it was. Words. What I was doing on the bridge was essentially what I always did. As lieutenant, I was still saying “Sir, Warp Three.” Starfleet is supposed to be a meritocracy. So you advance in a career. So I started lobbying Gene Roddenberry that the idea of meritocracy has to be evident in the work we do. And so finally, after 25 years, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, I got my own command. And I was a captain. My seat changed to the power seat, and I started giving orders. So, you know, I’m an activist in society, trying to make change in society. So it’s got to be reflected in our fictional life as well. 

Robert Picardo (The Doctor) Paramount+

Currently, the Star Trek franchise is in flux. Starfleet Academy and Strange New Worlds are both canceled, with Paramount+ burning off remaining episodes. Paramount is attempting to buy out Warner Bros, and that may have a real effect on Trek’s future. But the man behind Voyager’s holographic Doctor, Robert Picardo, believes Star Trek will always perservere. Here’s what Picardo told Nerdist and other journalists at Comic-Con regarding Trek’s future.

Robert Picardo: Star Trek‘s core value is diversity and inclusion. And even though presently that is seemingly out of fashion with current politics, Star Trek has survived 60 years. Current politics will not survive 60 years from now, so I believe that Star Trek’s values will just outlive present weather conditions in our culture. I hope new Trek continues to be science based. Star Trek has always been science-based, and I hope it doesn’t just turn into a video game with a lot of just fighting in space. So science based, ethics based, and that it keeps its optimism, and doesn’t get too dystopian. And that it remains about a community of nations working together in space. So it’s about cooperation and common ethics and values.

Doug Jones (Saru) Paramount+

Nerdist: Star Trek on television has changed a lot in the last several decades. In the ’90s, Paramount produced 26 episodes a season. In today’s streaming environment, most seasons are a mere 10 episodes. Doug, you played Saru on five seasons of Discovery. Do you ever wish you had more episodes to flesh out your character like they did back in the day?

Doug Jones: It would have been cool in some ways, yes. But by the same token, Discovery was such a humongous undertaking. We were basically doing a feature film every episode. So, it took us nine months to film our 10 episodes or whatever, so I can’t imagine what it would take to do 20 or 26 episodes. We couldn’t do it. It would be two years for one season. And for me, memorizing all that science fiction dialogue by the paragraph? Oh, my gosh, no, 10 is enough! (laughs)

Jerry O’Connell (Jack Ransom) CBS/Paramount+

Nerdist: With multiple series running concurrently on Paramount+, that’s allowed for some unusual crossovers, like when the animated Lower Decks characters crossed over into Strange New Worlds. Sadly, Jerry, your character Jack Ransom wasn’t the one to make the crossover. That would have been fun, as your real-life wife (Rebecca Romijn) plays Una on Strange New Worlds. Do you wish that Ransom been the one to transfer to the live-action realm on SNW, if only to get to act alongside your wife in a Trek project?

Jerry O’Connell: First of all, I was so happy that Tawny [Newsome] and Jack [Quaid] got to do it. They’re such great performers, and we’re all friends. I do have one of the more iconic lines in that episode, if you recall. We have the poster of my real-life wife, who plays Una Chin Riley, and they have the poster of her, and I get to say, “Yep, hottest Number One in Starfleet.”  It’s just such a fun, iconic line. I mean, in my house, we say it all the time, “hottest number one in Starfleet.” And you know, a lot of times, when my wife does conventions, and I go with her, people have a poster with that image from Lower Decks, and have her sign it, and it’s just so cool.

Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko) Paramount Television

Speaking of crossovers, After 25 years, you recently got to return to play your DS9 character Jake Sisko once again, on a Deep Space Nine tribute episode of Starfleet Academy. Your character was there to honor Avery Brooks, who played your dad, Captain Ben Sisko. What was it like to return to your role after a quarter century away?

Paramount+

Cirroc Lofton: I mean, it was nerve-wracking because I didn’t want to mess it up. I remember going through a few script changes because I thought Avery would not like the way it was, how certain things were worded. So really, it was an homage to him, and I wanted him to be pleased with it. And there was a lot of pressure on my end to deliver in a way that would satisfy him. And to his credit, he was super helpful along the way. He was super supportive of me being involved in the project. And I just really felt embraced. So, this was a once in a lifetime window that opened up. And I jumped through it while it was open.

