This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** While visiting the United Kingdom this summer, my family and I stopped for lunch at Bourton-on-the-Water, a village in England’s famous Cotswolds district. Climbing rosebushes cover quaint cottages built from the area’s signature honey-colored stone and flourish in lush gardens. The River Windrush flows through Bourton’s cobbled streets, giving the village its name. Green-headed mallard ducks and snowy swans float peacefully on the river, which is spanned by many small stone bridges. The picturesque scene has given Bourton its reputation as the “Venice of the Cotswolds.” Unfortunately, that title isn’t the only one Bourton holds. Thanks to its charming fairy-tale vibe, it’s also known as a premier travel destination for social media tourists. When we visited in early June, the tiny village was filled with crowds of visitors. Many of them seemed intent on finding the perfect spot for a photo, even at the price of rude behavior toward fellow tourists. One group blocked a stone bridge for minutes on end as the visitors posed for photos, oblivious to sidelong glances from other travelers. An English travel writer who visited Bourton in 2025 was so disgusted by the over-tourism that he wrote an article explaining why he plans never to return.    Photo by John Keeble/Getty Images As social media has grown, it’s become a much more influential factor in travel. According to travel blog Hotelagio, nearly 48% of travelers choose vacation spots with the intent of showcasing them on their socials. Travelers under age 40 are extremely likely to plan trips based on influencer content, and as many as 90% of Gen Z travelers use social media for travel planning. Countless travel blogs offer lists of “the most Instagrammable locations in the world,” and travel influencers like @thebucketlistfamily garner millions of followers. The introduction of social media into the travel landscape often leads to over-tourism. Iceland is a popular social media travel destination, with over one million posts tagged with the hashtag #icelandtrip. In 2010, the year Instagram launched, Iceland received fewer than 500,000 annual visitors, according to Statistics Iceland. Since 2023, tourism to the island has experienced explosive growth and now sits at well over 2 million visitors a year.  All of which raises the question: Is social media ruining our travel experiences? Anyone who’s ever traveled internationally knows that it’s rarely as picture-perfect as Instagram would have you believe. Travel delays, lost luggage, jet lag, bad food, lack of air conditioning — the list of potential pitfalls goes on. In other words, travel is simply a microcosm of real life in the real world: often beautiful, sometimes messy, always full of surprises. Aside from the inconvenience caused by the overcrowding of popular destinations, social media tourism makes us worse travelers by raising expectations to unrealistic heights. It blinds us to the true experience of travel by creating a kind of tunnel vision that focuses only on getting the perfect photo. It takes the inherent human desire for beauty and commodifies it, encouraging people to treat beautiful places merely as a way to gain likes or followers. It makes travel more about curating an online image than about experiencing new places or learning about other cultures.  When reflecting on his boyhood experiences with travel, G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The traveller sees what he sees; the tripper sees what he has come to see.” Chesterton is saying that the true traveler comes to his trip with an open mind, prepared for new and unexpected experiences. The “tripper” approaches travel with a checklist and has no attention for anything he has not determined to see in advance. He lacks the flexibility that is necessary for travel to become a truly transformative experience.  One could quite easily substitute the words “social media tourist” to create a 21st-century equivalent. Granted, there’s nothing wrong with having a travel itinerary or with posting about trips on social media. But there is something deeply wrong with treating a trip as just one more way to gain likes. In a world where social media is ubiquitous, we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of seeing the world only through a camera lens. Technology is great, but it can never replace real-life experiences, and it increasingly threatens our ability to enjoy those experiences.  Thankfully, my family and I were able to keep social media from ruining our trip. While we did go sightseeing in some more mainstream travel destinations (after all, what’s a trip to the U.K. without a sight of Big Ben?), we also managed to find some less “touristy” sites. York Minster Cathedral was not only more sublimely beautiful than the famous Westminster Abbey, but much less crowded. The small Lake District village we spent a night in was nearly as picturesque as Bourton-on-the-Water and offered the rural serenity missing from Bourton. And while I took plenty of photos throughout the trip, I focused more on capturing memories for the years to come than on finding the perfect shot for my Instagram post.  The good news? Even in a world increasingly influenced by social media, it’s still possible to keep it from ruining your vacations. *** Grace Plath is a 2026 Chesterton media fellow at New Guard Press. She studies journalism at Patrick Henry College. Follow her on X at @gracejplath.

