LANTERNS Explains Why Guy Gardner Is the Green Lantern
DC fans have wondered why Guy Gardner is Green Lantern in Superman instead of Hal Jordan or John Stewart. Well, Lanterns episode 5 just answered that, plus explained the whole origin of the DCU. Kyle Anderson breaks down the episode, the series thus far, and why John Stewart really deserves to wield the ring.
The post LANTERNS Explains Why Guy Gardner Is the Green Lantern appeared first on Nerdist.
BRAND NEW DAY Tops THE FORCE AWAKENS as Domestic Box Office Champ
- After more than a decade, Star Wars: The Force Awakens loses its all-time domestic box office crown to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which just earned over $936 million.
- The Force Awakens held onto that box office record for ten years, but Spider-Man: Brand New Day beat it in 47 days.
- Nerdist’s take: Many believed the days of high box office grosses like this were a thing of life from before the pandemic, but between Spidey and The Odyssey, it’s clear theatrical moviegoing is back in a big way.
A box office record held for over a decade has finally been broken. And we can safely say that just a few months ago, absolutely no one saw this coming. According to Variety, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now the highest earning film at the domestic box office. Having now earned $936.773 million after 47 days in theaters, it has beat Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which earned $936 million total. Of course, globally, Brand New Day has already earned a staggering $2.45 billion, making it the third highest grossing film worldwide of all time. Lucasfilm has already put out a message of congratulations to Sony and the Spider-Man team.
A few months ago, no one would have believed Brand New Day had a shot at becoming the #1 domestic movie of all time. Box office power had slowed considerably since the pandemic. Especially as shorter theatrical windows cut into how long a movie played in theaters. Not only that, but Brand New Day was the fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man movie and ninth overall. Without the added bonus of starring alongside the two other Spider-Man actors, few believed Brand New Day could outperform No Way Home. And beating the sequel to Return of the Jedi, which saw the return of Luke, Han, and Leia after decades? It seemed an impossible task. But here we are.
Sony/Lucasfilm
Of course, once you start the whole “adjusted for inflation” game, it’s likely that The Force Awakens sold more tickets. Brand New Day may not beat that record anytime soon. In fact, if we’re adjusting for inflation, neither Brand New Day nor The Force Awakens are even in the top five. But hey, let’s not try to dim Spidey’s light. This is a big day for Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Destin Daniel Cretton.
Nerdist’s Take: Spidey and The Odyssey Prove Moviegoing Is Back in a Big Way (Finally)Between Brand New Day and The Odyssey, the theatrical moviegoing experience, once thought on its last legs post-pandemic, is definitely back. Now, let’s see if BND can become the first film to crack $1 billion domestic. We suggest releasing a longer cut, maybe with Rosario Dawson’s and other scenes inserted back in, to get it past that milestone. Anything is possible. We’re sure Sony is already at least considering it. We will have to wait and see.
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 BRAND NEW DAY Tops THE FORCE AWAKENS as Domestic Box Office Champ appeared first on Nerdist.
After accusations of selling ‘perv glasses,’ Meta prepares to sell a pair without a camera
House Republicans flee DC to avoid Hegseth impeachment vote
Welp, that’s it. The House has officially left Washington, D.C., for the final time before the midterms, canceling votes scheduled for Thursday to head home and campaign on their pathetic record of increasing healthcare costs, slashing taxes for the rich, and refusing to rein in President Donald Trump’s disastrous tariffs and war in Iran. So why did they skip town so early?
X will now let U.S. users trade via cashtags
Mike Johnson Can’t Protect Pete Hegseth Forever
Speaker Mike Johnson announced Wednesday that he would send Congress home early for its seven-week campaigning recess ahead of November’s midterm elections. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—who was scheduled for an impeachment vote brought by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) on the basis of his conduct during the Iran war—has been marked safe, for now.
House Republicans had planned to remain in session until Thursday. Now, they’re taking their final votes of the session Wednesday night, after which they’ll head home to face voters.
Massie, who introduced Hegseth’s articles of impeachment, said the early dismissal reflected GOP leaders’ fear that Hegseth might actually be impeached.
Among the “high crimes and misdemeanors” listed in Massie’s 34-page resolution are assertions that Hegseth knowingly violated the War Powers Resolution, that he “knowingly executed and implemented unlawful orders to initiate war against a foreign nation notwithstanding the absence of congressional authorization,” and that he “acted in a manner contrary to his trust as Secretary of Defense and subversive of constitutional government.”
Massie, a libertarian, found himself supported by lawmakers across the aisle. Hegseth, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) wrote on social media, “has presided over the slaughter of thousands of civilians in immoral wars, aided and abetted genocide, and led a campaign of extrajudicial assassinations.”
I support Rep. Massie’s articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth.
He has presided over the slaughter of thousands of civilians in immoral wars, aided and abetted genocide, and led a campaign of extrajudicial assassinations.
He belongs in the Hague, not our government.
Mike Johnson, however, didn’t want to hear it. The articles of impeachment, he said, are “a publicity stunt by someone who wants attention. It will immediately be tabled, of course….We should not be playing games with national security.”