Michael Dorn (Worf) Paramount+

Nerdist: You have appeared more Star Trek projects than anyone else alive. You actually hold the record. Seven seasons of TNG, four of DS9, five feature films, and one season of Picard. That last season was the last time you played Worf, where the script suggests he was the Captain of the Enterprise for a time. In fact, an offhand comment made by one of the characters even suggested he was responsible for something bad happening to the Enterprise-E. Does you have any idea what happened to Worf’s Enterprise when he was her captain?

Man, I don’t know. They don’t even know! (laughs). You know, and I asked them, the writers, and they said “Well…” and I realized “Oh, you don’t know, either.” So yeah, they don’t know.

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All 7 Seasons of STAR TREK: TNG, Ranked

I know we speak for many Star Trek fans when we say we’d love a Captain Worf project of some kind.

You know, never say never. You think there’s closure, and I keep telling people, “I’ve said goodbye I think, five or six times now.” They always said, “Oh, by the way, we want you to come back.” You never say never when it comes this world.

Rod Roddenberry YouTube/BEAM by Roddenberry

Rod Roddenberry, son of the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, is an active producer on much of modern Star Trek, and he knows how important the message at Trek’s core is. Despite the current challenges the franchise faces, Rod maintains a positive outlook in regard to its future. He told Nerdist and other journalists “The industry’s pretty crazy, with Paramount and mergers and all that. So they will continue to do Star Trek, no doubt. And they are working on things. What I know there’s a sensitivity. I know they want to get it right. And it’s that balance of making a great movie or series, and sticking to the message. And I’m there as much as I can be to ensure they do pay attention to the message to the best of my ability.”

Paramount

Whatever the future holds for Star Trek, its legacy at age 60 can’t be denied. Modern nerd culture is built on the foundations of Gene Roddenberry’s original TV series, from massive conventions to fan fiction. Even if no new episodes of Star Trek were ever produced, its influence will be felt for generations to come. Thanks to these actors and creators, we know in another six decades, someone somewhere will still be talking about Star Trek.

Eric Diaz is a staff writer at Nerdist and a Swiss Army knife of fandoms. Eric loves DC, Marvel, horror movies, and even Star Wars and Star Trek equally.

The post STAR TREK Legends on 60 Years of Humanist Cosmic Adventures appeared first on Nerdist.

It’s well known that Donald Trump has made a pretty penny off of taxpayers by spending his downtime at his various Trump-branded properties and golf clubs. But the buck doesn’t stop there, as Trump has reportedly been milking his Secret Service agents for cash, as well.

America’s billionaire president has a particular affinity for the hot dogs served near the 11th hole at Trump National Golf Club outside Washington, D.C.

“He has this weird, very odd pride about how good the hot dogs are,” a former club employee told Forbes.

“That’s his thing,” they continued, adding that Trump personally ensures everyone in his orbit enjoys a club glizzy. “The chef has to be out there. And he’s like, ‘Chef, get everyone a hot dog—all these guys.’”

That could include as many as 30 golf carts full of Secret Service agents that need to escort the president around the course, according to Forbes.

At times, the hot dog stand has as many as 50 dogs prepared for the entourage—though none of them is on the house.

“There, in one all-beef transaction, is the Trump presidency in miniature,” reported Forbes. “Trump owns the club. Trump controls the chef. Trump doles out the hot dogs. Trump watches everyone eat them. Then Trump’s business sends the government the bill.”

It was not immediately clear how much each dog costs, but prices vary across his various clubs. At Mar-a-Lago, a wiener can run as much as $25. Trump National Doral Miami serves a $45 “Trump Dog,” which features a footlong wagyu sausage. Prices—and menu items—are more modest at Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, where a traditional hot dog costs about $10.

Trump’s golf obsession is no secret. He has thus far spent at least 135 of the 596 days of his second term on the links—a little under a quarter of his term. He has totaled more than 1,400 hours playing golf, much of which has happened on his own properties.

