Move over, Charlize Theron!

Jennifer Lopez is the latest star to flaunt the decade's must-have celebrity accessory: a "trans" kid.

'[The kids should] go where they want to go and do what they want to do.'

Twins

Emme Muniz — one of a pair of twins Lopez shares with ex-husband Marc Anthony — recently graduated from Los Angeles' Windward School under the new, more gender-identity-appropriate moniker Oskar, according to Page Six.

The last name Muniz comes from Anthony's real name, Marco Antonio Muñiz; the singer and Lopez were married from 2004 to 2014.

The nepo baby formerly known as Emme is no stranger to the limelight; when she was just 11, her mom brought her onstage to perform with her at the Super Bowl LIV halftime show. Since then, the superstar scion has made the scene at a number of screenings and red carpets.

Bruce Glikas/WireImage

Status symbols

In a since-deleted post from Windward's Instagram account, the school congratulated one "Oskar Muniz" for gaining admittance to Sarah Lawrence College, a private liberal arts college in New York.

The post was "liked" by actress Jennifer Garner, who was once married to actor Ben Affleck; he was married to Lopez for three years.

The post tagged an account belonging to Oskar, which also notes the same college, along with "he" as a preferred pronoun, as well as symbols for gay (“⚣”) and trans (“⚧︎”).

VIRGINIE LEFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

All in the family

Dad Anthony apparently failed to attend his daughter's graduation, but other members of the extended family were there to pick up the slack. Among them: 14-year-old Samuel Affleck, Anthony's ex-wife's former stepson.

While Samuel continues to identify with his biological sex, his older sister Seraphina recently came out as trans.

Anthony was born in New York City to Puerto Rican parents and has multiplatinum albums in both English and Spanish. He is 57 years old and has seven children in total.

Lopez, 56, had previously said she wants her kids to "be happy and go where they want to go and do what they want to do."

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'American Idol' winner Hannah Harper stuns in Grand Ole Opry debut — with the help of a very special guest

Talk about a full "circle" moment!

"American Idol" winner Hannah Harper hit a magical milestone last night, when she made her debut at Nashville's historic Grand Ole Opry.

Harper’s audition quickly became one of the 'American Idol's' most viewed moments in its 24-season history.

"What an overwhelming honor it is to step into that circle that carries so much history, legacy, and heart within country music," the 26-year-old mother of three posted on her Facebook page shortly after the appearance was announced.

Sharing 'String Cheese'

The "circle" refers to the scuffed six-foot circle of maple and oak stage taken from the Opry's original home at the historic Ryman Auditorium and installed at the new, bigger venue the Opry built in 1974.

And when Harper walked out onto that circle last night, it was both the start of a new phase of her career and a beautiful reminder of how it all began.

Shortly after beginning her set, Harper launched into a rendition of "String Cheese," her self-penned song from her viral "American Idol" audition video. As she finished the first verse, she was joined on stage by another "Idol" winner turned country star: Carrie Underwood — one of the "Idol" judges who helped propel Harper to victory.

Ode to motherhood

Harper's journey to the Opry stage began with a childhood immersed in the bluegrass gospel music that has captivated her family for generations. Harper began singing and songwriting at just 9 years old, but she didn’t become a household name until February, when her "American Idol" audition went mega-viral.

Performing “String Cheese” — a heartfelt ballad about the grueling reality of postpartum depression and the beautiful, fleeting days of motherhood — the Missouri native moved "Idol" judge Carrie Underwood and the rest of watching America to tears with her soulful voice and deeply personal lyrics that seemed to silence the anti-natalist noise of our time.

In a matter of days, “String Cheese” racked up millions of views and peaked at No. 14 on Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales chart. Harper’s audition quickly became one of "American Idol's" most viewed moments in its 24-season history.

On May 11, to the surprise of few, Harper was crowned the winner of "American Idol" Season 24, making her the first female country singer to win the show since Underwood’s victory in 2005.

Disney/Eric McCandless

Grateful and grounded

Harper's performance was part of the “Opry 100” celebration during CMA Fest week. The show also featured Underwood, rising country-pop star Avery Anna, and more artists.

Days before the "Idol" finale, Harper revealed in an interview with Country Now that an Opry performance has long been the pinnacle of her dreams.

“The Opry is the goal. … That’s the biggest stage in country music in my eyes, the most honored, and it would just make my whole life to get to perform on that stage,” she confessed.

