The New York TIMES and other media are reporting tonight that President Trump’s plan to add an expansive ballroom to the White House will mean the demolition of the entire East Wing, which was expected to be fully torn down by this weekend, according to a senior administration official.
Trump had pledged that the East Wing would not be touched by the construction, one of the largest renovations to the building in decades even before the change in plans. Read more ›
As part of a legal settlement reached last month with Trump, Alphabet, which owns YouTube, is contributing $22 million toward Trump’s White House construction plans. Trump sued the tech giant after it suspended his YouTube channel for two years, following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Images showing demolition work on the East Wing to make way for the ballroom have sparked scrutiny this week and renewed the question over who’s paying for the estimated $250 million, 90,000-square-foot addition.
According to court filings in Oakland, California, Alphabet’s contribution, which accounts for roughly 10% of the total projected cost, will be made on Trump’s behalf to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit entity dedicated to restoring and preserving the National Mall.
“The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly,” Trump said Monday on his social media platform Truth Social.
The Melancholy of Halloween: Why Halloween 4 and Halloween 3 Still Make us Glow!
There are certain things about Halloween that never quite leave you. When you’re younger, it might be a family party, trick-or-treat night, or the excitement of dressing up for school. Maybe it’s the sound of leaves scraping across the pavement, or the cool autumn wind beneath a sky that can’t decide whether it’s sunny or gray.
It’s melancholy. It’s nostalgic. It’s Halloween.
And for many of us, two particular Halloween movies bring that feeling back stronger than anything else. Not because of scares or kills.. not even the music, despite that setting a certain tone to the films.
Maybe you’re one of those people .. maybe you feel it too.
The Opening of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
The fourth installment movie begins not with screams or murders, but with a quiet, haunting montage of rural Americana. There’s no Haddonfield, Illinois because that town doesn’t exist .. but the landscape during the opening scene of the film feels like it could be anywhere in your back yard or field nearby. In this case it was actually filmed in Corinne Utah..
Cornfields. A lone scarecrow. A rusted fence line. A jack-o’-lantern sitting in the dusk. All of it set to Alan Howarth’s mournful score and the sound of wind whispering through half-bare trees.
I promise you cannot watch this and NOT feel it in your bones…
Before Michael Myers even appears, the tone is already perfect. It’s not about the horror — it’s about the feeling. That sense of October. That moment when daylight fades a little too early, and you can smell the wood smoke in the air. For many fans, that opening sequence is Halloween. It captures the essence of the season better than any pumpkin-spice latte or store-bought decoration ever could.
The Beauty Within Halloween 3: Season of the Witch
Then there’s Halloween 3: Season of the Witch — the most debated entry in the franchise. Some fans love it. Others can’t stand that it doesn’t feature Michael Myers. But beyond its odd plot about a mask-maker’s deadly plan, there’s something poetic hidden in the chaos.
As the Silver Shamrock jingle plays and the movie cuts to shots of kids across America — trick-or-treating, laughing, wearing those creepy masks — it taps into something universal. For a few brief moments, the film isn’t about terror at all; it’s about childhood, innocence, and the fragile glow of Halloween night.
And then, there’s that breathtaking final image: three silhouettes walking into the orange-gold horizon, the sun setting behind them. For a film so divisive, that single scene is pure cinematic beauty — a quiet, haunting symbol of the season itself.
Nostalgia in the Shadows
We all have our own movies that summon that peculiar Halloween nostalgia — the ones that make us feel ten years old again for just a moment. But for many of us, it’s these two films — and these two scenes in particular — that stir something deeper.
I don’t know if movie makers envisioned it.. but beneath the Shatner mask and the famed John Carpenter music, Halloween has always been about more than fear. It’s about the passage of time, the changing light, the melancholy of autumn itself. Samhain….
So as the season of the witch arrives once more .. Don’t forget to be in front of your television set for the big giveaway.
Some believe that IF this flare was earth directed, it could have been “the big one” …
We had a massive coronal mass ejection from what was likely an intense solar flare over the western limb of the sun this evening. Had this been Earth directed this could have been the big one. Will be curious if SWPC gives us some analysis on this. What a stunner. pic.twitter.com/w3nClsFvwB
10,000 Foot Drop — Pilot Injured as Windshield Shatters Midflight!
A United Airlines flight from Denver to Los Angeles was forced to make an emergency landing in Salt Lake City on October 16, 2025, after the windshield of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 suddenly shattered midair.
Reports indicate that the plane dropped nearly 10,000 feet before stabilizing. One of the pilots suffered minor injuries from flying debris and shattered glass as the cockpit became littered with fragments.
Early speculation points to a possible meteorite strike or space debris impact, though officials haven’t confirmed a cause.