Quick Take

• Doctor Strange: Endless Nightmare is a new graphic novel by writer Kevin J. Anderson and Spanish artists Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín, which brings Stephen Strange back to his psychedelic 1960s roots.
• This new OGN has the Sorcerer Supreme facing a world where everyone has insomnia and the Nightmare Realm erupts.
• Endless Nightmare is a collaboration with Abrams ComicsArt and Marvel Comics.
• Nerdist’s take: Endless Nightmare feels like a return to Doctor Strange’s early Stan Lee and Steve Ditko era.

Doctor Strange is one of Marvel’s most iconic (and weirdest) heroes, ever since his first appearance in Strange Tales #110 in 1963. Of course, thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch and the MCU, he’s now a global icon. But in a new graphic novel from Marvel Arts, writer Kevin J. Anderson and Spanish artists Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín are bringing Strange back to his early ’60s psychedelic roots, in Doctor Strange: Endless Nightmare. Anderson and Raúl Allén worked together recently on three gorgeous Dune graphic novels. Now, they’ve reteamed for this trippy new tale of the Sorcerer Supreme. And it even features a ghost dog! Who doesn’t love a ghost dog? You can’t go wrong there.

You can check out several pages of Doctor Strange: Endless Nightmare, as well as read the official synopsis, down below:

Doctor Strange: Endless Nightmare Click To View Gallery Marvel Arts Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín/Marvel Arts Marvel Arts/Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín/ Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín/Marvel Arts Marvel Arts/Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín

When Stephen Strange encounters a mysterious patient at his hospital who won’t stop raving about how life is “nothing but the dream of a sleeping god,” the rest of the world is suddenly struck with insomnia. In order to prevent chaos from unfolding as the people around him become more and more desperate for sleep, Doctor Strange must embark into the mind of the madman who seems to have heralded this disaster, taking a psychedelic trip into the Nightmare Realm.

And here’s what Kevin J. Anderson, whose work includes Star Wars, X-Files, and Dune novels, said about working on the Master of the Mystic Arts:

The character of Dr. Strange has access to so many bizarre realms, I wanted to introduce him to a dark and twisted Lovecraft-inspired story. I brought in an important and popular villain in the Dr. Strange universe, as well as another villain who has never appeared since Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created him in 1964’s Dr. Strange #122. It was amazing to play in this universe.

Marvel Arts

We have a feeling the villain in question is the Gulgol. That’s a character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko for Strange Tales #122. This destructive entity from the Netherworld only made one solitary appearance back in the Silver Age. But hey, maybe they’ll surprise us, and it’s someone else entirely. While Lee and Ditko’s co-creations from the world of Spider-Man are all iconic, some of their most bizarre characters are actually from the world of Doctor Strange. And we’re thrilled they are getting an overdue spotlight from Marvel Comics and Abrams ComicArts.

Doctor Strange: Endless Nightmare from Kevin J. Anderson, Raúl Allén. and Patricia Martín is now avaialble from Abrams ComicArts.

Eric Diaz is a staff writer at Nerdist and a Swiss Army knife of fandoms. Eric loves DC, Marvel, horror movies, and even Star Wars and Star Trek equally.

The post DOCTOR STRANGE: ENDLESS NIGHTMARE Is a Psychedelic Adventure (Exclusive Preview) appeared first on Nerdist.

It’s the day after Labor Day, and it’s not a great day to be a worker. New data released this month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the share of economic growth that translates to worker compensation is now at the lowest level ever recorded. Now, 52.8 percent of that wealth goes into workers’ pocketbooks. For comparison, that number—known to economists as the “labor share”—was at about 65 percent immediately following World War II, when the government began collecting data.

“Since approximately the start of this century, the S&P 500 stock index has gained about 600 percent,” as Rob Wile recently reported for NBC News. “Over the same period, inflation-adjusted worker earnings have climbed just 12.5 percent.” Corporate profits are at a record high. Many Americans, meanwhile, are doing things like buying groceries on credit and taking out “buy now, pay later” loans to afford electricity or rent.

There are a few different factors that might be blamed for this situation: corporate consolidation, tariff-related price-gouging, and the capital-intensive, labor-light AI boom among them. But this trend—GDP goes up, but workers take home a slimmer share of that money—has been building for fifty years, long before AI or the Trump presidency.