And there it is. Just as I predicted. They’re canceling Congress tomorrow to avoid the vote on IMPEACHING @SecWar. It will also make it harder for us to reach 218 signatures on the Epstein Discharge Petition before the election. We were at 190+ signatures last night. https://t.co/nltarUjayl
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) September 16, 2026Though Massie asserted on social media that the impeachment vote was the reason he’s being sent home early, Johnson didn’t say so directly. Instead, he told reporters, “It’s time for our members to go home to their districts and make the case to the American people.”
Hegseth, between announcing and rescinding military testosterone-supplementation guidelines, doesn’t seem to have found time to speak on the matter of his potential impeachment.
In a statement, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said the “entire Department is unified behind the Secretary’s vision and will continue working to put our warfighters and America first.”
Automattic’s interim CEO and legal chief signed reciprocal severance deals during Mullenweg’s brief ouster
Republicans Say Trump Is Tying a “Noose” Around Their Necks
Republicans appear to be listening to the White House rather than the president.
Conservatives seem to have completely dodged Donald Trump’s midterm advice since the Republican Midterm Convention last week, during which the president told his party to promise $5,000 government handouts and act as if he’s on the ballot.
An analysis of more than a million social media messages conducted by The Washington Post found that conservative candidates across the country have opted to stick with their own messages rather than further ingratiate themselves in Trump’s orbit.
Mentions of Trump by Republican candidates online have almost halved since January, dropping from mentions in 15 percent of posts to just 9 percent in September. Some hopeful office-seekers have even stripped their websites and campaign materials of Trump’s name, attempting to split themselves from the president’s sinking reputation.
That’s the advice that the White House offered in July, when staffers explicitly encouraged midterm-bound Republicans to break from Trump in an effort to save their election chances.
Republicans already had little to campaign on ahead of the November race, but one right-wing senator told Punchbowl Wednesday that Trump was “putting a noose around all of our necks” by continuing to escalate his trade wars so close to Election Day.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll published late last month suggested that the president’s influence is waning: Just 13 percent of Americans strongly approve of him—compared to 23 percent in a 2025 YouGov poll this time last year.
Top issues impacting Trump’s popularity include the seemingly endless Iran war, the rising cost of living, an economy and supply chain thrown out of whack by the president’s reckless tariffs, the cost of health care, and the encroachment of AI and the industry’s data centers in American communities—which Trump has unequivocally backed—a hot topic.
Republican attitudes toward Trump have also changed, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll. Just 35 percent of surveyed conservatives said they “strongly approved” of Trump’s job during his second term. In the same poll, 41 percent of registered voters said that they would vote for a Democratic candidate if the presidential election were conducted today.
Kennedy Center Chaos Grows With Emergency Hearing Request
President Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center saga continued Wednesday, the day after a federal judge unceremoniously knocked down his latest bid to add his own name to President John F. Kennedy’s memorial venue.
NBC News reported Tuesday that the center’s chief financial officer, Donna Kauranen, resigned from her position right before Trump’s handpicked board of trustees (chaired by none other than Trump himself) voted to shut down the venue indefinitely, ostensibly for repairs and renovations.
Now Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty, a Kennedy Center trustee and the plaintiff in the court battle against emblazoning the venue with Trump’s name, is requesting an emergency hearing to challenge the sudden closure, calling it “unexplained and unlawful.” Beatty filed her motion for an emergency hearing Wednesday afternoon, arguing that the closure violates a prior court order that not only blocked the name change but also prevented the center from closing for renovations.
Trump’s allies at the center have claimed that the performing arts venue is in dire financial and structural straits and needs the president’s name on it to stay afloat. In a June court filing, the administration wrote that “without the name ‘Trump’ on the Building, our fundraising will not only come to a halt, but any and all monies raised or committed would be obligated to be returned, refunded, or terminated.”
Still, U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ruled Tuesday in no uncertain terms that the Kennedy Center could not inscribe the words “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” on the side of the building, nor anywhere else on the historic grounds. “Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote.
In a classic if-I-can’t-have-it-nobody-can tantrum, the president immediately made a “fucking crazy” call to the board to scream at Beatty. He then unleashed his anger on social media.
“The Board of The Kennedy Center today agreed, almost unanimously, to close the Building for Safety reasons, and so that it can begin the process of Reconstruction. The closing will take place immediately, however, the Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”
In the day since the board voted to close the center, new fencing has appeared around the building. Trump has previously threatened to demolish the center entirely if he doesn’t get his way, demonstrating yet again that if Trump isn’t in the spotlight, the show doesn’t go on.
Former Waymo CFO jumps to self-driving startup Wayve
Mike Rogers chickens out of debate with Abdul El-Sayed
Michigan’s GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers was missing from a televised debate against Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed Tuesday night. So El-Sayed took the opportunity to answer questions from voters. He called out Rogers’ absence, noting that he made time for the Republican midterm convention in Dallas last week but not this event in his own state. “The elephant was not in the…
What Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon Have in Common
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Inside Washington
The conversation around regulating artificial intelligence has rapidly become so wide-reaching that on Tuesday, Bernie Sanders, Steve Bannon, and Ashley Judd all wound up at the same conference dedicated to tackling the technology’s risks. But while the event showed that there’s a real hunger to take on AI oligarchs, it’s still not clear how that will translate into concrete action.
