Boulder is shaken
Boulder is shaken
Good morning!🙋🏼♀️ I'm Nicole Fallert. "Holy (Freaking) Airball," I'm your Daily Briefing author.
Quick look at Tuesday's news:
A Colorado community reels after fiery attack
Boulder, Colorado, residents remain on edge after a "targeted" terror attack by a man with a makeshift flamethrower and firebombs set 12 people aflame and fueled chaos on the streets.
What happened: Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, is accused of attacking the weekly "Run for Their Lives" demonstration on Sunday with a makeshift flamethrower and fire bombs while shouting "Free Palestine."
Soliman told investigators he planned the attack for a year . He said he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished all of them were dead, according to an FBI affidavit released Monday.
. He said he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished all of them were dead, according to an FBI affidavit released Monday. "It took eight of us to get the fire out on her." A total of 12 people were burned in the incident. The victims, ages 52 to 88, suffered injuries ranging from serious to minor as local residents rushed to help them.
A total of 12 people were burned in the incident. The victims, ages 52 to 88, suffered injuries ranging from serious to minor as local residents rushed to help them. One of the burn victims is a Holocaust survivor, a local rabbi said. The attack came less than two weeks after two Israeli Embassy staff members were brazenly shot to death in Washington, DC, amid a rise in antisemitism incidents across the United States.
Canadian wildfires may be affecting your air
Fallout from the over 100 wildfires currently blazing across Canada is again being felt by U.S. states. There were 181 active fires in Canada as of Monday, with 90 being classified as "out of control" and 62 as "under control," according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). In the U.S., smoke from the fires has already been detected drifting through Montana, North Dakota and northern Minnesota. More states, ranging as far south as Florida and as far east and north as New York, may soon experience hazy or compromised air as well. Find out if your state may see smoke from the Canadian wildfires.
More news to know now
What's the weather today? Check your local forecast here.
At the US-Mexico border, volunteers conduct a grim search
Once a month, retiree Abbey Carpenter leads volunteers through a field of dunes near the border, searching for the remains of migrants. She has located 27 sites in southern New Mexico in under two years, artifacts of a wave of migration that has ebbed to a trickle. But the bones – femur, rib, jaw – take her breath away each time. In them, Carpenter, who taught English as a Second Language, sees the journeys made by her former students ‒ migrants who live and work in the United States and learned English in her classroom. Men in construction. Women in service industries. Another volunteer told USA TODAY: "Emotionally, it was more than I expected."
Tourists run for their lives from erupting Mt. Etna
Videos circulating online show people running as smoke from the side of Mount Etna, an active stratovolcano in Sicily, filled the air Monday. Europe's largest and most active volcano, Mount Etna, is located on the eastern coast of Sicily, Italy, in the province of Catania, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The active stratovolcano is known for its frequent and persistent eruptions, and volcanic activity in the region can range from explosive eruptions to lava flows and ash emissions, USGS says. See dramatic photos of the eruption spewing hot ash and lava.
Today's talkers
Bill Clinton reveals key White House details in murderous new political thriller
"We had this just gut-wrenching conversation because in the beginning, we were excited – what would it be like to write a book that was from the point of view of the first gentleman, the first woman president's husband? It had all kinds of fascinating ramifications. But then something happened while we were doing it, and I realized we hadn't created anybody you could like."
~ Former President Bill Clinton to USA TODAY about his partnership with bestselling author James Patterson. USA TODAY books reporter Clare Mulroy met the pair to discuss their third novel, "The First Gentleman."
Photo of the day: Dread in the dugout
History was made in the NCAA baseball tournament. After losing to Louisville on Saturday and Wright State on Sunday, the Vanderbilt Commodores became the first No. 1 overall seed to be eliminated in the NCAA baseball regionals altogether since UCLA in 2015 and the first No. 1 seed under the current format to fail to at least reach its regional final. The weekend's upsets serve as a black eye for the SEC.
