x01a Research Archives

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A 57-year-old man is in custody and charged with both murder and attempted murder after he allegedly shot two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, prompting a statewide manhunt over the weekend.

The story is still developing and has yielded plenty of unanswered questions about Vance Boelter’s background, living situation, and apparent re-appointment to a workforce development board by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The consensus so far, however, is that his motives for allegedly assassinating at least one Democrat legislator and her husband, as well as targeting another Democrat and his wife were no doubt radical and most likely political.

Corporate media and Democrats alike were quick to amplify the narrative that Boelter voted for Trump. In a sick twist, some of them even appeared to relish that the suspect, according to his alleged pizza delivery roommate, would “be offended if people called him a Democrat.”

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A federal lawsuit challenging a Vermont law regulating pro-life pregnancy centers has been dismissed after state officials amended the statute to address concerns raised by the plaintiffs.

The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), along with Aspire Now in Williston and Branches Pregnancy Resource Center in Brattleboro, filed the suit in July 2023. The plaintiffs argued that Vermont’s Senate Bill 37 (SB 37), which had taken effect in May 2023, unconstitutionally targeted “limited-services pregnancy centers” by restricting their speech and dictating how they could operate.

Specifically, the law prohibited what it called “deceptive acts or practices” by centers that do not offer abortions or emergency contraception, including advertising that could be considered false or misleading. It also limited the scope of services non-licensed individuals could provide, effectively barring some staff at pregnancy resource centers from offering non-medical counseling, advice, or information on abortion reversal treatments.

The law essentially claimed that pregnancy centers that neither perform nor refer for abortions were unqualified to say they assist pregnant women. It subjected these pro-life centers to potential fines of up to $10,000 if their advertisements were deemed misleading by Vermont’s pro-abortion attorney general. The restrictions applied solely to pro-life organizations, while abortion providers offering similar information were not held to the same standard.

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Republican governors are flexing their muscles ahead of anti-Trump “No Kings” protests set for this weekend, telling protesters to “think twice” before considering echoing recent strains of violence found in Los Angeles.

The governors of South Carolina, Texas, and Utah have issued warnings against violence ahead of the protests on Saturday. In the wake of California riots and attacks on authorities that broke out in reaction to Trump’s immigration agenda, the Republican leaders said similar acts of violence in their states will be met with a swift response from law enforcement.

Gov. Henry McMaster (R-SC) said on Tuesday that he would put South Carolina on an elevated sense of alert “if it’s necessary.” His comments came hours after South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson issued a statement saying his office is aware of potential “coordinated protests and acts of civil disobedience” planned for Saturday, adding that protestors who attack law enforcement, destroy property, or endanger lives will be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law.”

“If people want to protest and want to voice their opinion, that’s fine. But when you start destroying property, scaring people, hurting people that’s when law enforcement swings into action,” McMaster said. “I would urge people who want to cause trouble in our state to think twice because this is not the place to cause trouble. You will be held accountable.”

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) revealed that the Texas National Guard would be deployed across the Lone Star state to quell possible violence, while Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) also had a message to send protestors: “Just a word of warning to anybody who is thinking about any type of violence or chaos or property damage or vandalism,” he said during a news conference.

“It will not happen here, and you will be held accountable,” Cox said. “We are going to be overprepared.”

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For the first time, scientists have used Earth-based telescopes to peer back into the cosmic dawn — an era more than 13 billion years ago when light from the first stars began reshaping our universe.

The residual light from this ancient epoch is millimeters in wavelength and extremely faint, meaning that although space-based observatories have been able to peer into it, the signal is drowned out by the electromagnetic radiation in Earth’s atmosphere before ground-based telescopes can detect the primordial light.

But now, by deploying a specially designed telescope, scientists at the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) project have detected traces that the first stars left on the background light of the Big Bang. They published their findings June 11 in The Astrophysical Journal.

“People thought this couldn’t be done from the ground,” study co-author Tobias Marriage, CLASS project leader and a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, said in a statement. “Astronomy is a technology-limited field, and microwave signals from the Cosmic Dawn are famously difficult to measure. Ground-based observations face additional challenges compared to space. Overcoming those obstacles makes this measurement a significant achievement.”

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WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered U.S. embassies around the world Tuesday to move ahead with a directive to fire all remaining staffers with the U.S. Agency for International Development. He said the State Department will take over USAID’s foreign assistance programs by Monday.

A federal judge had temporarily blocked an executive order by President Donald Trump for mass firings at multiple federal agencies, including the State Department, and plaintiffs say Rubio’s reorganization plan appears to violate that court injunction.

The Trump administration says the plan was already underway when the president issued the order, so there’s no possible violation. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has yet to make a determination.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Tuesday that Rubio’s directive “wasn’t a surprise.”

“So this was a cable, telling our posts exactly what they were expecting to be told, which is that those positions were being eliminated. So it wasn’t a surprise. It’s nothing new,” she said. “And, it is exactly what we previewed, in February and March of this year.”

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Having won in the House with its demand that the so-called “big, beautiful bill” eliminate the tax on firearms suppressors, Second Amendment advocates are now pushing the Senate to eliminate the tax and registration requirement on short-barreled rifles.

The industry is moving swiftly to build support for its call to include the Short Act in the tax and spending bill. That would essentially pull short-barreled rifles such as AR-style pistols and some shotguns out of the National Firearms Act, which requires that the arms be registered with Uncle Sam and a $200 tax paid.

On Monday, the House Freedom Caucus joined in asking the Senate to expand the House version of the “big, beautiful bill” to include the commonly owned and used firearms.