After sold-out screenings across the country and multiple festival awards, the documentary Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round will screen at Columbus’ Gateway Film Center on Sunday, February 15. The latest film by Emmy-award winning filmmaker Ilana Trachtman (Praying with Lior, Mariachi High, Black in Latin America, etc.) recounts a watershed moment in American history: the first time Black student activists were joined by an organized white community to protest segregation. Together, they demonstrated against Washington, D.C.’s whites-only Glen Echo Amusement Park in 1960, provoking the first counter protests by the American Nazi Party, luring civil rights giants A. Phillip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Adam Clayton Powell to the picket line, and addressing the U.S. Supreme Court.

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February 2, 2026, 2-4pm PT / 5-7 ET

A group of House Republicans has formed the Sharia Free America Caucus to address the influence of Islamic Sharia law in the United States. They argue that Sharia is not simply a religious code; they see it as a political and legal system that conflicts with the U.S. Constitution. The caucus intends to advance legislation. One key proposal is the No Sharia Legislation.

Those who are advocating that 3.5 million Muslims in America want to impose Sharia law on the rest of America are either ignorant, liars, or both. Most polls show that American people are not truly concerned by the potential spread of Islamic Sharia.

Sharia is to Islam what Halachah is to Judaism and Canon law is to the Catholic church. So why single out Muslims? The Republican Party preys on people's fears and depicts Muslim Americans as if they are evil or snakes hiding in the grass waiting for the next move and as such constitute a threat to our homeland security.

After sweeping the Golden Globes and other awards, One Battle After Another has 13 Oscar nominations. Given the film’s clear relevance, if it does end up a winner, those who created it will probably do more than thank their agents, publicists, partners, and pets. They’ll likely talk about the times we’re living in, as every creative artist or public figure should, given the stakes. We hope they’ll present the film as a cautionary tale, not an endorsement of violent resistance.

It’s easy to see why One Battle has been so successful. It’s gripping, funny, and wonderfully acted. It’s a satire of political madness, left and right. But parts of it also feel real in ways that most movie satires or political thrillers don’t. Although it was completed before Donald Trump’s reelection, its images of vicious immigration raids and out-of-control police now echo America’s daily reality.

Solar surpasses wind as largest renewable source

Solar and storage accounted for 72 percent of new electrical generating capacity on the U.S. grid for the first 10 months of 2025, according to a review of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) data. Solar photovoltaics (PV) has held this position for 26 months in a row and has now edged out wind power as the largest source of renewable energy capacity on the U.S. grid.

Solar, wind, hydropower and biomass accounted for 87.2 percent of all new generating capacity while natural gas added 12.4 percent, with the remainder being oil and waste heat. Taken together, wind and solar constitute nearly one-fourth (23.79 percent) of the United States' total available installed utility-scale generating capacity. More than 25 percent of U.S. solar capacity is in the form of small-scale (rooftop) systems that are not reflected in FERC's data.