Taylor Swift thanked fans for all their support before she confirmed at her Liverpool show on Thursday that “The Eras Tour” is officially coming to an end this year. Speaking to the crowd at the 100th show of the “Eras” tour, the 34-year-old pop singer told the crowd at Anfield Stadium in England that it felt like they “just played their first show,” before she shared the news, People magazine reported. “A lot of you are like, ‘How are you going to celebrate the 100th show?'” Swift said, fan-filmed footage showed. “The celebration of the 100th show for me means this is the very first time I’ve acknowledged to myself and admitted that this tour is going to end in December.” “That feels so far away from now, but then again, it feels like we just played our first show on this tour because you have made this so fun for us,” she added. “It’s taken over everything.” “I think I once had hobbies, but I don’t know what they were anymore because all I do when I’m not on stage is sit at home and try to think of clever acoustic song mashups,” Swift continued, making a reference to her surprise songs at her concerts around the world. Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour has broken huge records in ticket sales, but her concerts in Edinburgh, Scotland, just tipped another scale — the seismic scale. https://t.co/on3Y79xEEj pic.twitter.com/1vSMuN62EI — CBS News (@CBSNews) June 14, 2024 She closed out her message to fans telling them, “Just know that I appreciate every single ounce of effort that you’ve put into being with us when this tour reaches triple digits of shows — so thank you.” The “Eras Tour” will conclude on December 8 in Vancouver with the 152nd show. Until then, the “Blank Space” hitmaker has scheduled concert dates in Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Australia, along with more dates in North America, the outlet noted. CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP The superstar singer’s fans at her recent three concerts in Edinburgh, Scotland, got the “ground shaking” from dancing so hard that they created seismic activity during each of her shows, as previously reported. The British Geological Survey (BGS) confirmed that earthquake readings could be detected up to 6 km (around 4 miles) away from Swift’s concerts last weekend at Murrayfield Stadium, per CBS News. The outlet noted that BGS said the most seismic activity occurred during Swift’s performance of three songs:  “…Ready For It?,” “Cruel Summer,” and “Champagne Problems.” “Dancing in time to the music and reached its peak at 160 beats per minute (bpm) during ‘…Ready For It?’, where the crowd was transmitting approximately 80 kW of power (equivalent to around 10 to 16 car batteries),” the BGS noted. The loud bass in that song and the dancing generated the activity. Scientists referred to the event as “ground shaking,” noting that Swift’s Friday night show caused the most seismic activity, delivering 23.4 nanometres (nm) of movement. The crowd and music on Saturday generated 22.8 nm, while it was 23.3 nm on Sunday. The report noted that the fans attending the shows were likely the only ones to notice the shaking. Amanda Harding contributed to this piece. Related: Taylor Swift Fans Cause Earthquake During LA Concert, Seismologists Find

'This illegal ban was wholly reactionary'

'Is this the moment you want to do a psy-op in the Philippines?'

'Black voters are not going to vote for Byron Donalds at all'

University Donors Upset Over End To Race-Based Scholarships

Most importantly, however, they don't have to disclose their donors

from being the former Speaker's right hand man, to giving up on reelection altogether

