ATLANTA — Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today that they are confident this year's flu shot will be highly effective against last year's strain of flu.

Ballot measures allowing same-day voter registration and scrapping party primaries could make it easier for establishment Democrats to keep power in deep-blue Massachusetts.

Voters are considering the two measures this fall. Election integrity experts have long been suspicious of Election Day voter registration, as it could flood election clerks with new registrants they can’t possibly verify at the last minute.

“The reason the Left wants it is because it fits their turnout model, just as they don’t want rules on ballot harvesting, to get out the vote, and win,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, told the Daily Signal.

“This would just invite massive cheating,” Ken Cuccinelli, chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, told the Daily Signal.

In the state, the more controversial of the two measures is the nonpartisan primary. Only a handful of states—most notably California—have nonpartisan primaries, often called “jungle primaries,” where the top two vote-getters advance to the general election.

“It’s the California model. A top-two in a blue state is tailor-made to ensure you have two left-leaning candidates in the general election,” Snead said.

Support for the measure, interestingly, doesn’t break down along party lines. Former Republican Gov. Charlie Baker and former Democrat Gov. Deval Patrick support the nonpartisan primary proposal, as does the NAACP New England Area Conference.

“All-party primaries will give voters more choice and our elected officials will have to reach across the aisle to voters from other parties if they want to be successful,” Baker said, according to WBUR.

However, Democrat Sen. Edward Markey and “squad” member Rep. Ayanna Pressley oppose the measure. So do both the state’s Republican and Democratic parties, along with the American Federation of Teachers of Massachusetts.

“Under this system, liberal Democrats, like AOC or the Squad, would not do well even in a blue state,” Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, said. “If two Democrats advanced to a general, Republicans would vote for the less radical. The establishment Democrats will love it. It’s an interesting dynamic.”

Democrat State Committee members Martina Jackson and Ann Roosevelt filed a lawsuit in March to stop the measure, arguing, “restricting general election ballots to only two candidates, the petition dilutes the ‘diversity and competition in the marketplace of ideas,’” the Commonwealth Beacon reported.

A University of Massachusetts poll released Monday showed 49% of voters supported the measure and 39% were opposed, with 9% undecided.

What’s less close is the money race, as supporters of nonpartisan primaries raised $6.5 million, while the opposition raised $184,325, according to Ballotpedia.

Washington was the first to adopt the top-two primary system in 2004. California moved to the system in 2010—with U.S. Senate races in 2016 and 2018 featuring two Democrats in the general election. In Nebraska, the top-two primary system is used only for state legislative races. Louisiana has a similar system, but there, if no candidate for office wins a majority vote in a first round, it goes to a runoff.

The same poll found the Election Day registration ballot measure has 67% support.

Question 4 would allow Massachusetts to join 21 mostly blue states that allow Election Day voter registration. Battleground states such as Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan also allow it, as do very red states such as Idaho and Utah.

“Election Day registration has long been a part of the liberal voting agenda. It was in HR 1,” Snead said, a reference to a bill pushed by congressional Democrats in 2021 to nationalize election administration and create universal mail-in voting.

Currently, Massachusetts voters have to register 10 days before an election. Early voting starts 17 days before an election, so some voters can effectively already register and vote the same day.

On Question 4, the Massachusetts Democratic and Republican parties are in the familiar spots of opposing each other.

But there is no organized opposition, as supporters raised $264,415. That includes tens of thousands from unions and the American Civil Liberties Union, and no organized fundraising from the opposition, according to Ballotpedia.

Farmers across the United States will soon get relief from the cost of diesel, President Donald Trump said during his rally near Wichita, Kansas, on Monday evening, CBS News reported.

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Actress Christina Applegate revealed Tuesday she was previously misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), the neurological and autoimmune disorder.

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The U.S. Department of Justice has expanded its lawsuit challenging San Jose's concealed carry permit fees to include the city's gun owner liability insurance requirement.

The post Department Of Justice Adds Insurance Mandate To San Jose Court Challenge appeared first on The Truth About Guns.