The “Pro-Human Assembly,” hosted by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Washington, D.C., brought together AI industry researchers, policymakers, and civil society organization leaders in a particularly fraught moment, following a week of dire warnings about AI risks and alarming disclosures about recent safety incidents.
House members’ short speeches opening the conference illustrated just how divided Congress is on the right approach to regulating AI. Representative Greg Casar delivered the most stirring remarks, garnering multiple rounds of applause. “The answer is simple,” he said of the solution to AI threats. “We ban AI systems that are too powerful for humans to control.” The room applauded vigorously. That comment previewed legislation that he and Senator Bernie Sanders are set to release next week, which would ban the development of artificial superintelligence.
Casar also directly called out Leading the Future, the AI industry-funded PAC that has spent millions to elect candidates it thinks will advance its agenda for relatively loose federal regulations on AI. Later in the afternoon, Sanders joined Casar’s criticism, directly addressing the CEOs of AI companies: “If you believe in democracy, if you believe that the people have the right to determine their future, stop pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into super PACs,” he said. Later in the day, Leading the Future’s most prominent victim, Alex Bores, spoke to the crowd. Bores championed state-level AI regulations during his time in New York’s Assembly, and Leading the Future spent millions to defeat his bid for Congress earlier this year.
In his speech, Sanders presented his familiar anti-oligarchy messaging. “Virtually all of the decisions regarding the development of AI have been made by a handful of the richest people in the world,” he said, “whose chief goal is to achieve even more wealth and more power than they already have, no matter what the impact their work has on ordinary people.” Sanders used the opportunity to plug his American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would distribute the wealth of AI companies and give the public a role in their management, and his call for a data center moratorium alongside Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Representative Lori Trahan, who recently has positioned herself as a leader on AI, outlined a more moderate position. Much of her speech focused on the philosophical concerns of AI development—at one point, she quoted Hannah Arendt; at another, she called human beings “ends in ourselves.” Only toward the end did she mention her bipartisan legislation on AI, introduced with GOP Representative Jay Obernolte, and she was careful to frame it as a small incremental step that should be easy for everyone to get on board with. “We need a long sequence of small correct decisions, and we need to start making them today,” she said. “So let me tell you one Congress could make.” Trahan pitched her legislation as a commonsense regulation that won’t overly stifle AI companies. Leading the Future hasn’t endorsed Trahan and Obernolte’s bill, but said in August that the lawmakers “deserve particular credit” for their bipartisanship. On Monday, Obernolte met with OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane. According to Obernolte, Lehane “was actually asking how he could be helpful.”
Steve Bannon, the media executive and former strategist for President Donald Trump, sounded a lot like Senator Sanders in the opening line of his address: “American citizens are not going to be supplicants to the oligarchs.” Bannon acknowledged that the two appeared to be odd bedfellows, but said that he and Sanders are “trying to rise above our partisanship.”
But while the two men’s willingness to appear back-to-back on the same stage could signal a new coalition of the populist left and right, other parts of Bannon’s speech suggested that it might not be that simple. Sanders, for example, implored President Trump to strike a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping to slow AI development. Bannon, by contrast, took a far less conciliatory tone. “We should quarantine every aspect of the ecosystem of artificial intelligence away from the Chinese Communist Party,” he told the crowd, calling for the U.S. to stop training Chinese students in tech and to kick Chinese-owned companies out of the country. Those moments made the hope of a horseshoe-shaped coalition feel less possible, and created a rather awkward silence in the room.
Ultimately, the conference gave a hint of the messaging Americans are likely to hear for the rest of 2026 and beyond—a populist approach to tackling AI companies, the importance of bipartisan cooperation, and the corrupting influence of money in politics. What Congress might do legislatively, though, remains unclear.
—Emma Janssen
Outside Washington
More bad news on affordability: A report from United Way of the Greater Capital Region finds that “nearly half of New York households are struggling to make ends meet despite earning incomes above the federal poverty line,” Spectrum News 1’s Noah Love reports. That may sound extreme, but it’s in line with what a Brookings Institution report this summer estimated regarding households across the nation. New York Governor Kathy Hochul is on an affordability blitz this week, announcing that the state’s energy rebate checks to an estimated 8.1 million households will be sent September 21. On Tuesday, she announced an “all-of-government push” to enroll some 2.5 million households on a utilities discount program that her administration expanded eligibility for in January.
While polls consistently show Hochul leading her Republican opponent, Bruce Blakeman, she’s not a wildly popular figure to have at the top of the ticket, and there are several competitive House races in New York where Dems could use a bump. As Politico’s Nick Reisman put it last week: “Success would enable the governor to reverse the perception—stoked by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi four years ago—that her 2022 campaign’s weak showing against Republican Lee Zeldin kept the House in GOP hands.”
—Heather Souvaine Horn
Outside Washington
The Center for American Progress releases a report on “The Long Game on Energy Affordability.” Energy efficiency, writes its author, Frederick Bell, is what will reduce people’s energy bills in the long term. Right now, the Iran war and other developments have created what Bell calls an “affordability trap: The public’s demand for immediate relief can entice policymakers to reduce or eliminate investments that keep energy bills lower over time in order to find savings today.”