“I think it’s really disturbing news for workers,” Joseph McCartin, professor of labor history at Georgetown University, told Talking Points Memo back in May, when the labor share hit 54.1 percent. That was, at the time, the lowest level on record. In the intervening months, the labor share has plunged yet again. “It shows that even while the economy is growing, workers are getting a smaller and smaller share of the economic pie.”

Quick Take

• Godzilla Minus Zero‘s new IMAX trailer teases a massive threat and fans believe its Ghidorah.
• The film will take place two years after the events of Godzilla Minus One.
• Thankfully, we don’t have to wait long because Godzilla Minus Zero will arrive on November 6.
• Nerdist’s Take: To us, this trailer is pure cinema in the best way.

Godzilla is back once again to stomp around and cause chaos, and we love to see it! TOHO and GKIDS gave us a taste of what to expect earlier this year with a teaser for Godzilla Minus Zero, and now we have a very cool full trailer for this film. It appears much larger than the average trailer, showing fans exactly the epic scale that they can expect when they check it out in IMAX. It’s big, bold, beautiful, and surely set to be another major hit, just like Godzilla Minus One was in 2023. 

This film takes place two years after its predecessor, bringing the action to 1949. We are back with the Shikishima family as they face yet another disastrous round. And, it seems that King Ghidorah will rear all three of his heads in Godzilla Minus Zero, based on the roar we heard.

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Godzilla Minus Zero’s trailer is the perfect tee up for the film’s festival debut on September 26 at the New York Film Festival. Here’s an ominous synopsis for a little more clarity: 

War reduced Japan to zero, and Godzilla plunged it into minus. Two years have passed since then, and the country has faced agonizing struggles to achieve recovery and finally reclaim its daily life.

Just as humanity managed to cling to a hard-won peace, a new threat strikes, crushing hope in an instant.

There is no third time. Everything ends here.

What Is the Release Date for Godzilla Minus Zero?  GKIDS/TOHO

That festival debut is when we will get our first round of audience reactions and reviews to get fans hyped up for its release. Thankfully, we don’t have to wait too long to see Godzilla Minus Zero, because it will wreak havoc in US theaters on November 6.

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!

Tai Gooden is the Features Editor for Nerdist, a fictional villain apologist, and a horror aficionado who is forever waiting for her trip in the TARDIS.

The post Did GODZILLA MINUS ZERO’s Trailer Bring Back a Famous Kaiju? appeared first on Nerdist.

Before entering politics, Republican Senator Roger Marshall, an obstetrician-gynecologist, routinely sued his patients for medical debts, charging exorbitant interest. 

The New York Times reports that Marshall, who is facing reelection in Kansas in November, sued over 700 patients for failure to pay medical bills, with 81 of them getting arrested as a result. In some cases, Marshall had bank accounts garnished, and regularly charged patients 18 percent interest annually. 

Marshall reportedly took legal action over debts as little as $101. Half of his lawsuits were filed under his name, while the rest were filed under his practice, Heartland Regional OBGYN, which he owned by himself from 1998 to 2012 before splitting ownership with another doctor from 2013 to 2019. Marshall stopped practicing medicine in 2016 after he was elected to Congress, but continued trying to collect some of the debts after that between 2017 and 2021. 

Many of the patients he sued were new mothers in Barton County, Kansas, a rural area where many lived in poverty and didn’t have health insurance, or had policies which didn’t fully cover their medical bills. One woman was sued when her baby was nine months old over a $129 bill from a postpartum visit, and eventually had her wages garnished. 

“I was recently divorced, trying to do everything on my own,” Kellie Clutts told the Times. “I told them I could make partial payments, but it seemed like no matter what I said, they wanted the full amount at once.”

A spokeswoman for Marshall said that he spent decades treating patients regardless of income level, adding, “Judges issue warrants when people repeatedly miss court dates, not doctors.”  

The Times, however, cited court documents showing that Marshall regularly sought arrest warrants for unpaid bills. In 2007, Joe Vasquez and his wife were arrested in front of their grandchildren over an unpaid $4,561 bill for an emergency hysterectomy three years before. The Times interviewed eight people who were sued by Marshall between 2003 and 2015, and many of them were living paycheck to paycheck. Two of them were being sued over bills for late miscarriages requiring surgery. 