Every Supreme Court term produces headlines. This one produced structural change — the kind that will shape how power works in Washington, D.C., in statehouses, and in your own community for years to come. Start with the case that mattered most: Trump v. Slaughter. For 90 years, Congress could shield the heads of “independent” agencies — the Federal Trade Commission, and by extension dozens of similar bodies — from being fired by the president except for cause. The Court ended that, ruling that if an official exercises the president’s executive power, the president can remove him. In practice, that means voters who elect a president now have more say over the sprawling bureaucracy that regulates everything from consumer products to labor disputes, rather than leaving that power with unelected commissioners serving staggered terms. A companion case, Trump v. Cook, carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve — Fed governors can be fired only for cause, a 5-4 compromise that Justice Barrett, in dissent, called out as arbitrary and going beyond what the Court needed to decide the case. Women’s sports had one of their best days ever at the Court. In cases out of West Virginia and Idaho, all nine justices agreed that Title IX — the law that opened the door to girls’ athletics in the first place — doesn’t force states to let biological males compete on girls’ teams. A narrower 6-3 majority held that constitutional equal protection likewise allows states to protect female athletes. That means the 27 states that already protect single-sex sports are on solid legal ground, and cases are already wending their way to the Supreme Court asking whether equal protection and Title IX actually require the other 23 states to do so. The Second Amendment kept winning, too. In Wolford v. Lopez, the Court struck down a Hawaii law that weaponized trespass law against concealed-carry permit holders: Instead of assuming that a valid permit holder could enter a business with his weapon unless told otherwise, Hawaii required businesses to explicitly invite him in first. The Court said that the law effectively criminalized ordinary daily life for lawful gun owners — a ruling that should also doom copycat laws in California and other blue states. In a separate case, the justices unanimously held that the government can’t strip someone’s gun rights merely because he’s an occasional marijuana user, absent any sign he’s actually dangerous. The First Amendment had an outstanding term as well. The Court struck down Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” counseling, ruling that a state can’t let therapists affirm a client’s gender identity while banning them from helping a client move the other direction — that’s the government picking sides on a viewpoint, not regulating conduct. Elsewhere, the Court protected a New Jersey pregnancy center’s right to keep its donor list private from a hostile state subpoena, and struck down limits on how much political parties can coordinate spending with their own candidates. The campaign finance ruling is the latest in a series of cases reaffirming that free speech includes the right to political speech, and it will likely shift fundraising and election spending back to the parties and away from outside groups and Super PACs. The term also delivered a landmark election law decision: Louisiana v. Callais. The Court held that a Voting Rights Act lawsuit can’t succeed just by pointing to a correlation between race and party in a district — plaintiffs now need real evidence of intentional discrimination. The Court put that reasoning to work almost immediately in an emergency order reinstating Alabama’s congressional map, an order that invoked the “colorblind Constitution” — language borrowed from the first Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, and now, for the first time, adopted by a majority. In practice, this makes it harder to scurrilously repackage partisan gerrymandering claims with racial language. One disappointment: the Court left in place the counting of late-arriving mail ballots, though it noted Congress could set a firmer national rule if it chose to. Immigration cases mostly went the government’s way, with the Court reading several statutes in commonsense, textualist terms — including a ruling that someone who is stopped at the border hasn’t yet “arrived in” the country, reaffirming that courts can’t second-guess the president’s determination not to exempt Haitian and Syrian immigrants from removal, and another making it easier to remove green-card holders who commit serious crimes. The exception was the birthright citizenship case, where the majority applied the traditional, broad meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause to cover the U.S.-born children of both illegal immigrants and temporary visitors. As an originalist matter, it was a difficult case, with both sides grappling with the historical evidence. Justice Thomas’s 91-page dissent masterfully presented a narrower view of the Clause, but even the dissenters concluded that the president’s executive order likely went further than the Constitution permits. On the business side, the Court made it harder for trial lawyers to drag oil companies into friendly state courts over decades-old wartime production, ruling that those suits belong in federal court — a real check on the climate-litigation industry that’s grown up around this kind of lawsuit. Not every case broke along predictable lines. In a dispute over the president’s tariff powers, originalist justices ended up on both sides — a useful reminder that originalism is a method, not a rubber stamp, and methods sometimes produce results conservatives don’t love. The term produced a few decisions that disappointed the president or conservatives, but, taken as a whole, it stands as one of the most significant terms in memory for bringing the Court back to an originalist understanding of the Constitution. Presidential removal power, women’s sports, the First and Second Amendments, immigration enforcement, climate and election litigation abuse — the Court engaged all of it and got the lion’s share right. That’s not a disappointing term. That’s a historic one. *** Carrie Severino is the president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Follow her on X @JCNSeverino