The Opry performance also marked the official launch of her “String Cheese Tour,” set to run through November 14, with concerts scheduled across the U.S.

But despite her blooming career, being a mom remains this rising country star’s deepest commitment.

Harper — who has consistently described motherhood as her “biggest ministry” — expressed intentions to bring her husband and three sons along on the road.

In post-win interviews with Lyndsanity and Parade magazine, she recounted advice she had received from Carrie Underwood about installing baby cribs on tour buses and the importance of balancing stardom with family.

“Carrie just wanted to make sure that I kept a hold of the grasp of reality once everything settled down and just made sure to still focus on the priorities, which is my kids and my husband,” she told Parade magazine.

My new hack for a long, healthy life? Getting married

Admittedly, planning a wedding is a strange time to start reading cancer research. The seating chart had 17 unresolved feuds in it; the oncology journals felt like lighter reading.

Until they didn't.

Public health researchers call this 'social monitoring.' In practice, it means someone loving you enough to be annoying about your symptoms.

A recent American study, drawing on more than 4 million cancer cases, found that adults who never married face considerably higher cancer rates than those who did. Never-married women saw rates dramatically elevated. Never-married men weren't far behind.

The gap widens after age 55, which is when a lifetime of accumulated habits, poor decisions, and missed appointments begins sending invoices.

Settling for less?

Marriage rates in America have fallen steadily for decades. What was once expected is now optional — and sometimes viewed with suspicion. The language around "settling down" carries a faint odor of defeat, as though building a life with someone else were a concession rather than a choice.

The cultural conversation, meanwhile, circles endlessly around diet, exercise, and whatever superfood is currently being flown in from a distant rainforest. Billions flow into wellness industries. Podcasts dedicate entire seasons to optimizing sleep. And yet the data keeps returning to something far less marketable: whether you have someone in the next room who gives a damn.

The researchers are careful to avoid claiming that a wedding ring makes tumors vanish. But the pattern holds and appears across most major cancer types. Cancers linked to smoking, alcohol, and infections showed the biggest gaps between married and never-married adults. That concentration is telling. It points at behavior, environment, and the kind of low-level interference that only someone who genuinely cares about you will bother to sustain.

Buddy system

A man living alone can ignore a cough for months. A wife will drag him to a doctor. A woman juggling everything on her own might postpone a checkup indefinitely. A husband will plead, push, insist, and escalate if necessary. Public health researchers call this "social monitoring." In practice, it means someone loving you enough to be annoying about your symptoms.

Then there's the physiological cost of chronic loneliness. Without someone else setting the rhythm, sleep suffers, meals become erratic, and the basic architecture of self-maintenance gradually gives way. A person alone sets his own standards, and standards, without a witness, tend to decline. Freedom looks like a luxury until it tips into neglect.

The research on loneliness as a health risk has been mounting for years. Chronic isolation produces measurable changes in stress hormones, inflammatory markers, and immune function. The body registers abandonment, and it responds accordingly.

Previous generations were hardly models of healthy living. They smoked heavily, drank liberally, and regarded dietary advice as a personal affront. The average mid-century American male was not tracking his resting heart rate. Yet many of them were embedded in something we have spent decades dismantling: long marriages, tight families, a reliable social unit that caught problems early and addressed them without being asked. The neighbor who checked in. The sibling who showed up uninvited. The spouse who had the kettle on before the door had closed behind you.

Noticing matters enormously.

The author with his mother and grandmother. Photo courtesy of John Mac Ghlionn

The cure of community

Cancer rates in younger Americans have been climbing. The old assumption — that serious disease waits its turn at the end of a long life — has expired. It is arriving earlier, frequently without warning, and the reflexive response has been to scrutinize diet, sleep, and screen time. All valid. All insufficient on their own.

There are complications worth acknowledging. Marriage has its limits as a medical intervention. As Tina Turner and Johnny Depp demonstrated at considerable personal cost, not all marriages are protective. Some are so destructive that they make solitude look like sensible doctor's orders.

Nevertheless, the directional evidence holds.

Knee-deep in wedding planning, I keep returning to what this whole undertaking actually represents. Families reactivate. Old friendships resurface. Obligations form. The ceremony is a public declaration that someone will be watching, intervening, and on occasion refusing to let you get away with things.

The vows carry legal and emotional weight. They're also a mutual surveillance agreement, entered into willingly, which turns out to be rather good for your health.

