Not A Super Announcement Trump pulls Isaacman nomination for space. Source: “NASA is f***ed” "NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode" without Isaacman. Eric Berger – May 31, 2025 5:22 pm | 178 Jared Isaacman during training at SpaceX before the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: SpaceX Jared Isaacman during training at SpaceX before the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: SpaceX Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more The Trump administration has confirmed that it is pulling the nomination of private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. First reported by Semafor, the decision appears to have been made because Isaacman was not politically loyal enough to the Trump Administration. "The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump’s bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars," Liz Huston, a White House Spokesperson, said in a statement released Saturday. "It's essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon." The US Senate Commerce Committee approved Issacman's nomination by a vote of 19 to 9 one month ago, advancing his candidacy to the floor of the US Senate, with unanimous support from Republicans in that April vote. Approval was anticipated after the Memorial Day holiday. But the tide started to turn against Isaacman late this past week, with the first rumblings of problems coming on Friday, May 30. Not MAGA enough On Saturday, far-right political activist Laura Loomer said on X, "Deep State operatives are trying to derail President Trump’s NASA Administrator pick Jared Isaacman before his Senate confirmation vote this week." This was the first public sign that Isaacman's candidacy was imperiled. So what happened? The waters of MAGA run murky, and the political machinations of the Trump administration are abstruse. However, the timing of Isaacman's derailment coincides with the recent departure of SpaceX founder Elon Musk from Washington. Musk had a central role in the Trump Administration during its first four months. In an interview on Tuesday, Musk told Ars that he has now "significantly" reduced his involvement in politics. Musk was a key factor behind Isaacman's nomination as NASA administrator, and with his backing, Isaacman was able to skip some of the party purity tests that have been applied to other Trump administration nominees. One mark against Isaacman is that he had recently donated money to Democrats. He also indicated opposition to some of the White House's proposed cuts to NASA's science budget. Musk's role in the government was highly controversial, winning him enemies both among opponents of Trump's "Make America Great Again" agenda as well as inside the administration. One source told Ars that, with Musk's exit, his opponents within the administration sought to punish him by killing Isaacman's nomination. The loss of Isaacman is almost certainly a blow to NASA, which faces substantial budget cuts. The Trump Administration's budget request for fiscal year 2026, released Friday, seeks $18.8 billion for the agency next year—a 24 percent cut from the agency's budget of $24.8 billion for FY 2025. Going out of business? Isaacman is generally well-liked in the space community and is known to care deeply about space exploration. Officials within the space agency—and the larger space community—hoped that having him as NASA's leader would help the agency restore some of these cuts. Now? "NASA is f---ed," one current leader in the agency told Ars on Saturday. "NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode without Jared there to innovate," a former senior NASA leader said. The Trump administration did not immediately name a new nominee, but two people told Ars that former US Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast may be near the top of the list. Now retired, Kwast has a distinguished record in the Air Force and is politically loyal to Trump and MAGA. However, his background seems to be far less oriented toward NASA's civil space mission and far more focused on seeing space as a battlefield—decidedly not an arena for cooperation and peaceful exploration. Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 178 Comments

Not A Super Announcement Trump pulls Isaacman nomination for space. Source: “NASA is f***ed” "NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode" without Isaacman. Eric Berger – May 31, 2025 5:22 pm | 59 Jared Isaacman during training at SpaceX before the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: SpaceX Jared Isaacman during training at SpaceX before the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: SpaceX Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more The Trump administration has confirmed that it is pulling the nomination of private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. First reported by Semafor, the decision appears to have been made because Isaacman was not politically loyal enough to the Trump Administration. "The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump’s bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars," Liz Huston, a White House Spokesperson, said in a statement released Saturday. "It's essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon." The US Senate Commerce Committee approved Issacman's nomination by a vote of 19 to 9 one month ago, advancing his candidacy to the floor of the US Senate, with unanimous support from Republicans in that April vote. Approval was anticipated after the Memorial Day Holiday. But the tide started to turn against Isaacman late this past week, with the first rumblings of problems coming on Friday, May 30. Not MAGA enough On Saturday, far-right political activist Laura Loomer said on X, "Deep State operatives are trying to derail President Trump’s NASA Administrator pick Jared Isaacman before his Senate confirmation vote this week." This was the first public sign that Isaacman's candidacy was imperiled. So what happened? The waters of MAGA run murky, and the political machinations of the Trump administration are abstruse. However, the timing of Isaacman's derailment coincides with the recent departure of SpaceX founder Elon Musk from Washington. Musk had a central role in the Trump Administration during its first four months. In an interview on Tuesday, Musk told Ars that he has now "significantly" reduced his involvement in politics. Musk was a key factor behind Isaacman's nomination as NASA administrator, and with his backing, Isaacman was able to skip some of the party purity tests that have been applied to other Trump administration nominees. One mark against Isaacman is that he had recently donated money to Democrats. He also indicated opposition to some of the White House's proposed cuts to NASA's science budget. Musk's role in the government was highly controversial, winning him enemies both among opponents of Trump's "Make America Great Again" agenda as well as inside the administration. One source told Ars that, with Musk's exit, his opponents within the administration sought to punish him by killing Isaacman's nomination. The loss of Isaacman is almost certainly a blow to NASA, which faces substantial budget cuts. The Trump Administration's budget request for fiscal year 2026, released Friday, seeks $18.8 billion for the agency next year—a 24 percent cut from the agency's budget of $24.8 billion for FY 2025. Going out of business? Isaacman is generally well-liked in the space community and is known to care deeply about space exploration. Officials within the space agency—and the larger space community—hoped that having him as NASA's leader would help the agency restore some of these cuts. Now? "NASA is f---ed," one current leader in the agency told Ars on Saturday. "NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode without Jared there to innovate," a former senior NASA leader said. The Trump administration did not immediately name a new nominee, but two people told Ars that former US Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast may be near the top of the list. Now retired, Kwast has a distinguished record in the Air Force and is politically loyal to Trump and MAGA. However, his background seems to be far less oriented toward NASA's civil space mission and far more focused on seeing space as a battlefield—decidedly not an arena for cooperation and peaceful exploration. Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 59 Comments

“People agree with what he’s trying to do. But some people just need a villain,” a source tells WIRED.