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** The mass-market paperback is dead. Last year, headlines decried the end of the once-ubiquitous, affordable, and pocket-sized editions, which have been phased out in favor of hardcovers and standard paperbacks. But amid the fall of a beloved format and talks of an affordability crisis, many readers are choosing a far more expensive option, sometimes forking over hundreds of dollars for their favorite books.  Mass-market paperback sales have been on the decline for years, and though millions of mass-market editions still sold in 2025, major book distributor Readerlink made the decision to stop selling them amid a steep decline in sales over the last two decades and as the wholesaler market has consolidated. In their place, ebooks have become the go-to cheap format for many readers, but even as digital is on the rise, another medium has become a major contender for avid readers: premium editions.  In 2022, science fiction and fantasy author Brandon Sanderson broke records to have the highest-earning Kickstarter. Readers backed his four-book campaign to the tune of more than $40 million. Though Sanderson’s project was unique in its bundles of ebooks, audiobooks, and physical books — as well as merchandise and optional add-ons — each “premium hardcover” book sells today for $55. Featuring duotone printing for color accents and faux-leather covers, the copies are a step up from the typical hardcover experience.  Another tier above these editions are leather-bound books. Authors such as Sanderson sell gorgeous, foiled hardcovers to grace the bookshelves of loyal, aesthete readers. While these books can easily cost over $100, readers who can afford the price tag keep the demand high enough that authors continue releasing these special editions for each new novel. Books like these offer their readers not only the latest stories from their favorite writers — and these are often big-name writers who pull in big numbers even without premium editions — but also something real with which to experience the story. Custom endpapers, show-stopping illustrations, and embossed covers make the physical form of the story into an artwork. Many editions are also signed, offering readers a hand-done touch to add to their bookshelves.  Even public domain titles have found a home among these high-end books, often for a non-luxury price. These stories are all available for free online or for a few dollars in a cheaply-made paperback version, but publishers such as Penguin Random House also offer them in clothbound versions for around $20. Thousands of Amazon purchases testify to just how much readers are willing to shell out a few extra bucks for a special copy. And on the high end, specialty booksellers such as the Folio Society offer premium editions of public domain works with prices hovering at $100.  Just as younger generations rediscover the joys of physical media like vinyl and CDs, the value of a book you can hold, own, and admire is higher in an age of the ephemeral. Of course, paper will eventually decay, but the cloth-bound books from the early 1900s and late 1800s that sit on my own shelves are a testament to how long a carefully handled and well-crafted tome can last. Though my shelves also have mass-market paperbacks gathered from the 1990s and 2000s, their covers are tattered at the edges, spines are sporting creases, and pages are held together with packing tape. These are books that are, fundamentally, made to be replaced sooner rather than later. They are not the pages that I could hope to read to my grandchildren or expect to last for decades longer.  But just as many adult readers are picking up high-quality editions for themselves, there is also a market to pass down this appreciation for beautiful books to the next generation. Passage Press, for example, recently announced the launch of Chapter House Books, a curriculum of curated classics for young and growing readers. While the content of these books is perhaps the biggest selling point, the books themselves are also beautiful objects. They are clothbound in linen, color-illustrated, and feature classic and new artwork. They are the sort of volumes you hope to see pass from one child to the next, reaching your grandchildren one day as a family heirloom and treasure-trove of reading memories.  Parents are investing in these premium classic books to craft young minds delighted in and appreciative of art. In a world increasingly full of clicks and bytes rather than pages and real beauty, it’s a worthy investment. Certainly, there are other repercussions of the fall of mass-market paperbacks (such as author royalty structures and ongoing book sales). And as sad as I am to see the beloved mass-market paperback decay to dust, especially with the memories the little volumes hold, I gladly spend the extra dollars on these luxury books. I want something beautiful on my shelves and in my home, and I hope that one day my children will pick up some of these volumes and discover the same beauty I have found — between the pages, and on the cover. *** Jordan Jantz is the assistant editor at IW Features as well as a freelance writer, editor, and website designer.

