Free Republic

Lance Twiggs was living with Robinson when Kirk was killed last year.A judge on Monday dismissed a motion by Tyler Robinson’s attorneys to subpoena his former romantic partner to testify in court next month. Robinson, 23, is accused of killing right-wing activist Charlie Kirk as he spoke at a campus debate at Utah Valley University in Orem last year. Robinson faces multiple charges in connection with the killing, including felony aggravated murder. On Monday, state District Judge Tony Graf Jr. granted prosecutors’ motion to quash a subpoena brought by defense attorneys to have Lance Twiggs testify live in Utah at...

Local moratoriums spring up after state inaction, while New Mexico and Utah fight “hyperscale” data polluters .... Local governments in Colorado are moving quickly to slap moratoriums on new data center development in reaction to a public backlash against rising electricity prices, heavy pollution and lucrative tax breaks. Denver, Jefferson County and Longmont have all moved in recent weeks to limit data centers, which house servers for mass computation that demand enormous amounts of electricity and cooling water. Cities and counties are moving in part because the state legislature failed to act in 2026, eventually letting two competing bills die...

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) didn’t mince any words Tuesday in calling out what he characterized as the “bulls—” arguments of fellow Republican Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) on social media, revealing the tensions within the Senate Republican Conference over how to push forward on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act. Tillis said Lee’s push for Republicans to force Democrats to actively hold the floor in continuous debate to block the bill — in other words, to force Democrats to employ a talking filibuster — is “goofy.” “I think it’s silly. All of it’s just goofy stuff,” he said. “It’s...

Republican voters ousted Utah’s most powerful lawmaker, state Senate President J. Stuart Adams, Tuesday after a series of controversies and mounting criticism for his role as one of the key decision-makers advancing a proposal to build a controversial data center in Box Elder County. Two other key GOP lawmakers — Sen. Daniel McCay and Rep. Trevor Lee — were voted out as well. Hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into the competition pitting Adams of Layton against Weber State University’s ex-general counsel, Stephanie Hollist, and former Legislature attorney Braden Hess. Hollist held the lead around 11:30 p.m. with 43% of...

Tyler Robinson’s lover, Lance Twiggs, has been granted limited “use immunity” to testify in person at an upcoming hearing in the Charlie Kirk murder case. Prosecutors said in a court filing that they want to cross-examine Lance Twiggs. The prosecutors plan to present Lance Twiggs’s text exchanges with Robinson and recorded statements during next month’s preliminary hearing. LA Magazine reported: The murder case against Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused of fatally shooting Turning Point USA founder and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, is heading towards the highly-anticipated preliminary hearing. And prosecutors have scored a big win with a significant witness....

The challenge the entire industry faces is that in every single location, I don't care whether it's Michigan, West Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, if you announce you're doing a data center, all of a sudden you get a plethora of misinformation, like it's three times the size of Manhattan, it's so hot it's gonna melt a hole in the ground, the amount of water it's going to use, it's gonna suck the ocean dry. All of this stuff is just not true. I think as we get the real facts out, we'll turn this around. There seems to be an...

Five US states reject LGBT ‘pride’ month, reclaim June for marriage, family, GodThe governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, and Utah issued proclamations that follow in the footsteps of Tennessee, which passed a resolution in April recognizing June as ‘Nuclear Family Month.’ Five U.S. states have now chosen to disregard homosexual and transgender “pride month,” casting aside the rainbow flag and reclaiming June for marriage, family, and God. The governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, and Utah issued proclamations that follow in the footsteps of Tennessee, which passed a resolution in April recognizing the month of June as “Nuclear Family Month.”Tennessee’s resolution...

BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah — Kevin O’Leary, an investor in the proposed 40,000- acre Stratos data centre campus in Box Elder County, accused two Utah groups opposing the project of being funded by the Chinese government. O’Leary made the accusation on Fox News, targeting Alliance for a Better Utah and Elevate Strategies. “Who would want us to stop building our electrical grid? Who would want to stop us from having compute capacity to develop AI? Which adversary would want that? There’s only one. It’s China.” O’Leary said. In a social media exchange, Gabi Finlayson of Elevate Strategies pushed back on...

A Utah man missed his connection at Newark Airport, went to retrieve his checked luggage, which contained a properly declared, unloaded firearm, and got arrested. He did everything right. New Jersey didn't care. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) cited that case in a proposed rule published earlier this week that would amend existing Gun Control Act regulations to protect gun owners during routine travel interruptions — a missed flight, a hotel stay, a fuel stop, a medical emergency. The Utah case isn't an outlier. New York and New Jersey have made a prosecution racket out of...

Under intense pressure from Republican leaders, including Gov. Spencer Cox, Justice Diana Hagen resigned from the Utah Supreme Court on Friday. Cox, along with House Speaker Mike Schultz and Senate President J. Stuart Adams announced an investigation last month into allegations that Hagen had an improper relationship with an attorney with a case before the high court — accusations that the Judicial Conduct Commission dismissed as “misleading.” Under the cloud of the investigation — and the Utah Republican Party actively campaigning for Utahns to vote her off the bench in November’s retention election — Hagen submitted her resignation, “effective immediately,”...

