The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers to ensure that their shredded cheese products are not contaminated with metal fragments.

According to an FDA enforcement report, Ohio-based Great Lakes Cheese Co. — which touts itself as “an award-winning, premier manufacturer and packager of natural and processed bulk, shredded, and sliced cheeses” — initiated a recall on Oct. 3.

‘Wrap it securely before putting it in the trash.’

On Dec. 1, the FDA classified the recall as Class II, which describes “a situation in which use of, or exposure to, a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.”

There are three classes of recall. A Class II designation is the second-most serious. The most serious, Class I, concerns situations when there is a reasonable probability that the use or exposure to a problematic product will cause adverse health consequences or death.

While Great Lake Cheese Co. made the potentially contaminated shredded cheeses, they were sold by various brands including Always Save, Borden, Brookshire’s, Econo, Food Club, Happy Farms, Laura Lynn, Publix, Simply Go, Stater Bros. Markets, and Sunnyside Farms.

The bulk of the recalled cheeses were low-moisture part-skim shredded mozzarella — 235,789 cases — but a number of Italian-style and pizza-style shredded cheese blends, such as Simply Go Italian Style Six Cheese Blend, have also been recalled.

The cheeses are customarily sold at big stores such as Aldi, Target, and Walmart.

RELATED: MAHA movement WINS: PepsiCo releases NEW Cheetos and Doritos alternatives amid RFK Jr.’s health crusade

Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The recalled cheese was distributed to Puerto Rico and the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Great Lakes Cheese Co. did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment.

The FDA notes on its website that consumers who suspect that they have a recalled food in their possession can generally return the items to the store where they were purchased for a full refund. The agency urges consumers not to give the potentially contaminated product to others such as a food bank or a pet and noted that if chucking the recalled product, consumers should “wrap it securely before putting it in the trash.”

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​Health, Science, Cheese, Food and drug administration, Fda, Contamination, Politics 

The Trump administration is continuing its deportation operations in more cities. Now the Department of Homeland Security is launching another operation in a Southern sanctuary city.

The DHS confirmed in a Wednesday press release that it is surging resources for increased deportations in New Orleans, Louisiana.

‘It is asinine that these monsters were released back onto New Orleans streets to COMMIT MORE CRIMES and create more victims.’

The project, dubbed Operation Catahoula Crunch, is targeting criminal illegal aliens who have been allowed to “roam free thanks to sanctuary policies that force local authorities to ignore U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest detainers,” according to the DHS.

“It is asinine that these monsters were released back onto New Orleans streets to COMMIT MORE CRIMES and create more victims. Catahoula Crunch targets include violent criminals who were released after arrest for home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto, and rape. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, we are restoring law and order for the American people,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

RELATED: ‘So dumb it hurts my soul’: DHS brutally fact-checks viral ‘new data’ from Cato Institute

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

The press release included mugshots of some of the “worst of the worst” criminals targeted in the operation. The listed criminals are from Honduras, Vietnam, Jordan, Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the commencement of the operation Wednesday morning: “The men and women of DHS law enforcement have landed in The Big Easy. Operation Catahoula Crunch will remove the worst of the worst from New Orleans, Louisiana, after the city’s sanctuary politicians have ignored the rule of law.”

“LAW AND ORDER WILL PREVAIL,” she added.

Border Patrol commander of operations Gregory Bovino, who has been at the head of many of the widely publicized deportation operations across the country, signaled that the new operation was off to a good start: “We are here arresting criminals who should not be here. The state, local and federal law enforcement partners in Louisiana are excellent partners!!”

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​Politics, Dhs, Operation catahoula crunch, Sanctuary cities, Department of homeland security, Louisiana 

As deportation operations continue to clean up sanctuary cities across the country, the Department of Homeland Security is focusing on another hub of problematic immigration: the Minneapolis-St. Paul region of Minnesota.

The Washington Examiner reported that Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, hinted at an immigration enforcement surge there as soon as this week.

‘Focus is on those Twin Cities more because of the criminal activities there that’ve been uncovered by DOJ and DHS.’

In a Fox News appearance on Tuesday, Homan suggested that plans were already in the works to increase resources in the Twin Cities in particular.

“I can tell you, the focus is there. It’s coming, but I don’t want to give a lot. I can’t tell you how many people are on the ground now, and how many people are going to be on the ground. I’ll leave that to the secretary of homeland security, but focus is on those Twin Cities more because of the criminal activities there that’ve been uncovered by DOJ and DHS,” Homan said in the interview.