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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
BREAKING: Gay porn star Austin Wolf pleads guilty to federal charges of enticing a minor for sex
Just shy of one year since his arrest, Justin Heath Smith—the adult film performer known professionally as Austin Wolf—pleaded guilty Friday in a Manhattan federal courtroom to a felony charge of enticing a 15-year-old boy to engage in sex. Smith, 43, entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer nearly a year after his June 28, 2024, arrest following an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation operation. Prosecutors say Smith used electronic communications in late 2023 and early 2024 to lure a minor to New York City for sexual activity, according to court documents. They allege he acted in concert with another adult and knowingly crossed a legal threshold meant to protect minors from predatory conduct. For years, Smith was one of the most prominent figures in gay adult entertainment—commercially successful, widely followed, and carefully branded. The charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a maximum of life. Engelmayer has scheduled Smith's sentencing for September 29 at 11 a.m. in the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse in lower Manhattan. As part of the plea agreement, Smith consented to the forfeiture of more than two dozen electronic devices seized from his home during an April 2024 raid. That list includes smartphones, hard drives, and multiple Mac computers, which federal investigators say were either used in the commission of the crime or contain evidence of it. Since his arrest, Smith has been held at MDC Brooklyn without bond. The investigation revealed what prosecutors described as 'hundreds of videos' of child sexual abuse material, including content involving prepubescent children and infants. Much of the material was allegedly exchanged via the encrypted messaging platform Telegram. At sentencing, Smith will face federal prison guidelines that start from a high baseline for crimes involving the sexual exploitation of minors. In addition to prison time, he may be ordered to pay a $5,000 penalty under a federal anti-trafficking law that supports services for survivors. This article originally appeared on Pride: BREAKING: Gay porn star Austin Wolf pleads guilty to federal charges of enticing a minor for sex
CNN
3 hours ago
- CNN
US law enforcement reexamining Hezbollah intel, but there's no indication of credible threats
Intelligence and law enforcement agencies are reexamining known or suspected Hezbollah associates in the US, looking for possible threats that could arise as tensions with Iran increase, though there's no indication of credible threats at this time, law enforcement officials told CNN. The moves come amid warnings from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of possible repercussions against the US as President Donald Trump weighs military action against Iran and as the president has mentioned the possibility of the Israeli government attempting to kill the Iranian leader. While US intelligence officials view the greatest danger to be against US military bases and US interests in the region, they are also acting out of an abundance of caution to try and prevent any domestic threats, the sources said. The prospect of Iranian threats inside the US has long been a concern to law enforcement officials, particularly after the US killed Qasem Soleimani, the top Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps general, during the first Trump administration and the Iranians vowed reprisals against former US government officials. Last year, the Justice Department announced arrests in an alleged murder-for-hire plot targeting Trump and others. The US also accused Iranian-affiliated hackers with breaching the Trump campaign, raising the prospect that Iran could use cyber attacks to retaliate against the United States. The FBI is monitoring potential threats and keeping close watch on groups with suspected ties to Iran, a law enforcement official said. The biggest concern, however, remains lone wolf attacks and the continued hit list of current and former US officials from Iran – including against Trump himself. In recent years, however, Iran-related threats have emerged from criminal groups that could be hired to carry out attacks, and not from domestic groups associated with fundraising for Iranian-affiliates such as Hezbollah and Hamas, US officials noted. Late last year, the Justice Department charged two US citizens for allegedly helping Iranian officials surveil an anti-regime advocate in New York. The department also brought charges in a case involving an Afghanistan national allegedly tasked by the IRGC to carrying out assassinations against US and Israeli citizens inside the US, including Trump. 'There's always a threat,' one federal law enforcement official told CNN of Iran. 'The difference is when it's specific and credible.' Security postures around several key areas in the US Capital, including the White House, Pentagon and Israeli embassy, have increased since the current conflict between Israel and Iran began earlier this month. But officials told CNN those increases are part of a normal security protocol activated when any conflict of this size begins around the globe. One Secret Service official told CNN the agency was under a high level of vigilance but was not currently monitoring a new increase in credible and actionable threats from the country. When it comes to Iran, one of the FBI's primary points of focus inside the US is money. The agency continues to investigate how terrorist organizations, sometimes connected to Iran, retrieve funding from groups inside the US – which became a significant issue in the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas in 2023. Sources stressed that while there was no current uptick in the already heightened threat posed against the US by Iran, that story could quickly change. 'It just depends,' one source said of whether Trump decides to engage the US military against Iran, adding that assessments are being run on a continued basis. One issue that has been increasingly difficult for the FBI and other law enforcement groups to thwart is the threat of a lone wolf attack. Over the past several months, the US has seen multiple attacks by singular individuals who never communicated their intentions with others or online – a threat that quickly becomes nearly impossible to stop or fully prepare for.
