Patriot Front Member Unmasked in Clash with Proud Boys

Ken Silva
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Patriot Front Member Unmasked in Clash with Proud Boys

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The self-described Western chauvinist Proud Boys and the neo-Nazi Rose City Nationalists both showed up to protest a Pride event in Oregon on Saturday, but the two groups wound up fighting each other instead.

“Get the f— out of here! F—— racist mother—–!” the Proud Boys could be heard screming, throwing several blows at the Rose City Nationalists.

Saturday’s scuffle resulted in at least one member of the Rose City Nationalists being unmasked, purporting to reveal his identity as Casey James Knuteson, a former Proud Boy and current member of the white nationalist Patriot Front—a group suspected by many MAGA activists of being heavily infiltrated by the FBI or other federal agents.

The clash also unmasked another Rose City Nationalist, but that person’s identity is unclear.

The unmasked person was initially fingered as Ben Brody, a political science student at UC Riverside in San Fernando Valley.

That identification set the internet abuzz, as sleuths found social media posts where Brody identified himself as Jewish and said that he wants to work for government after graduation—leading many observers to believe they found evidence that the Patriot Front is indeed a government organization.

However, Brody released a video about the matter, claiming he was misidentified.

“I am not a part of the Patriotic Front as a member. I’m being confused with someone who looks similar to me, and I’ve never been to Oregon city for any protests whatsoever,” he said. “Lately, I’ve just been busy in terms of graduation from UC Riverside and stuff like that. I’ve been in Riverside only. I graduated June 21 and have just been hanging out with my friends.”

Whoever the unmasked Rose City Nationalist was, many conservatives believe he is connected to the government—pointing to the fact that the person’s colleague immediately helped him conceal his face after being unmasked.

Disgraced former congressman Adam Kinzinger only added to the speculation when he bizarrely denounced the Proud Boys “seemingly” attacking “federal officers.”

Kinzinger later scoffed at the notion that he was suggesting that the Patriot Front is comprised of feds.

Meanwhile, Patriot Front members weighed in on the Saturday scuffle, portending more violence between them and the Proud Boys. One apparent member, who only identifies himself on Twitter as “Chris,” pointed out that the Proud Boys leader in Oregon is himself a Jewish person.

Another apparent Patriot Front members said it’s now “on sight” with the Proud Boys—meaning that the neo-Nazis will attack their MAGA counterpoints the next time they fight each other.

According to Newsweek, 41-year-old Benjamin Kesler and 52-year-old Debra Lumb were both charged over the incident for disorderly conduct. Newsweek did not say what, if any, groups are affiliated with Kesler and Lumb.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

SIEGNER: Government Is the Problem, Not the Solution

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SIEGNER: Government Is the Problem, Not the Solution

(Clint Siegner, Headline USA contributor) Too many politicians have a religious faith in government. They may never give up on government as the solution, regardless of the evidence piling up which proves government is, in fact, the problem.

It’s maddening for everyone, including investors. The answer from political candidates is almost always more regulation or different regulation.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently made headlines in an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Tens of millions of Americans watched and listened to Kennedy make an excellent case for the complete corruption, incompetence and failure of government regulation surrounding COVID and the vaccines.

RFK Jr. clearly understands the problem. Yet, somehow, the remedy for total failure in governance, according to his campaign website, is “to remake public institutions to serve the public.”

That sounds great, but only to someone willing to ignore history and lacking an awareness of the basic nature of government. Bureaucrats and politicians will always find a way to slip out of the chains that bind them. We know this because they have been doing it for thousands of years, not just the past three.

Kennedy suggests he will “roll back the secrecy and make government transparent.” He does not acknowledge there have been a variety of efforts to improve government transparency since America’s founding. Those efforts have accelerated in recent decades.

Congress passed the original Freedom of Information Act in 1967. It has since been amended eight times. Despite all the legislation, the problem remains.

Officials are notorious for hiding anything they want behind “classified” status or declaring they can’t answer questions because the subject is part of an “ongoing investigation”.

Kennedy says, “We will protect whistleblowers and prosecute officials who abuse the public trust.”

The Whistleblower Protection Act became the law of the land thirty-four years ago. Congress passed an “Enhancement” during Obama’s tenure. However, the legislation did nothing to protect some of the most impactful whistleblowers in the nation’s history — including Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.