RELATED: It’s not ‘racist’ to notice Somali fraud

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Citing an anonymous source familiar with the operations, the New York Times reported that the operation will target Somalis with final deportation orders in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region.

Roughly 100 ICE agents have been called in for the operation, according to NYT.

This surge in law enforcement comes as the federal government expands its investigations into massive COVID-era fraud schemes. Over 75 indictments have already been issued, and Governor Tim Walz has been accused of obstruction in the case.

“Today, I have ordered an investigation into the network of Somali organizations and executives implicated in these schemes,” Small Business Administration administrator Kelly Loeffler said on Tuesday in an X post. “Despite Governor Walz’s best efforts to obstruct, SBA continues to work to expose abuse and hold perpetrators accountable, full stop.”

In his now-infamous Thanksgiving Truth Social post, President Donald Trump highlighted the plethora of problems the state of Minnesota is facing in connection with the Somali community.

“Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone,” he said.

Trump singled out Walz and Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar:

The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how “badly” she is treated.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin stated, “What makes someone a target of ICE is not their race or ethnicity, but the fact that they are in the country illegally.”

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​Politics, Tom homan, Border czar, Somali, Somali fraud, Sba, Kelly loeffler, Trump, President trump, Minnesota, Twin cities, Tim walz, Ilhan omar, Immigration, Dhs 

Just days ago, Jack Posobiec predicted future government leaks to damage President Trump were incoming — and not 24 hours after his prediction, it was proven right.

“When the first impeachment of President Trump happened in 2019, it was regarding leaks from a phone call, believe it or not, with Ukraine and the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” Posobiec told BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler on “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

“So in that case, you had Alexander Binman, who was an Army officer. You had the CIA officer Eric Ciaramella that was detailed to President Trump’s White House and the National Security Council. I’ve said that I think what they’re trying to do is gin this up again. They’re trying to get someone … to start leaking classified information, national security information,” he continued, adding, “Like, oh, I don’t know, the current peace negotiations between the United States, Ukraine, and Russia.”

The plan, Posobiec told Wheeler, would be to get “another impeachment of President Trump.”

“And if the Democrats are able to be victorious in taking back the House, many people think that’s a possibility for 2026, then this will be something that they have on the shelf ready to go day one,” he explained.

“I think that there’s a plot afoot, I absolutely think that it’s a color revolution designed to overthrow the sitting commander in chief, the president of the United States,” he added.

Wheeler is astounded by how quickly Posobiec was proven correct.

“Less than 24 hours after that aired … Jack’s prediction came true. We were greeted this morning with a leak, a leak of a classified phone call, or I would assume it was classified, a transcript of a phone call between Vladimir Putin’s senior foreign policy adviser and Steve Witkoff, who is President Trump’s special envoy,” Wheeler explains.

“This phone call between Witkoff and Putin’s senior foreign policy adviser is being presented in exactly the same way as that phone call between President Trump and Zelenskyy was presented all those years ago,” she continues.

Now the left is “framing this as some kind of great scandal.”

“They’re saying President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has advised the Russian government, has given advice to Vladimir Putin, on how to coerce Trump into agreeing to a certain peace plan,” Wheeler explains, pointing out that “there was nothing remotely scandalous about anything that was said in that call.”

“The scandal, of course, is that this call was leaked to Bloomberg and that this was released publicly. That is a bad faith move by a bad actor, and we should figure out who leaked that to Bloomberg because it will be detrimental to actually creating a peace deal,” she says.

“President Trump is not only a good negotiator, he’s a good negotiator because he negotiates at a very high level, but he uses very basic negotiation techniques and tactics. One of the most effective negotiation tactics, when you have something that you want the other party to agree to, is to make the other party think that your idea is their idea,” she continues.

“That is what you’re seeing play out with Steve Witkoff,” she adds.

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sharing, Video phone, Camera phone, Upload, Video, Free, Youtube.com, The liz wheeler show, Liz wheeler, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Jack posobiec, Democrats, Steve witkoff, Ukraine russia, Peace deal ukraine russia, President trump, Donald trump 

A New Jersey police officer has lost her law enforcement career in the state following a home invasion, physical attack, and threats to burn down a former lover’s residence.