We've built an entire cultural vocabulary around independence. Self-optimization. Personal growth. The solo journey. These are not entirely worthless ideas, but they have crowded out an older and more durable understanding. Humans aren’t built for sustained isolation. The people around us, intrusive and imperfect as they are, perform functions that no app, no routine, and no amount of cold-plunge evangelism can replicate.

A culture that treats relationships as provisional and commitment as one lifestyle choice among many is making a collective wager. The evidence suggests the odds aren't favorable. In ways we're only beginning to quantify, permanence appears to be protective.

'Pigs at the trough': Spencer Pratt and Bill Maher come together to blast California 'socialists'

Bill Maher says that Spencer Pratt needs to stop crying about his house burning down.

On the latest episode of his podcast "Club Random," Maher also called Pratt a "douchebag" while the two discussed Pratt's run for mayor of Los Angeles.

'They're not going to have any money to take from these people to give to you.'

However, while Maher joked that being unliked meant Pratt should have no problem facing off against unfettered California bureaucracy, the duo were in overwhelming agreement when it came to the fiscal waste that cripples L.A. and the surrounding area.

About three-quarters of the way into their discussion, Maher claimed that "douchebag guys" who are in debt from gambling websites represent Pratt's core audience.

While Pratt joked in response about having "more voters" than he realized, he immediately asserted that his true voting block consists of mothers who are concerned about the safety of their children in the city. Pratt used that talking point as a launchpad to warn young voters about opening the door to socialism.

"Socialism has captivated people. ... I feel like people are all hyped on socialism because they're like, 'Everything's so expensive. America's failed. Give me money,'" Pratt explained. "But what they're forgetting is all the people that these socialists are saying they're taking the money and giving it, they're gonna leave."

Pratt added, "Then they're not going to have any money to take from these people to give to you."

Maher and Pratt largely agreed there is far too much red tape in Los Angeles, and furthermore, in the state, but it was Maher's anecdote about needing three city inspections to change his garage door that perfectly framed the issue.

The 70-year-old then warned Pratt that if he becomes mayor, the "special interests" representatives are going to eat him alive by demanding policies just like those that ruined his garage revamp.

"What you're going to go up against is a state that is just full of special interests, all of which are very, very powerful. I mean, you can't do anything in this state without, like, getting a license or an inspection."

At this point, Maher pointed to Pratt being a "douchebag" as a positive trait that would help him deal with the bureaucrats, whom Pratt described as "champagne socialists" who are stealing taxpayer dollars.

"This state is all these f**king pigs at the trough," Maher lamented.

HIGHFIVE/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Pratt told the host his modus operandi has been to get into office so he can stop theft at the government level, which means letting the "successful rich people build businesses, build restaurants," and put money into the citizens' pockets.

The former star of "The Hills" said his leadership would get the money in the hands of the people without increasing taxes, because those "champagne socialists scammers steal" the money that is already coming in from wealthy L.A. residents.

"I can't even comprehend taxing more," Pratt announced.

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Let them 'rot': Former Marine's solution to fixing California is about as anti-establishment as it gets

California used to be a land of promise that produced fine Americans who mocked D.C. elites, a former U.S. Marine officer says.

In the face of failed state and federal leadership in the Democratic Party, an ex-soldier has a message for inland communities.

The coastal cities and elites are supported by the inland residents, says security expert and veteran Adam Castillo.

'I'm tired of being the butt of jokes for MAGA.'

In an interview with Blaze News, Castillo explained that he found opportunity in Myanmar after being left as an "unemployed veteran as part of that massive sequestering period by the Obama administration around 2013."

Promises from the Barack Obama administration of finding jobs for veterans turned into nothing more than a check-box item for hiring managers, Castillo claimed, who would then say, "Hey, we we interviewed a veteran," and move on.

Castillo ran a security company during Myanmar's 2021 coup d'état, which taught him a valuable lesson: things can be done properly with the right leadership, even under the harshest conditions.

It is that experience that brought Castillo to believe the inland communities of California should be the focus for Republicans while the rest of the state crumbles around them.

"To be frank, who do you think supports these coastal cities? The inland desert communities, right? We're the ones commuting to the cities to make sure they're run, to make sure that the sanitation infrastructure is run [and] the electricity is run," Castillo declared.

George Rose/Getty Images

Republicans and conservatives should start with town councils, school boards, and the like before splintering outward into state legislatures, Castillo suggested.

