Suspect posed as a gardener in Boulder attack and planned to kill all in group he called 'Zionist'

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A man posing as a gardener to get close to a group in Boulder holding their weekly demonstration for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza planned to kill them all with Molotov cocktails, authorities said Monday.

But he had second thoughts and only threw two out of the 18 incendiary devices he had into the group of about 20 people, yelling “Free Palestine” and accidentally burning himself, police said. Twelve people were injured in the Sunday attack. He had gas in a backpack sprayer but told investigators he didn’t spray it on anyone but himself “because he had planned on dying.”

“He said he had to do it, he should do it, and he would not forgive himself if he did not do it,” police wrote in an affidavit. He didn’t carry out his full plan “because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before.”

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, planned the attack for more than a year and specifically targeted what he described as a “Zionist group,” authorities said in court papers charging him with a federal hate crime. The suspect’s first name also was spelled Mohammed in some court documents.

“When he was interviewed about the attack, he said he wanted them all to die, he had no regrets and he would go back and do it again,” Acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell for the District of Colorado said during a press conference Monday.

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What we know about the man charged in the attack in Boulder, Colorado

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A man armed with a makeshift flamethrower and other incendiary devices launched a fiery attack on demonstrators in Colorado who were calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Twelve people were injured and the FBI described the violence as a “targeted terror attack.”

The suspect, identified by the FBI as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, yelled “Free Palestine” durig the attack Sunday, according to Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office. Authorities believe Soliman acted alone.

He has been charged with multiple state counts and a federal a hate crime.

Authorities said the attacker targeted volunteers with Run for Their Lives, which organizes running and walking events to call for the immediate release of Israelis being held in Gaza. The hostages were captured by militants during an incursion into southern Israel in 2023 that precipitated the latest Israel-Hamas war.

The group gathered Sunday at the Pearl Street pedestrian mall, a four-block area in downtown Boulder frequented by tourists and students. Witnesses said the suspect first used the flame thrower, then threw two Molotov cocktails into the crowd. Soliman was arrested at the scene.

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South Koreans vote for new president in wake of Yoon's ouster over martial law

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Millions of South Koreans are voting Tuesday for a new president in a snap election triggered by the ouster of Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who now faces an explosive trial on rebellion charges over his short-lived imposition of martial law in December.

Pre-election surveys suggested Yoon’s liberal archrival, Lee Jae-myung, appeared headed for an easy win, riding on deep public frustration over the conservatives in the wake of Yoon’s martial law debacle.

The main conservative candidate, Kim Moon Soo, has struggled to win over moderate, swing voters as his People Power Party remains in a quagmire of internal feuding over how to view Yoon’s actions.

This election serves as another defining moment in the country’s resilient democracy, but observers worry a domestic divide worsened after Yoon's martial law stunt is far from over and could pose a big political burden on the new president.

The past six months saw large crowds of people rallying in the streets to either denounce or support Yoon, while a leadership vacuum caused by Yoon’s impeachment and ensuing formal dismissal rattled the country’s high-level diplomatic activities and financial markets.

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Top Trump officials visit prolific Alaska oil field amid push to expand drilling

DEADHORSE, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump wants to double the amount of oil coursing through Alaska's vast pipeline system and build a massive natural gas project as its “big, beautiful twin,” a top administration official said Monday while touring a prolific oil field near the Arctic Ocean.

The remarks by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright came as he and two other Trump Cabinet members — Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin — visited Prudhoe Bay as part of a multiday trip aimed at highlighting Trump’s push to expand oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in the state that drew criticism from environmentalists.

During the trip, Burgum’s agency announced plans to repeal Biden-era restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in portions of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska that are designated as special for their wildlife, subsistence or other values.

The petroleum reserve is west of Prudhoe Bay and Deadhorse, the industrial encampment near the starting point of the trans-Alaska pipeline system. The pipeline, which runs for 800 miles (nearly 1,300 kilometers), has been Alaska’s economic lifeline for nearly 50 years.

Government and industry representatives from several Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, were joining a portion of the U.S. officials’ trip, as Trump has focused renewed attention on the gas project proposal, which in its current iteration would provide gas to Alaska residents and ship liquefied natural gas overseas. Matsuo Takehiko, vice minister for International Affairs at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, was among those at Prudhoe Bay on Monday.

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Supreme Court rejects 2 gun rights cases, but assault weapons ban issue may be back soon

WASHINGTON (AP) — A split Supreme Court on Monday rejected a pair of gun rights cases, though one conservative justice predicted the court would soon consider whether assault weapons bans are constitutional.

The majority did not explain its reasoning in turning down the cases over high-capacity magazines and state bans on guns like the AR-15, popular weapons that have also been used in mass shootings.

But three conservative justices on the nine-member court publicly noted their disagreement, and a fourth said he is skeptical that assault-weapons bans are constitutional.

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have taken a case challenging Maryland's ban, and Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say the law likely runs afoul of the Second Amendment.

“I would not wait to decide whether the government can ban the most popular rifle in America,” Thomas wrote. “That question is of critical importance to tens of millions of law-abiding AR–15 owners throughout the country.”

