Goodbye, “new and improved” Yellow Brick Road? Not so fast.

Yes, the proposed “Wizard of Oz” remake from wokester Kenya Barris appears to be stalled, possibly for good. The project announcement came all the way back in 2022, when woke still ruled Hollywood.

If Hollywood’s imagination drain continues, in 30 years they’ll make a movie about the movie about the movie …

But now, Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton promise a “new” “Wizard of Oz” series that reimagines the saga from a young adult perspective.

The series will use “the Yellow Brick Road as a metaphor for the challenges and choices facing young adults today.” As Keanu Reeves might say, “Whoa!”

Maybe if we click our heels three times, this project will go the way of the Wicked Witch of the West …

‘Potter’ squatter

Sometimes, even Hollywood types make total sense.

Take Chris Columbus. The “Home Alone” director shot the first two “Harry Potter” films in that insanely successful series. Now, HBO Max is prepping a new “Potter” series that will bring the beloved books to life.

Again.

Didn’t the films do just that in epic fashion? Was anyone dissatisfied with the finished product? It’s all pretty confusing to Columbus (and to anyone who doesn’t understand Hollywood’s lust for intellectual property).

“I looked online, and there are photographs of Nick Frost as Hagrid with the new Harry Potter,” Columbus said. “And he’s wearing the exact same costume that we designed for Hagrid. Part of me was like, ‘What’s the point?’ I thought everything [on the HBO show], the costumes and everything, was going to be different. It’s more of the same.”

He’s right. And it doesn’t matter. The streamer wouldn’t risk all that cash — a reported $100 million per episode — if it didn’t have faith it’ll draw a crowd.

Heck, they might as well start a third Harry Potter adaptation as soon as this one wraps …

Rocky’s road

Sick of reboots, sequels, and prequels? How about a movie about the making of a movie? It sounds pretty darn meta, but this one actually might work.

Why?

The film is “I Play Rocky,” and it recalls Sylvester Stallone’s battle to both write and star in the movie that would change his career. A young Stallone was a virtual nobody in Hollywood when he wrote a script about a down-on-his-luck boxer who got a chance at being the champ.

The studio loved the script but clamored for a “star” to play the main character. Stallone dug in his heels, insisting he was the right person to play Rocky Balboa. “Yo!”

It’s as inspiring as the actual film, and director Peter Farrelly previously gave us the Oscar-winning “Green Book.”

If Hollywood’s imagination drain continues, in 30 years they’ll make a movie about the movie about the movie …

‘Eternals’ flame out

Ask any indie filmmaker what they crave more than anything else, and the answer is clear.

Money. As in, “Can I have some more, please?”

Indie filmmakers make do with less, cutting corners wherever possible and finding new ways to stretch their limited budgets.

So when indie auteur Chloe Zhao got the keys to a Marvel project, she probably pinched herself. Endless Mouse House cash!

It turns out that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Zhao’s “Eternals” flopped, at least by superhero standards, and she retreated to more familiar terrain with the upcoming indie drama “Hamnet.” That film is a fictional look at the death of William Shakespeare’s son and how it inspired the creation of “Hamlet.”

Too much cash wasn’t the elixir Zhao expected.

“‘Eternals’ had, like, an unlimited amount of money and resources. And here we have one street corner that we can afford, to [stand in for] Stratford. … ‘Eternals’ didn’t have a lot of limitations, and that is actually quite dangerous. Because we only have that street corner [in ‘Hamnet’], suddenly everything has meaning.”

Here’s betting she’ll miss that MCU-size personal trailer …

No sisterhood for Sweeney

“It girl” actress Sydney Sweeney enraged the left by flaunting her good “genes” in an American Eagle ad. The commercial roiled the usual suspects, who dubbed her a Nazi for trying to peddle jeans with her iconic curves.

Conservatives rallied to her side, understanding that sex sells and Sweeney did nothing wrong. One group that refused to have the starlet’s back?

Feminists.

RELATED: Sydney Sweeney is rebuilding Americana — one Bronco at a time

Photo by MEGA / Contributor via Getty Images

Why didn’t they support her against the woke mob? Doesn’t she have the “agency” to make her own creative choices?

