x01a Research Archives

Blurb:

The student government at the University of Maryland passed a resolution Wednesday that seeks to ban Israel Defense Forces members from speaking on campus.

“The resolution came after a pro-Israel student group hosted IDF soldiers, which protesters disrupted by calling them ‘baby killers’ and comparing the IDF to the KKK,” the Jewish Journal reported.

According to the Diamondback student newspaper, the resolution — which passed unanimously — urges administrators “to condemn the hosting of the soldiers and change university policy so that student organizations and academic departments will not be able to host speakers who have been found, or are being actively investigated for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or systematic human rights violations.”

The resolution is non-binding, meaning it only represents the opinions of the student government and is not enforcable.

The crux of the controversy centers on an event held Oct. 21 by Students Supporting Israel featuring three guest speakers, Israel Defense Forces soldiers, who shared “their experiences fighting for Israel before and after October 7, and their advice for us college students on standing up against antisemitism and anti-Zionism every day,” according to the group.

The event prompted a protest, during which four students, including two student journalists, were detained by police for an hour, the Diamondback reported; according to campus police: “Four people were in the hallway causing a disruption. This disruption included screaming, holding signs and recording their actions.”

Blurb:

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS or drones) represent the future of warfare. They are already the Ukraine War’s preeminent weapon system, striking targets near the fighting front or Ukrainian and Russian cities far behind the lines. Counter-drone systems are evolving in response, but defending against drones’ multiple forms, capabilities, and missions requires a layered approach as flexible as the drones themselves.

The last defensive layer is the individual soldier faced with defending his and his comrades’ lives. Infantrymen cannot affect larger, long-range drones. But smaller, short-range First Person View (FPV) drones confront soldiers every day with deadly results. Estimates credit drones with inflicting up to 80 percent of all combat casualties in Ukraine.

Blurb:

While liberal America is justifiably triumphant about Tuesday night’s election results, a lot of professionals are quietly worried about extremism infecting the party. Certainly, electing a mayor of New York who’s an unfortunate hellbroth of communism, Islamism, and “defund the police,” is not someone you want defining your party nationally.

And then there’s the problem of Jay Jones, the Attorney General-elect of Virginia, who won handily despite being caught sending text messages wishing death on a Republican colleagues’ kids — and this wasn’t some flippant message. After he did this, he called up his colleague on the phone to further argue his point about needing to watch kids die in order to make political progress. He also appears to have deceived the state and faked community service hours as part of a punishment for being caught driving 116 mph.

Despite this, no notable national Democrat called for Jones to withdraw from the race. Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger refused withdraw her endorsement of Jones, and Virginia Senator and former vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine also continued to support him.

Blurb:

There’s a familiar air of disillusionment the morning following any election; some cheer, others curse, and many retreat into silence.

But what happened this week wasn’t shocking, and anybody who thought otherwise wasn’t paying attention to the map, the math, or the mood of the country.

Two deep-blue states and one purple state leaned where they always lean. All three painted in predictable hues — Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City, along with California tightening its grip on redistricting — while Texas passed every constitutional amendment in the methodical order listed on the docket.

There was nothing revolutionary or accidental; it was just yet another reminder that America rarely turns on a dime.

That’s the thing about republics: they bend slowly. They don’t change course because of one election night’s chatter, which is precisely what many Americans have forgotten.

Blurb:

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a ritual-based site that may have been built long before the rise of Maya rulers

Finding the oldest Maya site ever documented was only the beginning of archaeologist Takeshi Inomata’s discoveries. After locating the Aguada Fénix site buried in the jungle of southern Mexico in 2017, Inomata and his team began digging downward and uncovered a massive cross-shaped pit.

Inside the pit were pigments of blue azurite to the north, green malachite to the east and yellow ochre to the south, as well as marine shells interspersed with axe-shaped clay offerings to the west, says Inomata, a researcher at the University of Arizona. Later the team realized that the cross-shaped pit was aligned with giant canals that extended toward the four cardinal directions.

The cross and the canals, Inomata says, form a cosmogram—a monumental map of the universe etched into the landscape. Cosmograms were used by Mesoamerican civilizations to represent their understanding and cultural relationship with the cosmos. Inomata says that his and his colleagues’ findings, published on Wednesday in Science Advances, challenge long-held assumptions about the social order of the ancient Maya and the reasons behind their architectural achievements.