Likewise it is hard to think of any high-profile official exposed by a whistleblower who has been successfully prosecuted. What good is regulatory reform when enforcement has also been corrupted? Federal investigators, prosecutors and judges need to be ready and able to hold bad actors to account. Unfortunately, as we have learned in recent years, the Department of Justice and the judiciary have gone rogue.

Kennedy also asserts, “We will get money out of politics.” This too has been tried. Today the maze of campaign finance restrictions is bewildering as well as completely ineffective. More money than ever pours into elections.

Kennedy’s heart is in the right place. The reforms he is proposing might even rein in some government excesses in the short run. Yet, neither Kennedy nor anyone else vying to be president seems able to pair the obvious problem (government) with the obvious solution (dramatically less government).

The drive for bureaucrats and politicians to keep secrets, punish whistleblowers and use their positions to enrich themselves has everything to do with the power they wield.

When failed and corrupt federal agencies are disbanded and the federal government yields back all power not explicitly granted by the Constitution, the crooks, the sociopaths and their money will leave Washington. But not a minute before.

Clint Siegner is a graduate of Linfield College in Oregon. Siegner applies his experience in business management along with his passion for personal liberty, limited government and honest money as director at Money Metals Exchange, where he writes extensively on the bullion markets and their intersection with policy and world affairs.

Watch: RFK Jr. Goes Viral After Flaunting Muscles at Senile Joe Biden

Luis Cornelio
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Watch: RFK Jr. Goes Viral After Flaunting Muscles at Senile Joe Biden

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A video showcasing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. flaunting his well-toned physique and performing a series of pushups has taken Twitter by storm.

Captioned “Getting in shape for my debates with President Biden!” the video sparked widespread discussions and raised concerns about the contrasting fitness levels between Kennedy and President Joe Biden, the oldest president in American history.

The video, shared by RKF Jr. on his Twitter account, has gained nearly 8 million views as of Sunday evening. Accompanying the video was a series of tweets where Kennedy Jr. described his presidential agenda.

“As President, I will restore America as the global example of health & well-being,” RFK Jr. Claimed. “Not through pills or syringes, but through character and self-discipline. And I will continue to walk the walk and lead by example.”

The viral video comes weeks after several prominent political leaders expressed concerns about Biden’s declining mental faculties. On June 17, Biden raised grave concerns after a random gaffe in which he said, “God save the Queen, man” after a speech in West Hartford, Connecticut.

“He’s truly incapacitated,” expressed one concerned Twitter user in response to the gaffe.

While some Democrats, including Jack Dorsey, the former Twitter CEO, called for the Democratic primaries to be opened, they have refrained from endorsing RFK Jr., with the exception of Dorsey, due to his stances on vaccines.

Just last week, RFJ Jr. made headlines after an interview with popular podcast host Joe Rogan, where he voiced concerns about government-mandated vaccines. 

The now-viral interview triggered a handful of far-left individuals, including Dr. Peter Hotez, who lamented that Spotify had not shut down the podcast, dubiously claiming it contained misinformation.

In response to the criticism, Rogan challenged Dr. Hotez, a pro-vaccine and pro-mandate doctor, to a debate with Kennedy Jr., a challenge that Dr. Hotez rejected, choosing instead to appear before the mainstream media to whine about conservative attacks.

The pro-vaccine and pro-mandate doctor to a debate with Kennedy Jr, a challenge that Dr. Hotez declined to. 

RFK Jr. concluded his tweet thread by mocking, “P.S. And yes, I can do more than 10 pushups. That was my last set.”

Watch: Trump Vows to ‘Demolish’ Deep State in Fiery Michigan Speech

Luis Cornelio
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Watch: Trump Vows to ‘Demolish’ Deep State in Fiery Michigan Speech

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA)  In a bold address, former President Donald Trump Pledged to “demolish” what he referred to as the “Deep State” during a speech at the Oakland GOP Lincoln Day Dinner on Sunday.

The speech came just days after the Biden administration greenlit federal charges against Trump, dubiously alleging mishandling of classified documents.

With his trademark fired-up voice, Trump took to the stage and wasted no time in torching the Biden administration and those who sought to persecute him. “This is the final battle,” Trump declared. “With you in my side [sic], we will demolish the Deep State; we will expel the warmongers from our government; we will drive out the globalist; we will cast out the communist, Marxists and fascist, and we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.” 

Trump also lambasted the mainstream media for misleading Americans with their leftist bias. “We will route the fake news media and we will defeat Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump added, highlighting embattled President Joe Biden. “We will liberate America from these villains once and for all.”