Chicago Tribune
3 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Alexander Polikoff, public-interest lawyer behind landmark CHA segregation case, dies
Public-interest lawyer Alexander Polikoff spent decades fighting powerful interests, most notably in a case he filed on behalf of Black public housing residents against the city of Chicago that spanned most of his career. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 agreed with Polikoff and his clients' contention that the city had discriminated against Black public housing residents and had selected housing for them based on race. Polikoff spent the next 43 years holding the city accountable until federal oversight over Chicago public housing was lifted in 2019. 'Alex was not motivated by money, fame or life's comforts,' said Hoy McConnell, who succeeded Polikoff as the executive director of Business People and Professionals for the Public Interest, the small public-interest law firm that Polikoff joined in 1970. 'Rather, he dedicated his life to making change to improve the lives of those burdened by poverty and discrimination.' Polikoff, 98, died of natural causes May 27 at his home in Keene, New Hampshire, said his son, author Daniel Joseph Polikoff. A longtime Highland Park resident, Polikoff moved to New Hampshire in 2022 to be near his daughter. Born and raised in Chicago, Polikoff was the son of attorney Julius Polikoff. After graduating from Senn High School in 1944, he briefly attended Purdue University before joining the Navy. After his discharge, he earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in English from the University of Chicago. He then received his law degree from the Hyde Park school in 1953, and worked for the next 17 years at the firm that became Schiff Hardin. Polikoff performed extensive pro bono legal work, representing clients alongside the American Civil Liberties Union. 'I don't remember a time when my dad wasn't doing some pro bono work with the ACLU, taking on various causes,' Polikoff's son said. 'That pro bono work was very compelling to him — it was part of his character.' In 1965, he filed a lawsuit in Lake County on behalf of four pupils to force Waukegan's elementary school board to reorganize school boundaries in order to meet integration standards. The Illinois Supreme Court in 1968 ruled favorably on Polikoff's contention that race could be taken into account to redraw school district boundary lines to achieve integration. The longest battle of Polikoff's career started in 1966, when he represented a group of Black Chicago Housing Authority residents in a federal class-action lawsuit. The case is known by the name of one of those residents, tenant activist Dorothy Gautreaux. Polikoff alleged that the CHA had practiced racial segregation by building most of its public housing complexes in Black neighborhoods and had deliberately placed Black residents in those complexes. In 1969, Judge Richard Austin concluded that the CHA had discriminated against Blacks in violation of the U.S. Constitution's equal-protection clause and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which barred racial discrimination in any program receiving federal aid. Austin also ruled that three public housing units must be built in white areas for every similar unit built in a Black neighborhood. White aldermen refused to approve sites for new construction. The CHA also dragged its feet by simply stopping building instead of following Austin's directives. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling on an appeal from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, unanimously concluded that the CHA had practiced segregation. Justices found that the CHA's problems were regional in nature, and that solutions could occur both in the city and the suburbs. Austin then expanded his order to include the entire metro area as an option for scattered-site housing. However, suburbs resisted new construction of lower-income scattered-site housing. A 1981 consent decree in the case placed CHA tenants in existing area housing and gave them federal Section 8 rent subsidies. 