The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump was secretly moved off Air Force One and onto another military aircraft during his trip to Turkey last month amid an Iranian assassination threat, as he feared for his life.
Trump publicly boarded the legacy Air Force One, but was then reportedly smuggled off using an airport catering truck and transferred to a smaller military plane. The original Air Force One continued on as a decoy carrying journalists and White House staff who believed Trump was still aboard.
Trump’s actual plane reportedly flew to Britain under a nondescript call sign with its tracking systems disabled, concealing his location for hours.
The White House, meanwhile, publicly maintained that Trump had traveled aboard the legacy Air Force One.
This appears to be the order of operations according to media reports:
Trump flies to Turkey on the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One for the NATO summit.
An Iranian assassination threat triggers a secret “deception operation.” Security officials devise a plan to conceal which aircraft Trump is actually traveling on.
The Qatari-gifted Air Force One leaves Turkey first, without Trump.
Trump publicly boards the legacy Air Force One in Ankara, walking up the stairs and waving for cameras, creating the appearance that this is his plane home.
Trump secretly exits Air Force One through the other side of the aircraft and gets into an airport catering truck raised to the plane’s door.
The catering truck drives Trump to a smaller Air Force C-32A, a modified Boeing 757 parked nearby.
7.. Trump secretly boards the C-32A. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also boards separately.
Reporters and some White House staff board the legacy Air Force One, apparently unaware Trump is no longer aboard. They are instructed to close their window shades. (Remember all that reporting from the time?)
The legacy Air Force One takes off as a decoy and eventually uses the “AF1” call sign despite Trump not being aboard.
Trump’s actual C-32A flies secretly to Britain under the nondescript call sign “Reach 18,” with its normal flight-tracking systems reportedly switched off.
Trump arrives at RAF Mildenhall in Britain on the C-32A, shortly before the decoy Air Force One arrives.
Trump somehow transfers back onto the legacy Air Force One after landing. The Post says exactly how this transfer occurred remains unclear.
Trump then emerges from the legacy Air Force One in front of cameras, making it appear as though that was the aircraft he had flown from Turkey.
Trump boards the Qatari-gifted Air Force One in Britain and finally flies back to Washington with the press and staff.
The rumors you hear are true: Halloween: The Game, coming out this September, has essentially been banned in two countries — Australia and New Zealand.
Okay, cue the jokes, because surely you’re thinking the game was banned for the bloody depictions of gore, the endless slashing of Michael Myers, or perhaps just the generally inhuman nature of all those murder scenes.
Nope.
Marijuana.
The official Halloween: The Game account announced that the upcoming video game has been denied classification by the Australian Classification Board. And without a classification, the game cannot legally be sold physically or digitally in Australia … with the decision also keeping it off the market in New Zealand.
And apparently the problem isn’t Michael Myers stalking people through Haddonfield with a giant knife. The problem is a controlled substance featured in the game … reportedly cannabis, which can actually be used by players as part of the gameplay.
So apparently Michael Myers can stalk you, slash you and brutally murder you, but heaven forbid somebody lights up a joint while he’s doing it.
The game is still scheduled to arrive September 8 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, but Halloween fans Down Under are apparently going to be left out of Haddonfield for the time being.
Which brings us to a much bigger question:
What does this mean for GTA VI?
Because if the drug use in Halloween: The Game was enough to run afoul of Australia’s classification rules, the government censors Down Under probably haven’t seen anything yet.
And suddenly Michael Myers might be the least of their problems.
Taylor Farms food has now recalled these products … This time for salmonella ..
More than a dozen Taylor Farms products that were sold at large retailers across the US are being recalled because they include jalapeño peppers that may be contaminated with salmonella.
The recalled products include salsas, dips, sandwiches and more that were distributed across 26 states and sold at stores including Kroger, Target, Trader Joe’s, Walmart and Whole Foods. The full list of recalled products can be found on Taylor Farms’ website.
Some of the products include “Best If Used By” dates up to and including August 16
Earthbound Farm
Marketside (Walmart’s private‑label salads)
Little Salad Bar (Aldi’s private‑label salads)
Kroger store brands
Target store brands (Good & Gather salads and greens)
Publix, Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, Safeway/Vons, H‑E‑B, Sprouts, Wegmans, Meijer, Giant Food, all carry Taylor Farms brands under their own name.