Their silence got even louder when a certain comedian came to her defense. Matt Rife, known for his rough-and-tumble crowd work, isn’t a feminist by any definition. Glamour magazine slammed his comedy brand as misogynist.

Yet it was Rife who defended Sweeney on a related subject. The actress recently teamed with Dr. Squatch for a bathwater soap product dubbed “Bathwater Bliss.”

“I keep seeing people mad at Sydney Sweeney for noooothing. She’s learning that the internet is full of absolute garbage losers who will twist anything you say into a c**ty misinterpretation. People are awful.”

People can be awful. And feminists can be hypocrites all day long.

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Detransitioner Claire Abernathy was just 14 years old when doctors told her parents she’d take her own life without hormones and surgery — and promised “gender care” would save her life.

“I started identifying as trans when I was 12 years old following a sexual assault and some pretty severe bullying that I was experiencing at school,” Abernathy tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck on “The Glenn Beck Program.”

“Adopting this identity gave me, well, one, it gave me the ability to pretend to be a new person, someone that this didn’t happen to. And it also gave me an entire social network, a whole friend group of other kids who felt similarly to the way I did,” she explains.

That’s when Abernathy began going to therapists who were recommended by others with the same issues.

“They made my parents feel like abusers for being skeptical, for wanting to take pause before making irreparable changes to their child’s body,” she tells Glenn.

“Did anyone say, did any doctor say, ‘Hang on, we should look at the abuse’?” Glenn asks.

“No one. My mom asked about the abuse, the bullying, all these things that I’d gone through, disordered eating, and she was told in no uncertain terms, ‘No, that does not make a child think that they’re trans,’” Abernathy explains, noting that this occurred at “one of the most well-funded children’s hospitals in the nation.”

Abernathy was then put on testosterone at 14 years old, and then shortly after they were discussing surgery.

“I started testosterone in November of 2018, and by January, I was approved for surgery. It didn’t happen until June, but that was just because we wanted to wait until the summer between my eighth and ninth grade years,” she says.

Doctors told Abernathy and her parents that the only effective treatment for her “gender dysphoria” was “chemical and surgical intervention” and that if she did not go through with it, “the most likely outcome was suicide.”

“They didn’t tell me that it would permanently take away my ability to breastfeed. They didn’t tell me that the majority of kids who look to pursue this end up growing out of it,” she says. “There was a lot of things that I wasn’t told.”

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America doesn’t have a science problem. It has a trust problem.

The collapse of trust didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened because the people running our institutions — government agencies, public health bureaucracies, and elite media — chose fear over facts, power over principle, and silence over accountability.

Truth alone won’t restore trust. We need courage. We need accountability. And above all, we need to stop pretending that silence keeps the peace.

I’ve spent more than three decades in life sciences, investing in innovation and funding companies that bring real cures to market. Bureaucracy can slow progress. But during COVID-19, the damage went farther. It wasn’t just red tape. It was arrogance, censorship, and the collapse of debate inside institutions once devoted to transparency and truth.

We told Americans to “trust the experts,” then changed the story every few weeks. We locked down playgrounds while allowing political protests. We shut down small businesses while rewarding massive platforms. We punished skepticism, not misinformation. We arrested surfers, fired nurses, and drove policemen and military personnel out of their jobs for refusing a vaccine. Where were the “my body, my choice” voices then?

Now Americans don’t just question mandates — they question everything: the data, the motives, the science itself.

Who can blame them? Childhood vaccination rates are falling because public health failed. An entire generation lost precious developmental time in isolation. Families grieved alone. And the same bureaucrats behind those mandates persuaded us to blame COVID, when in fact it was their decisions that did much of the damage. No one has been questioned. No one has been punished. Not one county health official has been held accountable.

A recent Gallup poll showed trust in institutions like the CDC and FDA has collapsed by more than 30 points in just a few years. That trust won’t be restored by press conferences or new slogans. It will only be restored when real leaders tell the truth about what went wrong and take responsibility to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Dr. Scott Atlas put it plainly: The lockdowns weren’t the result of the virus. They were the result of decisions — decisions made by people who ignored known data, silenced dissent, and wielded authority like a weapon. And they got it wrong. Pretending otherwise only guarantees the disaster repeats.