"When you start going inland, specifically into the deserts, this is where it gets really conservative. ... They are the power of California."

"What we need to concentrate on in terms of organization at the community level is the inland communities, not the coastal cities," he went on.

"School board, city council, mayor, state legislator, then congressman, then senator," Castillo said.

For the coastal elites, Castillo says the voters need to deal with the consequences of their elections for a bit longer.

"I think we just let the liberal coastal cities rot," the former officer bluntly stated. "Honestly. They're already rotting. So let them continue to rot. They do not represent us. They don't even have that many representatives."

Your browser does not support the video tag.

While Castillo's remarks could be seen as divisive or jarring by some, he remained confident that a Republican governor in 2026 and beyond would set an amazing precedent in smaller communities and provide much-needed inspiration.

In the end, his belief that Californians can still recapture their glory years serves as his ongoing motivation.

"I'm tired of being the butt of jokes for other states. I'm tired of being the butt of jokes for MAGA," he concluded.

"We're Californians. We were better than you people," he said of D.C. elites. "We were born better than you people. It's about time we reclaim our seat at that power."

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Want to be a man of action? Start a family

Do you matter? Does what you do matter? Are you doing anything at all? Does your will have any impact on the world? Are you living with vitality?

Or are you just a hamster on a wheel in a little cage in the back of a middle school classroom thinking you are doing something when really you are just wasting your time here until lights out?

Because we can all do it, we forget that it’s special. It’s so ordinary, we forget it’s extraordinary.

To answer the first question: You do matter, and what you do matters. It doesn’t matter who you are; you matter, and you have an impact on the world. Maybe it’s a big one, or maybe it’s a little one. But even something as simple as saying good morning and smiling to the cashier who rings up your pack of cigarettes and full tank of gas is some kind of something or some kind of impact on someone else’s world.

Hamster wheel

But are you living with vitality? That’s not quite as simple. That bit about the hamster wasting time dinking around on the wheel — that’s certainly a depressing scene, but it’s a feeling all too common in a world in which many of our physical needs are satisfied whether we really do anything at all.

Everyone matters in our world, and everyone matters to someone. That’s a fact. But everyone doesn’t feel like they do, and many don’t feel like they are living a very vital life either. The hamster-wheel job that’s stable and hard to lose, the climate-controlled car that tells you when to slow down. An uneventful and seemingly predictable life finished off with some controlled simulated struggle at the gym three nights a week without an end, a shock, or a surprise in sight.

Some people dull the pain of the malaise with drugs, others zone out with Netflix or the internet.

Family matters

Still others seem to think that the only way to feel alive in our age is by seeking out extremes: dangerous travel, feats of endurance, and any other pursuit risking life and limb.

Fine for those who have the opportunity, I suppose. But honestly, vitality can be found much closer to home.

The real truth is that the most vital thing you can do in the year 2026 is something that just about everyone can do: raise a family.

Falling in love, getting married, having children, and raising a family is the last real, and completely real, thing on planet Earth.

It doesn’t matter if everything becomes entirely fake. It doesn’t matter if everyone has fake jobs, if no one owns anything for longer than six months, if all the food is processed, if all the appliances are designed with planned obsolescence in mind, and if AI takes care of just about all our needs. The entire world could be completely fake. But one last real thing will remain: family.

And it is the realness of the family that matters and that makes it so vital. When we raise a family, we are completely crucial. Our decisions determine real-world outcomes, both short term and long term. The family is not a theory or spreadsheet. It’s not a surrogate activity that stands in simply for the sake of simulating some kind of other struggle.

The family is real.

Universal Images Archive/Getty Images

Royal reproduction

A looming intuition in our postmodern, anti-vitalistic ennui is the feeling that we don’t have any control. Our health insurance policies, our jobs, the new charges that don’t make any sense on the phone bill, the screwed up politics, the fact that you can’t even talk to someone who speaks English on the phone anymore when you need something fixed, and that nothing seems to last very long either, and no one cares.

But of course, there is one domain where we are monarchs no matter how lowly our job or how faceless the large systems that govern our society may be.

The family.

A mother is a queen, and a father is a king. What Mom and Dad say goes. Mom and Dad don’t answer to anyone. They don’t need to ask permission, and they won’t be reprimanded by HR. When you are a parent, you are a monarch of a micro-kingdom. That might sound weird, but that’s the way to think about it. You dictate the religion, the calendar, the diet, the schedule, the language, the attitude, and everything about family life.