The summer of cyclospora continues.. and now salmonella ..
Fans of the movie A CHRISTMAS STORY were sad to learn this week that Tedde Moore, the actress who played the teacher in the movie, passed away this week..
Moore was best known for playing Miss Shields in the 1983 film A Christmas Story… She reprised her role in the 1994 film My Summer Story and is the only actor to have appeared in both films…
Many other creative works were in her vast resume.. She even appeared in a made for TV horror called SCREAM TEAM in 2002..
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has amassed a heroic $1.67 billion after just 12 days in theaters, including $1.01 billion internationally and $655 million domestically. It’s the second-fastest movie to reach the billion-dollar mark overseas, behind only 2019’s comic book behemoth “Avengers: Endgame.”
Among its numerous milestones, “Brand New Day” has already become the biggest movie of the year as well as the 12th-highest-grossing release of all time. It’s a testament to the enduring popularity of Peter Parker, as well as the pent-up demand for Tom Holland’s fourth solo adventure as Marvel’s web-slinging hero.
Lewis appeared in a new video discussing his ongoing medical problems, upcoming screening connected to his continued bladder and renal issues, and perhaps most importantly to longtime listeners, the future of Ground Zero. He also opened the video by talking about executive producer Ron Patton, who has been dealing with medical problems of his own and has a GoFundMe to help with those mounting issues.
Clyde actually looks better physically than he did in some of the earlier videos released during this ordeal. That’s the good news. But it’s also obvious that this has taken a tremendous toll on him.
Lewis remains under medical care and has continued to be unable to regularly host the program. Over the past several months, Ground Zero has relied on fill-in hosts along with a steady stream of historical programs from the show’s enormous archive. Additionally, Clyde has appeared as a guest on other shows hosted by John B. Wells and Richard Syrett..
For listeners accustomed to hearing Clyde behind the microphone night after night, his absence has become impossible not to notice.
And apparently Clyde notices it too.
Several times during the update, Lewis appeared to have tears in his eyes while talking about how badly he wants to return to full-time broadcasting. He misses his listeners. Judging by the comments and concern surrounding him for months now, they certainly miss him too.
There was frustration in the video as well.
Lewis spoke critically about the healthcare system and what he sees as an agonizingly slow process of getting tests, procedures and answers. He talked about people becoming sicker—or sometimes dying—while navigating a system that seemingly keeps making them wait.
For someone who has already beaten cancer and dealt with significant health problems before, Lewis also seemed genuinely perplexed by just how badly this latest series of illnesses has knocked him down. He has fought through serious health scares before. This time has been different.
He also addressed something that has apparently generated some criticism: the Ground Zero Plus paywall.
Lewis reminded listeners that he spent more than 30 years broadcasting without requiring people to pay a subscription fee to hear him. But independent broadcasting costs money, and circumstances eventually made the subscription model necessary. Those financial realities become even more difficult when the person at the center of the entire operation suddenly can’t work.
Ground Zero has occupied an interesting place in late-night radio for decades. In many ways, it carries the spirit of what Art Bell once created: those strange nighttime hours when conversations about UFOs, conspiracies, ghosts, government secrets, strange science and things lurking somewhere beyond our understanding somehow sound better coming through a radio speaker in the dark.
Clyde Lewis became one of the most recognizable modern voices in that world.
That’s what makes this video particularly sad.
The person appearing on the screen isn’t simply a radio host announcing when he’ll be back to work. He looks like someone trying to process what has happened to his life. At times he seems frustrated. At times emotional. At times determined. And occasionally all three at once.
That’s probably how any of us would react.
The difference is that most of us wouldn’t have thousands of people watching while we did it.
Being a public figure brings with it a strange expectation that the show must always go on. People want Clyde back behind the microphone. Some apparently demand answers about when he’s coming back. But wanting someone to return and that person physically being capable of returning are two very different things.
Lewis has been hospitalized, has spent significant time in a care facility, and has been unable to independently return to the life and broadcasting schedule he maintained for decades. Earlier updates described kidney failure requiring dialysis and extensive physical therapy, followed by months of rehabilitation and continued monitoring.
This isn’t somebody taking an extended vacation from radio.
He’s sick.
And watching this latest update, one thing becomes pretty apparent: Clyde Lewis seems to miss Ground Zero every bit as much as Ground Zero listeners miss Clyde Lewis.
