[World Tribune] The University of Wisconsin-Madison has approved $135,000 in funding for a LGBTQ student group which distributes sex toys and hosts "interactive" presentations on such things as "ethical porn" and "kink," a report said.
The group receiving the funding, Sex Out Loud, is part of Qouncil, the university coalition of LGBTQ+ organizations. The group advertises "free and confidential peer to peer counseling," as well as a "stocked library" and "free safer sex supplies (including condoms, lube, sex dams, gloves, and more)," Campus Reform reported on Tuesday.
The funding total is based upon a General Student Services Fund budget report reviewed by The Madison Federalist.
The university approved over $94,000 for Sex Out Loud salaries, such as the program facilitator, who provides presentations on "pleasure, kink, birth control, STIs, HIV/AIDS, and LGBTQ health." The student group encourages applications from "LGBTQ+ persons, people of color, and self-identifying men."
An additional $22,400 is earmarked for supplies including sex toys. Sex Out Loud also promotes brands like "Cute Little F*****s" and "The Tool Shed."
Continued on Page 47
[Space] Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has threatened to file a lawsuit against SpaceX over what the leader described as "contamination" following an explosion at SpaceX's Starbase facility earlier this month.
On June 18, SpaceX was testing the upper stage of its Starship vehicle on a test stand at its Starbase site near Boca Chica Beach in Texas when Starship exploded in a dramatic fireball. SpaceX wrote on social media that there were no hazards to the surrounding communities following the explosion.
But Sheinbaum contests that claim. In a press conference held on Wednesday (June 25), the Mexican president said there is a "general review underway of the international laws that are being violated" due to the fact that "there is contamination" stemming from Starship's explosion, according to Yucatan Magazine. The Guardian reports that Sheinbaum added that her government is looking to file "the necessary lawsuits" over the alleged contamination.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] In the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, a bride named Sitara armed herself with a knife on her wedding night and held her groom captive for three days, threatening to kill him. This was reported by the News18 TV channel.
The girl was forced into marriage by her parents to 26-year-old Nishad, although she loved another man. After the wedding, when the newlyweds were alone, the bride took a knife and threatened to cut the groom into 35 pieces if he touched her, according to the June 25 article.
That’s awfully specific…
"I was freezing. I sat on the couch all night, and she stayed on the bed with a knife <…> I couldn't sleep, afraid that she might stab me in my sleep. I read about such cases in the newspapers. I thought I might become another headline," Nishad complained.
What a strange country, that that is a standing headline.
Three days later, the groom told his parents about it, they contacted the bride's family, a general meeting was held with the participation of elders. The girl was asked to accept the marriage, but she did not allow the appointed husband to approach her.
The tense relationship lasted for a month, then the girl ran away at night, climbing over a fence. Her actions were condemned by both families.
"If I ever marry again, it will be to someone who truly understands the meaning of marriage. Sitara never accepted me," Nishad said.
[GEO.TV] A powerful thunderstorm brought both respite from the heat and disruption to daily life across Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... late on Thursday, as more than 200 power feeders tripped, plunging large parts of the city into darkness.
According to reports, several areas of the port city, including Surjani Town, Malir, North Karachi, I I Chundrigar Road, Gulshan-e-Hadeed, and Gadap, witnessed heavy downpours accompanied by lightning and thunder. Rain also lashed Clifton, Defence, Scheme 33, North Nazimabad, Model Colony, Safoora, Korangi, Landhi, and Saadi Town.
In the aftermath of the brief heavy downpours, residents in many parts of the megacity were left without electricity.
The spokesperson of the city's power provider, K-Electric, confirmed feeder trips in Gulshan-e-Maymar, Surjani, Nazimabad, and Gulshan-e-Iqbal, leading to outages in New Karachi, Jamshed Town, the old city area, and surrounding localities.
Maripur, Lyari, Keamari, Hawks Bay, and Quaidabad were among other areas also impacted by outages. In the meantime, the power supply was also suspended in PIB Colony, PECHS, and parts of Korangi.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/27/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[28 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
A series of really load booms and a fireball splintering were seen from Atlanta to Ft. Gordon Ga around 6-26-25
It had many seeing it, wondering if we had incoming from, NK, Russia, or Iran.
NO pre-alert, alarms or warnings were given to the public.
So much for Space Watch.
[TikTok] Meteorite crashes to Earth.
These are videos I found online of the meteor today that passed over the eastern United States.
Around 12:24–12:30 p.m. Eastern Time on June 26, 2025, a bright fireball streaked across the sky over parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The event was captured on multiple cameras and witnessed by hundreds. A flash was detected by satellite, and a loud sonic boom was reported across several counties.