Don't Feel Like Fighting? Check Out These Other Terrific PC Games Brawlhalla Brawlhalla (for PC) 3.5 Good The Blue Mammoth Games-developed Brawlhalla is a free-to-play fighting game—available on PC, console, and mobile—that builds upon Smash's wild, character-focused gameplay by introducing unlimited wall-jumps and various other movement options that facilitate fun combat.The expanding character roster also features the likes of G.I. Joe's Snake Eyes, WWE's Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Tomb Raider's Lara Croft, and Street Fighter’s Chun-Li. Many of these licensed fighters require spending cash, but that's fine; it's worth spending $20 for all current and future characters, because this platform-fighter is just that exciting. Capcom Fighting Collection 2 Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (for PC) 4.0 Excellent Capcom continues resurrecting its classic titles for modern audiences with Capcom Fighting Collection 2. This compilation features cool deep cuts not found in previous entries, including Power Stone and Project Justice. Along with the nostalgia, you'll enjoy new upgrades like online multiplayer (but no crossplay) and revamped display options. If you've had your fill of Street Fighter, this is a great way to broaden your fighting game horizons. Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (for PC) review Dead or Alive 6 Dead or Alive 6 (for PC) 3.5 Good Dead or Alive 6, much like its immediate predecessor, is one part fighting game, one part fashion show, and one part schlocky action movie. Individually, each of the game's widely differing elements might not stand up to scrutiny. After all, DOA 6 isn't the best fighter, doesn't offer the deepest character customization, and doesn't quite reach the Tekken series' level of story insanity.Still, Dead or Alive 6 is a fun and surprisingly strategic PC game that offers enough freshness to warrant playing with its new Break Blow and Break Hold tools. Plus, the game's familiar Triangle System and Danger Zones are highly entertaining, too. Divekick Divekick (for PC) 3.5 Good Iron Galaxy Studios' Divekick is the most hipster fighting game ever created. It's the product of the indie scene that mercilessly parodies fighting games and their die-hard community, yet demands that you be part of the underground circle to fully get all of the references and in-jokes.It's an odd game, but an interesting one if you open your mind to the insane concept of a two-button fighter based entirely on the idea of jumping and kicking. And 20-second rounds. And one-hit kills. And a line of scrimmage. Yes, Divekick is a fighting game freak show, but one worth checking out. Dragon Ball FighterZ Dragon Ball FighterZ (for PC) 4.0 Excellent Beside Fist of the Northstar and Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure, there are few anime properties that are as intrinsically suited to the fighting-game treatment as the Dragon Ball series. Spanning multiple series, movies, and generations of characters, Akira Toriyama's manga-turned-anime-turned-game series is all about buff monkey men, humans, aliens, and androids trading blows in actual earth-shattering battles.The series' latest video game adaptation, Dragon Ball FighterZ, ditches the Xenoverse games' arena-brawling model in favor of 3-vs.-3, tag-team fighting on a 2D plane. The gameplay shift is just one of the many reasons Dragon Ball FighterZ is being held aloft as one of 2018's notable titles. Its beautiful design, intense combat, and accessible control scheme add up to a game that anyone can jump into for Super Saiyan thrills.Plus, you can kick Cell through a mountain. Dragon Ball FighterZ (for PC) review Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (for PC) 4.0 Excellent The King of Fighters series is great, but Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves resurrects the SNK fighter that started it all. Familiar faces like Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui battle real-life guest characters like DJ Salavatore Gannaci and soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo gather for this excellent take on fundamental, 2D fisticuffs. Rich mechanics add depth to both offensive and defensive play, while comic book-inspired graphics give brawls a distinct visual identity. Crossplay multiplayer shines with rollback netcode. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (for PC) review Garou: Mark of the Wolves Garou: Mark of the Wolves (for PC) 4.5 Excellent Upon its 1999 release, Garou: Mark of the Wolves—a surprisingly deep and visually stunning entry in the long-running Fatal Fury series—was hailed as SNK's wondrous response to Capcom's Street Fighter III. Nearly 20 years later, SNK has finally given the fighting game the proper PC treatment by releasing it with numerous additional graphics options, leaderboards, and rollback, online versus play.Despite removing and downplaying some series-specific elements, Garou doesn't feel any less of a Fatal Fury game, however. It's set in the Southtown, and it features multiple fighters with classic Fatal Fury lineages, whether it's blood relationships to, or martial-arts tutelage from, older characters. Kim Kaphwan isn't in the game, for example, but his sons continue his legacy of swift, combo-heavy tae kwon do kicks.The result is an excellent game that boasts beautiful animation, Just Defend parries, and the strategic T.O.P. system that delivers increased attack damage, limited health regeneration, faster super-meter build up, and an exclusive special attack when your activate the mode. Guilty Gear Strive Guilty Gear Strive (for PC) 4.0 Excellent The Guilty Gear series reigns as the king of anime-style fighting games due to its gorgeous art style, and a rich, demanding, and lighting-quick combat system. Unfortunately, its oceanic depth and mountainous skill ceiling proved inaccessible to the causal player—until now. With Strive, developer Arc System Works streamlines the series’ unique combat mechanics to make them more newcomer-friendly, while retaining the older games' creative richness. Strive comes with fewer extra modes than its predecessors, but there is a lot to love in this PC game, including astounding visuals, impressive character play styles, and snappy, lag-free online play courtesy of top-tier, rollback netcode. Strive is an approachable series entry that shakes up the Guilty Gear formula in the best ways possible. Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- (for PC) 3.5 Good Guilty Gear is a niche series within a niche genre, one that's enjoyed a cult following since its first appearance in 1998. With Xrd -SIGN-, developer Arc System Works ditches the series' 2D sprites in favor of 3D cel-shaded graphics in an attempt to expand its audience. Likewise, series creator Daisuke Ishiwatari sought a more approachable play style that maintains the depth and high skill ceiling that long-time Guilty Gear fans love.Still, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- keeps the series familiar fighting action (Roman Cancels, Bursts, and Dusts) that enables creative offensive and defensive play. Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- (for PC) review Killer Instinct Killer Instinct (for PC) 4.0 Excellent When Killer Instinct debuted for Windows 10 in March 2016, it represented the latest chapter in the continued PC fighting game renaissance. With its arrival, Microsoft's one-on-one game of fisticuffs joined the likes of Guilty Gear, The King of Fighters, Street Fighter, and other high-profile series that now grace the personal computer.Killer Instinct has a combo-heavy engine that caters to both novices and pros, incredibly detailed graphics that boast ridiculous particle effects (everything explodes!), and an over-the-top, NBA Jam-like announcer who screams your accomplishments ("C-c-c-combo Breaker!") at the top of his lungs.Killer Instinct is part of Microsoft's Play Anywhere initiative. So, if you buy Killer Instinct from the Microsoft Store, you'll also be able to play it on Xbox One at no additional cost. It has cross-platform play with Xbox One, too, thus expanding the online player base. There's a Steam version, too. Even better, the game's ridiculously good netcode ensures smooth play across the globe. Killer Instinct (for PC) review The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match Final Edition The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match Final Edition (for PC) 5.0 Outstanding The King of Fighters '98—with its hops, rolls, blowback attacks, and meter-filling Advance and Extra modes—is one of the best fighting games ever made, so it's no surprise that developer SNK has returned to the title many times since the game's original release.In 2008, SNK celebrated the game's tenth anniversary by porting the team-based fighter to the PlayStation 2 as The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match, a game loaded with extra characters (including the almighty '96 Boss Team!), stages, moves, and gameplay modes. Now, a tweaked Ultimate Match is available for purchase under the title The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match Final Edition.This version adds numerous graphics options and good, but not great, online connectivity that lets you battle other KOF fans around the globe in 3-vs.