Dynasty building

It’s here, in this domain, where the most potent and impactful kind of vitalism still lives and will always live. Cultivating new life is the definition of impacting the world and the future. Yes, your kingdom might be small, but your impact is total, and it’s all yours.

Your vision is what matters. You are in control. What could possibly be more vital than conceiving children, naming them, raising them, teaching them, and then eventually sending them off to do the same things with the tools and ways they learned from you? You are creating a dynasty.

Because we can all do it, we forget that it’s special. It’s so ordinary, we forget it’s extraordinary. We might devote so much time and energy to thinking about money, influence, stability, the markets, the Middle East, geopolitics, sports, and work, but by far the most real and most vital thing you can do in 2026 is a seemingly most ordinary thing.

Raise a family.

Canada-US coalition emerges against Mark Carney's surveillance bill

What happens when a government can order technology companies to create a back door into encrypted communications that even they cannot access?

A rare cross-border coalition of Canadian civil-liberties advocates and Republican lawmakers is warning that Canada's proposed surveillance legislation could threaten privacy rights on both sides of the border.

'Privacy is not a luxury in a free society.'

Sweeping vulnerability

Supporters of proposed Bill C-22 say such powers are necessary to help law enforcement investigate terrorists, organized crime, and other serious threats in an age of encrypted messaging. Critics counter that once a vulnerability is built into a system, it cannot be confined to one country, one agency, or one investigation.

Last Friday, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms presented a petition to the office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. More than 40,000 people signed the petition opposing Bill C-22, which would expand the government's ability to obtain electronic communications and other digital evidence during criminal and national security investigations.

US opposition

VPN providers are already threatening to leave the Canadian market if the bill becomes law. In a May 7 letter, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned Canada's Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree that the legislation could jeopardize privacy rights in both countries.

"Canada's Bill C-22, currently under consideration in Parliament, would drastically expand Canada's surveillance and data access powers in ways that create significant cross-border risks to the security and data privacy of Americans," the lawmakers wrote.

"We write to express our concerns that, if enacted, Bill C-22 would allow Canadian government officials to compel American companies to build backdoors into their encrypted systems, thereby introducing systemic vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers, foreign adversaries, and cybercriminals."

The lawmakers also warned that the bill's language is sufficiently broad to permit secret ministerial orders.

"If a U.S.-based provider is forced to redesign its system to facilitate Canadian authorized access to content that is currently inaccessible even to the provider itself, the resulting capability cannot be geographically limited," they wrote. "This directly threatens the privacy of U.S. persons who expect and depend upon robust encryption to protect sensitive communications, health data, financial records, and personal correspondence from unwarranted intrusion."

Separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre at a rally in front of the Elections Alberta headquarters in Edmonton, Canada. Henry Marken/Getty Images

Stark terms

At a Friday news conference before submitting the petition to Carney, JCCF board member John Robson, a prominent Ottawa historian and journalist, described the bill in stark terms.

“I'm here on Parliament Hill today because we are delivering a petition with 42,344 signatures asking Parliament not to proceed with Bill C-22 ... because [Prime Minister Mark Carney] is the moving force behind this bill, and we're hoping to persuade him that all these signatures from Canadians across the country ... represent legitimate, serious concerns about the scope of this bill,” Robson said.

Robson noted that many Canadians and the constitutional scholars at the JCCF “are concerned about Bill C-22 because it would require service providers to compile Canadians' electronic data, to develop systems for extracting information from it and turning it over to the government.”

“It's not that Canadians ... are against law enforcement having appropriate powers, including to fight organized crime,” Robson said.

“It's one more ham-fisted way of targeting ordinary, law-abiding people instead of adopting tailored measures suitable to the real crime problems. And privacy is not a luxury in a free society.”

‘Godball’: Are outspoken athletes Christianity’s most powerful evangelists?

Christian affiliation in America has been in steep decline for decades, with church attendance falling and nearly 30% of adults religiously unaffiliated.

Pew Research Center has argued that there is “no clear evidence of a religious revival among young adults,” but sports fans might reach a different conclusion when tuning in to post-game interviews and press conferences, where they frequently hear athletes boldly professing their faith and giving glory to Jesus Christ.

‘You’re not alone in seeing it, and you’re not alone in recognizing that it is a revival.’

While Pew’s latest polling shows that the long decline has only plateaued, New York Times bestselling author and sports journalist Steve Eubanks believes there are undeniable and meaningful signs of revival, particularly among athletes.