The meteor is believed to have exploded midair near the Georgia–South Carolina border, and officials are investigating possible impact sites. NASA-affiliated scientists confirmed a meteorite fall near Blacksville, Georgia, and searches are underway for debris. The phenomenon lit up the sky in broad daylight and was powerful enough to rattle homes and trigger emergency calls.
#1
We were and are up here about 8 miles from the Blacksville / McDonough area of the stated impact. It was a loud sonic boom sound, several times and the blast waves shook the Metal building warehouse area down here in Locust Grove Ga.
[Julie Kelly] The court's opinion in the administration's challenge to broad use of preliminary injunctions is a big win for the president and for separate of powers but unknown consequences are ahead.
In a much anticipated decision, the Supreme Court today overturned the use of universal preliminary injunctions—court orders that extend the halt on a certain policy from one jurisdiction to cover the entire country—against the president.
In a 6-3 decision authored by Amy Coney Barrett and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, the court determined that universal injunctions "likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts." Further, the court concluded that "nothing like a universal injunction was available at the founding, or for that matter, for more than a century thereafter. Thus, under the Judiciary Act, federal courts lack authority to use them."
[PBS] A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions, but the decision left unclear the fate of President Donald Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship.
The court is issuing decisions on the final six cases left on its docket for the summer, including those that are emergency appeals relating to Trump’s agenda.
Cases on the court’s emergency docket are handled swiftly, and decisions often come without explanations of the justices’ reasoning.
Decisions released today will be related to appeals on birthright citizenship, an online age verification law in Texas, the Education Department’s firing of nearly 1,400 workers and DOGE-related government job cuts.
Here’s the latest:
ATTORNEY GENERAL APPLAUDS LIMITS ON NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS
“Today, the Supreme Court instructed district courts to STOP the endless barrage of nationwide injunctions against President Trump,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on the social platform X shortly after the ruling came down.
Bondi said the Justice Department “will continue to zealously defend” Trump’s “policies and his authority to implement them.”
Universal injunctions have been a source of intense frustration for the Trump administration amid a barrage of legal challenges to his priorities around immigration and other matters.
NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS LIMITED, BUT FATE OF BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP ORDER UNCLEAR
The outcome was a victory for Trump, who has complained about individual judges throwing up obstacles to his agenda.
But a conservative majority left open the possibility that the birthright citizenship changes could remain blocked nationwide. Trump’s order would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally.
Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor is reading her dissenting opinion from the bench, a sign of her clear disagreement with the majority’s opinion.
THE OTHER BIG CASES LEFT ON THE DOCKET
The court seems likely to side with Maryland parents in a religious rights case over LGBTQ+ storybooks in public schools, but other decisions appear less obvious.
The judges will also weigh a Texas age-verification law for online pornography and a map of Louisiana congressional districts, now in its second trip to the nation’s highest court.
The justices will take the bench at 10 a.m.
Once they’re seated, they’ll get right to the opinions.
The opinions are announced in reverse order of seniority so that the junior justices go first. The birthright citizenship case will likely be announced last by Chief Justice John Roberts.
[FoxNews] DOJ continues enforcement of Trump's executive orders ensuring taxpayer benefits aren't diverted to illegal aliens
The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint challenging laws in Minnesota that provide free and reduced in-state tuition to illegal aliens, claiming the laws are unconstitutional.
Under federal law, higher education institutions are prohibited from providing benefits to illegal aliens not offered to U.S. citizens.
According to the DOJ, Minnesota’s laws unconstitutionally discriminate against U.S. citizens and are in direct conflict with federal law.
"No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens," Attorney General Pam Bondi said. "The Department of Justice just won on this exact issue in Texas, and we look forward to taking this fight to Minnesota in order to protect the rights of American citizens first."
By filing the lawsuit, the DOJ is demanding that Minnesota stop the enforcement of a law requiring public colleges and universities to provide in-state tuition rates and free tuition based on certain income circumstances to immigrants in the country illegally who maintain state residency.
Federal law prohibits higher education facilities from providing education benefits to illegal immigrants, which are not offered to U.S. citizens.
The lawsuit comes just weeks after the DOJ took actions against Texas for providing similar benefits to illegal immigrants.
Both lawsuits have been filed in response to two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump since returning to the Oval Office in January.
The executive orders were signed to ensure illegal immigrants cannot receive taxpayer benefits or preferential treatment.
One of the orders, "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders," ordered all agencies to "ensure, to the maximum extent permitted by law, that no taxpayer-funded benefits go to unqualified aliens."
The other order, "Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens," directs officials to "take appropriate action to stop the enforcement of State and local laws, regulations, policies, and practices favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens that are unlawful, preempted by Federal law, or otherwise unenforceable, including State laws that provide in-State higher education tuition to aliens but not to out-of-State American citizens."