Despite his medical background, Marshall fought for the Affordable Care Act to be repealed, claiming in 2017 that “there is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.” He’s also tried to downplay the impact of higher fuel prices on struggling Americans, saying that paying more for gas is a good thing. 

Marshall should perhaps change his tone, because the latest polls in his reelection fight have him either neck-and-neck or behind his Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton, a pastor. Voters in Kansas might decide they want a senator with some compassion instead of a doctor shaking down his patients for cash. 

President Trump spent his Labor Day weekend posting a bunch of artificial intelligence slop from his private New Jersey golf course—while Canada on Tuesday imposed tariffs on about $20 billion worth of U.S. goods. 

On Sunday, Trump posted an AI image of himself and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney playing hockey in their respective country’s jerseys, while Trump stands over the prime minister—presumably after checking him. A speech bubble from Trump reads, “Get up, Governor,” an insult Trump has used in the past to attack Canada’s sovereignty. 

Then on Monday, Trump posted a map depicting the entirety of North America as part of the United States. 

And on that same day, he posted an ad for Fannie Mae using an AI-generated monologue for his own voice, instead of just talking. 

While that all happened, Canada struck back in the trade war that Trump started, imposing taxes on American products that will further erode relations, drive up costs, and hurt Canadians and Americans alike. The tariffs will hit aluminum, automotive parts, Kentucky bourbon, and steel, and will be as high as 50 percent.

The automotive industry will be hit particularly hard, as Canada is the largest foreign market for American vehicles. This all comes as Trump has consistently disregarded perhaps our closest ally. He disparages Carney, insists that Canada should be a U.S. state, and now has entered this cycle of retaliatory tariffs that has no real end in sight. It’s as if he’s asleep at the wheel, stirring awake every so often only to post incendiary AI content while Americans suffer the consequences of his actions.  

Since 2020, President Donald Trump and his allies have been hinting that they might send federal forces to “protect” polling places—hints that have come more frequently as Trump’s approval ratings crater and the midterms draw closer.

In mid-May, Trump made a Mob-boss-like threat: “I would do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.” Similarly, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin vaguely told senators he would be willing to send ICE to the polls for a “specific threat.”

Of course, Trumpworld may be dropping these hints precisely to scare certain people away from voting. Any actual deployments—whether designed to intimidate voters or to seize ballots or equipment—would be patently illegal; when asked, a DHS official said that “ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations.” But this administration hasn’t bothered itself much with obeying the law or the Constitution. With all signs pointing to massive anti-­GOP turnout, ICE or other agents from DHS might indeed be deployed to swing districts or to roam Black and brown neighborhoods. If that happens, what can cities, states, and communities do to protect their citizens and fair elections?

Don’t count on the police or National Guard to use force on undisciplined ICE agents. The US has an extraordinarily fragmented security landscape, with more than 18,000 agencies with overlapping jurisdictions—each with its own chain of command and culture. “Local law enforcement does not want to be in a shooting conflict with other law enforcement personnel, federal or not,” explains Tahir Duckett of Georgetown University’s Center for Innovations in Community Safety. Unless fired on unremittingly, police and the Guard would almost certainly not shoot back, former officers and experts told me. They want to go home, alive.

Such restraint was visible in Minneapolis during ICE’s Operation Metro Surge last winter, as more than 3,000 agents deployed to a city with only about 600 cops. As ICE went wilding, police did not attempt to confront or restrict its armed officers. Mayor Jacob Frey explained to me later that was partly because they were so outnumbered. Cops couldn’t be everywhere; it was impossible to arrive quickly when ICE agents broke into a home or tossed tear gas into a car. Given that imbalance, Frey did not ask police to arrest ICE agents. Nor would he have expected them to shoot. “Multiple jurisdictions literally fighting each other—what you’re talking about is the grave concern of civil war,” Frey said. “That’s not safe for anybody. That undermines the security of the very people we’re trying to protect.” If fired upon, Frey said, Minneapolis police would, as trained, fall back “regardless of who is shooting.”