Blurb:

Ever-evolving research is steadily turning science fiction into science fact. Neural implants —tiny devices that read or stimulate brain activity —have already entered human trials, showing what’s possible when technology and neuroscience intersect. While early results prove the concept works, the race is now on to make these systems smaller, safer, and more reliable.

Developers and philanthropists alike have ambitious goals: from controlling computers and prosthetics with nothing but thought to restoring movement after paralysis and monitoring neurological disorders in real time.

Now, researchers from Cornell University have taken a major step forward. They’ve created a neural implant smaller than a grain of salt that can wirelessly transmit signals from inside the brain. Their results, published in Nature Electronics, show that this tiny implant emitted clean, uninterrupted data in healthy mice for more than a year.

Blurb:

COLUMBUS, OH — A new bill introduced in the Ohio Senate aims to align state law with what could become a major shift in federal firearms policy. Senate Bill 303, sponsored by Sen. Terry Johnson and backed by the Buckeye Firearms Association (BFA), would allow adults ages 18 to 20 to legally purchase handguns from federally licensed firearms dealers (FFLs).

Under current federal law, licensed dealers are prohibited from selling handguns to individuals under the age of 21. However, a growing number of legal challenges argue that this restriction is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court may soon weigh in, and Ohio lawmakers are preparing in advance.

“Sen. Johnson’s bill will not change federal law,” said BFA Executive Director Dean Rieck. “But it will prepare Ohio for the coming Supreme Court challenge to change the law regarding handgun purchases for those 18 to 20 years old.”

Blurb:

Detailed map of the genome one pixel per nucleotide. Credit: Radcliffe Department of Medicine

Scientists from Oxford’s Radcliffe Department of Medicine have achieved the most detailed view yet of how DNA folds and functions inside living cells, revealing the physical structures that control when and how genes are switched on.

Using a new technique called MCC ultra, the team mapped the human genome down to a single base pair, unlocking how genes are controlled, or, how the body decides which genes to turn on or off at the right time, in the right cells. This breakthrough gives scientists a powerful new way to understand how genetic differences lead to disease and opens up fresh routes for drug discovery.

“For the first time, we can see how the genome’s control switches are physically arranged inside cells, said Professor James Davies, lead author of the study published in the journal Cell titled “Mapping chromatin structure at base-pair resolution unveils a unified model of cis-regulatory element interactions.”

Blurb:

An American man and his teenage son died last month after they were swarmed by wasps while ziplining at an adventure camp in Laos and stung many dozens of times, a hospital official said Thursday.

Dan Owen, the director of an international school in neighboring Vietnam, and his son Cooper were attacked by the insects on Oct. 15 at the Green Jungle Park, as they were descending from a tree at the end of the zip line.

The camp is located outside the city of Luang Prabang, a popular tourist site in the Southeast Asian nation that was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.

The two were taken to a local clinic and then transported to Luang Prabang Provincial Hospital where they arrived in critical condition, said Jorvue Yianouchongteng, the emergency room physician who received them.

“The son was unconscious and passed away after half an hour, while the father was conscious and passed away about three hours later,” he told The Associated Press. “We tried our best to save them but we couldn’t.”

Blurb:

The United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act was meant to keep children safe. Instead, it is keeping the public uninformed. Within days of the law taking effect in late July 2025, X (formerly Twitter) started hiding videos of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza from UK timelines behind content warnings and age barriers. A law sold as safeguarding has become one of the most effective censorship tools Britain has ever built. What is unfolding is no accident. It is the result of legislation that weaponises child-protection rhetoric to normalise censorship, identity verification and online surveillance.

The roots of Britain’s online censorship crisis go back almost a decade, to MindGeek, now rebranded as Aylo, the scandal-ridden company behind Pornhub. This tax-dodging, exploitative porn empire worked closely with the UK government to develop an age-verification system called AgeID, a plan that would have effectively handed Aylo a monopoly over legal adult content by making smaller competitors pay or perish. Public backlash killed AgeID in 2019, but the idea survived. Once one democracy entertained the notion that access to online content should be gated by identity checks, the precedent was set. The Digital Economy Act 2017 laid the groundwork, and the Online Safety Act 2023 made it law. Today, several European Union states, including France and Germany, are exploring similar legislation, each cloaked in the same rhetoric of “protecting children”. This is not conspiracy; it is the natural convergence of corporate capture and state control, wrapped in the moral language of child safety.

Blurb:

Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York has assumed Pelosi’s former role as House Democratic leader, while Senator Chuck Schumer, 74, continues as the party leader in that chamber.