The Environmental Protection Agency plays judge, jury, and executioner—and its newest-issued rule is a death sentence to American energy and energy-producing states. Meanwhile, states like Pennsylvania, which will be disproportionately harmed by the rule because of our abundant natural gas production, hold the key to America’s increasing energy needs, generating immense economic development and reducing the very emissions targeted by this heavy-handed agency.   The EPA unilaterally issued a final rule establishing draconian emission standards that target existing coal and new natural gas power plants nationwide. It requires 90% carbon capture for power-generating facilities by 2032.   Aside from its questionable legality, the new rule is unfeasible. The EPA proposed impossible standards. Current carbon-capture technology—a water- and energy-intensive process that filters and sequesters emissions—neither meets this standard nor projects to do so in the next decade. Research suggests that current technology could achieve, at best, 10% capture, which still doesn’t factor in the immense implementation costs. No utility-scale natural gas carbon capture plant exists today, so forcing a transition to nonexistent technology within a decade is unreasonable.  This egregious federal overreach will not stand in court. In West Virginia v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the agency lacked the legal authority to devise such emissions caps. As the current legal challenge works through the courts, our highest court will likely strike down this new rule, too.  National energy forecasts show rising demand with a plummeting capacity for our existing energy infrastructure to deliver. Because of bad policies in the name of climate radicalism, early retirements of fossil fuel-based power-generating facilities are already catapulting us to an electrical grid reliability crisis. Meanwhile, utility bills increase as power generators chase federal subsidies to overbuild unreliable, weather-dependent wind- and solar-based electrical generation facilities.  Because of this, two-thirds of the United States risks major blackouts in the next few years. Yet, the EPA doesn’t consider grid reliability when creating its regulations, much less safeguard it.  Per agency protocol, the EPA “does not conduct operational reliability studies,” meaning the agency ignores the widening gap between supply and demand.  The failure to defend grid reliability is a recipe for disaster.  Unfortunately, disaster has already struck. In 2022, a winter storm in Texas caused 4.5 million people to lose power, killing 246 people who couldn’t heat their homes in subzero temperatures. Increased capacity—namely, more natural gas pipelines—could have saved lives in Texas. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. warned lawmakers that the lack of pipelines and infrastructure leaves the country susceptible to similar tragedies.  Natural gas remains the most economically feasible option to meet that demand in time. (Meanwhile, work must continue to leverage other energy sources, such as nuclear, to accommodate our growing need for baseload power, which is the minimum amount needed to maintain and power our grid.)   To understand the benefits of natural gas, Pennsylvania, the second-largest producer of natural gas and the largest energy exporter in the nation, provides ample evidence.  In the last two decades, the Keystone State’s energy generation sector has increased energy production and reduced emissions—all thanks to natural gas. The share of Pennsylvania’s electricity production that comes from natural gas increased from 5% in 2005 to 59% in 2022. During that same period, overall energy production emissions dropped 46%, including the most significant year-over-year decline on record.   Transitioning to natural gas proved to be a boon to public health in Pennsylvania. This transition removed about 12.5 million tons of nitrogen and sulfur oxides—emissions associated with respiratory ailments like asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, and lung cancer. Using the EPA’s methodology for quantifying the health impact of removing these emissions from the atmosphere, Pennsylvania’s increased use of natural gas yielded between $450 billion and $1.04 trillion in public health benefits for residents.  Despite natural gas’ benefits, Pennsylvania still endures the same worrisome trend of pernicious eco-fundamentalist policies. Pennsylvania lawmakers flirt with onerous “cap-and-trade” schemes, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or the newly proposed Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Initiative. By slapping a carbon tax on energy production, these two initiatives guarantee increased utility bills for inflation-weary Pennsylvanians.   The EPA’s rule is like these initiatives on steroids. The rule will not only lead to blackouts and brownouts nationwide but also will force the economies of energy-producing states to forego supporting—and benefiting from—our ever-growing energy demands.  Instead, policymakers must remove the regulatory barriers that hamstring energy-producing states and prevent the energy industry from providing reliable, clean power. Moreover, Congress must advance the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act, a policy supported by 68% of Americans, to boost accountability and transparency with federal regulators. The act would require Congress to approve administrative rules that would have significant financial impacts before they could take effect.  A future without fossil fuel-generated power is a myth. Almost 80% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuel sources. Rather than obstruct clean, reliable energy, the EPA must allow natural gas to light the way to American energy independence.   We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.  