In case you missed it: Data for Progress released a new poll this week with the striking finding that “voters blame Republicans for rising gas prices by a 30-point margin.” That includes 36 percent of Republicans blaming their own party for the spike.
—Heather Souvaine Horn
In Closing
Book of the Week: End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World
By Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
THE GIST: Klein and Taylor first coined “end times fascism” in The Guardian last April, in one of the shrewdest pieces to emerge from the chaos of the early months of the second Trump administration. “The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death,” they wrote. “They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants.” The piece referred to billionaires, Christian fundamentalists, and ethnonationalists working together on behalf of the same sinister ends. In End Times Fascism, Klein and Taylor elucidate the threat posed by this coalition and also explain how to fight back.
PRAISE: The environmentalist and author Bill McKibben has said that End Times Fascism “will be a playbook for how a lot of progressives respond to the fix we find ourselves in.”
CRUISING THE INDEX: Like almost all of Klein and Taylor’s work, End Times Fascism is not mere polemic—it mixes history, theory, and reportage in novel and trenchant ways. The book covers Sam Altman, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Elon Musk, as well as doomsday preppers, “great replacement” neo-Nazis, and billionaires with persecution complexes. Although rooted in the (bad) last couple of years, its scope is wider, encompassing the rise of Nazism and World War II, race, reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and the wider state of global fascism.
TNR’S QUICK CRITICAL ASSESSMENT: End Times Fascism sings with its authors’ intellect and experience as two of the most wide-ranging writers on the left. (Disclosure: Taylor is also a TNR contributor.) But the best thing about the book isn’t its persuasive diagnosis of all that ails this moment but its roadmap for how to get us out of this mess, which is both clear-eyed and surprisingly joyful. “End times fascism’s war on earthly life calls on us to develop a more inclusive and expansive form of universalism than the one developed in the twentieth century,” they write. Amen.
—Alex Shephard
Political Trivia Question of the Day
Speaking of the Federal Reserve, historians of the Fed generally agree that this chairman was the worst Fed chair of all time. Who was he, and why is his reputation so low? (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)
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Down The Line: All the biggest and best shows, gigs & events ahead in Santa Cruz County
Team BOLO (Be On The Lookout) is gathering and curating all of Santa Cruz County’s biggest and best happenings from now until forever — or at least until the latest gigs are officially announced.
Latest additions are marked as NEW below.
Use the following links to see the major events happening by month:
And away we go with Down The Line …
SeptemberSept. 17: The Growlers, The Catalyst
Sept. 17: Sarah Elizabeth Charles, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Sept. 18: Old Blind Dogs, Kuumbwa Jazz Center (CANCELED)
Sept. 19: Rayland Baxter, Moe’s Alley
Sept. 19: Santa Cruz Guitar Company 50th anniversary, The Rio
Sept. 20: Vieux Farka Toure, Felton Music Hall
Sept. 20: Stick Men, UCSC Music Center
Sept. 22: Al DiMeola, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Sept. 22: Welcome Week Rave, Santa Cruz Civic
Sept. 23: Brass Queens, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Sept. 23: Curtis Reliford, Bookshop Santa Cruz
Sept. 24: Bill Frisell & Harmony Five, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Sept. 26: Laurie Anderson, The Rio
NEW: Sept. 26: Duck Island Festival, San Lorenzo Park
Sept. 26-27: Enlightenment Expo, Santa Cruz Civic
Sept. 27: Sleep, The Catalyst
Sept. 28: Linda Ronstadt tribute, Audrey Stanley Grove
Sept. 28: Joseph Fink, Bookshop Santa Cruz
Sept. 29: Aldous Harding, The Rio
Sept. 29: Teada, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Sept. 30: Cyrille Aimee & Mathis Picard, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
OctoberOct. 1: El Khat, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 1: Groundation, Felton Music Hall
Oct. 1: Pearl & the Oysters, The Crepe Place
Oct. 1: Miriam Pawel, Bookshop Santa Cruz
Oct. 1: Steel Pulse, The Catalyst
Oct. 2: Soda Blonde, The Crepe Place
Oct. 2: Fruit Bats, The Rio
Oct. 2: Twin Temple, The Catalyst
Oct. 2-3: Diggin’ Dirt, Moe’s Alley
Oct. 3: Santa Cruz Symphony: “United Sounds of America,” Santa Cruz Civic
Oct. 3: The Bends, Felton Music Hall
Oct. 4: Mike Dawes, Felton Music Hall
Oct. 4: Santa Cruz Symphony: “United Sounds of America,” Mello Center
Oct. 5: Hiromi, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 6: Kishi Bashi, The Rio
NEW: Oct. 6: “The Librarians,” Colligan Theater
NEW: Oct. 7: “Killer Klowns from Outer Space,” The Grove
NEW: Oct. 7: Writers of Color Santa Cruz County, Museum of Art & History
Oct. 8: Rickie Lee Jones, The Rio
Oct. 8: Ben Flocks, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 8: The Guitarsonists, The Crepe Place
Oct. 8: Soulja Boy, Santa Cruz Civic