Maybe that’s the most hopeful thing in the entire video.
The desire is still there.
The voice is still there.
And Clyde apparently still believes there is a microphone somewhere in his future.
Let’s hope he’s right.
Here’s hoping for continued recovery for both Clyde Lewis and Ron Patton, some good news from the upcoming medical testing, a renewed sense of health and independence for Clyde—and eventually, when his body allows it, another strange night with the lights turned down and Clyde Lewis behind the microphone again.
I just watched The Last House on Netflix so you don’t have to.
No, really. You don’t have to.
If you want to, that’s fine. We just don’t think you should.
This thing was a total mess.
Don’t get me wrong, it starts with a somewhat interesting concept. These people are all stuck inside their houses, peacefully and happily celebrating Christmas and making little whimsical notes to their neighbors about what’s going on. It actually reminds you of those very innocent first days of COVID, when everybody was locked inside their houses, people were singing from balconies and making all of those ridiculous dance videos because none of us quite realized yet what we were in for.
And maybe that’s actually the best part of the movie.
Because from that point on, things get progressively worse for the family and, unfortunately, progressively worse for us as viewers.
While the premise is unrealistic, the way these characters faced this moment was TOTALLY unrealistic..
Some spoilers are coming, so read at your own demise.
At some point we’re introduced to the concept that these ill-fated homeowners simply cannot get out of their house. Rain constantly falls outside. Everyone in the neighborhood slowly runs out of food except for this particular family because Dad is apparently MacGyver and knows how to do everything, while Mom suddenly becomes capable of creating a vegetable garden inside the house.
The movie itself seems to be aiming for something much bigger than just a family trapped in a house. There are ideas here about isolation, survival, climate change, humanity’s relationship with nature and even the possibility that human beings aren’t necessarily entitled to this planet forever. That could have made for a fascinating movie.
The problem is that The Last House keeps throwing those ideas at you without ever really bringing them together. What begins as an eerie and almost believable story about a family adapting to an impossible situation eventually becomes so bizarre that instead of wondering what’s going to happen to these people, you start wondering what the hell the movie is doing.
The kids, meanwhile, don’t do much of anything to add to life. When they’re young, they basically say the adults will take care of everything, and that seems to remain their philosophy for most of the movie. It isn’t until near the end that they finally get some gumption and decide to actually do something.
And it’s only when they get that gumption that we finally see some form of oceanic monster. But apparently, according to everybody, these creatures were here longer than we were, so really it’s their planet and not ours.
Okay.
Meanwhile, the monsters are apparently content to allow everybody to slowly decay inside their homes while the land floods with salt water. Inside the house, everything is falling apart, but outside bears and other animals are apparently taking the land back again.
At some point we discover the house is sinking.
But don’t worry! The house can apparently keep surviving for years while Dad fixes his car, everybody ages, the world changes and this increasingly impossible structure just keeps hanging in there.
It’s a total mess.
Are there redeeming parts? Maybe here and there, but you have to sustain almost two hours of mostly dialogue, increasingly unrealistic survival techniques and some pretty amazing creativity from this family, including trapping animals through the chimney with what amounts to an automatic animal trap.
Listen, this movie had the complete tone of a Tubi movie that somehow wandered onto Netflix.
And that’s not necessarily an insult to Tubi.
The ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are deplorable, and after watching it, we can see why.
We wanted to like The Last House. We wanted it to be great. There’s actually a good movie buried somewhere inside this concept. Instead, what we ended up with was something that should have been completely forgettable.
Except it was so bad that we’re probably never going to forget it.
It’s been 24 years since one of the most poignant movies we’ve ever seen was released.
Signs, with Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix.
Over the past 24 years, I can’t even describe how many times I’ve watched this movie. To the point where, probably 23 years ago, my VHS copy was basically ruined from overuse. Somewhere in this house there’s a DVD that probably has plenty of dust on it now, but also plenty of scratches from the number of times it was put into a DVD player.
We’ve hunted down any place streaming it for free. We’ve rented it probably way too many times from various streaming services.
The movie was something in 2002.. it had significance and a message and touched on a connection between people…
We are not a stranger to the critique that the graphics at the end are goofy.. the CGI alien imagery hasn’t exactly aged gracefully. We know people laugh at the water falling onto the alien’s shoulder. The movie has been mocked, parodied and satirized plenty of times since 2002.