Ultimately, Texas complied with the DOJ and stopped enforcing the Texas Dream Act, which was originally introduced in February 2001.
The legislation, signed by Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, June 16, 2001, removed federal immigration status as a factor in determining eligibility to pay in-state tuition at Texas public colleges and universities for students who graduate from a Texas high school and who meet the minimum residency, academic and registration criteria.
While the state immediately stopped enforcement, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has since intervened.
On Tuesday, the ACLU of Texas, alongside organizations like the Texas Civil Rights Project and Democracy Forward, filed a motion to intervene in the litigation to defend the constitutionality of the Texas Dream Act against the DOJ.
The ACLU said the DOJ’s order was agreed to by Texas without proper process and creates "sweeping uncertainty" for students and colleges.
"As students prepare to attend school in the fall, the failure of neither the DOJ nor the attorney general to defend the Texas Dream Act threatens their ability to afford tuition – and suddenly threatens their dreams of pursuing higher education," the ACLU said in a press release. "By moving to intervene, these groups and individuals hope to challenge this abusive litigation strategy and defend the Texas Dream Act, which has enabled a generation of Texans to grow their careers and become leaders in our communities."
[Real Clear Investigations] Topline: The United States gave $960 million in foreign aid to Kenya in 2024, but the country’s auditor-general, Nancy Gathungu, says Kenya is struggling to use the money it already has.
Fourteen major government projects had a total of $4 billion in funding over the last five years but left projects partially completed with $2.4 billion of the funds unused, according to a press conference from Gathungu covered by The Eastleigh Voice and Capital News.
Key facts: Gathungu told reporters that the 14 projects now risk lapsing without achieving their goals.
Continued on Page 47
#2
/\ Disproving Dawkins claims of evolution once again. Tens of thousands of years has only led them to continue to dance outside their rondavels creating nothing but dust. Another 'Blind Watchmaker' not Dawkins, by Warren Bonham follows. Graphic by Yehuda Pen:
Blind Watchmaker
A blind watchmaker tinkered for billions of years
without blueprints for making his intricate gears.
So, he failed many times but got up when he fell
and was shocked when he made not a watch, but a cell.
From that cell, which he made from primordial slime,
every creature evolved through the passage of time.
On a planet like ours, this was bound to unfold
through an unguided process, or so we’ve been told.
But the knowledge we gain from new questions we ask
shows blind watchmakers useless at their assigned task.
It seems more and more likely that we were designed
by a being possessing a limitless mind.
The Big Bang would have fizzled without someone there
who began time and made all there is from thin air.
And with three billion letters in our DNA,
it’s impossible chance had a big part to play.
And if physical laws were not quite so refined
then all known time and space would begin to unwind.
And there’s no way that randomly mutated genes
can make novel molecular-level machines.
If our minds remain open, the more we will find
that our science is clearer with God intertwined.
Every day, the skies speak, and the heavens declare,
if we’re willing, we’ll hear them say “God’s everywhere.”
[BBC] "You don't want to be caught with a box of beavers in the boot so you have to be quite quick"
Under cover of darkness, a nocturnal creature emerges from a crate and takes its first tentative steps into a new life in the wild.
"It is just essentially God's work. We're undoing the damage of hundreds of years ago and bringing back these extraordinary animals," claimed Ben, who spoke to the BBC on the condition of anonymity.
He is part of an underground network where members risk arrest, jail and hefty fines by carrying out covert and unlicensed releases of beavers.
It is an offence to release beavers into the wild without a licence and a spokeswoman for the National Farmers Union (NFU) said it was "irresponsible" and "really worrying".
There is now a legal route in the UK for the species to be reintroduced. Despite this and the risks of acting without licences, activists whose names have been changed were unrepentant and said they were taking action themselves because the legal option was "too bureaucratic".
"It feels like they're back in their proper place," Ben said.
Like the nocturnal creatures at the heart of their cause, the group he belongs to operates under the cover of darkness.
He said secrecy was key in everything from where other parts of the network got the animals - "we really don't need to know" - to the clandestine releases.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The dollar has fallen sharply due to doubts about the independence of the Federal Reserve System (FRS) after reports of a possible change in its leadership by US President Donald Trump. This was reported on June 26 by Reuters.
Earlier it became known that the American leader could replace the current head of the Federal Reserve System, Jerome Powell, by the fall with someone who would agree to lower rates.
"From a market perspective, of course, not only does this undermine the Fed's credibility and independence, it also poses a risk to the US rate outlook," Nick Rees, head of macro research at Monex Europe, told the publication.