While there are tensions between Jeffries, 55, and more liberal Democrats, he is expected to be the likely choice for speaker if the party does capture control of the House.

“Nancy Pelosi is an iconic, legendary, transformational figure who has done so many things over so many years to make life better for so many people,” Jeffries said at a press conference on Monday when asked about Pelosi’s 2026 intentions.

During her tenure, Pelosi gained a reputation as a defender of human rights and an early advocate of gay rights at a time when AIDS swept through the world and especially her hometown of San Francisco in the 1980s and beyond.

Blurb:

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., elaborated on the group’s support for a longer-term continuing resolution in an interview this week with The Daily Signal.

The group had released a statement on Monday supporting the passage of a continuing resolution to fund the government “as far into 2026 as possible (ideally, past the November 2026 election and with necessary defense stop-start anomalies).”

The statement went on to note that such a CR would “effectively keep federal discretionary spending flat at the same levels since 2023,” and “block any further effort by Democrats and the Swamp to advance a budget-busting, pork-filled, lobbyist-handout omnibus in November or December.”

The Daily Signal also received a statement from Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who concurred. “Congress must act responsibly and pass a long-term continuing resolution to fund the federal government—not another short-term patch that merely delays the inevitable. These constant, stopgap extensions have become a political crutch, allowing Congress to lurch from one manufactured crisis to the next instead of governing with fiscal sanity and discipline.”

Blurb:

One of the most notorious tactics employed by left-wing agitators during their so-called “peaceful protests” is to try and conceal their identities by wearing a bandana or scarf that partially covers their faces, ski mask-style facial coverings, or some type of character mask that obscures pretty much everything but their eyes.

More recently in Portland, however, the nightly rabble rousers have, in many instances, begun wearing full costumes in front of the city’s ICE facility as a way to distract and deceive federal law enforcement, something we also saw during some of the “No Kings” protests in mid-October.

Here are a couple of examples:

Blurb:

“Unfortunately, we expect to see more of these operations in the coming weeks. It’s important to remember that everyone still has rights—no matter what,” said Rep. Ruiz.

Oregon state representative Ricki Ruiz called to disrupt a high-risk immigration enforcement operation, which involved making targeted arrests of Tren de Aragua gang members at an apartment complex situated next to a Portland elementary school.

The suspects, all of whom are illegally present in the United States, had been using the apartment unit as a “stash house” to harbor illicit drugs, firearms, and ammunition, which were being sold in the Portland, Oregon area, according to federal investigators. Rep. Ruiz, a Democrat, condemned the October 24 operation on social media, sharing a hotline from the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC) that mobilizes anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activists to disrupt immigration enforcement actions once ICE activity is reported.

Rockwood Preparatory Academy (K-5) closed the school for the day due to the presence of federal agents.

Blurb:

The BBC has upheld a complaint against the newsreader Martine Croxall after she changed the term “pregnant people” to “women” and raised her eyebrows during a news channel broadcast in the summer.

The corporation said its executive complaints unit (ECU) had upheld 20 complaints about the broadcast. It said Croxall’s facial expression “laid it open to the interpretation that it indicated a particular viewpoint in the controversies currently surrounding trans identity”.

Under the BBC’s impartiality rules, news presenters are not permitted to express views on controversial topics. Croxall and the editorial team involved have been spoken to about the item.

Croxall received praise and criticism over the incident when when a clip of it went viral online. JK Rowling, who has made her gender critical beliefs clear, said Croxall was her “new favourite BBC presenter”.

Croxall had been introducing a news story about research on the groups most at risk during heatwaves. It was based on a study and news release by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“Malcolm Mistry, who was involved in the research, says that the aged, pregnant people … women … and those with pre-existing health conditions need to take precautions,” she said.

Blurb:

President Trump on Wednesday redoubled his efforts to end the Senate filibuster rule, despite opposition from key Republicans.

Trump has repeatedly called for the elimination of the filibuster, urging GOP senators to use the so-called “nuclear option” to pass legislation with a simple majority. The filibuster currently requires 60 out of 100 senators to agree on most legislation, which has been a major obstacle in ending the government shutdown that began on October 1.
Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and would be able to pass bills with a simple majority if the filibuster were removed.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other Republican leaders have resisted weakening the filibuster, citing concerns about long-term consequences and precedent.

Thune and Johnson have failed to enact federal election security measures or impeach activist judges accused of bias in the ten months since Republicans gained congressional majorities.