Rebecca Sayegh, 32 — formerly with the Toms River Police Department — pleaded guilty to burglary, criminal mischief, and simple assault on Nov. 17.

‘I’m going to f**king burn your house down next, you piece of s**t.’

Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer announced in a statement that his office wants Sayegh to serve 180 days in jail when she’s sentenced on Jan. 26. As part of her probation, prosecutors also want her to have no contact with the victims and to pay restitution.

Sayegh — who had been suspended without pay since her April arrest — was required to forfeit her position with the police department effective Nov. 17; she’s also barred from any future employment with the state of New Jersey, according to the prosecutor’s office.

Sayegh’s guilty plea stems from a violent home invasion of her ex-boyfriend’s home in Berkeley Township.

As Blaze News previously reported, Sayegh used her baton to smash through the front door of her ex-boyfriend’s home around 11:20 p.m. on April 25.

But the violent incident didn’t stop there.

Sayegh — who was off-duty at the time — engaged in a verbal confrontation with her former lover and his new girlfriend that quickly escalated into a physical attack, according to court documents NJ.com obtained.

Citing Assistant Prosecutor Isabella Young, NJ.com reported that the girlfriend suffered swelling to the eye when Sayegh poked her with her fingernail.

The couple was able to restrain Sayegh before she “broke free” and smashed items in the house and knocked photos off a wall, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Billhimer said Sayegh damaged the hood of a vehicle belonging to one of the victims that was parked in the home’s driveway.

The New York Post reported, “As Sayegh continued on her chaotic rampage, the new girlfriend retreated into the backyard, where she called 911.”

The prosecutor’s office stated: “Sayegh was taken into custody at the scene — after having resisted efforts to peacefully place her under arrest.”

Citing police bodycam video, the Daily Mail reported that Sayegh appeared to tell her ex-boyfriend: “I’m going to f**king burn your house down next, you piece of s**t.”

Sayegh caused $2,000 in damage to the house and another $500 to a vehicle, Young said.

RELATED: California police union executive director ran international fentanyl operation, used office to distribute drugs: Feds

Just months before the violent home invasion, Sayegh sued the Toms River Police Department, alleging sexual harassment, being passed over for promotions due to her gender, and a “boys club” culture.

Sayegh’s lawsuit alleges that she “has been victimized by a campaign of disparaging, degrading, harassing, and discriminatory conduct by defendants and the de facto ‘boys club’ culture cultivated and maintained in the department,” the Asbury Park Press reported.

The October 2024 suit also claims that fellow officers “spread false and defamatory rumors throughout the department that [the] plaintiff was sleeping with various male co-workers, commented on [the] plaintiff’s appearance, and insinuated that [the] plaintiff could not complete the responsibilities of her position simply because she is a woman.”

The defendants’ attorneys have described the lawsuit as “frivolous and without legal basis” and “baseless and/or meritless.”

Sayegh — who joined the department in 2017 — claimed that her former captain, Shaun O’Keefe, “shamelessly” pursued a sexual relationship with her.

Sayegh’s lawsuit alleges that O’Keefe followed her into the women’s restroom, took out his penis, and told her to perform oral sex on him during a Toms River Police Foundation event at the Bey Lea Golf Course in June 2022.

O’Keefe retired from the police department in 2021.

In April 2025, Superior Court Judge Robert E. Brenner dismissed the claims against O’Keefe without prejudice, ruling that the lawsuit was filed after the two-year statute of limitations had expired, according to the Asbury Park Press.

Sayegh’s lawsuit against the police department is still pending, according to the Daily Mail.

Sayegh previously had been commended and received an award for her “bravery” after rescuing a woman and her pets from a Toms River house fire in January 2021.

“Officer Sayegh went to the front door and made entry, locating Ms. Nicolo and her pets. Officer Sayegh was able to escort Ms. Nicolo and her pets across the street to safety. Officer Sayegh is commended for her swift action, bravery, and lifesaving actions,” the department stated.

The Toms River Police Department and the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ requests for comment.

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​True crime, True crime news, Rebecca sayegh, Rebecca sayegh arrest, Police bodycam footage, Police bodycam video, Bodycam video, Bodycam footage, Bad cops, Cop arrested, Crime 

United States Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked by a group of conservatives to defend intellectual property and copyright laws against artificial intelligence.