So where do we start if we want to rebuild trust?

End the illusion of absolute authority. The CDC, NIH, and FDA must return to their proper role: advisory. They don’t make laws. They don’t issue mandates. They provide information — period.

Impose term limits on public health leadership. No more 30-year bureaucratic dynasties. Power without turnover hardens into ideology.

Ban conflicts of interest. No royalty payments to government scientists from the very companies they regulate. No revolving door between regulators and pharma.

Demand transparency. Every agency meeting, vote, and decision should be public and immediate. If they work for us, we should know what they’re saying.

These aren’t partisan talking points. They’re common-sense reforms. The stakes are too high to shrug and “move on.” Parents who lost a year of their children’s development, the elderly who died alone, the small business owners who lost everything — they deserve accountability. This isn’t about public policy. It’s about principle.

RELATED: No perp walks, no peace

Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images

And here’s the deeper truth: Fixing this mess isn’t just government’s job. It’s up to us — the entrepreneurs, innovators, parents, doctors, investors, and voters — to become stewards of truth. Not because we crave power, but because we believe in clarity. Because we still believe in the ideals America was built on.

I came to the United States at 15 after fleeing war in Beirut. I’ve seen what happens when fear and control override freedom and reason. I’ve spent my life betting on better — on ideas, on people, and on this country.

Truth alone won’t restore trust. We need courage. We need accountability. And above all, we need to stop pretending that silence keeps the peace.

It doesn’t. It only postpones the next disaster.

​Opinion & analysis, Covid-19, Tyranny, Trust the science, Trust the experts, Pandemic, Vax mandate, Vaccines, Moderna, Johnson and johnson shot, Mrna, Centers for disease control and prevention, Cdc, Lockdowns, Food and drug administration, Science, Fda, Children, Learning loss, National institutes of health, Nih, Polls, Gallup 

While federal immigration officials work around the clock to deport foreigners out of the United States these days, some law enforcement agents in Texas are scrambling to keep one Chinese national here after he allegedly stole proprietary cancer research with plans to take it back to his homeland.

Yunhai Li, a post-doctoral researcher, joined the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston in 2022. According to KTRK, Li claimed in a signed legal statement that he had been working on a vaccine to keep breast cancer from metastasizing.

‘There was a pretty good chance that he was going to get deported or leave the country, so we needed to file something.’

Li was in the U.S. on a research exchange scholar visa issued by the State Department. Moreover, much of his research was funded by federal entities like the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Health, and as a recipient of federal funding, Li signed documents promising to abide by confidentiality agreements and data storage and sharing restrictions, KTRK reported.

Toward the end of his research, Li uploaded about 90 GB of research data to his personal Google drive, his statement said, according to the outlet. After MD Anderson officials approached him about the uploaded data, he deleted it, offering proof that he had done so. However, according to KRIV, Li also allegedly uploaded the data to the Chinese server Baidu.

Li had also continued to receive funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and maintained his employment at the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University during his time in America without disclosing that information to MD Anderson, documents said, according to KRIV. The forms Li signed to receive federal U.S. funding make plain that such conflicts of interest are forbidden.

RELATED: University of Michigan now under fire after Chinese scholars allegedly smuggle bio-weapon

FreshSplash/Getty Images

On July 1, Li resigned from MD Anderson. Eight days later, he attempted to board a plane at Bush Airport, headed for China.

While he was at the airport, federal agents with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations examined his devices, where they discovered “unpublished research data and articles representing trade secrets, including material-restricted confidential research data, writings, drawings, and models,” according to documents cited by KRIV.

According to reports, Li did not seem to deny the allegations. Instead, he reportedly indicated to investigators that he is entitled to the data he allegedly intended to exfiltrate to China.

That data “is a product of my efforts over the last three years. I believe I have a right to possess and retain this data,” he wrote in the signed statement, according to KTRK. He also stated that he feared the data was “going to waste.”

RELATED: Chinese nationals on student visas allegedly ripped off elderly Americans in nasty scheme

spawns/Getty Images

For now, Li reportedly faces state charges of theft of trade secrets and tampering with a government record, though federal prosecutors are looking into his case as well. If convicted on the charge of theft of trade secrets alone, he could spend up to 10 years behind bars and pay a fine of up to $10,000.