-3 action. The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match Final Edition (for PC) review The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match (for PC) 4.0 Excellent Like The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match Final Edition, The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match is a dream match that eschews a storyline so that developer SNK could include as many characters as possible—even some that are canonically dead, like crime boss Geese Howard. As a result, Unlimited Match boasts one of the largest fighting game rosters of all time, with a 66-character strong lineup.King of Fighters 2002 Ultimate Match continues the series tradition of excellent combat. Although it lacks KOF '98 UMFE's three radically different fight mechanics (Advanced, Extra, and Ultimate), Unlimited Match has a lone system that resembles Advanced Mode. This fighting style gives you plenty of offensive (Dash, Run, Hops, Super Jumps) and defensive (Guard Cancel Strike, Guard Cancel Roll Throw) options for setting up or evading traps. Excellent rollback netcode lets you play people around the world without hiccup. The King of Fighters XIII: Steam Edition The King of Fighters XIII: Steam Edition (for PC) 4.0 Excellent The King of Fighters XIII: Steam Edition brings SNK's incredibly dense, 3-vs.-3, team-based fighter to the PC via Valve's video game marketplace. It's an all-around excellent fighting game, and one of the best in SNK's rich catalog.If you've rumbled with friends and foes in the version that appeared on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, you'll feel right at home here: The intricate combat mechanics, meter management, and the best sprite-based graphics ever seen in a fighting game are brought over successfully in this Steam port.Even better, The King of Fighters XIII: Steam Edition contains all the console DLC and the King of Fighters XIII: Climax arcade features. Similar to The King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match Final Edition, The King of Fighters XIII: Steam Edition has decent online play, but you can expect some hiccups. The King of Fighters XIII: Steam Edition (for PC) review The Last Blade The Last Blade (for PC) 4.0 Excellent SNK put weapons-based, 2D fighting on the map with 1993's delightful Samurai Shodown, but the developer went on to refine the idea of sword-based combat four years later in a somewhat lesser-known Neo Geo title: The Last Blade.Released to the Steam platform with several contemporary bells and whistles, The Last Blade boasts excellent swordplay, a dozen exquisitely designed characters, and a gorgeous anime- and manga-style presentation that make its 19th-century Japanese setting one of the most beautiful in fighting-game history. Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite (for PC) 3.5 Good Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite has taken its fair share of flack since its reveal, and the venom is not at all unwarranted. The initial trailer for the tag-team fighting game featured dull, washed-out graphics, and Capcom highlighted the new novice-friendly, auto-combo options that are designed to help casuals bust out cool-looking moves in an otherwise hardcore genre. As a result, fight fans were highly skeptical of the game, as was I.Fortunately, my Infinite sentiments changed upon logging several hours with the game. The Infinity Stone hook and the move to 2-vs.-2, tag team action make Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite an incredibly fun PC game to play in both casual and hardcore sessions.Still, Infinite has presentation and MCU-focused roster issues that prevent it from rising to the very top of the fighting game elite. Mortal Kombat XL Mortal Kombat XL (for PC) 4.0 Excellent When NetherRealm Studios released the blood-drenched Mortal Kombat X to consoles in 2015, the one-on-one fighting game continued to evolve via free and paid updates that added characters, balanced the roster, and improved online play. However, the High Voltage Studios-ported PC version of the game received zero post-launch support, much to the dismay of hardcore Mortal Kombat fans.Thankfully, that changed with the Mortal Kombat XL update, a version of MKX that finally gives PC gamers all the extras that console-based fight fans have enjoyed for some time now. I dislike the idea of paying more money for PC content released long after the console version, but it's hard not to love the additions, which include even more fighters, stages, costumes, and gore.Paid DLC added plenty of guest fighters, which has becoming commonplace in the fighting game circle. They include the Predator and Friday the 13th's Jason Vorhees. The King of Fighters XV The King of Fighters XV (for PC) 4.0 Excellent Developer SNK took KOF XIV's core, revamped the MAX meter, added the Shatterstrike counter system, and gave the character models an eye-catching redesign to create one of the best fighting games in recent history. KOF XV features an updated fighting engine that facilitates fast-paced, creative combat, and near-flawless rollback netcode that will keep you knuckling up with online rivals for hours on end.The game's dense with options. You can play the narrative-driven Story mode, use DJ Station to listen to more that 300 music tracks culled from SNK's rich, decades-long game library (many compositions unlock as you play Arcade mode), engage in casual and ranked online battles, view leaderboards, and check out match replays. In a community-fostering move, SNK included an esports-friendly tournament mode tailor-made for locals and majors like Evo. You can save 15 custom teams, set up brackets and rulesets, and register up to 32 entrants. It's a great touch. In addition, KOF XV lets you join online lobbies to play against others or simply spectate. Mortal Kombat 11 Mortal Kombat 11 (for PC) 4.5 Excellent Mortal Kombat 11 is far more than the guts and gore titles on which the series built its fame. The narrative sequel to Mortal Kombat X, Mortal Kombat 11 uses time travel to pit characters against their rivals in the past in order to alter the present. Whatever.Mortal Kombat 11 continues the series tradition of chop-socky action and otherworldly mysticism to lay the foundation for military operatives, ninjas, gods, and monsters to punch each other squarely in the face. With its character customization, HDR10 support, smooth animations, and new offensive and defensive meters, MK11 is the best Mortal Kombat game to date. Mortal Kombat 11 (for PC) review Samurai Shodown Samurai Shodown (for PC) 3.5 Good Clashing swords, blood spurts, and tense, measured play define Samurai Shodown, SNK's beloved weapons-based fighting game series. This series refresh, the simply named Samurai Shodown, carries those elements to PC after the game first appeared on console. If you've waited this long in hopes that Samurai Shodown would add many PC-exclusive extras, you may be disappointed; this is largely the same game that appeared elsewhere. Still, Samurai Shodown's unique, defense-orientated gameplay makes it a fighting game to check out for sword-swinging, blood-letting action. Prep for lengthy load times, though. Samurai Shodown Neo Geo Collection Samurai Shodown Neo Geo Collection (for PC) 4.0 Excellent Samurai Shodown Neo Geo Collection, SNK and Digital Eclipse's follow up to the delightful SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, contains all the SamSho games that appeared on the original Neo Geo, plus production art, SNK staff interviews, and a true surprise—an unreleased title that only briefly saw a location test. Overall, Samurai Shodown Neo Geo Collection is a wonderful piece of playable history, with the only blight against the PC game being its mediocre online components. Skullgirls 2nd Encore Skullgirls 2nd Encore (for PC) 4.5 Excellent Skullgirls 2nd Encore, the update to Reverge Labs's critically acclaimed original game, takes cues from many highly regarded fighting titles and blends it with the series' unique, cartoony, art deco-influenced visual style.However, Skullgirls 2nd Encore's graphics aren't all that separate it from the competition. The indie fighter boasts a Capcom vs. SNK-style ratio system that lets you select up to three characters to battle up to three rival characters, as well as a Marvel vs. Capcom-style assist system. The fighter also has a built-in system that automatically stops infinites, those annoying and abusive combos that never end. SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium (for PC) 4.5 Excellent With Match of the Millennium's rerelease, the secret best fighting game in the SNK vs. Capcom crossover series finds a new audience. Featuring an 18-character default roster (Athena, Chun-Li, Dan, Felicia, Guile, Haohmaru, Iori, Ken, Kyo, Leona, Mai, Morrigan, Nakoruru, Ryo, Ryu, Sakura, Terry, and Zangief), and three deep groove systems that replicate beloved the companies' beloved fighting game engines, SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium sees two fighting game universes collide in marvelous fashion.That would be more than enough variety, but Match of the Millennium offers additional goodies. It features standard Sparring, Survival, and Time Attack fighting modes. Olympics, however, is the most intriguing mode, as it lets you indulge in several non-fighting game minigames. For example, you can blast Metal Slug's Mars People in a first-person shooting mode or guide Ghost 'N Goblins' Arthur across pits to snatch up treasure. The Versus points that you earn here unlock extra super moves for the default and secret characters. These contests have the depth of early mobile phone games, but they're a nice diversion from the standard fighting game action.Match of the Millennium is a genuinely entertaining and rich fighting game that combines challenge and strategy with a hefty helping of lighthearted humor. SoulCalibur VI SoulCalibur VI (for PC) 4.0 Excellent The weapons-based combat series has seen its ups and downs over the years, but with SoulCalibur VI, developer Bandai Namco has taken what's worked in the past—swift, strategic combat and robust character customization—and paired it with the new Reversal Edge and Soul Charge battle mechanics to create an engaging PC fighting game that'll shine in all sorts of battles, whether they're between buddies or on big esports stages like Evo.Combat is crisp and rewarding, with a universal control scheme that makes it a breeze to pick up a new character. Each fighter has a horizontal attack, vertical attack, kick, block, parry, sidestep, guard-crushing Break Attack, and Critical Edge super attack. This control scheme will feel familiar to anyone who's played recent SoulCalibur titles, and it leads to some tense combat moments as you attack and defend. Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection (for PC) 4.0 Excellent Film aficionados rely on The Criterion Collection to take vital classic and contemporary movies and present them in thoughtful, information-filled packages for modern audiences. Until very recently, the 40-year old video game industry lacked its own Criterion Collection, letting important pop culture contributions slip into oblivion due to incompatible hardware and software formats, expired licenses, and plain neglect. Thankfully, the games preservation experts at Digital Eclipse have taken up the task, blessing gamers with titles that celebrate classic titles via accurate emulation and a bounty of production-related extras and modern touches. The company's first foray into the fighting game genre is Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection.This collection doesn't include Street Fighter: The Movie, the Street Fighter EX titles, or X-Men vs. Street Fighter, but you will find all the core arcade releases. The lineup includes Street Fighter (1987), Street Fighter II (1991), Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (1992), Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting (1992), Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (1993) Super Street Fighter II Turbo (1994), Street Fighter Alpha (1995), Street Fighter Alpha 2 (1996), Street Fighter III: New Generation (1997), Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact Giant Attack (1997), Street Fighter Alpha 3 (1998), and Street Fighter III 3rd Strike: Fight For The Future (1999).Even better, you don't just get the games. This collection includes a sprite/animation view, design documents, a historical timeline, and a jukebox. In short, Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is a love letter to one of the most important video game franchises of all time. Street Fighter V: Champion Edition Street Fighter V: Champion Edition (for PC) 3.5 Good In February 2016, Street Fighter V arrived on PC with many flaws that detracted from the stellar gameplay, including awful server instability, no true single-player mode, and a surprisingly limited multiplayer Battle Lounge. However, over the course of the last few years, developer Capcom released several updates that addressed (most of) those issues while also adding new stages and playable characters.Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, with its fresh and returning characters, new fight systems (like the cool V-Skills and V-Triggers mechanics), interactive stages, Cinematic Story Mode, and cross-platform play with PlayStation 4 owners, finally makes the one-on-one fighting game a title to pick up even for gamers who don't have Evo dreams. Street Fighter V: Champion Edition (for PC) review Street Fighter 6 Street Fighter 6 (for PC) 5.0 Outstanding Following Street Fighter V's lukewarm reception, Capcom had much to prove with Street Fighter 6. Thankfully, the developer not only righted the previous title's wrongs, but exceeded expectations by including nearly everything that fans would want in a contemporary fighting game.The title's powered by the new Drive Gauge, a meter that's full and ready for action at the beginning of each round. With the Drive Gauge, you can unleash the Drive Impact, Drive Parry, Drive Reversal, Drive Rush, and Overdrive moves (read our review for a breakdown of each one). It, along with the Dynamic and Modern control schemes, gives you more combat flexibility than any previous Street Fighter game. The result is one of the best fighters ever crafted, one that enables hype-fueled moments in casual and competitive play. Street Fighter 6 (for PC) review Tekken 7 Tekken 7 (for PC) 4.5 Excellent Tekken 7, like the main-line Tekken games that came before it, is a tale of fathers and sons attempting to murder each other to purge the Mishima clan of the Devil Gene, a magical bit of DNA that transforms certain people into hell spawn.The excellent combat accentuates the narrative ridiculousness. Like its predecessors, Tekken 7 is a fighting game that features simple, limb-mapped controls, massive character move sets, and numerous juggles that let you keep a combo flowing, if you're skilled enough to input the correct move at the right moment. With Tekken 7, the series receives super moves (Rage Arts) and enhanced, special attacks that can blow through an opponent's attack (Power Crush).Tekken 7 is an incredibly tense game of jabs, feints, and sidesteps, because any hit may lead to a long combo sting. Factor in characters with move sets that emulate real martial arts, interactive stages that let you knock people through floors and walls, and terrific slowdown effects that happen when both fighters' health bars are in the red and they perform close-quarter melee attacks, and you have a fighting game that's essentially an interactive martial arts flick. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (for PC) 3.5 Good Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 pits Marvel's superheroes against Capcom's video game characters in a frantic 3-vs.-3, tag team brawl. The 48-character headcount is impressive, but it's the individual characters and visual aesthetic that truly make the game shine (unlike its Infinite sequel).Marvel's side has several popular and obscure characters, including Captain America, Iron Man, Iron Fist, and She-Hulk, and Spider-Man. Capcom's side mainly comprises characters from the company's fighting and action games, including Final Fight's Mike Haggar and Street Fighter's Ryu. The comic book-style graphics, with their bright colors and heavy black lines, gives Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 an eye-popping look.In terms of gameplay, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 builds upon its Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds predecessor by including a three-button control scheme, the momentum-changing X-Factor mechanic, and retooled aerial combat. Ultra Street Fighter IV Ultra Street Fighter IV (for PC) 4.5 Excellent Ultra Street Fighter IV marks Capcom's fourth version of Street Fighter IV and the third version available on the Steam platform. Like vanilla Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV, Ultra's combat is centered on Focus Attacks, a move that lets your character tank a blow and unleash a counterattack.This final iteration adds five new characters (Decapre, Elena, Hugo, Poison, and Rolento), six new stages, a YouTube upload option, Edition Select (which lets you pick different versions of characters, based on their past Street Fighter IV iterations), and Double Ultra (which makes a character's Ultra Combos available simultaneously, in exchange for reduced damage).It's Street Fighter IV's best and meatiest update, though some balance issues prove a bit irritating in play. Still, Ultra Street Fighter IV is an excellent, competitive one-on-one fighting game.

May 22, 20255 min readDisaster-Struck States Waiting for Weeks for Trump’s Sign-Off on FEMA AidStates and cities struck by deadly tornadoes and floods are begging the Trump administration for disaster aidBy Thomas Frank & E&E News A man is comforted by a family friend while cleaning up the debris of his house on May 18, 2025 in the community of Sunshine Hills outside of London, Kentucky. A tornado struck the neighborhood of Sunshine Hills just after midnight on May 17, 2025 in London, Kentucky. Michael Swensen/Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | Public officials have started pleading with the Trump administration for help in recovering from deadly disasters as President Donald Trump triggers frustration in states struck by tornadoes, floods and storms by taking no action on requests for aid.Trump has left states, counties and tribes in limbo as he delays making decisions on formal requests for millions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding. Some areas that are still reeling from extreme weather are unable to start cleanup.“We’re at a standstill and waiting on a declaration from FEMA,” said Royce McKee, emergency management director in Walthall County, Mississippi, which was hit by tornadoes in mid-March.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The county of 13,000 people can’t afford to clean up acres of debris, McKee said, and is waiting for Trump to act on a disaster request that was submitted by Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, on April 1 after the tornadoes killed seven people, destroyed or damaged 671 homes, and caused $18.2 million in public damage.“I’m disappointed, especially for the people that lost their houses,” McKee said.Trump himself assailed FEMA in January for being “very slow.”The frustration over Trump’s handling of disasters is the latest upheaval involving FEMA. Trump recently canceled two FEMA grant programs that gave states billions of dollars a year to pay for protective measures against disasters. The move drew protests from Republican and Democratic lawmakers.On May 8, Trump fired FEMA leader Cameron Hamilton and replaced him with David Richardson, a former Marine Corps officer who has no experience in emergency management.At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, pleaded with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to push Trump to approve three disaster requests that Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, had sent to Trump beginning April 2.