A letter was directed to Bondi, as well as the the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael Kratsios, from a group of self-described conservative and America First advocates including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, journalist Jack Posobiec, and members of nationalist and populist organizations like the Bull Moose Project and Citizens for Renewing America.

‘It is absurd to suggest that licensing copyrighted content is a financial hindrance to a $20 trillion industry.’

The letter primarily focused on the economic impact of unfettered use of IP by imaginative and generative AI programs, which are consistently churning out parody videos to mass audiences.

“Core copyright industries account for over $2 trillion in U.S. GDP, 11.6 million workers, and an average annual wage of over $140,000 per year — far above the average American wage,” the letter argued. That argument also extended to revenue generated overseas, where copyright holders sell over an alleged $270 billion worth of content.

This is in conjunction with massive losses already coming through IP theft and copyright infringement, an estimated total of up to $600 billion annually, according to the FBI.

“Granting U.S. AI companies a blanket license to steal would bless our adversaries to do the same — and undermine decades of work to combat China’s economic warfare,” the letter claimed.

RELATED: ‘Transhumanist goals’: Sen. Josh Hawley reveals shocking statistic about LLM data scraping

Letters to the administration debating the economic impact of AI are increasing. The Chamber of Progress wrote to Kratsios in October, stating that in more than 50 pending federal cases, many are accused of direct and indirect copyright infringement based on the “automated large-scale acquisition of unlicensed training data from the internet.”

The letter cited the president on “winning the AI race,” quoting remarks from July in which he said, “When a person reads a book or an article, you’ve gained great knowledge. That does not mean that you’re violating copyright laws.”

The conservative letter aggressively countered the idea that AI boosts valuable knowledge without abusing intellectual property, however, claiming that large corporations such as NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and more are well equipped to follow proper copyright rules.

“It is absurd to suggest that licensing copyrighted content is a financial hindrance to a $20 trillion industry spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year,” the letter read. “AI companies enjoy virtually unlimited access to financing. In a free market, businesses pay for the inputs they need.”

The conservative group further noted examples of IP theft across the web, including unlicensed productions of “SpongeBob Squarepants” and Pokemon. These include materials showcasing the beloved SpongeBob as a Nazi or Pokemon’s Pikachu committing crimes.

IP will also soon be under threat from erotic content, the letter added, citing ChatGPT’s recent announcement that it would start to “treat adult users like adults.”

RELATED: Silicon Valley’s new gold rush is built on stolen work

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The letter argued further that degrading American IP rights would enable China to run amok under “the same dubious ‘fair use’ theories” used by the Chinese to steal content and use proprietary U.S. AI models and algorithms.

AI developers, the writers insisted, should focus on applications with broad-based benefits, such as leveraging data like satellite imagery and weather reports, instead of “churning out AI slop meant to addict young users and sell their attention to advertisers.”

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​Return, Ai, Artificial intelligence, Chatbots, Chatgpt, Grok, Spongebob, Ip, Intellectual property, China, Tech 

This week, “Tron: Ares,” the blockbuster that wasn’t, makes its final bid for profitability — hitting the streaming services, complete with a bonus deleted scene. As Hollywood continues its messy quest to restore its lost glory, what better time for a postmortem?

“Tron: Ares” tells us much. This trilogy-completing movie should have been a layup. With the film, Disney had a great existing piece of intellectual property and a time that could not have been better for a sequel. You can’t go a day on the internet without hearing about AI, surveillance, data centers, hacking, and other topics that the “Tron” universe is uniquely qualified to address.

I need to defend Jared Leto for a second.

The question was: Could Disney pull off a sequel to a pair of movies released in 1982 and 2010 while delivering a quality film that made compelling points on the future of Big Tech and the ever-changing interplay between AI and humanity? The Disney modus operandi is usually to serve up a disappointing experience of woke talking points, lazy writing, and uninspired filmmaking. “Tron: Ares” offered the studio the chance to buck that trend.

The centerpiece of the “Tron” universe is a digital world called the Grid. For the uninitiated, this alternate world, existing inside computer systems, appears as a neon-lit, mirror-smooth alternative to our own. Computer programs inhabit humanoid forms and live in strict, hierarchical societies.