Blurb:

President Donald Trump’s vow to go “guns blazing” in defense of persecuted Nigerian Christians highlights a brutal crisis the media continues to ignore, as over 100,000 Christians have been slaughtered by Boko Haram and other Islamic extremists since 2009, while Church officials like Cardinal Pietro Parolin downplay it as mere “social conflict.” Meanwhile, a growing generational shift occurs as Gen Z men embrace traditional faith and reject woke ideology. From Bill Gates walking back climate hysteria to Russia’s defense of the family, there seems to be a global pivot from elite lies toward moral clarity.

Blurb:

At least 1,863 individuals were unlawfully registered to vote under the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) voter registration system.

Oregon election officials announced that they will not pursue criminal investigations against the dozens of non-citizens who illegally cast ballots in elections in recent years after they were unlawfully registered to vote due to a DMV clerical error.

According to a statement from the Oregon Secretary of State, the decision rests on the fact that the non-citizens allegedly did not knowingly violate election laws or were either eligible to vote at the time they did. “The Secretary of State’s Office will not refer anyone for criminal prosecution because the DMV mistakenly registered them to vote,” the statement reads. “A clerical error at DMV caused these mistaken registrations, not the unlawful actions of any of the people registered.”

This comes after a last year investigation revealed that at least 1,863 individuals were unlawfully registered to vote under the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) voter registration system. Hundreds of those individuals were determined to be non-citizens. Oregon law allows anyone to obtain a driver’s license despite immigration status. The error occurred when DMV staff mistakenly selected “US passport” or “US birth certificate” while entering documentation data for individuals applying for driver’s licenses. This error led to non-citizens being added to the voter registration system.

39 of the 1,863 individuals who were unlawfully registered, many of whom were noncitizens, had cast ballots in elections in recent years, the Oregonian reported. Election authorities argued that the number of people who voted illegally did not affect the outcome of an election, giving them another excuse to avoid inquiries.

Blurb:

The Federal aviation Administration (FAA) will reduce flight capacity by 10 percent at 40 major airports across the country starting Friday due to critical shortages among air traffic controllers and other flight support staff, thousands of whom have been forced to work without pay for a month due to the Democrat-led government shutdown.

The restrictions will go into effect Friday morning, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced during a press conference on Wednesday. The airports affected will be announced Thursday, officials said.

According to a report from ABC News citing sources familiar with the matter, reductions will start at four percent as early as Friday and work up to 10 percent over the course of the weekend. The flights impacted by these reductions are scheduled during the hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Blurb:

PUTIN ORDERS ‘POSSIBLE FIRST STEPS’ FOR NUKE TESTS: At a meeting of his security council at the Kremlin on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin quizzed his ministers about what to make of President Donald Trump’s recent pronouncement that the U.S. would resume testing of nuclear weapons after a three-decade moratorium.

“I would like to note that Russia has always strictly adhered to its obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, and we do not plan to abandon these obligations,” Putin said, according to the official Kremlin transcript of the meeting. “At the same time, indeed, in my 2023 Address to the Federal Assembly, I said that if the United States or any other state party to the Treaty was to conduct such tests, Russia would be under obligation to take reciprocal measures.”

Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said Russian analysts have scrutinized the public statements of Trump, Vice President JD Vance, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and they still can’t figure out what the U.S. actually plans to do. “We analyzed these statements, but we are not entirely clear about the United States’ future plans and steps regarding nuclear weapons testing.”

Blurb:

Democrats are learning all the wrong lessons from where their vile rhetoric has gotten them — and Nancy Pelosi’s latest outburst is only the latest proof.

In a recent CNN interview, Pelosi called Donald Trump “a vile creature” and “the worst thing on the face of the earth,” before backing up her claim with virtually nothing.

“He’s just a vile creature. The worst thing on the face of the earth, but anyway,” Pelosi told the interviewer.

“You think he’s the worst thing on the face of the earth?” the interviewer asked.

“Yeah, I do, because he’s the president of the United States, and he does not honor the Constitution of the United States,” Pelosi replied.

Blurb:

The “No Kings” movement started last June with a series of protests opposing what the organizers say are the corrupt and authoritarian policies of President Trump. The most recent event occurred on October 18, when supporters claimed that more than seven million people participated in over 2,700 events across all 50 states.

Like any president, Trump has made some mistakes, but calling him a “king” is absurd. Kings are not elected, and Trump ran for office three times, winning twice.