Despite the terrifying ordeal, the plane landed safely, and all 140 passengers and crew were reported safe.
Demolition crews on Monday began tearing down part of the White House to build President Donald Trump’s long-desired ballroom despite his pledge that construction of the $250 million addition wouldn’t “interfere” with the existing building.
Construction teams were demolishing a portion ofthe East Wing, with a backhoe ripping through the structure, according to a photo shared with The Washington Post and two people who witnessed the activity and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it.
A cluster of people, including members of the Secret Service, stood on the steps of the Treasury Department to watch the construction unfold, said one of the people. Sounds of construction were also audible on the White House campus, although the project was not easily visible to the public given fencing on the grounds.
The White House said the demolition will not effect any structural integrity of the rest of the building..
The Administration said the project will be completed by 2029..
The East Wing of the White House will be modernized at the same time as the ballroom is constructed. BBC News described the proposed interior as being “lavish … including chandeliers and ornate columns”.
These days, when the internet goes down — it really goes down.
In the early hours of Monday morning, Amazon Web Services (AWS) — the backbone of much of the modern web — experienced a major outage, knocking out a long list of high-profile sites and services.
AWS reported what it called an “operational issue” impacting “multiple services,” and confirmed that engineers were “working on multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery.” At one point, over 70 AWS services were affected — a reminder of just how deeply this single company is embedded in the infrastructure that keeps our world online.
By 3:35 a.m. PDT, AWS announced the issue had been “fully mitigated,” saying most systems were now running normally.
Still, it’s hard not to think about how fragile our digital lives have become. When one company sneezes, half the internet catches a cold.
It’s been about a year since the New Jersey drone phenomenon first lit up our skies — and our imaginations.
Remember how it dominated headlines? Those bright lights hovering silently above the Garden State and beyond had everyone speculating. Was it an alien invasion? A secret military test? A government conspiracy right above our heads?
But there was also another theory — that we were being gaslit. That the whole thing was a trick, a setup, a staged mystery designed to stir up confusion.
Well, now, you can decide for yourself whether we were fooled… or if we just witnessed a different kind of invasion — not from outer space, but from private contractors.
At the Army’s UAS and Launched Effects Summit at Fort Rucker this past August, a private company allegedly took credit for the chaos. According to a source who spoke to The New York Post, the company held a live demonstration of a manned aerial craft that stunned the audience with its strange design and otherworldly flight movements.
And then came the bombshell:
> “You remember that big UFO scare in New Jersey last year? Well, that was us,” one of the contractor’s employees reportedly told a small group after the demo.
So was the New Jersey “UFO invasion” a real mystery from the skies — or just a marketing stunt that spiraled out of control?
This is an amazing moment in crime spree history.. Robbers dressed as construction workers just stole priceless relics from history.. IN BROAD DAYLIGHT!
A manhunt is under way after thieves broke into the Louvre and stole “priceless” jewellery that once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte’s family.
The gang entered the Apollo Gallery in broad daylight shortly after 9.30am, once the gallery had opened to the public, and stole nine items including a necklace, a brooch and a tiara.
The masked criminals arrived on high-powered scooters and reportedly gained access to a part of the building where construction was taking place after using a van-mounted extendable ladder to enter on the Seine River side of the museum.
They then forced open a window, smashed display cases, grabbed the jewellery and left.
Laurent Nuñez, France’s interior minister, called it a “major robbery by a team that had done scouting” and said that jewellery stolen from the museum on Sunday was “priceless”.
And it all took reportedly 7 minutes for it all to occur…
Sen. John Kennedy, the well-known and outspoken senator who has provided the internet with countless memes and offbeat committee-room moments, has done it again. This time, it was during a speech about radioactive shrimp from Walmart.
With his trademark flair, Kennedy brought out a giant cardboard photo of the alien from the movie Alien. At one point, he even joked that we might become the alien ourselves if we ate radioactive shrimp. But then, in classic Kennedy fashion, he pivoted to a serious note. And no matter your political party, he had a point.
Countries like the United Kingdom and China do a much better job inspecting their food imports than the United States does. Kennedy reminded us that while “radioactive shrimp from Indonesia” sounds absurd, it’s not isolated. Since that frozen shrimp recall, more recalls have popped up—cooked shrimp, shrimp cocktail—across stores like Walmart and Kroger nationwide.
Kennedy didn’t mince words: it’s unconscionable that our system lets this happen. The isotope found in the shrimp isn’t some minor contaminant—it’s dangerous, deadly even. And the truth is, this probably won’t be the last time something like this happens.
So yes, we got the meme-worthy image of an alien propped up on the Senate floor. But behind the humor, there’s a serious conversation we should be having about food safety in America.