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen resigned from her position on the state's highest court after allegations resurfaced of a possible conflict of interest tied to Utah's redistricting case. Gov. Spencer Cox expressed his appreciation for Hagen's years of service in a statement confirming her resignation. He added that information regarding the process to fill the vacancy left by Hagen would be announced in the coming days. Hagen's resignation comes nearly a month after allegations surfaced about a possible connection between her and David Reymann, the former lead attorney for the League of Women Voters,...

Box Elder County commissioners vote in favor of massive data center project Rural residents push back as data center vote nears in Box Elder County Mr. Wonderful’s Utah Data Center draws not-so-wonderful reaction from residents SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A massive proposed data center project in Box Elder County has drawn attention, largely because of its sheer size. Even though it would be built more than 70 miles away, people in Salt Lake County say the impact could reach far beyond that area. A proposed data center development in Box Elder County would span roughly 40,000 acres. “With the...

Utah Democrats may be on the brink of an unexpected political realignment after a progressive newcomer pulled off a convention upset that has reshaped a closely watched House race. Progressive first-time candidate Liban Mohamed narrowly won Utah Democrats’ convention endorsement Saturday in the state’s newly redrawn 1st Congressional District, defeating establishment favorite Ben McAdams, an outcome that has energized the party’s left flank. Newsweek reached out to Mohamed via email for comment. Some Democrats have framed this result as a potential turning point, with Angel Vice, chair of the Utah Democratic Party Women’s Caucus, telling the Deseret News after the...

In a race roiled in recent weeks by scandal, Liban Mohamed, the Muslim son of Somali immigrants, pulled off a surprising upset in a crowded 1st Congressional District, winning the endorsement of a majority of Democratic delegates at the party’s state convention Saturday. Mohamed emerged as the top choice in a field with two candidates — state Sen. Nate Blouin and Salt Lake City Council member Eva Lopez Chavez — stung by scandal in the past two weeks and a front-runner, former U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams, who some delegates viewed as too conservative. After several rounds of ranked-choice voting, McAdams...

The Salt Lake City Tribune is reporting that an openly lesbian city council member running for Congress has been accused by four women of making "unwanted sexual advances."Lopez Chavez says that "nothing inappropriate" happened between her and three other women, while the alleged contact with the fourth woman never occurred."Victoria Petro, who is Lopez Chavez’s fellow City Council member; Maggie Regier, who worked on Stan Penfold’s mayoral campaign in 2019; Hoang Nguyen, who is now a state representative; and Jen Plumb, now a state senator, described their allegations in interviews with The Salt Lake Tribune," reports the newspaper. The incidents...

A transgender woman and her partner were arrested Monday for allegedly kidnapping her 10-year-old son and flying him to Cuba – where the child’s biological mother feared he would undergo gender reassignment surgery. Trouble emerged after Rose Inessa-Ethington, 42, and her partner, 32-year-old Blue Inessa-Ethington, purportedly took Rose’s kid under the guise of going on a camping trip in Canada, the US Attorney’s Office said in a Tuesday press release. The blended family crossed the northern border but never checked into their hotel. Aside from one brief phone call on March 28, they cut off all communication with the boy’s...

Utah’s governor and the heads of both legislative bodies are investigating an alleged relationship between state Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen — who is responsible for the crucial gerrymandering decision — and an attorney who argued the case. A complaint, exclusively obtained by KSL, was submitted by another attorney, Michael Worley, in late December. It asserted that Diana Hagen’s ex-husband, Tobin Hagen, alleged that Diana Hagen shared “inappropriate” text messages with David Reymann, the attorney involved in the redistricting case that established Utah’s new congressional map. Worley said he believed his duty as an attorney of the bar obligated him...

The Constitution Party has begun maintaining a national list of candidates running with the party in the 2026 election cycle. Party leadership has previously said that recruiting candidates would be a major priority moving forward. The party shared the current list Tuesday, stating that additional candidates will be added as filing deadlines pass in other states. As of publication, the list includes 28 candidates across four states, with the majority concentrated in Utah and Nevada. In Utah, the party is fielding 16 candidates, most of whom are running for county-level offices. These include commission and council seats in Cache, Salt...

With a little more than an hour to go before President Donald Trump’s Tuesday night deadline for Iran to open up a vital shipping corridor, Utah businessman Khosrow Semnani, who was born in the Middle East country, was wracked with anxiety. “I’ve never been worried so badly as I am right now, to be honest with you,” he said. Semnani, the man who opened Tooele County’s low-level nuclear waste facility, was particularly concerned about Trump’s threats to attack bridges and power plants in Iran, especially the nuclear generation facility in Bushehr. “These are counterproductive. It pushes people of Iran to...

While the SAVE America Act continues to languish in the Senate under the supervision of Republican Leader John Thune, leaders and voters in several states have taken it upon themselves to secure their own elections from noncitizen voting. ...***FloridaGov. Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s own version of the SAVE Act into law last week. The law, which requires citizenship verification against REAL ID data when registering to vote, will go into effect in January of next year.***MississippiMississippi Gov. Tate Reeves also signed election integrity legislation into law last week. Named the Safeguard Honesty Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy (SHIELD) Act,...