“There was a pretty good chance that he was going to get deported or leave the country, so we needed to file something,” Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare told KRIV. “We needed to make sure that he was going to stay here, the information was going to stay here, and he was going to be held accountable.”

Li paid the $5,100 bail and bonded out of custody on Monday. He had to surrender his passport as a condition of his release.

Li’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment from KRIV.

‘We are constantly working to find ways to improve our screening and vetting processes.’

Li is not the only Chinese former MD Anderson researcher accused of attempting to steal sensitive data. Back in 2019, the hospital fired three Chinese employees on suspicion that they had attempted a similar data heist, KRIV reported.

With such a troubling track record regarding Chinese researchers, Blaze News wanted to know what steps MD Anderson has taken recently to vet foreign applicants more thoroughly and prevent similar problems in the future.

The hospital did not respond to our questions about vetting or whether any patient data had been compromised in connection with these cases, but it did provide the following statement: “As of July 1, 2025, Yunhai Li is no longer employed by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Institutional leaders are working with relevant authorities on this matter.”

A spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment on any particular case, but did suggest that under the Trump administration, visa applicants would “be screened and vetted to the maximum extent possible to ensure they will respect the terms of their admission to the United States.”

“The Trump administration is focused on protecting our nation and our citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process,” the spokesperson told Blaze News.

“We are constantly working to find ways to improve our screening and vetting processes and to support legitimate travel to the United States while protecting U.S. citizens.”

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Houston police said two males wearing face coverings, tactical vests, and badges displayed around their necks approached a residence in the 4000 block of Bellnole Drive around 11 p.m. last Friday.

Both males were armed with guns and told those inside the residence that they had an arrest warrant, police added.

‘They knocked on the wrong door.’

Those inside the home “became suspicious because they have a Ring camera, and the suspects were stating they had a warrant — but it’s just two people, and they’re masked up, and [there are] no police cars, no lights, or anything like that,” Lt. Khan told KRIV-TV.

With that, police said the two groups exchanged words, which led to an exchange of gunfire, and the two males wearing tactical gear — ages 28 and 36 — were struck by gunfire.

RELATED: Male posing as federal agent fires about 30 rounds from AR-15 rifle outside Texas sheriff’s office, sheriff says

Image source: Houston Police Department

The residents called 911 following the shooting, police said, but responding Houston Fire Department paramedics pronounced both males dead at the scene.

The identity of the deceased males is pending identification by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, police said.

While both residents are cooperating with the investigation, police said the fatal shooting will be referred to a Harris County grand jury.

Blaze News on Thursday asked an official in the Houston Police Department’s Office of Community Affairs what citizens should do if they encounter those who are impersonating police officers, and the official said people should “call 911” in the event that they are faced with “someone suspicious.” The official noted, “It’s as simple as that,” and that it’s in the interests of “everyone’s safety.”

A number of commenters under KRIV’s Facebook post about the deadly incident seemed decidedly behind the winners of the shoot-out:

“Homeowner of the year, BRAVO! You are the best!” one commenter declared.”They knocked on the wrong door,” another user surmised.”More of that needs to happen around here,” another commenter stated.”This is the best news,” another user wrote.

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Former Washington Post writer Taylor Lorenz — the blogger who doxxed Libs of TikTok in 2022, called breathing without a mask “raw dogging the air,” and expressed “joy” over UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s assassination — appears to have finally stumbled across a story of value.

Lorenz detailed in a piece for Wired magazine this week how a dark money group has launched a “secretive program aimed at bolstering Democratic messaging on the internet,” offering would-be propagandists up to $8,000 a month for their services but requiring in exchange the surrender of a significant amount of creative control as well as “extensive secrecy about disclosing their payments.”

‘You failed. You didn’t influence anyone. You made fools of yourself.’

Lorenz indicated that among those allegedly approached with contracts by Chorus, the apparent nonprofit arm of a liberal influencer marketing platform, was nonstraight activist Laurenzo; Eliza Orlins, a public defender who once competed on “The Amazing Race”; and one of the pro-abortion zealots behind the Women in America account on TikTok — three individuals who did not respond to Lorenz’s requests for comment.