De-escalation, not confrontation, also appears to have been the goal when Gov. Tim Walz deployed Minnesota’s National Guard after federal agents killed Alex Pretti on January 24. Many observers assumed Walz had ordered the Guard to protect Minneapolis residents. But the governor’s office, which did not respond to requests for comment, didn’t seem to have instructed the Guard to prevent ICE lawlessness or arrest its agents for illegal or unconstitutional behavior. Instead, it explained the Guard had been readied “out of an abundance of caution…to help keep the peace, ensure public safety, and allow for peaceful demonstrations.” Members wore high-visibility vests and handed out hot chocolate and doughnuts. “Protesters were asking [the Guard], ‘Why are you out here? What exactly are you here to do?’” notes Lindsay Cohn, a visiting professor at Columbia University and an expert in military–­civilian relations. “The National Guard’s response was, ‘We’re just here to make sure everybody’s feeling good.’ That’s the most Minnesota thing!” But they also offered a model for military behavior contrasting with rampaging ICE officers—a “de-escalation tactic,” she says, “to make everyone feel like this is not the kind of situation where you need to fire weapons.”

Dispatching the Guard was risky, Cohn says. Had ICE attacked residents, the Guard had only bad options. Standing by would tarnish its reputation, but stepping in would be volatile. Cohn conjectures that Walz—a former Guard sergeant who presumably had excellent relationships with its commanders—gambled the Guard’s professional discipline would nudge ICE toward restraint, without a shot. After all, since the Civil War, Cohn says, “state and federal forces have never fired on each other in the US. One side always backs down.”

But here’s the rub: If no security force will actively confront ICE, who will?

Keep in mind what ICE has become. In 2025, Republicans in Congress gave the agency $75 billion on top of its roughly $10 billion annual budget; in June, they forced through another $70 billion to last until 2028. In less than a year, ICE has stockpiled military-grade materiel and more than doubled its ranks, including by hiring recruits rejected by other police and military forces.

With ICE, Trump has no need to invoke the Insurrection Act: He’s got his paramilitary, loyal to the White House over the Constitution. DHS shields its agents from investigation, even those who have executed protesters. That became clear when then–DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called both Pretti and Renée Good, another Minneapolis resident shot dead, “domestic terrorists.” The department initially refused to investigate the agents who killed them or to share any evidence with city or state officials. It’s no wonder that Democratic leaders and voting experts worry ICE will be sent to polls to either intimidate voters or to “secure” ballots, as the FBI did in January in Fulton County, Georgia.

An array of US pro-democracy forces—from institutional players to community advocates—is mustering ahead of Election Day, including the Brennan Center for Justice, 50501, the ACLU, the Advancement Project, All Voting is Local, the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, Democracy 2025, Democracy Docket, Democracy Forward, Indivisible, Interfaith Alliance, Protect Democracy, the League of Women Voters, Project HALO, Voting Rights Lab, and literally hundreds of others who are loosely but regularly in touch. Some groups are training people in election rights and nonviolent response, trying to prepare for what might happen, especially in blue areas of red or purple states.

There are “more people being trained in nonviolent direct collective action in the United States now than at any point in its history, including during the civil rights movement,” says Democracy Forward’s Skye Perryman. League of Women Voters chapters are partnering with “the garden club, the book club, the Elks Lodge, the Junior League,” says spokesperson Adam Ambrogi, building broad coalitions to show up and “demand normalcy” if DHS intimidation or anything else untoward happens at the polls.

Others are bolstering communication among election administrators, police forces, and civil society groups to quickly coordinate and respond to threats, including any from federal officials. That sounds boring, but it’s critical. Beau Tremitiere, a deputy director at Protect Democracy, notes that while Los Angeles–area residents organized heavily against ICE’s June 2025 surge there, state and local officials struggled to support that response. By contrast, Minneapolis’ successes in community resistance were sustained by clear city and state communication and coordination, developed after protests over George Floyd’s murder.

Democracy defenders have been practicing since 2020, when pro-Trump election deniers tried to halt ballot counts. Chris Thomas, after more than 30 years as Michigan’s state elections director, now works with Detroit voting officials. He says the city has coordinated closely with municipal police since that election, when the president’s supporters banged windows, chanting, “Stop the count.” Pro-­democracy organizations and Democratic secretaries of state are also preparing legal briefs to immediately file suit against any unwelcome ICE interference. But even if pro-democracy forces win fast injunctions ordering ICE out, what if DHS ignores them and keeps coming?