In fact, when it comes to tyranny, the fingers should really be pointed at the leftists in the “No Kings” crowd.

Let’s start with Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, and his cronies. As Victor Davis Hanson points out, in 2021, Biden’s DOJ and FBI raided former President Trump’s home. They found only 102 classified documents among approximately 14,000 seized, yet still indicted him. However, there was no SWAT raid on Biden’s multiple repositories of illegally removed classified documents.

Blurb:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has become a problem. She’s shooting inside the ship, blaming GOP leadership for the Democrat-induced Schumer shutdown, and opted to go on The View. She’s doing everything she can to break from the MAGA wing of the GOP, or is she? What the hell is happening? Well, Tara Palmeri had an interesting post on her Substack, where she alleges that President Trump’s political team nuked Greene’s plans to run for Senate in Georgia. Yet, the first reported slight was when Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) was asked to deliver the GOP response to Biden’s State of the Union address (via The Red Letter):

When Greene flirted with a statewide run in Georgia, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s political team quietly told her she wouldn’t beat Senator Jon Ossoff. That hit hard. Some people point to that moment in May as the catalyst for what we see now. It’s not just rejection of Speaker Mike Johnson. It’s a series of perceived slights from the broader MAGA machine, and she’s not hiding her bitterness even while insisting, “I support President Trump.”

Her recent Washington Post interview makes her grievance plain. “Whereas President Trump has a very strong, dominant style — he’s not weak at all — a lot of the men here in the House are weak,” Greene told the Post. “There’s a lot of weak Republican men and they’re more afraid of strong Republican women. So they always try to marginalize the strong Republican women that actually want to do something and actually want to achieve.”

Blurb:

Last night was disappointing but blue states voting Democrat isn’t big news. Still, it is, well, unsettling that new Attorney General of Virginia declared he wants to kill Republicans and their children and still got elected – but that’s where the Democrats are at.

But at the end of the day, no matter what – a catastrophic Biden presidency, an invasion of migrants, or the miracle of Trump’s first 10 months in office – Democrats will be …… Democrats.

Virginia Elects Attorney General Candidate Who Called for Death of His Opponent: ‘Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head’

Those who have been tracking with the contest know those texts came from Jay Jones. It’s worth highlighting: The man who wrote that is now the incoming chief law enforcement officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia. National Review:  Embattled Democrat Jay Jones, who spent recent weeks embroiled in a scandal surrounding violent text messages he sent in 2022, won Virginia’s off-year attorney general contest on Tuesday evening against GOP incumbent Jason Miyares. Jones’s victory was a major defeat for Republicans, who spent millions in advertising in the final stretch of the campaign to boost Miyares. Jones was leading 53 percent to Miyares’s 47 percent with 90 percent of ballots cast when the Associated Press called the race (National Review).

Blurb:

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough sought to present himself as the kindly, non-partisan political consultant, saying he had warned Republicans not to overreach after their 2024 victories, or imagine they’d occupy the White House forever.

How phony. That was just cover for his gloating proclamation that Republicans didn’t listen to him:

“And if you go too fast, voters will knock you on your ass immediately. And that’s what happened yesterday.” 

Democrat ex-senator Claire McCaskill didn’t even bother trying to disguise her glee, saying of President Trump: “Yeah, I’d say he’s on his ass.” 

Morning Joe proceeded to give the shortest, most misleading, of shrifts to the victory of Democrat Jay Jones in the Virginia attorney general race.

The show devoted all of seven seconds to it. Here’s the totality of what the show, via Mika Brzezinski, had to say:

“Democrat Jay Jones won the race for Virginia Attorney General, overcoming a text message scandal that threatened his chances.”

An unsuspecting viewer might have imagined that Jones had sent some racy texts. The reality, of course, is that he sent texts saying a Republican lawmaker deserved “two bullets to the head,” followed by a wish that the Republican lawmaker’s children “die in their mother’s arms.”

Blurb:

The once-promising marriage between Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Republican Party appears to be headed for a nasty divorce.

Greene — who rose to prominence as one of the loudest and staunchest supporters of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement — has been headed down this path for a while now.

The outspoken Greene has been excoriating her own Republican Party over the last month, particularly raging about the ongoing government shutdown and the battle over healthcare premiums.

(In a clear break from her party line, Greene doesn’t seem too interested in blaming Democrats for the shutdown.)

WARNING: The following post contains vulgar language that may offend some readers.