Fauci’s Diary Expose Private Views at Odds With Public Messaging

Luis Cornelio
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Fauci’s Diary Expose Private Views at Odds With Public Messaging

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The diary of disgraced former White House COVID czar Anthony Fauci reveals a stark contrast between his private views and his public messaging on several pandemic-era controversies, including the lab leak theory and school closures.

The diary, released Sunday by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., spans more than 1,000 pages and chronicles Fauci’s government role from December 2019 through December 2022.

Among the entries, Fauci acknowledged that the theory COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan laboratory was plausible, despite publicly dismissing the theory as fringe during the pandemic.

The diary also undercuts Fauci’s claims to the media that he had “nothing to do” with widespread school closures.

In one alleged entry, Fauci wrote that he “convinced” then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to “close the NYC schools.” He added in the same entry that “he should close bars and restaurants in NYC.”

Fauci also wrote that California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff, Ann O’Leary, told him Newsom decided to close schools, bars and restaurants based on Fauci’s television appearances.

Paul also released a 465-page prequel to the diary on Monday, covering Fauci’s government service from 2001 through 2015.

According to Paul, the earlier diary suggests Fauci knew the public “wasn’t getting the truth about anthrax” during the 2001 attacks.

One entry states that officials at the Army’s infectious disease laboratory reportedly told Fauci anthrax had been “weaponized.” Fauci said he was “floored” after he heard the head of the Office of Homeland Security seemingly appeared on television downplaying the threat.

Fauci warned that “someone is intentionally not telling Gov. Ridge the truth or he is masking the truth,” adding that “there will be hell to pay when the American public realizes that they have not been dealt with in a totally open manner.”

According to Paul, Fauci also asked then-Vice President Dick Cheney for “DARPA-like powers” when asked what he needed to run biodefense efforts at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

As noted by Paul, “Part of what was driving that buildup, by his own account, was ‘CIA intelligence that Iraq has smallpox’ – the basis for plans to vaccinate as many as 10 million Americans.”

In another entry, Fauci criticized the CIA following a 2008 White House meeting on “drug- and vaccine-resistant anthrax.”

Fauci reportedly wrote that CIA officials delivered “vague, soft and even embarrassingly bad intelligence.” These meetings were the kind he had sat through “several times before,” the entry alleged.

“One gets a very bad impression of the quality of our intelligence based on meetings such as this,” Fauci wrote, according to Paul.

The documents are among a broader collection of records released by Paul ahead of what is expected to be a contentious Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday. Paul obtained the files through his oversight of the federal government.

Conservative-Friendly Studio Under Fire for Actor’s Profane Anti-Trump Rant

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Conservative-Friendly Studio Under Fire for Actor’s Profane Anti-Trump Rant

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) A conservative-friendly studio faces backlash after the star of one of its soon-to-be-released feature films went on an unhinged, profanity-laced rant calling President Donald Trump a “rapist” and pedophile.

Utah-based Angel Studios, founded by four Mormon brothers in the Harmon family, was once touted as a viable alternative to Hollywood’s over-woke production studios.

It is set to release Runner, starring Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson, in theaters on Sept. 11.

While the thriller is not directly related to the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it follows a pattern, with Angel opting to use important calendar milestones to release films that will help to foster patriotic sentiment. The studio’s Young Washington, released on July 3, has grossed around $45 million, including nearly $20 million on its opening Independence Day weekend.

Angel first became a major cinematic contender with 2023’s Sound of Freedom, which grossed more than $250 million on a $14.5 million budget as conservatives, fed up with the incessant virtue-signaling in the movie industry, sought to send a decisive message to filmmakers.

“Founded by brothers who struggled to find films they could watch with their children, Angel was built on the belief that there was a global audience hungry for values-driven storytelling that amplifies light, celebrates hope, and inspires the moral imagination of viewers,” the company — which went public last year — said in a press release announcing its Q2 earnings.

Unfortunately for the studio, Runner star Alan Ritchson failed to get the memo.

Ritchson, who also stars in the Amazon Prime series Reacher, was promoting another movie, Motor City, last week on entertainment writer Josh Horwitz’s “Happy Sad Confused” podcast when he unleashed a stream of invectives — ironically, while trying to convince people that he was mentally stable.

“People, I think, are a little afraid of me because they’re like ‘He’s a loose cannon,’ and I am not,” Ritchson claimed, according to Breitbart.

