The Wire - April 30, 2025

//The Wire//2300Z April 30, 2025//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: UKRAINE REJECTS CEASEFIRE OFFER. TEXAS HOUSE PASSES SPEECH CRIME BILL. WHITE POWDER FOUND IN ENVELOPE MAILED TO NY CRIMINAL COURT, EMERGENCY RESPONSE ONGOING.//

 -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----
 
-International Events-

Ukraine: Zelenskyy has rejected the ceasefire proposal announced by Russia. Various Ukrainian media outlets have stated that the reason for the rejection is that Ukraine wants to pursue a 30-day ceasefire instead of the 72-hour cessation of hostilities announced by Russia.

Southern Europe: Most of the electrical outages throughout the continent have subsided as investigations into the cause have continued. So far, no official cause for the outage has been released.

 -HomeFront-

Wisconsin: The state Supreme Court has suspended Judge Hannah Dugan from the bench for her role in aiding and abetting the escape of an illegal immigrant from her courtroom.

Texas: House Bill 366 passed in the House last night. This bill is highly-controversial as it contains vague language that under many circumstances bans political memes and media that does not explicitly have a government-approved warning disclaimer. The bill now heads to the Senate for a vote.

Texas: The bond for Solomon Weldekeal-Araya has been reduced from $1.2 million to $7,000 by a Travis County judge. Weldekeal-Araya was arrested in March for causing a pileup on I-35 that killed 5x people and injured 11x.

New York: This afternoon an envelope filled with an unidentified white powder was mailed to the New York Criminal Court. Upon the discovery of the mysterious substance, 7x people were hospitalized out of an abundance of caution.

AC: As this is a developing story at the time of this report, there are very few details that are confirmed. However, considering the context of the increased risks of terrorism around the nation, an abundance of caution would be wise to adhere to.

-----END TEARLINE-----

Analyst Comments: Regarding the power outage in Spain, most European media groups are sticking with the story that some kind of electromagnetic phenomenon caused the outage. This is almost certainly a fabrication. No abnormal electromagnetic interference was reported throughout the whole continent on the day of the outage. Both NASA and ESA solar weather forecasts confirmed no abnormal sunspots or anything out of the ordinary. No watches or warnings of impending solar weather were issued that day either. None of the smaller electrical interconnects throughout the continent experienced any sort of variation whatsoever. If this was a global electromagnetic interference situation, the Earth must have recognized international land borders, since Spain and Portugal were pretty much the only nations affected. (Southern France's power came back on only after a few minutes in some cases.) Spain's own state-sponsored meteorology agency (AEMET) stated directly that "No unusual meteorological or atmospheric phenomena were detected in Spain on April 28th, nor were there any sudden temperature fluctuations at our network of weather stations".

In Texas, there is already a substantial amount of information manipulation regarding HB366. Supporters of the bill state that it is intended to stop political candidates from memeing each other. This is still very obviously unconstitutional, but this appears to be the goal. The bigger problem (where this bill applies to most people, not just political candidates) is that this bill also applies to anyone who uses a meme in a form of employment whereby at least $100 is earned. In short, it seems as though Texas has re-defined what is considered to be "political advertising" in such a way as to be an extremely broad definition.

Opponents of the bill have stated that this is a textbook case of illegal censorship, and is one of the most blatant attacks on free speech in recent memory. As expected, the bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, with 45 Republicans and 61 Democrats voting in the affirmative for this bill. There was no debate on the House floor regarding this vote, nor were any questions asked regarding this bill; it passed without comment.

Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground
//END REPORT//