Dismissing the federal charges as “bullshit,” the leading GOP candidate declared, “I consider it a great badge of honor and courage. Essentially I’m being indicted for you, 200 million people that love our country.”

Building on his previous speeches, Trump promised to protect the forgotten men and women of the nation, which elicited cheers from his supporters. “The great silent majority is rising like never before and under our leadership the forgotten men and women will be forgotten no longer,” Trump passionately concluded.

Prior to his speech, the Oakland Republican Party awarded Trump with the “Man of The Decade” accolade. According to The Oakland Press, Trump’s visit to Michigan marked his first campaign event in the battleground state, despite not originally being scheduled to attend the event.

Trump, who is seeking the GOP nomination for the 2024 presidential election, currently leads the majority of Republican polls, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in second place.

Cover-Up Plot? Joe, Hunter and Attorneys Flee to Camp David on ‘Strange’ Trip

Luis Cornelio
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Cover-Up Plot? Joe, Hunter and Attorneys Flee to Camp David on ‘Strange’ Trip

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) President Joe Biden has come under fire for taking a taxpayer trip to shield his son, Hunter Biden, with a lavish trip to Camp David following his plea deal with the DOJ and bombshell revelation that implicates Joe in Hunter’s shady business dealings. 

Attorneys for the Biden family allegedly accompanied the Biden due in the extravagant gateway over the weekend, fueling conservative voices questioning why Hunter continues to be included in official government events despite damning allegations of multi-million-dollar bribes received by the Biden family in exchange for foreign policy favors.

Conservatives swiftly took to social media to criticize Biden for seemingly protecting his embattled son. Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, commented on the Camp David trip, stating, “This week, federal government whistleblowers allege massive DOJ/FBI corrupt obstruction to protect Hunter and Biden family. […] Joe Biden’s response?  Bring Hunter to WH for a State Dinner and then off to Camp David for the weekend with him.”

The trip comes a week after Hunter pleaded guilty to willfully failing to pay income taxes, prompting Republicans to accuse the DOJ of offering him a “slap on the wrist” deal that allows him to likely avoid serving jail time.

Miranda Devine, an opinion writer and author for the New York Post, described the short trip as “strange.” She said, “Strange to go to Camp David for such a short time. Maybe to have confidential discussions with unknown legal advisers in a heavily guarded place away from prying eyes” 

Chuck Ross, an investigative reporter at The Washington Free Beacon, slammed Biden for taking Hunter to Camp David, saying, “Amazing. Taking a tax cheat and gun felon with him on a trip where he will be discussing high level international events. But also, does Hunter live with Joe now or something?”

Twitter users joined in the criticism, with one account stating, “The President of the United States has hired a criminal defense lawyer after huddling with Hunter and his lawyers all weekend at Camp David.” Another verified Twitter profile said, “Joe and Hunter Biden have been at Camp David all weekend having some quality father-son bonding time… with their newly-assembled criminal defense team.”

Following the release of a WhatsApp text message from Hunter to a Chinese contact directly implicating the President in his son’s questionable business dealings abroad, Joe has largely avoided speaking to the press.

The text message, made public by the Republican-led Ways and Means Committee, was obtained through the testimony of an IRS whistleblower who accuses the Biden administration of purposefully obstructing a criminal probe into Hunter’s actions.

Comer Hints More Countries Bribed Biden Through Wires: ‘This Is Just Beginning’

Luis Cornelio
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Comer Hints More Countries Bribed Biden Through Wires: ‘This Is Just Beginning’

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) In a fiery interview with Newsmax Host Eric Bolling on Sunday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., unreservedly expressed his strong disapproval of Attorney General Merrick Garland, calling for his immediate resignation.

Comer voiced deep concerns about the lack of integrity within the DOJ and the alleged bias against former President Donald Trump, while seemingly allowing Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden to evade accountability.

He vehemently slammed Garland, stating, “He just stood up and lied to the American people. Merrick Garland has destroyed the reputation of the Justice cabinet. He has destroyed the reputation of justice in America. He needs to go.” 

Comer’s scathing remarks echoed the mounting frustration among conservatives who perceive a stark contrast in the treatment of Democrats and Republicans by the DOJ.

Highlighting recent IRS whistleblower revelations, Comer underscored the apparent inaction of the federal government when it came to Hunter Biden’s alleged financial crimes, which included setting up numerous shell companies with no real business purpose.