“We are desperate for assistance in Missouri,” Hawley said as Noem pledged to help. Her department oversees FEMA.St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer, whose city was badly damaged by tornadoes earlier this week, told MSNBC: “What we need right now is federal assistance. This is where FEMA and the federal government have got to come in and help communities. Our city can’t shoulder this alone.”U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press on January 24, 2025 as he prepares to travel to North Carolina, California, Nevada and Florida over the weekend.Kent Nishimura/Getty ImagesTrump has not acted on 17 disaster requests, a high number for this time of year, according to a FEMA daily report released Wednesday. On the same date eight years ago, during Trump’s first presidency, only three disaster requests were awaiting presidential action, the FEMA report from May 21, 2017, shows.Eleven of the 17 pending disaster requests were sent to Trump more than a month ago.“This looks to me like, until FEMA’s role is clarified, then we’re just going to sit on it,” said a former senior FEMA official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.Trump has indicated that he wants to shrink the agency, which distributes about $45 billion in disaster aid a year, helps with as many as 100 disasters at a time and, he said, “has been a very big disappointment.”“It’s very bureaucratic and very slow,” Trump said in January during a visit to disaster-stricken western North Carolina.The Trump administration has made no announcements about how it is handling requests for disaster aid, leaving governors, local officials and individuals uncertain about what to expect.“A disaster survivor that’s waiting for relief — that’s the hard part about this,” the former FEMA official said.In a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the administration wants state and local governments “to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes, making response less urgent and recovery less prolonged.”Trump handles disaster requests “with great care and consideration, ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters,” Jackson said.'Death and destruction'Despite the absence of an announced policy change, Trump’s actions on a handful of disasters indicate that he is making it harder for states to receive FEMA aid for cleanup and rebuilding.There is no indication of partisan considerations in Trump’s actions. Only three of the 17 pending disaster requests came from Democratic governors. Trump made national headlines in April when he denied a request by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican who was the White House press secretary during his first presidency.The denial of Sanders’ request for aid to clean up debris and repair electric cooperatives after a tornado outbreak in mid-March exemplifies Trump’s new direction. Sanders calculated that the tornadoes caused $11.6 million in public damage, which is more than enough to qualify for FEMA aid.Under long-standing FEMA policy, the agency sets a population-based damage threshold that states must exceed in order to get money for cleanup and rebuilding. In Arkansas, the threshold is slightly more than $5.8 million — and the state’s damage was twice that amount.Sanders appealed the denial, but Trump again rejected her request for repair money, although he did agree to help 249 households pay for temporary housing and minor home repairs with FEMA aid. The federal funding will amount to about $1 million.Trump took the same action on aid requests from West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrissey, a Republican, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, after flooding struck their states in February and April, respectively. In both cases, Trump approved money for households and rejected their funding requests for public rebuilding.When Trump rejected Washington state’s April request for aid to help rebuild public infrastructure following a November flood, Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, noted that the damage easily exceeded the threshold to qualify for federal money.“There are very clear criteria to qualify for these emergency relief funds. Washington’s application met all of them,” Ferguson said after Trump’s denial. Communities “have been waiting for months” for federal aid, “and this decision will cause further delay.”On Tuesday, Beshear sent Trump a new disaster request after tornadoes killed 19 Kentucky residents and caused extensive property damage. Beshear is seeking an “expedited major disaster” declaration, which presidents typically approve in a day or two.“This tornado event is devastating. There’s no other way to describe the death and destruction this has brought to the community,” Beshear said at a news briefing Tuesday.Although the request did not calculate the cost of the damage, Kentucky Division of Emergency Management Director Eric Gibson said Tuesday, “We met a number that is clearly easy for anyone to see that this disaster needs some federal assistance.”Beshear said Trump called him Sunday after the outbreak and "pledged to be there for the people of Kentucky."Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

Elon Musk's well-documented drug use made him an easy target for Russian secret service agents, former FBI agent Johnathan Buma told German television broadcaster ZDF during a recently aired documentary.Buma said there was evidence that both he and fellow billionaire Peter Thiel were targeted by Russian operatives."Musk's susceptibility to promiscuous women and drug use, in particular ketamine, and his gravitation towards club life... would have been seen by Russian intelligence service as an entry point for an operative to be sent in after studying their psychological profile and find a way to bump into them, and quickly brought in to their inner circle," Buma told ZDF."I'm not allowed to discuss the details of exactly how we obtained this information," he added. "But there's a vast amount of evidence to support this fact."Buma also corroborated the Wall Street Journal's reporting last year, which found that Musk was in frequent contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin.The news comes after Musk made a notable shift in 2022 after supplying Ukraine with thousands of SpaceX Starlink terminals. However, not long after, the mercurial CEO became wary of the additional costs his space firm was shouldering, arguing it was "unreasonable" for the company to keep supporting the growing data usage.He reportedly met with Putin several times thereafter, something Musk has since denied.Biographer Walter Isaacson's 2023 Musk biography also revealed that he had intentionally hamstrung a Ukrainian attack on Russia's naval fleet near the Crimean coast.Meanwhile, Musk's ample medicinal and recreational use of ketamine has drawn plenty of attention. Earlier this year, The Atlantic reported that the drug could easily allow anybody to feel like they're in charge of the whole world.Psychopharmacology researcher Celia Morgan told the magazine at the time that those who frequently use ketamine can have "profound" short- and long-term memory issues and were "distinctly dissociated in their day-to-day existence."In other words, it could provide Russian agents with a perfect opportunity to get closer to Musk, as Buma suggests.It's a particularly sensitive subject. Buma was arrested shortly after his interview with ZDF in March. His passport was confiscated and was temporarily released on bail.To Buma, it's the "greatest failing" of the United States' counterespionage efforts.Despite his popularity dropping off a cliff due to his embrace of far-right extremist ideals and his work for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Musk maintains plenty of influence in Washington, DC.Earlier this month, he traveled to the Middle East alongside president Donald Trump, meeting Qatari officials and dozens of CEOs.The former FBI agent's comments leave plenty of questions unanswered. Does Putin's spy agency have dirt on the mercurial CEO? Could they be blackmailing him?Put simply, could Musk really be compromised?Considering the stakes, it's unlikely we'll ever get any clear-cut answers. But given his penchant for partying and using mind-altering drugs, he's certainly not the most difficult target to get close to for foreign operatives.More on Musk: Elon Musk’s AI Just Went ThereShare This Article

If the upcoming Lilo & Stitch live-action remake has you wanting to revisit the series, but you've already seen the original animated movie and its TV series spinoffs enough times, you might want to check out the official Lilo & Stitch manga series where Stitch winds up in feudal Japan and befriends and brutal samurai warlord. Yes, it's a real thing, and you can grab the entire series with the Stitch and the Samurai: The Complete Collection, which is on sale for $20.45 (was $22) at Amazon. Stitch and the Samurai manga $20.45 (was $22) Stitch and the Samurai is an official manga series by Hiroto Wada set in an alternate plotline where Stitch crash-lands in Sengoku-era Japan instead of modern-day Hawaii. The warlord Lord Yamato discovers Stitch and believes him to be a "blue tanuki" he can deploy in battle--only for the cute alien to slowly soften the samurai's stoic disposition. The full series is now available in a single 564-page hardcover omnibus, Stitch and the Samurai: The Complete Collection, for $20.45 (was $22). The series was previously published in three separate volumes, which are also available. Buying the paperback volumes separately is more expensive than the omnibus version, but their smaller format makes them much easier on your hands. Stitch and the Samurai: The Complete Collection Stitch and the Samurai Volumes 1--3 Disney Manga featuring Stitch Surprisingly, Stitch and the Samurai isn't the only Lilo and Stitch manga. The Stitch manga, illustrated by Yumi Tsukurino, sees the adorable superweapon travel to a Japanese island near Okinawa, where he befriends a young girl