Its well-crafted lore merits a catch-up. In the original “Tron” movie (1982), brilliant programmer Kevin Flynn is attempting to hack into the system of his former employer, ENCOM, to prove that another employee, Ed Dillinger, plagiarized Flynn’s work to get ahead at the company. Flynn ends up getting transported onto the Grid via particle laser and battles the Master Control Program that is attempting to influence the real world. He is successful, proves that Dillinger plagiarized his work, and ends up as CEO of ENCOM. The franchise gets its title from a program named Tron, which fights alongside Flynn.

In “Tron: Legacy” (2010), Kevin Flynn expands his Grid and ends up getting stuck there, vanishing from the real world. His son Sam has inherited control of ENCOM, now a top tech company, but refuses to step into a leadership role. He goes looking for his father and ends up having his own adventure on the Grid, working alongside his father to outwit Clu, the program that betrayed his father and took control of the Grid. His father sacrifices himself to allow Sam to escape back to the real world along with Quorra, a female “isomorphic algorithm.” That is, a computer program manifested onto the Grid without any human contribution. Sam and Quorra end the film setting out to make the world a better place with the grid technology.

High concept, low plot

Here’s where the slapdash takes over from the archetypal. “Tron: Ares” picks up 15 years later with a healthy dose of the now-classic Disney bait and switch. Forget Sam, Quorra, Tron, or any of the popular characters from the previous installments. Sam, in a “somehow, Palpatine returned”-level move, has “left ENCOM for personal reasons.” Instead, we are introduced to his replacement: Eve Kim (Greta Lee). The bait and switch, along with other now-classic Disney tropes, is present throughout the film, but more on that later.

Let’s break down the plot. (Warning: inevitable spoilers below.)

RELATED: Bad performance or bad politics? A list of the most hated actors

Photo by Jean Catuffe/GC Images

There are two massive tech companies: ENCOM Technologies, now run by Eve Kim, and Dillinger Systems, run by Julian Dillinger, the grandson of Ed Dillinger from the first movie. These companies have figured out how to use particle lasers to bring things from the Grid into the real world. They basically just 3D-print tanks, ships, trees, people, anything at all, using nothing but electricity. How does that actually work? Never mentioned.

These Grid creations only last 29 minutes before disintegrating into dust and reappearing on the Grid. Eve Kim is determined to solve this problem by finding the permanence code, which Kevin Flynn supposedly hid somewhere. She holes up in Flynn’s old hideout in Alaska and starts looking for it while her male assistant, Seth Flores (Arturo Castro), sits around eating breakfast burritos and complaining that she doesn’t pay enough attention to him. Meanwhile, Dillinger Systems is presenting its new Master Control Program, Ares (Jared Leto). Julian Dillinger leaves out the fact that Ares only lasts 29 minutes, for which he is reprimanded by his mother (Gillian Anderson), who provides the conscience and competence at Dillinger.

Eve finds the permanence code and successfully tests it, then gets a call from ENCOM’s necessarily diverse CTO Ajay Singh (Hasan Minhaj). He tells Eve that Dillinger has hacked ENCOM’s server and caused all sorts of damage. Basically, Julian learned that Eve has the permanence code, and he wants to get his toxic white hands on it.

The rest of the movie is a series of action scenes strung together by the bare bones of a story. Ares is sent into the real world to get the code from Eve. He comes close, forcing her to destroy the flash drive, but fails when he hits his 29-minute shot clock. Eve is then transported onto the Grid when another Dillinger agent shoots her with a particle gun. Once there, the code can be extracted from her now-digital mind. This process would kill her, but Julian orders Ares to proceed. Ares, who has shown signs of straying from his programming, goes rogue and helps her to escape, asking for the permanence code in return so that he can live in the real world. Eve agrees, and the rest of the movie is basically them running around trying to get the code (remember, Eve destroyed the drive, so now they have to find it again) before Dillinger’s new MCP, Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), catches them.

They end up finding a way to access it on Kevin Flynn’s old computer and send Ares onto the original Grid from the first “Tron” movie. Once there, he meets Kevin Flynn, or rather some sort of aspect or memory of him — it is never made clear — and gets the permanence code after Flynn determines that he is suitably curious (or something) enough to become human. Meanwhile, Athena is determined to catch Eve and brings a few Grid vehicles into the real world for a rather underwhelming final battle.