Visitors to the American Colonies in the mid-18th century were astonished by the families they encountered. Schoolmaster Gottlieb Mittelberger, dispatched in 1750 by the Duke of Wuertenberg to report on German settlers in Pennsylvania, was typical. “It must be confessed that the female sex in this new country is very fruitful,” he wrote. In both city and country, “when one comes into a house, one finds it usually full of children, and the city of Philadelphia is fairly swarming with them.” Whenever a visitor meets an American woman, he noticed, “she is either with child, or she carries a child in her arms, or leads one by the hand.”(1) In 1766, the Church of England sent the priest Charles Woodmason to bring Anglican order to the Scotch-Irish settlers in the Carolina backcountry. He described the subjects of his mission as “Rude—Ignorant—Void of Manners, Education, or Good Breeding…the most lowest, vilest men breathing.”(2) And yet, Woodmason was stunned by the fecundity of their womenfolk: There’s not a Cabin but has 10 or 12 Young Children in it—When the boys are 18 and the Girls 14 they marry—so that in many Cabins you will see 10 or 15 Children, Children and Grandchildren of one size—and the Mother looking as Young as the Daughter. No less a figure than Benjamin Franklin pondered the causes of such things. In his remarkable 1755 essay, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, Etc., he accurately calculated that American marriage and birth rates were twice as high as those found in Europe: an average of eight births per woman in the New World compared to four in the Old. This meant that the American population would double every 20 years by natural increase alone. Why this difference? Franklin noted that land was plentiful and cheap in America and that “a laboring man that understands Husbandry, can in a short time save enough to purchase a piece of new land sufficient for a plantation, whereon he may subsist a family.” Such men “are not afraid to marry,” and marry early. Moreover, Franklin argued that “sects” that regarded frugality and hard work as religious duties and educated “their children therein” would grow faster than groups which did not.(3) Writing in 1775, Harvard University theologian Edward Wigglesworth suggested causes closer to the divine. The rapidity of American population growth had no “parallel in the annals of Europe!”  he wrote. Indeed, he noted, such a thing “has never been equaled since the patriarchal ages,” described in the Old Testament. On a more practical note, he argued that Americans “are less luxurious in their manner of living” and that their “temperance in diet renders them more healthy.” Hinting at the political implications, Wigglesworth estimated that Americans “will be more numerous than their brethren in Britain” within a mere 50 years.(4) This demographic exuberance was not new. The Puritan settlers of New England had recorded similar numbers in the 17th Century. The first two generations of Puritans averaged nine children per couple.(5) At the upper extreme, the 90 families in Billerica — today a Boston suburb — counted 1,043 children, an average of 11 kids.(6) As demographer Jim Potter has summarized, “the natural growth rate of Massachusetts and Connecticut in the second half of the seventeenth century was extremely unusual, if not unique, in human history.”(7) Moreover, similar decades-long episodes of familial effervescence also occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries. During the former event, the hugely influential writers Sarah Hale and Lydia Sigourney described a remarkable conflation of good homes and the American Republic around “the Eden Laws”: the creation by God of marriage; the Divine command “to be fruitful and multiply;” and the necessity of distinctive male and female tasks. As Hale wrote: “Do you not perceive a striking similitude between the family on Mount Ararat and the Pilgrim band in the Mayflower?”(8) In the latter episode, marriage- and baby-booms altered the American social landscape. The marriage rate more than doubled between 1932 and the late 1940s. The average age of first marriage may have reached record American lows in 1956: 22.5 for men; 20.1 for women. By 1970, over 95% of American adults either were or had been married. Meanwhile, the fertility rate soared from an estimated 2 lifetime births per woman in 1930 to 3.625 in 1957, an increase of 80%.(9) Looking past our current time of marriage and fertility woes, do these past episodes of family strength and renewal teach common lessons about what works?  The answer, I believe, is yes. Here are six lessons we can take away from America’s past to boost fertility in our future: Embrace a family-centered worldview. In one exemplary community, the Quakers in 18th-century Pennsylvania organized the whole of life around family-centeredness, to transform the “trivia, responsibilities, and relations of family life” into something “fascinating, profound, and sacred.”