Oct. 9: The Breaks, Moe’s Alley
Oct. 9: King Crimson tribute, Quarry Amphitheater
Oct. 10: Damien Jurado, Felton Music Hall
Oct. 10: Banff Center Mountain Film, The Rio
Oct. 10: Acid Bath, Quarry Amphitheater
NEW: Oct. 10: Sin Sisters Burlesque, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
NEW: Oct. 10: Bongo Sibide, Woodhouse Brewing
Oct. 11: Yellowjackets, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 11: Min Jin Lee, The Rio
Oct. 12: Somi, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 14: Bonnie Raitt, Santa Cruz Civic
Oct. 14: Acoustic Alchemy, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 14: Alborosie & Shengen Clan, Moe’s Alley
NEW: Oct. 14: “Shaun of the Dead,” The Grove
Oct. 15: Bumpin’ Uglies, The Catalyst
Oct. 16: Young Dubliners, Moe’s Alley
Oct. 16: Xavier Wulf, The Catalyst
Oct. 17: B-Side Players, Moe’s Alley
Oct. 17: Megan Woods, The Rio
Oct. 17: Santa Cruz Comedy Festival, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 17: Marty O’Reilly, The Crepe Place
Oct. 19: Buster Williams, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 19: Grace Krilanovich, Bookshop Santa Cruz
Oct. 21: Jerry Douglas Band, Felton Music Hall
Oct. 21: Hannah Mayree, The Crepe Place
NEW: Oct. 21: “Get Out,” The Grove
Oct. 22: Todd Rundgren, The Rio
Oct. 22: Obi Kaufmann, Bookshop Santa Cruz
Oct. 23: Black Flag, Felton Music Hall
Oct. 23: Lyrics Born, Moe’s Alley
Oct. 24: Katy Scott, Bookshop Santa Cruz
NEW: Oct. 24: Return to Laurel Canyon, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 24-25: Zepperella, Moe’s Alley
Oct. 25: “Let the Caged Bird Sing” IV, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 26: Fonville & Fribush, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 27: Great Lake Swimmers, Felton Music Hall
Oct. 28: Lyle Lovett, Santa Cruz Civic
Oct. 28: Julia Orringer, Bookshop Santa Cruz
NEW: Oct. 28: “The Sixth Sense,” The Grove
Oct. 29: Laura Anglade, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Oct. 29: Michael Franti, The Rio
Oct. 30: The Mother Hips, Moe’s Alley
Oct. 30-31: Jerry’s Middle Finger, Felton Music Hall
Oct. 31: AJ Lee & Blue Summit, The Rio
NovemberNov. 1: Andrew Duhon, Moe’s Alley
Nov. 1: Alexandr Misko, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 2: Helen Sung, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 4: Joshua Redman, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 4: Priyanka Matoo, Bookshop Santa Cruz
Nov. 5: Gabrielle Cavassa, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 6: Elijah Scott, Felton Music Hall
Nov. 6: Trip Tides, The Crepe Place
Nov. 7: Henry Diltz: Behind the Lens, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 7: Jeffrey Foucault, Felton Music Hall
Nov. 7: Led Zeppelin tribute, Moe’s Alley
Nov. 8: Southern Culture on the Skids, Moe’s Alley
Nov. 9: Alex Cameron, The Crepe Place
Nov. 9: “Birth of the Cool” Revisited, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 9: Matt O’Hara, Bookshop Santa Cruz
Nov. 10: Donavon Frankenreiter, The Rio
Nov. 12: Jake Xerxes Fussell, Felton Music Hall
Nov. 12: Ken Okada, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 14: Nick Shoulders, Felton Music Hall
Nov. 14: Jon Spencer, Moe’s Alley
Nov. 14: Santa Cruz Symphony: Tchaikovsky & Mendelssohn, Santa Cruz Civic
Nov. 15: The Cactus Blossoms, Felton Music Hall
Nov. 15: California Honeydrops, The Catalyst
Nov. 15: Santa Cruz Symphony: Tchaikovsky & Mendelssohn, Mello Center
Nov. 15: Daniel Duane, Bookshop Santa Cruz
Nov. 16: Las Migas, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 17: John Carroll Kirby, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 18: As I Lay Dying, The Catalyst
Nov. 18: Michael Nau, The Crepe Place
Nov. 19: James Gordon Williams, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 20: Andrew McMahon, Felton Music Hall
NEW: Nov. 21: Amy Winehouse tribute, Felton Music Hall
Nov. 20-21: Kabaka Pyramid, Moe’s Alley
Nov. 23: The Residents, Felton Music Hall
Nov. 23: Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Nov. 29: Sandra Bernhard, The Rio
Nov. 30: Benny Green, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
DecemberDec. 2: Kassa Overall, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Dec. 2: “A Celtic Christmas,” Santa Cruz Civic
Dec. 2: Jessica Lea Mayfield, The Crepe Place
Dec. 3: Isaiah Sharkey, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Dec. 4: Dragon Smoke, Moe’s Alley
Dec. 5: Hell’s Belles, Moe’s Alley
Dec. 5: The Expendables, The Catalyst
Dec. 5: “Actually, It is Rocket Science,” The Rio
Dec. 5-6: Music for the Feast of Christmas, Holy Cross Church
NEW: Dec. 6: Horse Feathers, Woodhouse Brewing
Dec. 7: The Bad Plus, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Dec. 8: Buck Meek, Moe’s Alley
Dec. 8: A Guaraldi Holiday, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Dec. 9: Mike Renwick, Felton Music Hall
Dec. 10: Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Dec. 10: The Slackers, Moe’s Alley
Dec. 11: Jonathan Richman, The Rio
Dec. 11: Flaming Groovies, The Crepe Place
NEW: Dec. 11: Stinkfoot Orchestra, Felton Music Hall
Dec. 12: The Wooten Brothers, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
NEW: Dec. 12: JD McPherson, Felton Music Hall
Dec. 14: Christian Sands, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Dec. 17: Pokey LaFarge, Felton Music Hall