But in 2002, Signs was the Horror Report Movie of the Year.
Here is a snippet of we immaturely said that year:
You had to be there.
You have to remember the context in which Signs arrived. M. Night Shyamalan had already given us The Sixth Sense, one of the greatest box-office sleeper stories of its time and a movie that completely changed the conversation around him.
The entire country was talking about The Sixth Sense.
And here’s something else that’s almost quaint to remember now: people actually tried not to ruin the ending. People enthusiastically wanted their friends and family to experience that ending in a theater the same way they did. Unless you went searching around the internet for somebody willing to spoil it, we somehow managed to remain relatively spoiler-free.
Shyamalan followed The Sixth Sense with Unbreakable and then, in 2002, came Signs.
And he used some of that same magic again. Except the ending of Signs wasn’t really about delivering another giant twist. It was something more meaningful.
Yes, Signs is technically about an alien invasion of planet Earth and one small family’s fight inside a farmhouse outside Philadelphia to survive it.
There are frightening images. There are jump scares. There’s an alien walking past a birthday party that probably scared the living hell out of plenty of people sitting in theaters in 2002.
But if you’re watching Signs today simply for the jump scares or the alien effects, you’re probably going to be disappointed.
Because that’s not really what the movie is about.
It’s about a minister who loses his faith after his wife dies through what seems like the cruelest possible act of random fate.
It’s about Joaquin Phoenix’s Merrill Hess, a man who once seemed destined for something greater but never quite got there. He had talent. He had promise. He had baseball. And now he’s working at a gas station and living with his brother.
It’s about two children traumatized by the death of their mother, trying to understand their own grief while simultaneously watching their father transform into a different, almost unrecognizable version of himself. And in the middle of all of this, aliens invade Earth.
The alien invasion is the metaphorical backdrop for everything else happening inside that farmhouse.
Coincidences that might not be coincidences and faith lost and eventually rediscovered. Trauma, with grief and regret, all get incorporated..
The question of whether the terrible and seemingly random things that happen to us have some meaning that we simply can’t see while we’re living through them.
And how you keep the light on when the world around you suddenly seems filled with shadows.
There’s another piece of the history that shouldn’t be forgotten.
Signs was made in the shadow of September 11, 2001.
The movie was being made during that period, and the bonus documentary material released with the film even captured members of the production discussing what it was like when 9/11 happened. As a matter of fact, filming started on September 12, 2001..
It’s difficult to explain to someone who wasn’t old enough to experience that period just how much 9/11 permeated almost everything afterward.
The country had suddenly experienced the horrifying realization that something almost unimaginable could happen on an otherwise normal morning.
And then Signs came along with a family standing inside a farmhouse, watching television and listening to the radio as something unimaginable happened to the entire world outside.
I don’t think you can completely separate those things.
Maybe that’s one reason the movie hit so differently in 2002.
And now 24 years have passed.
We recently went back and watched Signs again. It’s currently streaming on Apple TV—which we’ll call “free” with the obvious asterisk that you have to pay for Apple TV to get that particular version of free.
And boy, does 2002 look like 2002.
There are VHS tapes and VCRs. Old baby monitors become an important piece of technology. There aren’t smartphones constantly buzzing with notifications. Nobody is refreshing social media looking for the newest shaky alien video.
Instead, our protagonists watch television and listen to the radio to find out whether the world is ending.
Of course things would be different today.
But strangely enough, the important things wouldn’t be.
Because Signs is grounded in something that technology hasn’t really changed.
It’s not simply a horror movie.
It’s a deeply profound story about a spiritual awakening during a horrific moment.
Kind of like 9/11.
And kind of like life itself for a lot of people.
Over the past 24 years, I’ve told countless people to watch Signs. I don’t know how many actually listened. I don’t know how many watched it and thought I was crazy for loving it so much.
That’s okay.
I’ve also remained loyal to Shyamalan through some of the years when seemingly everybody else decided they were done with him.
We’ve even told countless people to watch Lady in the Water, another movie people dismiss because they think the premise is goofy or the story is strange.
But Lady in the Water tells you what it is. It’s a bedtime story.
And underneath that strange bedtime story is another profoundly human idea about trauma—how it changes a person, how it can change the soul and how accepting what happened to you can become part of reclaiming your identity.