(10) Encourage Property Ownership. Productive land, homes, forests, and small enterprises should be owned by as many families as possible. Notable episodes of greatly expanded property-holding include a quadrupling in the number of family farms in America during the second half of the 19th century through measures such as the Homestead Act of 1862 and the 90% rise in the number of owner-occupied homes between 1945 and 1960, heavily fueled by favorable federal policies.(11) (See the IFS report on housing for more ideas on boosting home ownership). Build Family Economies. In both the 17th and 18th centuries, families formed the basic economic unit, not individuals. Throughout the British colonies, Americans expected each family to operate as a self-contained unit. They expected children to accept a duty toward their families, “even to the point of sacrificing individual advantage.” And they expected that education would be the responsibility of families, not “society.”(12) In the 19th century, theologian Horace Bushnell borrowed an image from Jeremiah to praise “the organic working of the family,” explaining: “If the father kindles the fire, and the women knead the cakes, the children will gather the wood.”(13) Even in the late 20th century, calculations of the value of the full-time homemaker’s contribution to the home economy through child care, cooking, cleaning, and so on ranged from 50-100% of the median cash family income.(14) (Looking ahead, the “Third Oikos” model, a joint project of IFS the Foundation for American Innovation, seeks ways in which new information technologies can reintegrate production in households, bringing both mothers and fathers “home.”) Grow the Middle Class. Every period of family strength in American history either witnessed or built upon a shrinkage of the proportions of both the super-rich and the very poor, and the expansion of the middle class. Perhaps the most dramatic and well-documented example of this came in the middle decades of the 20th century. Labeled “the great compression of wages,” economic inequality “fell precipitously” between 1940 and 1970, with “a wage structure more egalitarian” than it had been for the prior one hundred years or “at any time since.”(15) These were the very years of the celebrated Marriage and Baby Boom. Seek a Family-Centered Polity. Just as in economics, “the family rather than the individual was the basic political unit” throughout 18th century America.1(6 )Much closer to current time, every significant Federal domestic policy adopted between 1933 and 1948 sought to promote and defend the breadwinner-homemaker family model as a clear expression of American solidarity.(17) Respect Sexual Complementarity in Marriage, While Making Work from Home Easier. The Americans of 1776 expected that men and women would hold distinct spheres of responsibility: the former in the fields and the public square; the latter in the house, garden, and farmyard. Albeit with a shift from farm to suburb, the same assumptions prevailed in the mid- 20th century. Research studies of that era found well-educated women expressing “a fervent commitment to marriage” and full-time homemaking.(18) As feminist historian Elaine Tyler May accurately summarizes: “the young women of the day would not be dissuaded. They were homeward bound.”(19) These are the principles — grounded in a distinctive, if large, geographic place — on which a well-defined American family system has been built, and re-built, over the last four centuries. As we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, I predict that if family renewal occurs again in this fair land, it will derive from new iterations of these same six strategic tasks. *** This is republished with permission from the Institute for Family Studies. The original can be found here. Allan C. Carlson’s books include The American Way: Family and Community in the Shaping of the American Identity(Cannon Press, 2003), and  Family Cycles: Strength, Decline, and Renewal in American Domestic Life, 1630-2000(Routledge, 2016). The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, policies, or positions of the Institute for Family Studies. 1. Gottlieb Mittelberger, Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750 and Return to Germany in 1754, trans. By Carl Theo. Eben (Philadelphia, PA: John Jos. McVey, 1898), 107. 2. Charles Woodmason, The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution 1766-68 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 39. 3. Benjamin Franklin, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, Etc. (Boston: S. Kneeland, 1755), 217-8, 220, 222. 4. Edward Wigglesworth, Calculations on American Population with a Table for Estimating the Annual Increase of Inhabitants in the British Colonies…. (Boston: John Boyle, 1775), 5-6, 23. 5. Richard Archer, “New England Mosaic: A Demographic Analysis for the Seventeenth Century,” The William and Mary Quarterly (Third Series) 47 (October 1990), 477-502. 6. Changes in Population,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 38 (1869), 387. 7. Jim Potter, “Demographic Development and Family Structure,” in Colonial British America, ed. Jack P. Greene and J.R. Pole (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 148. 