named Yuna who excels at karate, and wacky hijinks ensue. You can pick up the full series in a 352-page omnibus collection for just $12 (was $15). The two original separate volumes are also available for purchase. The series was followed up by two sequels, Best Friends Forever and the upcoming Best Food Forever. There's also the Disney manga series Magical Dance, which features Stitch and a few other characters from the House of Mouse helping aspiring performer Rin to realize her dream of becoming a dancer.More Lilo & Stitch MangaStitch! The Manga Collection -- $12 ($15)Stitch! Volume 1 -- $9.68 ($11)Stitch! Volume 2 -- $11Stitch! Best Friends Forever -- $10.22 ($11)Stitch! Best Food Forever -- $13 | Releases October 21Disney Manga: Magical Dance Volume 1 -- $11 Disney Manga: Stitch! The Manga Collection See More Lilo and Stich Manga Lilo and Stitch graphic novels Over in the US, there have been quite a few Stitch graphic novels published as well. Last year saw the release of a new adventure set after the first film, written by one of the best talents to ever work on Marvel's Incredible Hulk, Greg Pak, and illustrated in vivid detail by Giulia Giacomino. This is a nice 104-page graphic novel for kids that you can pick up for $11.18 (was $13) and it follows Stitch as he takes on evil aliens and giant robots powered by his own DNA. The second volume is also out soon on July 8, and this storyline sees Lilo recruited by the Galactic Federation to be their go-to expert for animal control. Lilo and Stitch: O'Hana Volume 1 Lilo and Stitch: O'Hana Volume 2 Agent Stitch books On the prose side, there are also the kid-friendly books in the Agent Stitch book series. Written by Steve Behling and featuring illustrations by Arianna Rhea, these books revolve around Stitch investigating paranormal activities on Earth on behalf of the Galactic Federation. The first book sees Stitch travel to Paris to uncover the disappearance of one of the federation's best operatives, Cobra Bubbles, and rumors of snail-like aliens known as Snailiens, and the second book sees Stitch land in New York City to solve a missing persons case involving shape-shifting aliens. Book three shifts the action to Korea as Stitch teams up with K-Pop idols to aliens operating in the city of Seoul. Agent Stitch: A Study in Slime Agent Stitch: The Trouble with Toothoids Agent Stitch: The Menace at the Mall Lilo and Stitch (4K) $41 As much fun as Lilo and Stitch's expanded adventures are, nothing beats the animated source material. Over 20 years later, Lilo and Stitch still holds up as one of Disney's best traditionally animated films, and you can grab it on 4K Blu-ray for $41. This edition includes 4K, Blu-ray, and digital download versions of the movie, plus a bunch of bonus features like a lesson on how to do a Hula dance, music videos, audio commentary, featurettes, and the cheeky promotional materials where Stitch "invaded" other Disney movies. See at Amazon Nightmare Before Christmas mangaDisney also released manga based on its Nightmare Before Christmas film, so if you'd like a creepy tour of that movie in print format, you can pick this up right now. The 176-page full-color edition is available for $16 (was $20) through Amazon, and there's also the deluxe Collector's Edition that combines the entire Zero's Journey series into one full-color book. This one was originally priced at 450 when it was first released, but it's on sale for 50% off currently.The Nightmare Before Christmas MangaDisney Manga: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas -- $16 ($20)Disney Manga: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas - Zero's Journey -- $25 ($50)

A Washington DC-based think tank claims it has discovered evidence of a covert network of digital front companies operated by the Chinese intelligence services that are targeting laid-off US government employees. Since Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, thousands of people have been let go across the US government – including many in cyber security threat intel and research functions – following audits by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). The mass lay-offs, which the White House says are being done in the name of saving money, have dramatically slowed and even halted many government functions. In some places – such as at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they are being reversed. Now, the Federation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD), a research institute that focuses primarily on America’s national security and foreign policy, says that Beijing is moving to try to exploit the lay-offs for its own intelligence-gathering purposes. FDD senior analyst on emerging threats Max Lesser said these fraudulent organisations were posing as geopolitical risk consultancies and headhunting firms that appeared to be based in Japan, Singapore and the US. “The tactics employed by this network closely resemble previous Chinese intelligence operations targeting US government officials and other high-value targets across the US, Europe and beyond,” said Lesser. “Despite the network’s efforts to create the illusion that several separate firms outside of China are seeking to recruit laid-off federal employees, the network’s technical features point both to its Chinese origins and the role of a single entity in creating all of its components,” he said. Read more about nation state threats UK cyber security chief warns of ‘direct connection’ between Russian cyber attacks and physical threats to the UK. Two spyware variants are being used to target the mobile devices of persons of interest to Chinese intelligence, including individuals in the Taiwanese, Tibetan and Uyghur communities. Advanced persistent threat group UNC3886 deployed custom backdoors on end-of-life Juniper Networks routers, underscoring the need for timely patching and advanced security monitoring. The FDD named the companies as Smiao Intelligence, Dustrategy, RiverMerge Strategies, Tsubasa Insight and Wavemax Innov. Of these, said Lesser, only Smiao Intelligence appears to be a real company. The others are alleged to be little more than digital fronts operating cloned websites, with artificial intelligence (AI)-generated text and clearly fake customer references. Lesser said it was likely that individuals associated with Smiao created the network themselves for intelligence-gathering purposes, because they all rely on the same China-hosted Tencent server to run their websites, and all but one of them are using – or once did – a China-based email service called chengmail. Additionally, he said, four out of five of the sites share the same SSL certificate. The FDD was also able to ascertain Smaio was likely the nexus of the covert operation. It has the oldest domain in the group, dating back eight years, and its homepage directs to an apparent parent company, Beijing Simiao Intelligent Information Technology Co Ltd, which is apparently a trademark application agency, officially recognised by China’s State Intellectual Property Office, and was registered as a company in 2012. Notably, one of the companies, RiverMerge, appeared for a while to have an office in the US – the state of Colorado, to be precise – as well as Singapore, although these references were scrubbed from its website some time before 26 March 2025. US registries do show a company called RiverMerge Strategies LLC, formed in 2024, with a domain registered in Beijing and evidence of a shared phone number with Smiao. The Chinese state has form dating back the best part of a decade when it comes to using recruitment websites to gather intelligence on US targets. Back in 2020, a Singapore national, Jun Wei Yeo, was sentenced to jail after obtaining more than 400 resumes, 90% of them from American military and government officials with some level of security clearance, and passing them to Beijing. Nor have European targets been immune – a German intelligence report from eight years ago revealed how China was able to obtain data on 10,000 German citizens as potential intelligence sources, while in 2019, the French told a similar story. Two years ago, in 2023, British intelligence chief Ken McCallum revealed that 20,000 Britons had been approached in a similar manner. In many cases, this targeting was conducted using legitimate job websites, including social network LinkedIn, which has been described as the “ultimate playground” for intelligence gathering. It is not known if the operation targeting laid-off federal workers was successful, but the effort certainly comes at a dangerous time for the US, and an opportune moment for China as it seeks to exploit Trump’s unique approach to government and policymaking. “This threat is heightened at a time when thousands of former and current federal workers are seeking new employment,” said Lesser. “If the public and private sectors do not act quickly to address these vulnerabilities, China and other adversaries will continue preying on former public servants who may not be aware of the threat and face pressure to find new jobs quickly.” He called on the US government to take more active measures to raise awareness of this gathering cyber threat – such as sending representatives to discuss the issue in the media. It should also proactively work with the likes of LinkedIn and other networking sites to monitor potentially suspicious activity, such as job postings that explicitly seek out ex-government employees. LinkedIn could also implement more stringent Know Your Customer policies for people creating company pages on its site. Lesser also called for Congress to exercise additional oversight through the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Finally, Washington could also turn the situation to its advantage by creating sock puppet accounts to bait Chinese intelligence operatives into coming out of the shadows to make contact.