Maybe that’s why these movies have stuck with me.
Because Signs, to some degree, healed me in 2002.
And for the past 24 years, I’ve gone back to it during moments when I needed some spiritual healing or maybe just an awakening.
I know.
It’s just a movie.
But after watching it this many times over this many years, there’s still something nagging at my mind.
If an alien invasion ever really happened, maybe the aliens really would be stupid enough to invade a planet covered in the one substance capable of killing them.
Maybe water really would do it.
Who knows.
But something else seems far more believable.
If an alien invasion happened today, there would be families inside farmhouses, apartments and homes across the world going through exactly the same struggle as the Hess family.
Because right now there are already plenty of people fighting profoundly deep battles trying to figure out who they are, what they believe and how to put themselves back together after something changed them.
Twenty-four years of technological advancement hasn’t changed that.
Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix’s characters didn’t have smartphones, social media or most of our modern conveniences.
But they had exactly the same emotions we have today.
Trauma and heartbreak.
Fear and hopelessness.
Resilience and courage.
And the desperate search for some kind of meaning in the face of an earth-shattering crisis.
That’s what Signs is.
So watch it again.
Don’t worry about whether the CGI alien looks convincing in 2026.
Look at the people inside the farmhouse instead. And maybe see if you can reclaim a little bit of the spirit you had when you first watched it all those years ago.
And if you’re watching Signs for the first time?
This is what we said about the movie during our “movie of the year post” 24 short years ago, without grammar corrected 🙂 :
Priests are scandalous all around us. Elders are corrupting minors. Television ads are selling sex to children. Government is selling our secrecy for safety and we let them. Politicians who lie and cheat and steal to get their positions of power are corrupting institutions of power we once respected because our founding father gave us a reason to. We have no heroes anymore, we, often times and in many individual cases, have nothing to have faith in. SIGNS illustrates to us that faith has faith in us to make the right choice, to see the signs. A glass of water is half full. In this film it matters.
Everything matters. It’s the ultimate message for life Shaymalan wanted to send. It’s also the ultimate reason I chose this film as the movie of the year. It gave me a glimmer of hope. It made me wonder. It made me think about things in a different way. It filled me with spirit, I left the film each time feeling more faithful and spiritual than any church service on earth can make me. I saw the SIGNS. I just hope I never close my eyes again.
HORROR-REPORT’S FILM OF THE YEAR 2002: SIGNS
Don’t watch it as a 24-year-old alien movie whose special effects you’re supposed to judge against what Hollywood can create today.
Watch it as a story about people trying to survive something they don’t understand.
Maybe, somewhere in their struggle, you’ll recognize a little bit of your own.
And maybe you’ll find one of the signs you’ve been looking for.
It’s been laughed at, mocked, analyzed and probably studied more than the hair of any president in American history. But after Trump made an appearance this week giving a speech with what looked to be a new, thick and flowing collection of golden locks, the internet decided it was time to bring in the AI and create a brand-new must-meme moment for the president.
Whether Trump did or did not actually wear a wig that day—or has suddenly discovered some new presidential hair-care regimen—is up for discernment by people who apparently have more time to investigate presidential follicles than we do.
What is clear is that a series of absolutely hilarious Trump hair videos have started appearing all over social media. Some give him long, flowing golden hair blowing majestically in the wind. Others take it to completely ridiculous proportions. And the strange thing is, a lot of them are really well crafted. They’re funny, they’re harmless, and they’re another example of just how quickly one slightly unusual moment can now be transformed into an entire alternate reality by AI.
We already have the never-ending collection of AI-generated JD Vance videos, where the vice president has been getting away with quite a bit in his fictional digital life. Now Trump has his hair.
Maybe that’s one of the stranger things about living through this particular moment in history.
For hundreds of years, we’ve looked back at paintings and photographs of presidents and political leaders to see what they looked like and how people viewed them at the time. We have Washington crossing the Delaware, Lincoln sitting solemnly for photographs and Kennedy standing behind a podium.
A hundred years from now, somebody searching for Donald Trump might find him standing at a podium with six feet of golden hair blowing behind him while JD Vance is somewhere in the background doing something that absolutely never happened.
And maybe future historians won’t really know what any of our politicians looked like.
They’ll just know that, for a few days in the summer of 2026, the hair was flowing.