Teed up

In his forthcoming book, “Godball: How Athletes Are Saving Christianity,” which releases June 9, Eubanks takes a deeper look at the faith resurgence sweeping America and how these outspoken athletes have become Christianity’s most powerful evangelists.

“I don’t think I would have noticed it if it hadn’t been for the event that you and I talked about three years ago,” Eubanks told Blaze News, referring to a 2023 incident in which the leading golf publication he then worked for attempted to censor his interview with professional golfer Amy Olson. When Global Golf Post refused to run the piece unless Eubanks removed Olson's references to her Christian faith and pro-life views, he “resigned on the spot.”

At the time, Eubanks told Blaze News that widespread leftist bias had created a “sad state of affairs” for journalism.

But now Eubanks says the experience had a silver lining: showing him that outspoken Christian athletes like Olson were more common than he realized.

“I thought, ‘Wow, for an athlete to say something like this is extraordinary,’” Eubanks told Blaze News.

“Well, then I started paying attention, and I thought, ‘Maybe it’s not that extraordinary; maybe it’s something that’s happening every day, and I just hadn’t noticed.’”

Jesus first

Combing through press conferences and pre- and post-game interviews proved his hunch correct. More and more athletes seemed to be using the spotlight to profess their faith, sidestepping questions about athletic performance to give thanks to Jesus and share the gospel.

“It’s a huge movement now,” Eubanks declared. “Really, it’s a revival.”

Steve Eubanks. Image source: Steve Eubanks

When asked why athletes tend to be more outspoken than other public figures, Eubanks pointed to the confidence that comes from succeeding in “one of the few meritocracies left.”

Leaderboard

Sports also instill a willingness to resist the herd, Eubanks said.

“From the time they were 7 or 8 years old, they were the leaders of the teams,” Eubanks said. “They had been told by the coaching staff, ‘Look, you’re the person who has to step up.’ And it’s a natural extension of that.”

Eubanks asserts one of the main reasons these athletes are speaking out now is tied to the COVID lockdowns. He highlighted that an athlete’s career is significantly shorter than most other professions and that, during the lockdowns, everything they had dedicated their lives to was put on hold for an uncertain, lengthy period.

“I just think COVID radicalized these kids,” he stated. “Those people realized that their entire lives could be taken away from them in an instant and that it was important for them to stand up for the things that were really important and to go ahead and make these proclamations of faith.”

He argued that athletes have become the “cultural drivers” of American society, more so than artists and musicians.

Bad bets

Eubanks hopes that church attendance, particularly among young men, continues to grow, but expressed concern about one emerging threat within the sports community that could impact the current Christian revival.

Image source: Steve Eubanks

“If there’s anything that could derail it, it is the sports gambling,” Eubanks told Blaze News. “It can compromise the integrity of the sports themselves.”

He detailed how throwing a game used to mean deliberately manipulating the entire outcome, but recently, some athletes have been indicted for allegedly engaging in spot-fixes, rigging small moments, such as a specific baseball pitch, for prop bets.

Eubanks also noted that the barrier to gambling has been substantially lowered, from having to seek out a local bookie to using your phone to place numerous bets in seconds.

“It’s almost the slot machine effect. There’s just enough bells and whistles to keep you engaged and to keep you throwing money down the rathole,” he said. “There’s a huge, huge addiction problem out there with this that we haven’t recognized yet, but that could really derail this revival movement in my eyes.”

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

Walking the walk

To sustain and grow the revival, Eubanks believes athletes must become more vocal about their faith and take a stand against immoral practices in the sports industry, including opposing sports betting and the playing of songs with obscene lyrics at stadiums and arenas.

“In order to walk the walk, you’re eventually going to have to stand up and say, ‘This is not right; we shouldn’t be doing this,’” he said.

Eubanks hopes that readers of “Godball” understand this revival movement is significant and expanding. He also aims to inspire young athletes to express their faith publicly, which could spark a domino effect of fans being drawn to Jesus Christ.

“There’s an entire legion of people out here who are seeing exactly the same thing. You’re not alone in seeing it, and you’re not alone in recognizing that it is a revival,” he stated.

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D-Day drama ‘Pressure’ celebrates forgotten values

The new movie “I Love Boosters” asks us to root for thieves who steal designer clothes sans regret. Next month’s “Carolina Caroline” follows a pair of adorable, lovestruck thugs who swindle strangers for cash.