Playwright Anton Chekhov famously said a gun in the first act must go off by the third. “Chekhov never thought about what happens if you had a whole dump truck of guns,” says Heather Hurlburt, a political violence expert, in reference to ICE’s massive buildup. “People who are determined to use force defeat the people who are determined not to,” she warns. “Lawless methods defeat lawful methods. These guys know that.”

That’s where local officials need to support everyday people willing to step up, as they did in Minneapolis. “You don’t need to be possessed of supernatural powers” to see a coming threat, says Corey Hill, a 50501 organizer in Orlando, Florida. His group’s volunteers will register voters and offer rides to the polls. But Hill is also keeping track of a subset who understand that protecting democracy may require a thousand people to show up in a targeted neighborhood or at a polling place or counting center and face an armed ICE surge.

That, after all, is what Pretti and thousands of ordinary Minneapolis residents did after ICE killed Good: Stand in the breach, no matter what, chanting, “You can’t shoot us all.”

The White House celebrated a workerless Labor Day on Monday by posting a slew of artificial intelligence slop videos.

Donald Trump’s team posted Monday to celebrate the “workers and products that are proudly MADE IN AMERICA,” but the video they included didn’t feature a single American worker.

Instead, the apparently AI-generated video depicted a fully automated production line making a marker emblazoned with Trump’s name. In March, Trump sidetracked a Cabinet meeting with a rant claiming to have replaced the White House’s $1,000 ballpoint pens with Sharpies he paid $5 a pop for.

The White House also posted an AI-generated video depicting Trump using a Green Lantern ring, which has the power to create anything a person can imagine. Of course, the president used it to prevent illegal border crossings, conjure “American manufacturing,” and summon a fleet of military planes. The video credited Trump with powers of limitless creation, while yet again removing any trace of American workers.

The White House then posted an AI-generated video showing the shoes of different kinds of American workers as they walk through fields, offices, and busy streets. But again, the video featured no real American workers, just computer-generated feet.

The White House’s official Labor Day video was somehow even worse. The 90-second campaign-style advertisement managed to celebrate Trump rather than actual American workers.

“After so many years of politicians who sold out the working men and women of our country, we finally have a president who puts American workers first,” Trump said, congratulating himself in the video’s voiceover.

The video never said what Trump actually did, but emphasized his supposedly incredible support for autoworkers, ranchers, and farmers. In reality, autoworkers have rejected Trump’s escalating trade war with Canada, and farmers and ranchers have condemned his decisions to increase imports of foreign beef and undermine FDA-inspected processing sites.

Quick Take

• Prime Video canceled Spider-Noir after just one season, even though the series gained critical acclaim and won several Emmy Awards.
• According to Deadline, production costs played a role in the decision.
• Spider-Noir star Nicolas Cage said that one season was “perfect,” and he is moving on.
• Nerdist’s Take: We think it is interesting that cost played a role considering Amazon Prime has lots of money, but we are just silly writers so what do we know.

In the latest cancellation news, Prime Video has knocked down Spider-Noir’s web after only one season. The 1930s era superhero drama starred Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly aka The Spider and gained critical praise, including winning five Emmy Awards. But that wasn’t enough for the show to swing a second season, unfortunately. Spider-Noir dropped all eight of its episodes in both color as well as black and white back in May 2026. 

Prime Video

One person who is not super upset about the Spider-Noir cancellation news is Nicolas Cage himself. He gave a short statement to Deadline saying that one season was perfect, actually. 

“For me, one season is perfect, having said what I wanted to say with this dangerous, innovative, pop-art Spider-Man,” Cage said. “Onwards, upwards, inwards.” 

He’s a man who is always on the move, and probably has five new projects in the works that we don’t even know about yet. That’s how life is when you’re Nicolas Cage. Apparently, the high costs of producing the series coupled with the show quickly falling out of Prime Video’s top ten list factored into the decision. Prime saying that something is too costly is kinda rich coming from them, honestly, but that’s a whole other post.