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Ukraine and Russia agree to swap dead and wounded troops but report no progress toward ending war

ISTANBUL (AP) — Representatives of Russia and Ukraine met Monday for their second round of direct peace talks in just over two weeks, but aside from agreeing to swap thousands of their dead and seriously wounded troops, they made no progress toward ending the 3-year-old war, officials said.

The talks unfolded a day after a string of stunning long-range attacks by both sides, with Ukraine launching a devastating drone assault on Russian air bases and Russia hurling its largest drone attack of the war against Ukraine.

At the negotiating table, Russia presented a memorandum setting out the Kremlin’s terms for ending hostilities, the Ukrainian delegation said.

Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation, told reporters that Kyiv officials would need a week to review the document and decide on a response. Ukraine proposed further talks on a date between June 20 and June 30, he said.

After the talks, Russian state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti published the text of the Russian memorandum, which suggested that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the four regions that Russia annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured as a condition for a ceasefire.

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Nawrocki's win turns Poland toward nationalism and cast doubt on Tusk's centrist government

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Conservative Karol Nawrocki’s victory in Poland’s weekend presidential runoff has set the country on a more nationalist course — and cast doubt on the viability of the centrist government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk after the defeat of his liberal ally.

Nawrocki, who was supported by U.S. President Donald Trump, won 50.89% of votes in a very tight race against Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who received 49.11%, according to the final results of Sunday's runoff published Monday morning.

By evening, Tusk said he would ask parliament to hold a vote of confidence in his coalition government, a fragile multiparty alliance that includes left-wingers, centrists and agrarian conservatives.

Tusk’s government exists separately from the presidency, but the president holds power to veto laws, and Nawrocki’s win will make it extremely difficult for Tusk to press his pro-European agenda. The race revealed deep divisions in the country along the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union.

The result leaves Tusk politically wounded, and there are questions about whether his coalition can survive to the end of its term in late 2027. There were already calls on Monday from political opponents for him to step down.

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RFK Jr. says autism 'destroys' families. Here's what those families want you to know

WASHINGTON (AP) — Emery Eversoll and her mother shared a good laugh when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that some autistic children will never write poems.

The 16-year-old’s bedroom is full of notebooks featuring her verses. Sometimes, she quietly recites poetry to get through an outburst of anger. Her mother began suspecting she may have autism, in part, because she had memorized every word from a favorite book by age 2.

Still, this Kansas family is optimistic about Kennedy’s plans to launch a broad-based study of what causes autism, the complex developmental disorder that impacts the brain and causes delays in language or learning, social withdrawal and an unusual need for routine. Kennedy has vowed to identify some of the causes of autism, which has been studied for decades, by September.

Kennedy has said autism ”destroys families.” He said children with autism “will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

His comments and his plan to swiftly study its causes, have splintered a community of millions of people living with autism. For some, they were an overdue recognition of the day-to-day difficulties for families with autistic loved ones. To others, Kennedy deeply misrepresented the realities of their disability, provoking concern about his ability to handle a sweeping assessment of the disorder.

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Israeli forces open fire a kilometer away from Gaza aid site, killing 3, health officials say

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip opened fire early Monday as people headed toward an aid distribution site a kilometer away, killing at least three and wounding dozens, health officials and a witness said. The military said it fired warning shots at “suspects” who approached its forces.

The shooting occurred at the same location where witnesses say Israeli forces fired a day earlier on crowds heading toward the aid hub in southern Gaza run by the Israeli and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The Israeli military said it fired warning shots on Monday toward “several suspects who advanced toward the troops and posed a threat to them,” around a kilometer (1,000 yards) away from the aid distribution site at a time when it was closed. The army denied it was preventing people from reaching the site.

The United Nations and major aid groups have rejected the foundation's new system for aid distribution. They say it violates humanitarian principles and cannot meet mounting needs in the territory of roughly 2 million people, where experts have warned of famine because of an Israeli blockade that was only slightly eased last month.

In a separate incident Monday, an Israeli strike on a residential building in northern Gaza killed 14 people, according to health officials. The Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals confirmed the toll from the strike in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp, saying five women and seven children were among those killed.

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Sean 'Diddy' Combs' ex-aide says she was 'brainwashed' when she sent loving texts years after rape

NEW YORK (AP) — A former personal assistant who accuses Sean “Diddy” Combs of rape testified Monday that she continued sending the hip-hop mogul loving messages for years after her job ended in 2017 because she was “brainwashed.”

The woman, testifying under the pseudonym “Mia," pushed back at defense lawyer Brian Steel’s suggestions that she fabricated her claims to cash in on “the #MeToo money grab against Sean Combs.”

Mia was on the witness stand for her third and final day at Comb’s federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial in Manhattan, which is in its fourth week of testimony.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers concede he could be violent, but he denies using threats or his music industry clout to commit abuse.

Steel had Mia read aloud numerous text messages she sent Combs. In one from 2019, she told Combs that he'd rescued her in a nightmare in which she was trapped in an elevator with R. Kelly, the singer who has since been convicted of sex trafficking.

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