Comer said, “The IRS knew about this. They knew about it because the federal government had records of it… Yet they do absolutely nothing to Hunter Biden for anything of that.”

When asked about the potential impact of the DOJ’s actions on the House Oversight Committee’s probe into Hunter Biden, Comer staunchly declared their commitment to continue the investigation.

He further revealed that the committee had obtained new bank records that indicate suspicious money transfers involving additional countries, including Russia and Ukraine. “We just disclosed two countries thus far. We disclosed China and Romania. There are still some more Chinese wires that we have yet to present to the American people. And there are a lot of wires, mysterious wires from Ukraine and Russia, that we’re about to expose,” Comer emphasized. 

Comer warned that this was only the beginning, stating, “This is just beginning for the Biden’s. All the Department of Justice is doing is staying in our way.

The Republican leader concluded that the House Oversight will continue to produce documents that expose the Biden’s family potential corruption and applauded the House Oversight Committee’s findings despite the pushback from the DOJ, Treasury and mainstream media.

He concluded, “We are still producing results every day that show this family — the President of the United States’ family — has received millions and millions of dollars from adversaries all over the world and they can’t explain why.”

States Consider Supplementing Fuel Taxes with Tracking Devices

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States Consider Supplementing Fuel Taxes with Tracking Devices

(Headline USA) Despite privacy concerns and dysfunctional models, some states are determined to replace gas taxes with taxes for every mile driven, a model that requires tracking devices to monitor the movement of citizens.

Evan Burroughs has spent eight years touting the virtues of an Oregon pilot program charging motorists by the distance their vehicle travels rather than the gas it guzzles, yet his own mother still hasn’t bought in.

Margaret Burroughs, 85, said she has no intention of inserting a tracking device on her Nissan Murano to record the miles she drives to get groceries or attend needlepoint meetings.

Burroughs’ reluctance exemplifies the myriad hurdles U.S. states face as they experiment with road usage charging programs aimed at supplementing gas taxes, which are generating less each year, in part due to increased fuel efficiency and the rise of electric cars.

The federal government is about to pilot its own such program, funded by $125 million from the infrastructure measure Biden signed in November 2021.

So far, only three states — Oregon, Utah and Virginia — are generating revenue from road usage charges, despite the looming threat of an ever-widening gap between states’ gas tax proceeds and their transportation budgets. Hawaii will soon become the fourth. Without action, the gap could reach $67 billion by 2050 due to fuel efficiency alone, Boston-based CDM Smith estimates.

Many states have implemented measures that respect citizen’s privacy while capturing more funds to pay for infrastructure programs, such as imposing additional taxes or registration fees on electric vehicles and, more recently, adding per-kilowatt-hour taxes to electricity accessed at public charging stations.

Last year, Colorado began adding a 27-cent tax to home deliveries from Amazon and other online retailers to help fund transportation projects. Some states also are testing electronic tolling systems.

Despite these options, road usage charges — also known as mileage-based user fees, distance-based fees or vehicle-miles-traveled taxes — which require tracking devices to be installed in cars, are attracting the bulk of the academic attention, research dollars and legislative activity.

Doug Shinkle, transportation program director at the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, predicts that after some 20 years of anticipation, more than a decade of pilot projects and years of voluntary participation, states will soon need to make the programs mandatory.

“The impetus at this point is less about collecting revenue than about establishing these systems, working out the kinks, getting the public comfortable with it, expanding awareness around it,” he said.

Electric car sales in the U.S. rose from just 0.1% of total car sales in 2011 to 4.6% in 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. S&P Global Mobility forecasts they will make up 40% of the sales by 2030, while other projections suggest an even higher share.

Eric Paul Dennis, a transportation analyst at the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, said the failure of states to convert years of research into even one fully functional, mandatory program by now raises questions about whether road usage charging can really work.

“There’s no program design that I have seen that I think can be implemented at scale in a way that is publicly acceptable,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that a program can’t be designed to do so, but I feel like if you can’t even conceive of the program architecture that seems like something that would work, you probably shouldn’t put too much faith in it.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

SELLERS: Putin, Leftist Media Collude to Push Hunter Out of Headlines

Ben Sellers
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SELLERS: Putin, Leftist Media Collude to Push Hunter Out of Headlines

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Global alliances saw a sudden and remarkable shift on Saturday as a mercenary group once deemed despicable suddenly was rebranded as “freedom fighters.”