Other influencers allegedly involved “in communication about the program” include: 2024 Democratic National Convention speaker and Gen Z influencer Olivia Julianna; Playboy executive turned podcaster Loren Piretra; leftist YouTuber David Pakman; and Sander Jennings, the brother of Jared Jennings — the boy called “Jazz” whose genital mutilation was promoted on reality television.

Chorus has reportedly boasted that its initial propagandist cohort has a collective audience of over 40 million followers.

Blaze News senior politics editor Christopher Bedford said Thursday on “The Mandate” that “this was designed to reach out to among the most unstable TikTokers you’ve ever seen — the kind of folks who were at the White House with the nine-inch nails talking about how everything is gay and how great Joe Biden is because everything is gay now. These are the people that they are trying to pay — and they were also trying to control the message.”

“My favorite part about the story is how incredibly incompetent this operation was,” said Bedford. “Reading through it, I’m thinking: Well, you failed. You didn’t influence anyone. You made fools of yourself.”

This initiative, the Chorus Creator Incubator Program, is funded by the second-largest super-PAC donor in 2020, the Sixteen Thirty Fund.

Politico indicated that the Sixteen Thirty Fund forked out $410 million in 2020 in an effort to torpedo President Donald Trump’s re-election and to help Democrats take control of the Senate. It has kept up pressure in the years since.

According to Influence Watch, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is not obligated to reveal its contributors, is managed by Arabella Advisors — a leftist, for-profit dark money group based in Washington, D.C., that is presently undergoing a messy breakup with the Gates Foundation.

The Sixteen Thirty Fund confirmed to the New York Post that it is serving Chorus as a “fiscal sponsor” and providing it with “operational and administrative support.”

The Chorus Creator Incubator Program was reportedly launched in July. The propagandists involved were notified that over 90 influencers would take part.

Some of those who apparently signed on told Wired that the “contract stipulated they’d be kicked out and essentially cut off financially if they even so much as acknowledged that they were part of the program.”

RELATED: Democrats want a new Joe Rogan — but their dogma won’t allow it

Blaze Media Illustration

Copies of the contract reviewed by Wired apparently confirm these claims, indicating that participants cannot disclose their relationship with Chorus or the Sixteen Thirty Fund and cannot disclose that they’re paid shills.

In addition to their discretion, program participants must allegedly clear all of their bookings with lawmakers and political leaders through Chorus.

On a Zoom call reviewed by Wired, Graham Wilson, a lawyer working with Chorus, allegedly told participants, “There are some real great advantages to … housing this program in a nonprofit.”

“It gives us the ability to raise money from donors. It also, with this structure, it avoids a lot of the public disclosure or public disclaimers — you know, ‘Paid for by blah blah blah blah’ — that you see on political ads,” Wilson allegedly said. “We don’t need to deal with any of that. Your names aren’t showing up on, like, reports filed with the FEC.”

‘They don’t know how to deal with bad press.’

Wilson did not respond to Wired’s request for comment, and the Federal Election Commission declined to comment.

Ellie Langford, the director of programming at Chorus, reportedly told liberal influencers on a Zoom call in June, “Our political systems haven’t been able to figure out a real solution, and I’ve been really excited to see you all treading the path forward. I deeply, deeply believe that the work you all are doing is what’s going to make the difference in supporting and frankly resuscitating our democracy.”

Bedford noted that this ham-fisted effort on the part of leftists to regain control of the public discourse made him realize that “in the last couple of decades, while the American right has been building an alternative media system, which has become extremely successful and really launched into cool mode around 2011, 2012, with Daily Caller, but then finally came into its own with the meme wars in 2016.”

“They’re 10, 20 years ahead of where Democrats are,” continued Bedford. “Democrats don’t know what to do if ABC and CBS and CNN lay off half their employees. That’s all they know. It’s their only game in town. They don’t know how to deal with bad press. They don’t know how to deal with new media — and they’re going to have to learn real quick.”

Bedford noted further that it’s clear from liberals’ desperation to find and anoint a Joe Rogan-caliber influencer that they’ve missed the point.

“They put politics before entertainment. ‘We need a liberal Joe Rogan.’ No, you don’t. You just need to convince Joe Rogan,” added Bedford.

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