The post New EPA Rule Is a Death Sentence for American Energy  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has a bad habit of forgetting it isn’t part of the legislative branch of government, and trying to accomplish through unelected bureaucrats and administrative rules what gun control activists in Congress could not. Fortunately for the rule of law and the separation of powers, the ATF is also on a bit of a losing streak in federal court—a losing streak that continued Friday at the highest level in Garland v. Cargill. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court held that the ATF exceeded its statutory authority when it reclassified bump stocks as “machine guns” under federal law. Although Cargill was centered around firearms, it didn’t involve any arguments over whether the Second Amendment protects a right to own bump stocks, specifically, or machine guns, generally. Rather, the question in this case was far more simplistic: Is a bump stock device a machine gun, in the first place? Understanding Cargill requires a bit of background and context. One of the most important distinctions made by federal gun regulations is between machine guns, the possession of which is heavily restricted for civilians, and semiautomatic firearms, which have long been the type of gun most commonly owned by civilians. Federal law defines a machine gun as a weapon that “shoots, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” A semiautomatic rifle, meanwhile, “requires a separate pull of the trigger to fire each cartridge.” In layman’s terms, the distinction between a machine gun and a semiautomatic firearm is all about what must happen for the gun to fire a second bullet. In a semiautomatic weapon, pulling the trigger causes the gun to fire exactly one round. In order to fire a second bullet, you must release the trigger so that it resets, and then it must be physically pulled again to fire the next bullet. But when you pull the trigger in a machine gun, the weapon will fire bullets continuously until either you release the trigger, or the gun runs out of ammunition. The trigger doesn’t need to reset and be reengaged.  From a practical standpoint, then, one of the primary differences between machine guns and semiautomatic guns (and the primary reason machine guns are so heavily restricted for civilians) is that machine guns have a much faster rate of fire. But, importantly, Congress didn’t include “rate of fire” as a factor for determining whether a weapon is machine gun, choosing instead to focus on the internal mechanics of the gun.   Enter the bump stock, an aftermarket device that can be affixed to many commonly owned semiautomatic rifle platforms. These devices don’t change the gun’s internal mechanics—one pull of the trigger will still cause the gun to fire only one bullet. Instead, the device enables the shooter, through a combination of technique and physics, to pull the trigger much more rapidly than most shooters would be capable of, absent the device. Between 2010 and 2018, American gun owners spent more than $100 million purchasing an estimated 520,000 bump stocks. At the time, these purchases were completely lawful. The ATF determined on least 15 different occasions throughout this eight-year period that the addition of a bump stock didn’t turn a semiautomatic weapon into an illegal machine gun. Even though the device could greatly increase the gun’s rate of fire to rival that of a machine gun, the basic mechanics of the semiautomatic rifle hadn’t changed. Then, in 2017, on the heels of a high-profile mass public shooting involving the use of a bump stock, the ATF abruptly changed its mind. The agency not only decided that bump stocks did, in fact, turn a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun, but that the devices had in essence always been machine guns, despite the agency’s previous rulings to the contrary. Americans who possessed a bump stock were now required to destroy the device or surrender it to ATF, without receiving compensation for their value. Michael Cargill, one of the many law-abiding American gun owners who had legally bought bump stocks in reliance on ATF’s long-standing determination that they weren’t machine guns, promptly sued the ATF over its about-face. Among other things, he argued that bump stocks plainly don’t fall under the definition of “machine gun,” and the ATF was therefore effectively rewriting the federal statute—something only Congress can do. The Supreme Court on Friday vindicated Cargill and countless other peaceable American gun owners that the ATF had, for all intents and purposes, suddenly and unilaterally decided were felons with illegally possessed machine guns. This doesn’t mean that the fight to ban bump stocks is over. Far from it. The Cargill decision will almost certainly result in a flurry of congressional efforts to change the federal definition of machine gun to include these devices—efforts that might very well have been successful back in 2017, had the ATF not “jumped the gun” with its sudden reinterpretation. (And, of course, any legislative action to classify bump stocks as machine guns will, with equal certainty, be met with legal challenges arguing that bump stocks or machine guns are “arms” protected by the Second Amendment.) The victory Friday is not that the court constructively fleshed out its Second Amendment jurisprudence or substantively protected the right to keep and bear arms from infringement. Rather, the victory is found in the court’s affirmation that the law means what the text says, and not what unelected bureaucrats think the text ought to say or would have said if they’d been left in charge of it. It sends an important message that there’s no end run around—or loophole through—the democratic process. If Congress wants to change federal law, it must do so itself, through the legislative process and with its members bearing the political consequences of unpopular or unconstitutional laws. And, in that sense, Cargill is a victory that reverberates far beyond the Second Amendment. It’s a win for the rule of law and constitutional government. The post In Bump Stock Case, Court’s Rebuke of ATF Is a Win for More Than Just 2A Advocates appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Hunter Biden Drops Lawsuit Against Giuliani