Dec. 14: Christian Sands, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Dec. 17: Skylar Tang, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Dec. 19: A John Prine Christmas Show, Felton Music Hall
January 2027NEW: Jan. 10: Ana Popovic, Moe’s Alley
Jan. 15: Kurt Rosenwinkel/Gerald Clayton, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Jan. 16: Arum Ramamurthy, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Jan. 16: Santa Cruz Symphony: Rachmaninoff’s Third, Santa Cruz Civic
Jan. 17: Santa Cruz Symphony: Rachmaninoff’s Third, Mello Center
NEW: Jan. 18: Goldings/Bernstein Organ Trio, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Jan. 21: Jesse Cook, The Rio
Jan. 22: Andy McKee, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Jan. 23: Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
NEW: Jan. 24: Brandy Clark, Felton Music Hall
NEW: Jan. 25: Camille Thurman/Darrell Green, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Jan. 28: Chris Cain, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
FebruaryNEW: Feb. 1: The Cookers, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Feb. 5: Champion Fulton, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Feb. 8: Kenny Barron, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Feb. 11: Nella, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Feb. 15: Hamilton de Holanda, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Feb. 19: Matthew Whitaker, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Feb. 22: Linda May Ham Oh, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
NEW: Feb. 25: Claudia Villela/Romero Lubambo, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Feb. 28: Santa Cruz Symphony: “Peter and the Wolf,” Santa Cruz Civic
MarchNEW: March 6: The Lemonheads, The Catalyst
March 14: Alok, The Catalyst
NEW: March 26: David Nihill, Kuumbwa Jazz Center
AprilApril 3: Santa Cruz Symphony: “The Firebird,” Santa Cruz Civic
April 4: Santa Cruz Symphony: “The Firebird,” Mello Center
April 21: “Alice in Wonderland,” Santa Cruz Civic
April 23: Fashion Teens, The Rio
MayMay 1: Santa Cruz Symphony: “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” Santa Cruz Civic
May 2: Santa Cruz Symphony: “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” Mello Center
JuneJune 12: Santa Cruz Symphony: Celebrating John Williams, Santa Cruz Civic
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Paxton Sued by Family of Woman Who Died After Being Denied Abortion
The family of a Black Texas woman who died during her pregnancy is suing Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton—blaming his extreme abortion ban for her death.
San Antonio’s Tierra Walker, 37, passed away in 2024 while she was 20 weeks pregnant. She had long experienced chronic health issues like Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, and first encountered preeclampsia—a potentially fatal disease that appears in women who are around 20 weeks pregnant—while carrying twins three years earlier. Both babies were stillborn, which in turn “sent her into a health spiral,” according to the lawsuit.
In 2024, Walker became pregnant again after a positive streak of health. Soon, however, she began experiencing seizures, nausea, vomiting, and pain. After one emergency room, she was sent home, as doctors dismissed her symptoms as unrelated to her pregnancy, offering her mental health treatments instead.
“They really treated her so bad because they thought she was crazy,” Walker’s aunt LaTanya Walker said to CBS News. “One day they told me to tell her husband, ‘Can you go tell him that this is all in her head?’”
Walker asked for an abortion twice during this time, at about 8 and 11 weeks. She was denied. Even worse, doctors noted in their records that she was indeed at a “high” risk of death, and discharged her from the hospital anyway. She returned a few days later.
“I asked them time and time again to give her an abortion. And they would tell me … ‘It’s her, but it’s not the baby,’” LaTanya said, alleging that the doctors ignored abortion requests from both her and Tierra—and hid the requests from their records.
“We have reviewed dozens of cases,” said Molly Duane, a lawyer for the Walker family. “And what is clear is that doctors are so scared to even write the word in their medical chart that it does not appear there.”
It wasn’t until December 27 that Walker returned to the hospital and was formally diagnosed with preeclampsia, nearly three months after experiencing multiple complications related to it. Still, she was denied an abortion.
Medical guidelines say she should’ve been admitted, stabilized and given medicine to prevent seizures,” CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Céline Gounder said. “Her pregnancy should have been terminated since her baby was likely too young to survive. Instead, she was sent home.”
Walker was found dead in her home just a few days later, of preeclampsia and hypertension. Her family is laying her death at the feet of Paxton—and his abortion ban.
“At every turn, Texas’s political and medical establishments not only failed but actively harmed Ms. Walker,” the lawsuit reads. “Tierra Walker is dead because not one of her … healthcare providers would give her the one medical procedure that would have saved her life.”