Whatever happened to actual “good guys”?

‘When he looked into the eyes of the 101st division, he took the time to ask their names, to shoot the breeze about fly fishing and their girlfriends.’

Look no further than “Pressure,” a new World War II saga based on incredible true events.

Extraordinary heroes

Honor. Loyalty. Courage. Heroism. The ability to make a tough decision and stand by it, no matter what. No victim complexes or complaints about rough childhoods. Just extraordinary heroes taking history into their hands.

It’s one reason we still can’t get enough of World War II films. Those qualities are front and center in this well-told tale. And it helps that the premise behind “Pressure” will strike audiences as unfamiliar, even shocking.

Rain day

The most consequential battle of World War II almost got rained out, a story that proves a snug fit for America’s 250th birthday.

Brendan Fraser stars as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander ready to storm the beaches of Normandy and liberate northwest Europe. That risky plan required an assist from Mother Nature.

Would the forecast allow for a massive amphibious assault? Or should the Allied powers wait a few days, even weeks, jeopardizing the element of surprise in the process?

Andrew Scott of “Fleabag” fame plays James Stagg, the meteorologist brought in to advise Gen. Eisenhower on the best path forward. He predicts that conditions will turn D-Day into a disaster. Is he right, or does the existing weather expert (Chris Messina) have the right forecast?

Earned respect

Fraser, the “Whale” alum who once again changed his physique to play “Ike,” told Align why he admires the man who not only helped win the war but later became a two-term U.S. president.

“He was an excellent communicator; he was a diplomat of sorts,” Fraser said. “He conducted military operations over dinner tables. Apparently he was very funny and charming at them. ... That’s a form of communication too.”

There was a method to his unorthodox ways, the Oscar winner said.

“He did all this because he cared intensely about the troops’ well-being,” Fraser said. That extended to bonding with the men facing daunting odds of survival, especially in the D-Day invasion.

“When he looked into the eyes of the 101st division, he took the time to ask their names, to shoot the breeze about fly fishing and their girlfriends. He was respected because he earned it. ... It was almost like a secret weapon in the operation,” the actor noted. “They wanted to please him, and they knew what they were up against.”

Root/Cause

Historic battle

Director Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” captured the early stages of the Normandy invasion without flinching. It’s one of the goriest war sequences ever shot, showing how soldiers ran toward a wall of bullets that took hundreds of lives in a flash.

“Pressure” doesn’t attempt to out-do Spielberg’s version, but the film shows how the beaches were quickly stained a deep red color.

“It was no secret that they were going into a bare-knuckle fight with a chainsaw,” Fraser said of that historic battle.

The project gave Fraser, now gearing up to shoot another “Mummy” film with co-star Rachel Weisz, an appreciation for Ike’s role in history.

“He was the type of leader who did not want to punish his foe, his enemy. ... He didn’t let him off the hook, either. ... He partnered with them, neutered them that way, and made them accountable,” he said.

Little-known perspective

Fraser’s co-star, Irish actress Kerry Condon, gets a less splashy but still consequential role in the war drama. She plays Captain Kay Summersby, Gen. Eisenhower’s loyal aide.

“She brought the emotional intelligence when the men were struggling,” the actress said of her role, including a critical subplot involving Stagg’s pregnant wife. Summersby would later move to the U.S. and become captain in the Women’s Army Corps.

Many moviegoers may not have realized the role weather played in the D-Day invasion. Count Condon among that group.

“It was shocking to think it was one person who changed the course of history. ... That’s why I wanted to do [the film]. It’s a very interesting perspective on World War II.”

The great motor oil shortage of 2026 is another fake, media-driven panic — and drivers are paying the price

America is running out of motor oil!

At least, that’s the latest media-driven crisis making the rounds — and making consumers nervous. Shelves stripped bare by panic buying, retailers quietly raising prices, and everyone blaming “supply chains.”

Older vehicles were often far more forgiving. Many could run multiple oil viscosities without major drama.

Sound familiar?

It should. Welcome to the reboot of 2020’s “great toilet paper shortage.” This time, the same playbook is being used with synthetic motor oil.

Spoiler alert: There is no nationwide motor oil collapse.

Slick trick

Your car is not about to become undrivable because America suddenly “ran out” of lubricants. Most drivers will probably notice little more than higher prices and fewer discount sales.