Andor‘s final batch of episodes had to walk a steady balancing act, tying together myriad swirling character arcs into the overarching looming shadow of not just the events of Rogue One, but the events of Star Wars itself. In navigating those final climactic days where Andor could be itself as well as the passer of the torch, the show managed to give us and its characters alike the endings that perhaps mattered most. Luthen © Lucasfilm It’s impossible to talk about the final arc of Andor without talking about the ending it gets out of the way first. Luthen’s long-awaited confrontation with Dedra is tragic in many ways, not just because of his choice to sacrifice himself to deny her the information she craves, but because, in contrast to the other rebellious stories we see climax here, it’s so incredibly lonely. There is no grand exit, no long goodbye—he gets a brief moment with Kleya when he sends her away, and of course, Dedra’s attempts to keep him alive make the actual moment of his end occur after the course of episode 10, “Make It Stop.” He dies quietly, he dies unable to really know just what an impact he’s about to have on the people he knew, the people he loved, the Rebellion, and the fate of the galaxy itself. But Luthen’s final moment standing, before he takes the knife to himself, as sad as it is, is also a beautiful one—one that thematically then ties the endings of the rest of the rebels across Andor‘s final act together brilliantly. “The Rebellion isn’t here anymore, it’s flown away,” he tells Dedra. “It’s everywhere now… there’s a whole galaxy out there, waiting to disgust you.” The work Luthen did may have been isolatory by design, playing cells and operatives off each other, the paranoia of all the secrets he helped keep. But as he burns brightly, for that sunrise he knew he’d never see, he is defiantly steadfast that what he has helped create has connected voices all over the galaxy. That there are, as his agents’ code phrase said, friends everywhere. Partagaz and the ISB © Lucasfilm It is this particular thematic throughline sparked by Luthen’s words that also defines the endings of our Imperial antagonists across the arc in stark contrast. We’ll get to Dedra separately, but it’s interesting that the endings we get for Andor‘s ISB apparatus—represented by her, Partagaz, and Heert in these episodes, and to a lesser extent double-agent Lonni—are lonely for very different reasons than Luthen’s was. Syril’s death on Ghorman laid the blueprint here: Andor‘s vision of the Empire is defined in equal parts the abuse of its systems for personal glorification, and the deadly threat of that system subsuming even its most ardent supports and benefactors, because that’s exactly what the Empire is designed to do. Lonni might die at Luthen’s hands, it’s implied, but he dies because his use as a tool of the system he’d turned on is over. Heert’s grand chase of Kleya—a mirror to Dedra’s obsession with Axis that he’d sneered at her for—is rewarded with K2 tossing his lifeless body around as a meatshield, crumpled and forgotten. Partagaz’s is perhaps the most deliciously bitter, not just for the system he helped create crashing down around him, but because, again, his final moments are spent realizing that the rebellion is so much bigger than the “disease” he thought he could contain and sterilize. He’s alone in a room, committing suicide, after hearing Nemik’s manifesto: he has no idea who it is. He just knows, again, that it’s getting out everywhere. Kleya © Lucasfilm Kleya’s end is not so much an end, but a continuation of a legacy that she’s followed her whole life. Luthen’s sacrifice gives her a chance to flee and tell the Rebellion about the Death Star, but it also pushes her out from under his lonely world of cloak and daggers, in a way. In the flashbacks that are woven throughout her solo mission to lay Luthen to rest before the Empire can pull him from the brink, we see her story start alone and afraid and angry—and in choosing to save this orphaned child and help her point that anger somewhere as she grows up, Luthen’s final gift to Kleya is to give her something bigger to be part of. Perhaps it’s a story we’ll revisit someday, of Kleya’s life in the Rebellion, but in this moment that set of facts doesn’t really matter, it’s that she gets to carry on his spirit as the Rebellion flourishes. Dedra © Lucasfilm It’s fitting and so telling then, that Kleya and Dedra’s final moments on-screen in Andor are side-by-side. If Kleya wakes up to on the new dawn of being part of the thing her mentor helped build, then Dedra—clad in those white-and-orange scrubs of the Imperial prison system—is to witness the structure that she helped build and champion chew her up and spit her out into some forgotten hole. We know from season one’s arc on Narkina-5 that the Empire has now designed these facilities to never really grant freedom. There’s a fascinating parallel to Syril’s own death in her ultimate punishment, the idea that her obsession with Axis, as his was with Cassian, pushed her and pushed her to a point where the Empire itself could turn on her and discard her, and she’d be too blinkered to notice it until it was too late. It’s not just that Dedra’s hoarding of information she shouldn’t have lands her in Krennic’s crosshairs, it’s her drive to get Luthen, to keep him alive once he mortally wounds himself, in the hopes that she will be rewarded regardless of any transgression she’s made to get there. That the Imperial system she believed in will work for her, rather than her for it. But the Empire exists to consume even its most loyal adherents, and so her punishment for championing it so ardently is as satisfying to watch as it was inevitable. Bix © Lucasfilm If any of Andor‘s endings might prove controversial, it’s perhaps its very last one. In some ways, Bix’s isolation from the final act of Andor (a decision she makes, but one that still takes her out of the broader fight she had previously yearned to be part of), only for her to part the series with the revelation that she’s given birth to Cassian’s child—a child he’ll never know—treats her story as less her own, and more in the service of Cassian’s. But it’s likewise also compelling that Bix is the rare character who ends the series given the chance of peace, of not having to fight and struggle. Many of the journeys that close out Andor are ones that we know will continue, and more specifically that continue in the sense that their fight isn’t over yet. That she is the final vision we have the show feels, in part, that this is what it was all for: to be free to live life with loved ones, a generation that can grow up in the hope that they in turn don’t have to fight and struggle to maintain that peace. Bail Organa © Lucasfilm But wait! Bail Organa’s journey doesn’t end in Andor. He’s in Rogue One! He’s technically in A New Hope, or at least very, very tiny atomized parts of him are! But while those stories are, chronologically speaking, Bail’s last moments in the Star Wars saga, it feels like Andor actually gives the man himself a proper sendoff—more proper than the hasty one he gets in Rogue One to go meet his explosive destiny—in his brief chat with Cassian. It’s short and sweet but laden with meaning, to give Bail a little teeth, and a moment of bonding with Cassian after their initial disagreements. We don’t ever get to see Bail’s final moments from his own perspective on screen (they’re retold, if you’re interested, in the From a Certain Point of View anthology), but giving him a goal to go out swinging feels like a fitting coda. The Stories Left Untold © Lucasfilm But for all the above stories that Andor wraps up in its last act, there’s just as many—and it’s just as important—that it leaves so many paths open. There’s characters we just simply don’t see again, like Leida after her wedding, or even further flung characters like Kino Loy from season one. There’s characters for who the story just continues elsewhere, like Cassian and K2 themselves, or Mon Mothma, last seen chatting to Vel amid the hubbub of Yavin IV, or Saw, staring down the Imperial occupation of Jedha. Some of these are famous Star Wars figures, and we know where they end up, but just as important is getting flashes like Wilmon and Dreena sharing food, or, in a grimly hilarious fashion, a drunken Perrin hanging off the arm of Davro Sculden’s wife. Perhaps most fitting then is an end we glimpse, but never get: when Cassian wakes from his slumber to go on his mission to Kafrene, he dreams of his long-missing sister. Andor‘s first major story thread, the focus of its opening scenes to put this whole story into motion, never gets resolved. Some people may be frustrated by that, in an age when Star Wars fans and Star Wars itself, at times, is obsessed with checking off the facts and details of its world. But we get everything we need to know: Cassian still thinks about her. He dies never getting the answer. We will, perhaps rightfully, never learn ourselves. Not all ends definitively. Life goes on. Even as we know the broad strokes of what’s about to go down in this moment in Star Wars, some answers are just never found. But there’s a whole texture of existence beneath that sweeping saga and those big questions, and that’s what Andor was always reminding us of. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Both Canada and the United States have deep-seated affordability problems, but only the former is doing anything substantial about it. Forthcoming housing cooperatives at 2444 Eglinton Avenue in Toronto, and in Upper Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia, are helping put a dent in Canada’s affordable housing shortage. Vancouver’s home prices today are close to $1 million, and rental prices in Toronto are equally astronomical. To buck this trend, Canada’s Co-operative Housing Development Program (CHDP) unlocked $1.5 billion in federal financing to support new cooperative housing. This is all happening as part of Canada’s National Housing Strategy, a $115 billion plan to boost affordability.  “In Toronto, the housing crisis is as severe as it’s ever been,” UT Daniels professor Keisha St. Louis-McBurnie, a Toronto-based urban planner at Monumental, told AN.  “We’ve seen real growth in housing encampments, especially during COVID-19,” St. Louis-McBurnie said. “There’s been very limited new transitional and supportive housing across [Toronto]. Households are getting priced out of the market, including professional middle-income ones. Folks who are low-income that require the most housing support are not able to access new affordable housing, especially in consideration to what’s getting built in Toronto.” A Brutalist housing co-op on Eglinton Avenue in Toronto (Ken Lund/Flickr/CC BY 2.0) Claire Weisz’s office, WXY, as of this year has locations in New York and Toronto. Weisz recently spoke at the Canadian Club Toronto, in a round table moderated by Alex Bozikovic, about urbanism. “Huge troves of affordable housing in New York has, in recent years, been taken from people who can’t afford down payments on co-ops,” Weisz told AN. “We’ve sacrificed so much. Some organizations have tried to stop this, but without policy support from the city, it’s really in vain.” “My big worry is that right now, like Toronto, New York is starting to be like the rest of the U.S. and rely on developer-led for-profits, versus not-for-profits,” Weisz added. “There needs to be a reawakening of not-for-profit development coalitions.” “The Co-operative Housing Sector is Booming” The Canadian National Housing Strategy’s longterm goal is to build 156,000 affordable units and repair over 298,000 existing ones. Housing cooperatives are getting built all over Canada as part of the program, from British Columbia, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. Planning departments are prioritizing the needs of First Nations communities and Black Canadians to help rectify past injustices. This is happening as rent prices skyrocket, and Toronto’s skyline is populated with new landmarks by Frank Gehry, Studio Gang, BIG, and others. Cooperative housing was first built in Canada in the 1930s. Regent Park in Toronto was the country’s first public housing campus, finished in 1949. This legacy continued through the 1960s and ’70s, when radical co-ops like Rochdale College and Neill-Wycik were built for University of Toronto students. Willow Park Housing Co-op (1966) went up in Winnipeg thanks to CHF Canada, a joint initiative by the Canadian Labour Congress and the Co-operative Union of Canada. The New Democratic Party (NDP) constructed abundant cooperative housing in Vancouver. Milton Park got built in Montreal in the 1980s. Between 1973 and 1993, CHF Canada built a total 92,000 cooperatively-owned units. (This history was captured by Leslie Coles in Under Construction: A History of Co-operative Housing in Canada.) All this momentum was brought to a halt during successive Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien Premierships, however, when government support for supportive housing was cut, much like what was happening in the U.S. at that time under the Clinton administration with the Faircloth Amendment. Regent Park’s original architecture was demolished in 2005 as part of the Regent Park Revitalization Plan, and replaced with a private, mixed-income community. (Kevin Costain/Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 2.0) A regime of state-imposed austerity ensued, leading up to the affordability crisis both Canada and the U.S. have today. Unlike the United States, however, Canada seems to have learned from its past mistakes. Thanks to Canada’s Co-operative Housing Development Program, eight co-ops are getting built right now. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has prioritized new affordable housing construction and land trusts, and is doing much to fight gentrification. BC Builds is an initiative helping fast track cooperative housing in Vancouver City Council. “Since the 1990s there’s been a shift in liberal to conservative and neoliberal federal governments,” St. Louis-McBurnie said. “This resulted in reduced public investment in significant social programs, including public and not-for-profit housing. These successive governments devolved responsibility for funding affordable housing to provincial governments across the country, Ontario in particular. Places like Regent Park now have a public-private partnership model, meaning it’s now on the private market. Alexandra Park is going through a similar privatization process.” “But now, there’s interest in alternatives” to market rate development St. Louis-McBurnie affirmed, “and the co-operative housing sector is booming.” Provinces and cities are also implementing “communal land trust models to support the scaling and retaining of assets,” she said. “They’re trying to figure out ways for bringing independently-owned co-ops into the land trust model.” Housing as Human Right The largest co-op underway in Canada today is 2444 Eglinton Avenue by Henriquez Partners and Claude Cormier + Associés. The Toronto development will yield 918 homes, including 612 affordable, rent-geared-to-income (RGI) units. Retail offerings will be sited at the base level. From afar, 2444 Eglinton Avenue will stand out thanks to its polychromatic porthole windows. Further afield in Perth, Ontario, 38 new cooperative units will be built. Farther east in Upper Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia, a co-operative housing development will yield 136 row house units primarily for Black Canadians. That project is happening through a partnership between the Upper Hammonds Plains Community Land Trust and the Upper Hammonds Plains Housing Co-operative. Curtis Whiley, a sixth-generation African Nova Scotian, is steering the housing cooperative project in Upper Hammonds. Meanwhile in New Minas, Nova Scotia, there will be 32 more cooperative homes. Rendering of 2444 Eglinton Avenue Co-ops (Courtesy Henriquez Partners) Africville was a close-knit Black community in Halifax located on Treat 1 territory destroyed by the City of Halifax in the 1960s. Today, land trusts like the one in Nova Scotia are effective means for establishing housing secure communities of color. The Toronto Chinatown Land Trust likewise empowers people to stay in place, an outfit helmed by Chiyi Tam who is a planner and UT Daniels faculty member. “We have not seen any investment like this, I would say, in terms of housing development almost exclusively for Black communities in Canada’s history,” St. Louis-McBurnie said. Hogan’s Alley’s Black community was displaced by the Vancouver government to make way for the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts in 1971. Now, members of the NDP and Hogan’s Alley Society—a Black-led, not-for-profit developer of Afrocentric affordable housing—are working together to shore up Black land stewardship in the old neighborhood and help rectify the past injustice. “Transferring land over to the Hogan Alley land trust will allow for the Black community to return and for greater autonomy in housing construction,” St. Louis-McBurnie added. “What If We Built a New Co-op City in Brooklyn?” Federal spending was allocated in the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to dismantle highways that ripped through inner cities and destroyed African American neighborhoods, like I-81 in Syracuse, New York. But this week, House GOP members moved to cancel the I-81 highway removal project. The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 national budget has slashed spending on projects that “fall outside [the President’s] new priorities” and “promote radical equity policies,” the White House said. Is it possible for architects, politicians, and planners in the U.S. to replicate Canada’s success given the current political climate?  It seems, for now, it would have to happen with aggressive leadership at the city and state levels—trade unions and nonprofits would also have to step up. This is already taking place, for instance, at Penn South, a sprawling Mitchell-Lama housing cooperative in Manhattan by the United Housing Foundation (UHF). Today, Bernheimer Architecture (BA) and the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust are helping upgrade the handsome midcentury campus. Penn South’s rehabilitation is in conjunction with BA, the AFL-CIO, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). “Penn South is a very unique campus, and its needs are different from most other campuses in New York City,” Andy Bernheimer told AN. “NYSERDA is helping us inform design and construction moving forward, which will entail reskinning the buildings and making them more energy efficient.” Co-op City is situated on a sprawling 320-acre site in the north Bronx. (Zara Pfeifer) Co-op City shopping plaza (Zara Pfeifer) In New York today, mayoral candidates are increasingly interested in revisiting the Mitchell-Lama Program’s success, a UHF campaign that built 135,000 cooperative housing units between 1955 and 1978, like Penn South and the Bronx’s Co-op City, another historic campus by Herman Jessor. In Albany, New York State elected officials have proposed a new Social Housing Development Authority, which would allocate government spending toward public housing, co-ops, and land trusts to battle gentrification. “I don’t think there’s enough money to simply restart a program like Mitchell-Lama, as far as I can tell,” Weisz told AN. “But if you look at all of the older Mitchell-Lamas flipping to the market, it’s clear we need to preserve the ones that are left, and there needs to be a new generation of co-ops. All over the city, when people have to pay market rates instead of mortgages, they’re rent burdened.” Homes for Living is a new book by Jonathan Tarleton that speaks to the tumultuous privatization of New York’s cooperative housing stock, a burgeoning problem. “Maybe there’s a way to build a funding and oversight mechanism for existing co-ops worried about going under water, and for households to sign up for a program that helps them to stay in [Mitchell-Lama],” Weisz elaborated. “Maybe there could even be a program for rental apartments to get into that program?” WXY is currently working on a Mitchell-Lama campus in the Bronx, Stevenson Commons, together with Habitat for Humanity. The goal is to maintain Stevenson Common’s affordability with rent-stabilized flats at very low rates. Parking lots at Stevenson Commons were rezoned to allow for new housing, which helps maintain affordability, while new public spaces and tennis clubs were added. There will be incentives to help seniors age in place, and for multigenerational households. Rochdale Village in Queens (Zara Pfeifer) Weisz sees opportunities to finance cooperative housing with ulterior means, like capital raised from Habitat for Humanity, but also congestion pricing. “We should be using new lines and TOD to actually support neighborhoods and co-ops, and people that are ultimately the ones who stay and support neighborhoods,” she said. “Why not subsidize co-op structures? The only way to do that is if there’s city-owned land, because, otherwise, the land cost is so expensive, you have to develop it at market rate.” “There’s a lot of city sites that have been identified for housing,” Weisz noted. “There’s all sorts of sites in the city’s hands right beside the Manhattan Bridge, for instance, or along the BQE. All of those sites could become new co-ops. What if we built a new Co-op City in Brooklyn?”