“For months, Ms. Walker had been asking for termination of her pregnancy — even though this was a wanted pregnancy — because she did not think she would survive the pregnancy. Tragically, she was right. An abortion at any point during her pregnancy would have saved her life.”
The suit also attributes the medical inaction to a chilling effect directly tied to Paxton, who has aggressively gone after medical professionals who have performed life-saving abortions. Paxton’s already scandal-stricken office has yet to publicly respond.
AI labs want in-house auditors — but maybe they should shut the front door first
We Regret to Inform You Chipotle Is Now Working With Palantir
Palantir, the shadowy tech and surveillance company founded by right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel, is now working with Mexican restaurant chain Chipotle to supposedly track food safety issues.
Wired reports that Chipotle is working on a “food safety risk platform” hosted on Foundry, Palantir’s main software platform, compiling data including store pest incidents, employee illnesses, and health department scores to come up with each store’s risk level.
It’s not clear how long the partnership has been going on or how widespread it is. As Wired notes, almost half of Palantir’s business comes from American corporations including food companies like General Mills, meat supplier Tyson, and the fast-food restaurant chain Wendy’s. But the tech company is better known for its contracts with the federal government totalling billions of dollars. Under Trump, its projects have included building a master database on every American and developing an app to help ICE agents determine where to raid next.
Chipotle confirmed the partnership to Wired, but didn’t comment further, and Palantir didn’t immediately respond to the publication. Earlier this year, the restaurant chain was linked to the recall of jalapeño peppers from supplier Taylor Farms due to the risk of salmonella poisoning.
But Palantir’s ties to some of the federal government’s more sinister activities, coupled with CEO Alex Karp’s ominous comments about disrupting democracy, raise questions as to what else the company is doing with its private contracts.
With the Trump administration and Republicans bristling at any regulation of artificial intelligence, companies like Palantir have almost free reign to do whatever they want with their AI models, which are powered by the data they collect. Palantir can collect data from federal government sources and possibly skirt legal and constitutional protections thanks to a lack of oversight, coupled with the favor it has curried with the White House, and it’s partly fueled by the burritos Americans enjoy.
DEAD CITY Showrunner Seth Hoffman on Maggie and Negan’s New Reality
- The Walking Dead: Dead City‘s showrunner Seth Hoffman on creating mirror characters for Maggie and Negan, filming, and more.
- Hoffman reveals one scene that production had to get right in one take.
- Dead City‘s third season left Maggie and Negan in an amicable place, which is where the creative team and actors wanted them to be.
Season three of The Walking Dead: Dead City is done and things are in a good place for Maggie, Negan, Herschel, and Luis. Their community took some major hits this season, and we got a few big deaths as well. But, in the end, Maggie and Negan are accepting the fact that they do, in fact, work well together as a leadership duo. We chatted with showrunner Seth Hoffman about the ongoing Maggie/Negan dynamic, crafting new characters, and filming Dead City’s third round.
Robert Clark/AMC
Nerdist: Season three introduced us to some really cool characters like Dillard, Renata, and Luis. What was it like to formulate those characters and were things that you wanted to do with them that maybe you decided not to do?
Seth Hoffman: We had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted those three characters, their arcs to be this season. So no regrets about that. I think when we were beginning to think about the season, we wanted a sort of fun house mirror version of Negan for Negan to hang out with and a funhouse mirror version of Maggie for Maggie to hang out with, or cautionary tales of each of them. Because at the beginning of the season, Negan is ready to just completely abandon humanity and live off by himself because people just cause him pain. So he meets somebody who has not been around people for a very long time, and Negan learns that, “Oh no, that’s not what I want to do.”
And for Maggie, Renata is someone whose tragic flaw this season is that she cannot let go of her vengeance. She has this traumatic event happen with the Croat, and she cannot let go of wondering if Negan is going to do that. And that colors everything that she does. And ultimately, because she can’t let go of Negan, that aspect until the very, very end, it’s bad news for her. In a season where that’s what Maggie’s dealing with, we wanted to do a cautionary tale of that.
With Luis, the starting point there was we wanted Herschel to become a doctor, and Luis to serve as the mentor character. And then it was like, “Okay, we’ll make Luis and Renata sisters. We’ll make Dillard in the bar.” And then it all began to coalesce in the way that when you’re in a writer’s room with a bunch of amazing writers, it tends to do.
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Lauren Cohan on DEAD CITY’s Finale, Maggie’s Arc, and NeganLove it. And what I really loved this season too was how much Maggie and Negan grew. At the beginning, everybody’s pretty dejected. Maggie is separated from her son. Negan is grieving Ginny, but he ends up in a place with Maggie where they have hope, a mutual acceptance of each other, and a deep trust. What was it like working with Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey D. Morgan in terms of trying to find this place for them? How much input did they have in terms of bringing their arcs to this place?
Hoffman: It was really important to me as soon as I got the job to talk to them. They know these characters better than anybody in the world. So really talking to them, getting a sense as to what they felt was working, what wasn’t working, and where we settled relatively quickly was that audiences fell in love with both of these characters. They fell in love with this farm girl who was just this bright light in seasons two, three, and four of the mothership [show], but whose light, understandably, after the death of her father, then her sister, then her husband, really dimmed. So the challenge was how do we have Maggie rediscover that light?