And with it, America’s mainstream media suddenly became, whether wittingly or unwittingly, the pawns of Russian President Vladmir Putin.

Or, to use the proper Soviet terminology, they became “useful idiots.”

On globalist networks like Fox News, there was wall-to-wall coverage of the advance on Moscow by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin—whose Wagner Group seems a clear nod, in retrospect, to the Nazis’ Operation Valkyrie.

As if ripped from the pages of a Hollywood script starring Tom Cruise, both “Wagner” and “Valkyrie” saw the leaders of a de-facto reserve army who was in close proximity to the ruling dictator suddenly grapple with the prospect of turning against said leader in a mutinous plot. (Spoiler alert: Neither one succeeded.)

For America’s mainstream media, however, Prigozhin’s apparent coup was an earth-shattering breakthrough in the latest never-ending war, which was initially funded through open U.S appropriations and now appears to be getting bankrolled mainly through Pentagon accounting errors.

Fox’s weekend anchor, Arthel Neville, talked somberly and breathlessly with an analyst who identified himself as an ex-CIA official, underscoring the importance of the moment, even as the b-roll showed a bunch of troops just standing around in the streets.

But it quickly became clear that something didn’t pass the smell test.

As it turns out, Prigozhin—Putin’s friend of some three decades and sometimes referred to as “Putin’s chef” suggesting a level of deep trust in the man who might have poisoned the Russian leader at any moment—may not have been as disloyal as it appeared.

He has now relocated from Ukraine to Belarus—where, it just so happens, Putin recently deployed a cache of nuclear missiles. It is hardly the place one might expect to escape the clutches of a powerful leader against whom one just conducted a mutiny and assassination attempt.

While I don’t pretend to know Putin’s precise calculations, we are no nearer nor farther from the outbreak of World War III or the threat of nuclear annihilation than we were a couple days ago.

The same firewall that prevents Putin from mutually assured self-destruction is in place now that existed before his latest stunt.

Unfortunately, that firewall just so happens to be named Joe Biden, whose own brand was tarnished considerably last week, as if such a thing were possible.

What the media failed to cover as it momentarily obsessed over “Putin’s chef” was the now conclusive evidence that the American president knowingly accepted bribes from a top Chinese spy official and then proceeded to brazenly lie to the American people about it, which he continues to do.

The implications of this are truly stunning as they also unravel the pretext for the first Trump impeachment and everything that has happened since.

But the media has now made clear that it would rather help Putin than to harm Biden.

Fortunately, both those goals seem conveniently to have aligned, further calling into question the truth of everything we have witnessed since the U.S. first began openly supporting the war between Russia and Ukraine—which began under former President Barack Obama, not Joe Biden, as the result of a CIA color revolution in Kiev.

Putin is no dolt. Is he using the opportunity when he knows that the media is desperate for a change of narrative to give them what they want while achieving his own propagandist ends?

Or are he and Biden privately in cahoots, perhaps as part of an arrangement brokered by Zhao Xuejun, the head of China’s Harvest Fund Management, which partnered with Hunter Biden on a major business venture?

Zhau, the person on the receiving end of Hunter’s threatening 2017 WhatsApp message, happens to have ties to the CCP’s former “minister of state security,” who was “in charge of espionage, domestic and overseas intelligence work for China and spearheaded its “strategy of developing thousands of special agents on foreign soil,” the New York Post reported.

There is only one thing the public can be certain of in the current climate of layer upon layer of perpetual gaslighting: If the mainstream U.S. media is obsessing over it, then it is probably an utter lie.

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

E-Bike Battery Fires Wreaking Havoc in NYC

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E-Bike Battery Fires Wreaking Havoc in NYC

(Headline USA) New York City officials called on the public to help with a crackdown on unsafe e-bikes and e-bike shops after a spate of deadly fires caused by lithium ion batteries.

Daniel Flynn, the chief fire marshal of the FDNY, encouraged New Yorkers to report “hazardous conditions” inside repair shops, such as batteries being charged in close proximity, damaged-looking devices, or shops using extension cords for charging.

“These fires go from zero to 100 in a second,” Flynn said. “If you feel within yourself that there’s a dangerous situation, give us a call.”

New York City has seen over 100 fires and 13 deaths this year linked to e-bikes, more than double the total number of fatalities from last year, officials said.

The bikes are popular with delivery workers, but can overheat if defective or improperly charged, leading to fast-moving blazes that are difficult to extinguish. The dangers are especially grave in cities like New York where people live in close quarters.