Things wrap up when Ares arrives back in the real world just in time to save Eve, while Ajay and Seth hack the Dillinger mainframe and shut it down, disabling Athena, whose sympathetic death scene feels like a DEI box-check. The film concludes with Eve using the permanence code to lead ENCOM in transforming various industries and Ares wandering the world under cover, learning how to live among humans.

The good, the bad, and the utterly predictable

There are three main takeaways from this film, but first I need to defend Jared Leto for a second. I know there are plenty of reasons, professional and otherwise, for people to dislike Leto, and I’m not necessarily disagreeing with them. However, I thought his performance in this film was quite good. The physical choices he makes in portraying his AI character add a subtle, uncanny-valley aspect to Ares. The best part of the performance, though, is the vocal work. Leto manages to give a digital quality to Ares’ speech without resorting to crude robotic tones. He uses careful pitch and tone changes and curates his pauses to give the effect of an LLM responding to a prompt, without losing the organic quality of human voice and speech. It is very well done, and the delivery works perfectly with the dialogue written for his character.

I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the acting in “Tron: Ares,” and some of it is warranted. However, as is so often the case, people are blaming the actors when a large part of the problem is bad dialogue. Seriously, you try turning the line “I don’t like sand; it’s coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth” into an earnest, romantic phrase. The acting in “Tron: Ares” is mostly fine, and in Leto’s case, it is very impressive. Sure, it’s not all amazing, but the dialogue is clearly the bigger issue. The exception is the portion written for Ares. I suppose feeding prompts into ChatGPT actually worked in that case.

Another issue is the Disney tropes that permeate the film. They didn’t bother me that much because they are so worn out at this point. There is, of course, the IP bait and switch, in which a studio baits an audience with a familiar IP, character, etc. and then switches it out for a DEI replacement. Throwing out the entire Flynn family and replacing them with a diverse CEO girlboss is the relevant example here. If you’re still falling for this move in A.D. 2025, let me just say, as a longtime “Star Wars” fan, you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.

Like any modern Disney movie, “Ares” adheres to what we might call the CCCC: color and chromosome competence correlation. Eve is a woman of color and therefore exceedingly competent and driven. Her Hispanic assistant, Seth, is light enough to be belittled for his manhood, but diverse enough to be portrayed as a competent force for good. Ajay, the CTO, is an Indian man. His complexion is darker than Seth’s, making him more competent. The film makes certain we know it is Ajay who actually manages to get into the Dillinger mainframe. However, being Indian means he is not dark enough to be excluded from male penalties. Therefore, he gets a personality that is Kash Patel turned tech bro, and part of his competence and drive are outsourced to his female assistant, Erin.

The CCCC applies across the moral spectrum. Julian Dillinger might be an evil tech villain, but he is also a white man and cannot, therefore, be competent or have real authority. These qualities are supplied by his mother, Elisabeth. Athena, the program who takes over as the Dillinger MCP, is played by a black woman (get it — Black Athena?) and is therefore competent and driven. Her failure is not her fault, but the result of Ajay truth-nuking the Dillinger Grid. In “Ares,” these tropes were too worn out to be troubling; they were just boring. I’m tired of being able to predict films after a passing glance at the principal characters.

Like the tropes, the film’s treatment of AI is just boring. The “Tron” universe is full of interesting AI potential, but “Ares” doesn’t go for any of them. The permanence code, which is a double helix as opposed to regular binary code (maybe I’m just a tech neophyte, but I thought that was cool), is never explained or explored. There is no real attempt to look at what the 3D-printed Grid creations actually are and what makes them work. If you can digitize a person’s mind by bringing him onto the Grid, that opens up all kinds of fascinating possibilities. “Ares” does not explore any of these paths. Rather, it goes for the same old “what if AI started becoming human” line that is pretty worn out at this point. Gareth Edwards’ “The Creator” did the whole “you should empathize with AI when it acts human” routine much better, but it isn’t very convincing in that film, either. In “Tron: Ares,” the wasted potential just makes the result more frustrating, which brings us to the final point and the biggest issue I have with the film.

At the end of the day, “Tron: Ares” is slop. It is content conceived and designed to be just that and nothing more. AI could have written this film, which might be by design (in which case, my apologies, Jesse Wigutow, I was not familiar with your game), but I don’t think so. It is not just the lack of explanations or the fact that anyone with an IQ above room temperature could predict the entire film after 10 minutes. Everything in this film feels like it was cut and pasted from a general template for “popular high-budget sci-fi movie.”