“I’m just saying the sh*t that everybody should say if they give a sh*t about humanity,” he continued. “Everybody else should feel like I feel about the way things are and the abuses that are happening everywhere.”

From there, Ritchson launched into a diatribe about the Jeffrey Epstein files, which Democrats — who were mum about the topic for the duration of Joe Biden’s presidency — have continued to carp on lately, even after the Justice Department published more than 3.5 million pages to a searchable database in January.

“Where are they? It’s a f*cking law, b*tch, show it. You f*cking pedophiles,” Ritchson said.

“I shouldn’t say f*ck because I’m a Christian,” he continued. “ … This is my f*cking politics, dude. I would f*cking railroad these f*ckers.”

Ritchson then suggested he would try to get the files himself, while spewing libelous attacks on Trump.

“These f*cking rapists,” he said. “That b*tch has the keys to the nuclear codes. He’s like all up into 13-year-olds. Like, dude, what? Go to jail.”

While the released Epstein files revealed some correspondence between Trump and the late pedophile financier — with documents suggesting that Trump, as a private citizen, may have been aware of some of Epstein’s more questionable proclivities — there is no evidence that Trump regularly socialized with Epstein as did former President Bill Clinton, billionaires Bill Gates and Reid Hoffman, or England’s former Prince Andrew, to name a few well-documented clients.

In fact, some — including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. — have speculated that after Trump banned Epstein from visiting his Mar-a-Lago resort, the future Republican leader may have acted as an FBI informant against him.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt subsequently denied those claims.

Trump forced a $16 million libel settlement with ABC News in 2024, following a false statement from correspondent George Stephanopoulos, who maliciously claimed Trump had been convicted of rape as part of a civil suit brought by notorious rape accuser E. Jean Carroll.

A New York jury found Trump guilty of “sex assault” — a substantially lesser offense, with a much lower burden of proof — based on Carroll’s hazy, inconsistency-ridden claims of a sexual encounter in a department store fitting room several decades ago. The Manhattan socialite and magazine columnist would have been in her 50s at the time she claimed the incident occurred.

Ritchson has invited controversy in the past, including serious questions about his purported Christian views.

A March 22 incident caught on camera showed the hotheaded actor pummeling his neighbor in Brentwood, Tenn., following a dispute over Ritchson riding a motorcycle in the neighborhood.

Ritchson later credited God with inspiring him to wear a body camera, which he said helped clear him of criminal charges by showing he acted in self-defense.

“If anything makes you go, ‘Maybe God is real’ it’s [that],” he said on the “Armchair Expert” podcast with actor Dax Shephard, as reported by the Daily Mail.

“The cops came to arrest me that day and only had [a tape from a neighbor] to go off of,” he continued. “… Like, thank God. It was a gift from God, I think, that I had that premonition or that intuition that I put it on.”

Following Ritchson’s latest incident, some speculated that his outspoken, controversial views could cause Runner to bomb at the box office.

Angel Studios elicited its own controversy earlier this year over the release of Animal Farm, a children’s version of the dystopian George Orwell allegory that allegedly flipped its cautionary tale about communism into anti-capitalist propaganda.

The movie featured the voices of several celebrities known for bashing Trump, and it was the passion project of Andy Serkis, the writer/director/actor famous for his portrayal of “Gollum” in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, who previously attacked Trump on the Stephen Colbert show.

Animal Farm wound up bombing at the box-office, with a $35 million production budget that was only able to recoup around $6 million in ticket sales.

Headline USA reached out to Angel Studios for comment on the Alan Ritchson incident but had received no word back at press time.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Comey Says Seashells Post was Political Speech as He Presses to Dismiss Charges

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Comey Says Seashells Post was Political Speech as He Presses to Dismiss Charges

(Headline USA) Former FBI Director James Comey urged a judge on Monday to throw out federal charges against him, arguing that a photo of seashells arranged on a beach he posted on social media was not a call to violence against President Donald Trump but protected political speech.

Comey’s lawyers argue the government cannot prove the Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47″ constituted a “true threat” against the Republican president, who fired Comey in 2017 and has publicly called for his prosecution. The slogan — which has long meant to “get rid of” or “eject” — has been featured on thousands of items sold online and regularly displayed at protests, defense lawyers wrote in court papers.