Kieran Williams, head of Asian FX at InTouch Capital Markets, said markets would likely take a dim view of any premature move to appoint a successor to Powell, especially if it appeared politically motivated.
On April 17, Trump said Jerome Powell should leave his post as soon as possible. He responded by assuring that he would not leave. The American leader called the Fed chief "Mr. Too Late" and "a big loser." Trump called on Powell to cut interest rates immediately.
On April 22, amid statements from the head of the White House to the head of the regulator, the dollar index DXY, which reflects the value of the American currency in relation to six major US trading partners, reached its minimum value since March 2022 - 97.92 points.
The currency basket includes the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc. The index is calculated by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
[Real Clear Investigations] Following a years-long surge in illegal immigration, the Trump administration is poised to challenge a longstanding but legally fraught practice: counting illegal aliens in the U.S. census.
President Trump tried to end the practice during his first term, but President Biden overturned his predecessor’s policy before it was implemented. Now, buoyed by red state attorneys general and Republican legislators, the second Trump administration is determined "to clean up the census and make sure that illegal aliens are not counted," White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller said last month.
What Miller didn’t mention are the political implications of the administration’s move. It could have significant political implications because the census count is used to apportion House seats, determine the number of votes each state gets in the Electoral College for selecting the president, and drive the flow of trillions of dollars in government funds.
Some immigration researchers project that including noncitizens in the census count disproportionately benefits Democratic states with large illegal alien populations. A recent study counters that, based on 2020 census figures, there would have been a negligible shift to the political map had the U.S. government excluded noncitizens from that count. But looking backward, those researchers found, red states would have benefited under the administration’s desired census counting shift. Had authorities excluded such migrants from the 2010 census, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and North Carolina all would have gained one seat in the House, while California would have lost three seats, and Texas and Florida would have each lost one seat — with the total number of Electoral College votes allotted each state changing accordingly.
Since the first census in 1790, the nation has counted not only citizens but also residents to determine such representation. In addition to citing its long history, defenders of the practice say it is only fair that states should be given the power and resources to represent and serve everyone within their borders.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will not review the results of the women's boxing competitions at the 2024 Olympics. This was announced on June 26 by the organization's president, Kirsty Coventry.
"Will there be retrospective decisions on the Paris Olympics regarding women's boxing? We will not do anything retrospectively," she said.
Coventry noted that the main task of the IOC working group is to look to the future while learning from the past.
As reported by Regnum news agency, on June 26, the President of the International Boxing Association (IBA) Umar Kremlev called on the Algerian boxer Iman Kheli, who failed the gender test, to return the gold medal from the 2024 Summer Olympics.
On March 15, former IOC President Thomas Bach said that the gender scandal involving boxers at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris was caused by fake news from Russia.
Last July, the IOC cleared two transgender athletes, Khelif and Lin Yuting from Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), to compete in women's boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics. According to IOC spokesman Mark Adams, in this case the transgender athletes "were found to be women."
[ZERO] A higher-than-expected number of miscarriages and other forms of fetal loss were associated with COVID-19 vaccinations in Israel, a new study has revealed.
Researchers found 13 fetal losses—four more than the nine expected—for every 100 pregnant women who received a COVID-19 vaccine during weeks eight to 13 in pregnancy, according to the study, which was published as a preprint on the medRxiv server.
Most people in Israel, including pregnant women, received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.
The team behind the study includes Retsef Levi, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher who was recently named to the committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines, and Dr. Tracy Hoeg, who works for the Food and Drug Administration.
The researchers analyzed electronic health records from Maccabi Healthcare Services, one of four organizations that provide health care to Israelis. They looked at 226,395 pregnancies that occurred between March 1, 2016, and Feb. 28, 2022. The primary analysis looked at fetal loss for pregnant women after dose one or dose three of a COVID-19 vaccine, with fetal loss including miscarriage, abortion, and stillbirth.
The researchers came up with an expected number of fetal losses based on a model that drew from data before the COVID-19 pandemic, then compared the expected number of fetal losses with those that occurred from week eight of pregnancy onward.
#1
I wonder why they ignored dose two? Were the fetal and maternal deaths so large they had to ignore those because of the outcry the results would generate? They should have to explain why they ignored the first booster shot results.
[YouTube] The U.S. military is developing an alternative air base just 100 miles north of the strategically important Andersen Air Force Base on Guam, located on the island of Tinian.
The massive airfield in the northern part of Tinian, known as North Field, is well known as the base from which the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were loaded during the final stages of World War II.
If Andersen Air Force Base were rendered inoperable by enemy attacks, this airfield would be capable of receiving diverted aircraft formations and launching combat operations.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.