8. Sarah J. Hale, Manners; or Happy Homes and Good Society. All the Year Round (New York: Arno Press, 1972 [1868], 22-3, 261-2. 9. Historical Statistics of the United States. Colonial Times to 1970, Part 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1976), 19, 50, 63. 10. Barry Levy, “The Birth of the ‘Modern Family’ in Early America: Quaker and Anglican Families in the Delaware Valley, Pennsylvania, 1681-1750,” in Michael Zuckerman, ed., Friends and Neighbors: Group Life in America’s First Plural Society (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), 48. 11. Harvey S. Rosen, “Owner Occupied Housing and the Federal Income Tax: Estimates and Simulations,” Journal of Urban Economics 6 (1979), 263-4. 12. Robert V. Wells, Revolutions in Americans’ Lives: A Demographic Perspective on the History of Americans, Their Families, and Their Society (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), 56-63. 13. Horace Bushnell, Christian Nurture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967 [1847]), 74-98. 14. Reuben Gronau, “Home Production—A Forgotten Industry,” The Review of Economics and Statistics 62 (1980), 408-16. 15. Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo, “The Great Compression: The Wage Structure in the United States at Mid-Century,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 57 (February 1992), 2-4. 24-32. 16. Wells, Revolutions in Americans’ Lives, 56-63. 17.This assertion comes from materials found in: Allan Carlson, The ‘American Way’: Family and Community in the Shaping of the American Identity (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003), 55-78. 18. The most rigorous and thorough of these was the Kelly Longitudinal Study, ably summarized in: Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 30-38. 19. May, Homeward Bound, 80-82.

Ahead of the much-anticipated preliminary hearings for Charlie Kirk’s accused assassin Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk, his parents, and his sister say the family will not be commenting during the judicial process. Erika Kirk, alongside Charlie’s parents Kathy and Rob, will be in the courtroom together throughout the week, a source familiar with the situation told The Daily Wire. They say in a statement provided ahead of hearings that are expected to last all week that they will be there as spectators, and that the proceedings are a “painful reminder of his death.” “Charlie was a beloved husband, son, brother, friend, and father. Every court proceeding serves as a painful reminder of his death and the loss that has irrevocably impacted our lives and the lives of his children,” the joint statement reads. “We remain deeply grateful for the support, prayers, and kindness we have received. This outpouring has sustained us during the darkest days of our lives. Out of respect for the judicial process, we will not be commenting further at this time. We ask for continued privacy as we navigate this process and immense grief.” The Daily Wire is told this will be the only statement provided during the preliminary hearing that starts Monday in Provo, Utah. The five-day hearing happens roughly 10 months after Charlie was murdered in front of thousands at a Turning Point USA college campus tour on Utah Valley University’s campus. Judge Tony Graf will decide whether the prosecution has enough evidence against Robinson, who faces an aggravated murder charge among other offenses, with the death penalty as a possible punishment. Robinson hasn’t entered a plea. Utah is a “hearing” state, which is why this hearing takes place instead of the case going before a grand jury, which is typically what happens in federal felony cases before a trial can take place. Starting on Monday the state will lay out evidence against the 23-year-old, who is accused of shooting the TPUSA founder on September 10, 2025. Robinson turned himself in after an intense manhunt. The “world is going to see what the state has,” the source familiar with the proceedings told The Daily Wire. Often called a “mini trial,” this week is the first time the public will see what evidence the prosecution plans to use to convict him of murder. The state will call witnesses and present evidence and the defense will cross examine. The state is under no obligation to present all evidence, just as Robinson’s team isn’t required to present all of its findings to the judge. The judge will look at the evidence through a lens favorable to the state, per law. It’s expected the state will play a video of a recorded statement from Lance Twiggs, Robinson’s roommate and lover, during the hearing. It will be the first public statement from Twiggs, who was on the receiving end of Robinson’s confession through text messages and a hand-written letter, per authorities. This hearing was originally scheduled for May, but the defense successfully delayed by filing pre-trial motions. The legal back and forth leading up to Monday’s hearing mainly revolved around the argument of cameras in the courtroom. Judge Graf sided with the state and cameras will be allowed in the courtroom, but electronic devices won’t be permitted.