Who will take these missed opportunities?

So what went wrong? Well, leaving aside the obvious “don’t be woke” talking point, the main issue was misunderstanding the sort of IP the filmmakers were dealing with. At its core, “Tron” is a story about computers, not just a sci-fi universe of shiny alternate realities. Ignoring this fact robs “Ares” of the necessary thematic continuity for any good sequel. Instead, the film relies on cheap nostalgia and throwaway references, refusing to use the unique set of tools it has to tell a compelling story.

To take just one example, the ability to digitize the human mind — that alone offers a more compelling and relevant story. If you can digitize the human person, storing people on the grid, what does that say about the human soul? What does it mean for surveillance, incarceration, and memory? In a time of privacy concerns and AI data-farm controversies, a computer server with the ability to store, alter, or destroy human consciousness — not to mention the capacity for independent evolution and generation — sets up a whole list of compelling questions, themes, and plot points.

If you want to understand what I’m getting at, compare the soundtrack — an album by Nine Inch Nails that sounds more like GPT — to the “Tron: Legacy” soundtrack by Daft Punk, a now-legendary, pitch-perfect expression of the computer/reality synthesis that the franchise just couldn’t live up to.

The soundtrack isn’t the only place where “Tron: Ares” is a downgrade from “Legacy.” So let me offer some advice: If you find yourself looking to stream an AI-themed sci-fi movie, just watch “Tron: Legacy.” It’s not perfect, but the soundtrack is great, the CGI holds up well, and the writing and acting actually bear the mark of real human beings.

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The New Jersey attorney general’s office confirmed to Blaze News that it has launched an investigation into the NJ Sharing Network, an organ procurement organization, after nearly a dozen whistleblowers accused the group of numerous offenses, including allegedly covering up an attempted organ recovery from a patient who showed signs of life.

The NJ Sharing Network, a tax-exempt organization, was also accused of fraudulently billing Medicare, skipping hundreds of patients on the wait list, harvesting organs without appropriate consent, operating a fraudulent taxpayer-funded research program, and creating a culture of fear and retaliation.

‘The only way patients will be protected is when law enforcement gets involved and prosecutes criminal activity.’

The House Committee on Ways and Means held an Oversight Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday with some whistleblowers who have reported concerning patterns among the nation’s OPOs.

“I think a lot of the problem is that we are not providing the family with updates on actual neurological function and just those kinds of problems where we’re using medications to chemically sedate and paralyze patients,” Nyckoletta Martin, a former OPO employee, told lawmakers on Tuesday. “We’re never really giving patients a chance.”

Jennifer Erickson, a senior fellow for organ donation policy with the Federation of American Scientists, described the “chilling” accusations against the NJ Sharing Network as “not only extreme abuse of public trust, but also potential violations of law.”

“A patient who’d been declared deceased reanimated, and according to information obtained by this committee, the CEO told staff on site they should proceed with recovery,” she continued. “Several whistleblowers alleged documentation regarding the case was deleted or otherwise manipulated.”

Erickson urged the committee to continue its investigation into the NJ Sharing Network and contended that the organization should be decertified.

RELATED: Organ group wanted to harvest from patient showing signs of life — then tried to cover it up, whistleblowers claim

Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images

On November 19, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) sent a letter to the NJ Sharing Network, demanding documents and over 30 transcribed interviews with staff to investigate whistleblowers’ claims further.

The committee copied the New Jersey attorney general on that letter.

When reached for comment, the AG’s office confirmed to Blaze News that it was looking into the allegations.

“Our office is aware of the allegations of potential misconduct involving New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network discussed in correspondence from the U.S. House of Representatives,” a spokesperson stated. “We are investigating these allegations and are committed to ensuring that the organ donation system functions appropriately and for the purpose for which it was intended. We ask anyone with information to contact the Division of Criminal Justice at 609-376-2330.”

RELATED: ‘Donor may still be alive’: How organ donation groups allegedly exploit grieving families to cash in on billions

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Greg Segal, the founder and CEO of Organize, reacted to the AG’s office announcement.

“After 15 years of organ donation advocacy, I have come to believe that the only way patients will be protected is when law enforcement gets involved and prosecutes criminal activity,” Segal told Blaze News. “I am deeply grateful for the New Jersey attorney general. It is time to take out the trash.”

The NJ Sharing Network did not respond to a request for comment.

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