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Every Classic Noir Film Reference in SPIDER-NOIR

Now, we guess we will have to wait for Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse to hit theaters in June 2027 to get our next dose of Spidey action. Or, if you’re a comic book fan, you can check out this collection of comics about this Spider guy’s epic life.

Tai Gooden is the Features Editor for Nerdist, a fictional villain apologist, and a horror aficionado who is forever waiting for her trip in the TARDIS.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 SPIDER-NOIR Canceled at Prime Video After Only One Season appeared first on Nerdist.

The Republican Party’s expensive “Trump-a-palooza” is doling out some of its tickets for free—though the option doesn’t actually guarantee entry.

The bizarre affair, which will take place on September 9 and 10 in Dallas, does not have a single point of entry or a dedicated Texas delegation; House members have been asked to pay a minimum of $25,000 to get in the door with a guest. But that’s really the bottom of the barrel: Better packages have been priced closer to $100,000.

But wannabe ticket holders in the Lone Star State have found that there are a multitude of options to enter the Texas event, either by invitation or by a regional lottery. Tim Bates, a longtime Collin County Republican precinct chair, told The Dallas Morning News that he wasn’t going to pay $5,000 to enter the event. So when he received an email from the state Republican Party about obtaining a free ticket, he passed the information along to his fellow precinct chairs instead.

“More local people will be able to go to fill the venue,” he told the local daily.

But the ticket comes with a disclaimer: Entry is not guaranteed if the arena reaches capacity.

Most major party conventions are centered on a specific item of business, such as formally nominating a presidential candidate. But this function will offer no such line items. Instead, the event has been billed as a big Republican party, which has left the definition of who’s allowed to attend a lot looser.

It will be the first GOP midterm convention in American history. Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are both expected to deliver speeches to the conservative assembly, though low party enthusiasm has threatened the optics of the event.

The unprecedented conference was thrown together at the eleventh hour in an attempt to boost Republican candidates ahead of a contentious midterm cycle, but dozens of Republicans have decided to forgo the gathering altogether, fearful that showing face at the event—which offers Trump yet another stage to say or do anything he desires—could blow up in their faces and damage their odds back home.

The whole ordeal could backfire on the president too. In 1978, a Democratic midterm convention that was intended to rally party support ultimately turned the party against President Jimmy Carter, offering a vehicle for then-Senator Ted Kennedy to announce his opposition to the president and his agenda.

“There was a lot of hostility to the president there,” Elaine Kamarck, who attended as a 28-year-old working for the Democratic National Committee, told The Guardian. “The Democrats have sworn ever since never to do anything this stupid again.”

Corey Lewandowski, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s close adviser and rumored boyfriend, used his position at the department to attempt to make some money for himself.

The Wall Street Journal reports that while Noem was still part of President Trump’s Cabinet, Lewandowski took the opportunity to try and make side deals to personally benefit himself.

For example, Lewandowski approached representatives of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, proposing that the governments could hire him on the side to help with any issues that the DHS handled concerning the two countries, such as visas. Officials from the two countries thought the idea was unusual, as they already had relationships with other Trump administration officials, and turned down Lewandowski.

Lewandowski’s proposal appears to have been a corrupt effort to sell government services for personal gain. He already was in a powerful position at DHS, overseeing the agency’s billions of dollars in federal contracts. He also had authority over tariff collection, and decision-making power over aspects of border security and immigration enforcement as a “special government employee,” which gave him some ability to engage in personal business.

Lewandowski denied any wrongdoing to the Journal, with one of his representatives denying that he “sought contracts with foreign governments.” The same spokesperson added that Lewandowski “adamantly denies ever demanding any payment or compensation from any potential, former, or current government contractor or seeking or soliciting or entering contracts with foreign governments while volunteering his time with DHS.”

Lewandowski was unpopular in DHS under Noem’s tenure, and appeared to stay on far beyond his allowance as a special government employee, with an extensive portfolio of responsibilities. His relationship with Noem was the worst-kept secret in Washington, and had its own set of possible ethical violations, which have come under scrutiny from Democrats in Congress. These latest revelations will only increase his corrupt reputation, as well as that of his paramour Noem.