On Tuesday, four people died of smoke inhalation and two others were hospitalized after a fire in the HQ E-Bike Repair spread to upper floor apartments. City officials said they’d previously fined the shop for its e-bike charging practices, though inspectors reportedly did not check to see if the store was selling reconditioned batteries on a recent visit.

Under new guidelines, fire officials will be directed to respond to complaints about e-bike batteries within 12 hours, rather than the previous policy of three days.

The city has issued nearly 500 summonses related to e-bikes, which can result in fines between $1,000 and $5,000.

The latest strategy, which will also include educational outreach to repair shops, comes on top of a raft of other proposed reforms that aim to attack the cause of e-bike fires.

Later this year, the city will ban the sale of e-bikes and scooters that don’t meet certain safety standards.

The fire department has issued public service announcements, while local officials have discussed a “buy-back” program for low-quality batteries.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Train Carrying Hazardous Material Plunges into River

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Train Carrying Hazardous Material Plunges into River

(Headline USA) A bridge that crosses the Yellowstone River in Montana collapsed early Saturday, plunging portions of a freight train carrying hazardous materials into the rushing water below.

The train cars were carrying hot asphalt and molten sulfur, Stillwater County Disaster and Emergency Services said. Officials shut down drinking water intakes downstream while they evaluated the danger after the 6 a.m. accident. An Associated Press reporter witnessed a yellow substance coming out of some of the tank cars.

David Stamey, the county’s chief of emergency services, said there was no immediate danger for the crews working at the site, and the hazardous material was being diluted by the swollen river. There were three asphalt cars and four sulfur cars in the river.

The train crew was safe and no injuries were reported, Montana Rail Link spokesman Andy Garland said in a statement. The asphalt and sulfur both solidify quickly when exposed to cooler temperatures, he said.

Railroad crews were at the scene in Stillwater County, near the town of Columbus, about 40 miles (about 64 kilometers) west of Billings. The area is in a sparsely populated section of the Yellowstone River Valley, surrounded by ranch and farmland. The river there flows away from Yellowstone National Park, which is about 110 miles southwest.

“We are committed to addressing any potential impacts to the area as a result of this incident and working to understand the reasons behind the accident,” Garland said.

The bridge collapse also took out a fiber-optic cable providing internet service to many customers in the state, the high-speed provider Global Net said.

“This is the major fiber route … through Montana,” a recording on the company’s phone line said Saturday. “This is affecting all Global Net customers. Connectivity will either be down or extremely slow.”

In neighboring Yellowstone County, officials said they instituted emergency measures at water treatment plants due to the “potential hazmat spill” and asked residents to conserve water.

The cause of the collapse is under investigation. The river was swollen with recent heavy rains, but it’s unclear whether that was a factor.

The Yellowstone saw record flooding in 2022 that caused extensive damage to Yellowstone National Park and adjacent towns in Montana. Robert Bea, a retired engineering professor at the University of California Berkeley who has analyzed the causes of hundreds of major disasters, said repeated years of heavy river flows provided a clue to the possible cause.

“The high water flow translates to high forces acting directly on the pier and, importantly, on the river bottom,” Bea said. “You can have erosion or scour that removes support from the foundation. High forces translate to a high likelihood of a structural or foundation failure that could act as a trigger to initiate the accident.”

An old highway bridge that paralleled the railroad bridge — together, they were called the Twin Bridges — was removed in 2021 after the Montana Department of Transportation determined it was in imminent danger of falling. It wasn’t immediately clear when the railroad bridge was constructed or when it was last inspected.

Bea said investigators would also want to look at whether there was wear or rust in bridge components as well as a record of maintenance, repair and inspections.

Federal Railroad Administration officials were at the scene working with local authorities.

“As part of our investigation, we have requested and will thoroughly review a copy of recent bridge inspection reports from the owner for compliance with federal Bridge Safety Standards,” the agency said in a statement Saturday, noting that responsibility for inspections lies with bridge owners.

Kelly Hitchcock of the Columbus Water Users shut off the flow of river water into an irrigation ditch downstream from the collapsed bridge to prevent contents from the tank cars from reaching nearby farmland. The Stillwater County Sheriff’s Office called the group Saturday morning to warn it about the collapse, Hitchcock said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes that sulfur is a common element used as a fertilizer as well as an insecticide, fungicide and rodenticide.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

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