'The whole idea was to take the thinking beyond the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that ended school segregation and transfer it to the area of housing,' Polikoff told the Tribune in 1994. '(The) CHA's policy since the early 1950s worked to make each of its 168 high-rise buildings virtually 100% Black. It was illegal, immoral and socially disastrous to pile poor people on top of poor people.' The CHA eventually altered its operations and demolished numerous high-rises such as Cabrini-Green, the Henry Horner Homes and the Robert Taylor Homes in favor of scattered-site housing. The federal government ended its oversight of the CHA in 2019. At 92 years old, Polikoff was still involved in the case. 'It is well-known that the work Alex led changed public housing practices both in Chicago and nationally, and positively impacted tens of thousands of public housing residents,' said attorney Julie Brown, who worked for decades with Polikoff on the Gautreaux case. 'He was brilliant, of course, but always questioning. He had an uncanny ability to put aside extraneous issues and get to the heart of any matter he addressed. He had an innate sense that justice should prevail and insisted on doing everything he could to try to make it so.' Alex Kotlowitz, whose award-winning 1992 book, 'There Are No Children Here,' covered hardscrabble life in the Henry Horner Homes, praised Polikoff for challenging the CHA, 'which had become a kind of warehousing for the city's poor. He challenged the nation's conscience.' 'Alex was one of the first to recognize the profound effects of concentrated poverty,' Kotlowitz said. 'The Gautreaux litigation changed more than just housing policy. It forced us to reconsider how we treat the marginalized. It prodded us to consider our collective responsibilities to those who are struggling economically.' 'Gautreaux laid the foundation for the present-day national conversation about mixed-income housing, a reconsideration of how we think about community,' Kotlowitz said. Polikoff left private law practice in 1970 to join the staff of the public-interest law firm Businessmen for the Public Interest, later named Business People and Professionals for the Public Interest and now known as Impact for Equity. He became the executive director of the group, which provided a full-time platform for continued social justice advocacy, and held that post until 1999. He continued to work as the group's housing director until fully retiring in 2022. Under Polikoff, the group succesffully fought City Hall's proposal in the early 1970s to build a new airport on landfill in Lake Michigan. It also successfully fought plans for a nuclear power plant near Chesterton, Indiana, on the border of the 12,500-acre Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, winning a key court fight in 1974 when a three-judge panel of federal judges halted construction. The utility Northern Indiana Public Service Co. formally abandoned plans for a nuclear plant on the site in 1981. And pressure from Polikoff and his colleagues at BPI and from the Citizens Utility Board spurred utility Commonwealth Edison Co. to announce the settlement of 10 years of rate-case litigation in October 1993 with a record $1.34 billion refund to rate-payers. Polikoff's 'vision and passion inspired many of us,' recalled Environmental Law & Policy Center CEO Howard Learner, BPI's former general counsel and the lead consumer lawyer in ComEd settlement negotiations. 'Alex was always proud that part of his legacy in leading BPI was the multiplier impact from the number of talented public interest attorneys and vital new organizations that were developed at and grew from BPI to make a difference for the public good.' Bob Vollen, who worked alongside Polikoff at BPI from 1972 until 1982, said Polikoff had a 'way of posing a question that it allowed no possible answer other than the one he was seeking.' Polikoff authored five books, including 'Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing and the Black Ghetto,' which was published in 2006. His most recent book, 'Cry My Beloved America,' an examination of anger and frustration in America, was published in 2024. Polikoff's wife of 71 years, author Barbara Garland Polikoff, died in 2022. A daughter, Joan, died in 2016. In addition to his son, Polikoff is survived by another daughter, Eve Kodiak; and five grandchildren. Services will be private.