Many Americans wonder why Ukraine is a central issue in the USA midterm election.  To those voices I would remind them that all aligned individuals and organizations who support the premise of Ukraine are core adversaries to the America-First doctrine.  At the end of every anti-Trump voice, is an alignment with Ukraine. At this point it’s […]

The post Zelenskyy Calls Rubio as Witkoff Travels to Meet Him in Norway appeared first on The Last Refuge.

On Oct. 1, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist, Inc. v. Frederic and answer an important question: Does a regulation prohibiting a church from building a religious structure on its own property violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act?  

The answer is yes, and the court should say so without conditions. 

RLUIPA, enacted in 2000, addresses a significant threat to the First Amendment’s protection of our free exercise of religion. Zoning codes and discretionary permitting processes could be read to exclude or disfavor houses of worship, particularly smaller or less familiar ones. So, the statute’s Substantial Burden Provision bars any government from implementing a land-use regulation in a way that substantially burdens religious exercise unless the government proves the burden is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest. 

Fortunately, RLUIPA defines “religious exercise” broadly. The statute protects “any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief,” and “the use, building, or conversion of real property” for religious purposes.  

The statute also directs that it “be construed in favor of a broad protection of religious exercise, to the maximum extent permitted” by its terms and the Constitution. While the statute does not define “substantial burden,” lower courts have filled the gap with at least 16 competing factors, including whether adequate alternatives exist, whether the perceived harm is self-imposed, and whether a denial is absolute or conditional. 

The Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist Inc. owns Our Lady of Lourdes, a church built in 1930 in a residential neighborhood of Park Hills, Kentucky. The group sought to build a grotto honoring the Virgin Mary on the adjacent lot, roughly 16 by 39 feet—about the size of a backyard pool. The placement reflects the Lourdes tradition, in which Mary asked St. Bernadette to “tell the Priests that a chapel must be built” beside the grotto.  

The local Board of Adjustment approved the project and noted the grotto would contribute to the general well-being of the neighborhood. Yet two neighbors disagreed and challenged the board’s approval in state court. The Kentucky Court of Appeals held the approval unlawful, and the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed.  

Kentucky’s highest court conceded that building the grotto is religious exercise but held the ban was not a substantial burden, saying that the Missionaries could build a smaller shrine on the church lot, making the prohibition “a mere inconvenience.” The court also said that the burden was “self-imposed” because the Missionaries knew the ordinance barred the project.  

This case presents three powerful arguments in favor of protecting Americans’ First Amendment right to practice their religion free from regulation. First, RLUIPA makes building a religious structure a religious exercise in its own right. So, preventing the building of the grotto presents an outright prohibition on a protected religious activity—the paradigm of substantially burdening First Amendment rights.  

Second, the Kentucky Supreme Court’s “build something smaller elsewhere” rationale contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision in Holt v. Hobbs. There, the Court held that RLUIPA’s inquiry asks “whether the government has substantially burdened religious exercise,” and “not whether the RLUIPA claimant is able to engage in other forms of religious exercise.” A court may not tell a church that a lesser shrine elsewhere is close enough. 

Third, the “self-imposed burden” rule applied by the Kentucky Supreme Court would gut RLUIPA. The Missionaries did acknowledge in their application that the ordinance did not permit the grotto. That candor proves nothing. Every RLUIPA claimant seeks relief from a rule that already exists. If knowledge of the restriction defeats the claim, a government can immunize any burden simply by enacting it first. 

This term, the Supreme Court should prescribe a clear rule: When the government forbids a religious institution from building a religious structure on its own land, that is a substantial burden, and the government must justify it. 

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

An alleged intruder was shot by a resident Saturday morning in Mesquite, Texas, then arrested and charged by police. KDFW reported the incident occurred at 4:15 a.m. Loud banging sounds awoke the home’s residents, one of whom went to investigate. Upon

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Known extremist arrested after destruction of Limoges town hall, amid claims of a communist "terror training camp" operating in the area.

The post Limoges Town Hall Arson Suspect is Known ‘Ultra-Left’ Extremist on Security Watchlist appeared first on Breitbart.