Yes, there is a legitimate supply issue involving some specialty synthetic base oils used in certain ultra-low-viscosity lubricants. Shipping disruptions, refinery problems, and instability in parts of the Middle East and Asia have tightened supply for these specialized lubricants.

The American Petroleum Institute even activated emergency provisional licensing flexibility for some lubricant formulations because certain approved ingredients became harder to source. That’s not something done casually.

But these high-end Group III base oils — thinner oils designed primarily to help automakers meet fuel economy and emissions targets — are only used in specific synthetic formulations like 0W-8, 0W-16, and certain OEM-specific blends required in some newer vehicles.

So if your car has a new Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Ford, or GM engine designed around low-viscosity lubricants, you could face higher prices, fewer choices, or occasional temporary shortages of specific formulations.

That’s a very different story from, “America is running out of oil.”

CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

Primed for panic

Even if your car is affected, the impact will likely show up as higher maintenance costs, reduced sales promotions, and occasional difficulty finding certain premium synthetic blends. That’s annoying, especially when vehicle ownership costs are already skyrocketing from inflation, insurance increases, expensive repairs, and high interest rates. But it’s hardly an automotive apocalypse.

But the media narrative is turning a narrow industrial issue into another broad consumer panic, and once again, fear is becoming profitable.

Most conventional motor oils are still widely available. Most drivers using common viscosities like 5W-30 or 10W-30 are not likely to face major supply issues. You can still walk into most parts stores, retailers, and service centers and find plenty of oil on the shelf.

But that nuance doesn’t generate clicks.

Instead, social media influencers and breathless news coverage are lumping everything together under the terrifying word “shortage” because panic spreads faster than facts. Suddenly consumers start hearing rumors that oil changes may become impossible, stores will run dry, and everyone needs to buy cases of oil immediately before it disappears forever.

That panic buying itself becomes the problem.

Memory wipe

The toilet paper fiasco proved how quickly consumer psychology can create artificial shortages. There was never a true nationwide inability to manufacture toilet paper. The system broke because consumers started hoarding far more than they normally purchased, overwhelming distribution and retail inventory systems that were never designed for panic-level buying behavior.

Now we’re watching the same pattern develop in automotive service.

Some repair shops and distributors are already stockpiling certain synthetic products because they expect higher prices and tighter inventories. Consumers are hearing “shortage” and buying extra oil they otherwise would not have purchased. Retailers are responding by raising prices early, sometimes well ahead of any actual supply impact.

Which raises the question: At what point does anticipation become opportunistic pricing?

Thin is in

The bigger question, however, is why we’re in this situation at all. The answer points to increasing government pressure on the auto industry.

Modern engines have become increasingly dependent on hyper-specific lubricants largely because automakers were chasing federal fuel economy targets. Thinner oils reduce internal drag slightly, helping manufacturers squeeze out small efficiency gains that look good on government testing charts.

But that engineering strategy also created greater dependence on specialized synthetic supply chains.

Older vehicles were often far more forgiving. Many could run multiple oil viscosities without major drama. Today’s engines are increasingly calibrated around exact formulations, exact additives, and exact viscosity requirements. That means even a relatively small disruption in specialized synthetic oil supply suddenly becomes a much bigger issue for dealerships and owners of newer vehicles.

If you own an older truck running conventional 5W-30, you’re probably in much better shape than someone driving a brand-new vehicle requiring a very specific OEM-approved 0W-8 synthetic blend.

If your vehicle requires a highly specialized synthetic oil, keeping enough for your next oil change is reasonable. Buying a lifetime supply because somebody on TikTok said that “the shelves are going empty” is exactly the kind of irrational behavior that creates unnecessary shortages in the first place.

The bigger concern should actually be how quickly we’re manipulated into panic consumption cycles every time there’s even a modest supply disruption.

We’ve seen this movie before.

And unless consumers stop reacting emotionally every time a scary headline appears, we’ll probably see it again with the next product too.

Twins

Status symbols

All in the family

Sharing 'String Cheese'

Ode to motherhood

Grateful and grounded

Settling for less?

Buddy system

The cure of community

Hamster wheel

Family matters

Royal reproduction

Dynasty building

Sweeping vulnerability

US opposition

Stark terms

Teed up

Jesus first

Leaderboard

Bad bets

Walking the walk

Extraordinary heroes

Rain day

Earned respect

Historic battle

Little-known perspective

Slick trick

Primed for panic

Memory wipe

Thin is in

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