For Negan and Jeffrey, it was the first conversation we had. I was like, “Jeffrey, what do you want out of this season?” He’s like, “When Negan comes on screen, I don’t want anybody to know what the f**k he’s going to do.” Because that’s who he was in season seven and eight of the original show, and then he was in prison. [In Dead City] he was under the thumb of the Dama and the Croat. So how do we get him back to where he was? There was obviously some work we had to do in the first couple of episodes to reset those characters, but once they were reset, it was just full steam ahead.
Robert Clark/AMC
For sure. From a writing and production standpoint, what were some of the more challenging scenes to try to parse through, and why did they feel like a challenge?
Hoffman: From a writing standpoint, the way I work, I kind of get the big picture, then I start filling it in and then fill it in a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And having an amazing writing staff who I was really thrilled to be able to trust to come up with great original stuff. And I think all of us were really interested in pushing the boundaries of what a Walking Dead episode or scene could be. So in the writing process, there was just a lot of joy, really. And similarly with production, I mean, there were complicated scenes. I think about the chandelier dropping in episode two.
It’s a complicated thing to be able to do because so many departments are involved in that one thing that you only get one take of. So a lot of planning goes into it, but everybody was excited to work together and help this vision come to life, and it was great. I’ll say I’m really proud of the creativity this season.
I’m really proud of how the season turned out, but I’m also proud that on the last day on set, a lot of the crew came up to me and said “A lot of times when a season’s ending, I’m so relieved because it’s been so difficult on a lot of levels, but I’m really sad that this season’s ending because I’ve had such a great time.” And there are so many people responsible for creating that environment, certainly foremost among them, Colin Walsh, who’s another executive producer on the show.
But to be able to have a season that was both really creatively satisfying, but also really personally satisfying for the amazing creative people that were involved in it, you can’t ask for more than that!
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 DEAD CITY Showrunner Seth Hoffman on Maggie and Negan’s New Reality appeared first on Nerdist.
The Macklemore-Ed Sheeran Dispute Is a Corporate Threat to Free Speech
Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of, among a ton of other stuff, the New England Patriots and its stadium, allegedly pressured Ed Sheeran and his team to remove rapper Macklemore from his tour after Macklemore voiced support for Palestinians amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza. All four of the remaining opening acts withdrew from the tour in solidarity with Macklemore by Tuesday afternoon.
“Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed,” Finneas, a music artist best known for co-writing and producing much of his sister Billie Eilish’s work, wrote on Instagram. “I have decided to withdraw from my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran. I stand with Palestine and its people.”
On Monday, Macklemore alleged that Kraft told Sheeran that he would not be permitted to perform at his New England Patriots NFL venue, Gillette Stadium, at a show scheduled for later this month. Kraft also rallied some other stadium owners to support Macklemore’s removal.
“Collectively they gave [Sheeran] an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues,” the rapper recounted.
Macklemore opened for two shows on Sheeran’s tour, playing at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on September 4 and 5. During his set, the rapper performed “Hind’s Hall,” his 2024 song that voices support for protests at college campuses demanding a ceasefire in the Gaza war, divestment from Israel, and an end to the genocide. Activists renamed Hamilton Hall at Columbia University to “Hind’s Hall” to honor Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the IDF in 2024.
“Free Palestine,” Macklemore said to many cheers from the crowd before performing the song. “I want to say those words loud and clear so the people of Gaza all the way to the West Bank know that we have not forgotten them.”
According to the Guardian, the other owners who allegedly opposed future Macklemore performances oversee venues hosting Sheeran’s previously scheduled shows in Philadelphia (September 19), Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Arlington, and Tampa. Notably, all of these stadiums are home to NFL teams—the Eagles, Falcons, Panthers, Colts, Cowboys, and Buccaneers, respectively. (Only two other shows are on Sheeran’s US leg of the tour, both at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida.)
These venues may be publicly owned, but they’re branded by corporations and controlled by billionaire team owners. This arrangement has become a mechanism for corporate censorship of political speech. Kanye West, who has a well-documented history of making antisemitic statements, performed in Tampa in June and is scheduled to play at the Cowboys’ stadium in November. So far, there’s been no pushback from owners. Pro-Palestinian speech, by contrast, gets an artist blacklisted.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) placed the focus on Kraft when asked about the removal of Macklemore on Tuesday.
“When you see what Robert Kraft did to line up all of the stadiums to censor speech in that one specific way, it’s become clear that this is not just about one music artist or two music artists, but this is about how just a handful of stadium owners and the elite can prevent an entire massive issue, in this case, the genocide in Gaza,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a clip shared by Fox News.
This isn’t the first instance of this kind of censorship over Gaza. Massive Attack, Bella Hadid, and Kehlani have all faced similar backlash. But the Macklemore-Ed Sheeran case may be the most prominent yet, given both its scale and what’s now known about how the decision was allegedly made. If Ed Sheeran, the sixth most-streamed artist of all time on Spotify as of April, isn’t safe, then no one is.
Macklemore said it best in his Monday announcement: “The victims are the Palestinian people. The men, women, and children who have been killed, starved, displaced, and forced to live through unimaginable violence. More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza alone. People are being killed today, and people will be killed tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don’t lose sight of that.”
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