“But the government now singles out Mr. Comey to prosecute one of the President’s most prominent critics for publishing another person’s statement of political opposition,” his attorney’s wrote. “That attempt to suppress core political speech contravenes both the statutes at issue and the First Amendment.”

The seashells case against Comey was the second in months targeting the ex-FBI director, a long-running Trump foe whom the president over the years has called a “corrupt piece of garbage” and other pejorative names.

An earlier case in Virginia accusing Comey of lying to Congress was dismissed last November after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who charged him and another Trump adversary, New York Attorney General Letitia James, was illegally appointed to the job.

More broadly, the case is part of a retribution campaign by the Trump administration Justice Department, which has initiated investigations across the country into individuals the president does not like. Comey has long drawn Trump’s ire for his role overseeing the early months of an investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election.

The two-count indictment charges Comey with “knowingly and willfully” making a threat to “take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon” Trump and with transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. It does not provide evidence that Comey knowingly threatened Trump, especially since Comey has said the opposite, but suggested a “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret” the message as a threat.

Comey was interviewed by the Secret Service last year over the post after Trump administration officials asserted that he was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president. Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

“Even if ‘86 47’ could implausibly be read to suggest violence, a reasonable observer would still understand Mr. Comey’s post as mere political hyperbole, not a true threat,” Comey’s lawyers wrote. “The Supreme Court has rejected threats prosecutions based on speech far more directly threatening than Mr. Comey’s seashells post here.”

The Justice Department has not elaborated on any evidence of intent the government has. But acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said earlier this year that prosecutors in every case prove intent with “witnesses, with documents, with the defendant himself to the extent it’s appropriate.”

“And that’s how we’ll prove intent in this case,” Blanche said in April, shortly after he was elevated to lead the department after Pam Bondi’s firing.

Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview last year, accused Comey of knowing “exactly what that meant.”

“A child knows what that meant,” Trump said. “If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Georgia School Shooter had a Chaotic Childhood and was Fixated on Mass Killings

Headline USA Editor
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Georgia School Shooter had a Chaotic Childhood and was Fixated on Mass Killings

(Headline USA) The teenager who killed two students and two teachers in a 2024 shooting at Georgia’s Apalachee High School had a chaotic, lonely upbringing and immersed himself in an online community of people interested in mass shootings, a psychologist testified Monday.

Colt Gray, 16, pleaded guilty Friday to 55 counts, including murder, in the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting that also left several others wounded at the school about 45 miles (73 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta.

He entered the plea without having reached a plea deal with prosecutors. Murder carries a minimum sentence of life in prison, and it is up to Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm to decide whether he will have the possibility of parole after hearing testimony and considering evidence. The sentencing hearing started Friday, continued Monday and was set to resume Tuesday.

Teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, died in the shooting. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.

A forensic psychologist who evaluated Gray after the shooting at the request of an attorney for the teen testified that during their first meeting in May 2025, Gray asked if he could pull his arms inside his sweatshirt to wrap them around himself.

“I thought he was kind of an odd kid,” Kevin Richards said. The psychologist said he did four interviews with Gray for a total of about 15 hours and also spoke to Gray’s mother twice for a total of about three hours.

“It was pretty chaotic,” the psychologist said of Gray’s upbringing, noting that the family had financial problems and moved around a lot, so he wasn’t enrolled in school for long stretches. His parents used drugs and fought a lot, and Gray had a lonely and neglected childhood, Richards testified.

Gray talked about fearing that teachers were plotting against him, and that people in public were whispering about him. Richards said that while he believes Gray experienced paranoia and anxiety, he doubts that motivated the attack.

“I don’t think he was driven by hallucinations or delusions to do what he did. I think he planned it out,” Richards said.

Most of the teen’s social life was online, Richards said. He was a gamer but also became immersed in a community of young true crime enthusiasts who were particularly fascinated by mass shootings. Initially, Gray focused on Adam Lanza, who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, as well as James Holmes, who killed 12 people in a Colorado movie theater. Richards said Gray was particularly interested in Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“He had just kind of disappeared into Discord and disappeared into the true crime community,” Richards said.

District Attorney Brad Smith showed Richards some of Gray’s online conversations on Discord, an online communication platform. They established that Gray would sometimes lie about his own mental health symptoms when talking to people online to establish common ground with them and get attention.

When asked by Smith if Gray studied and emulated school shooters, Richards responded that Gray was “kind of obsessed” with them.

In interviews with investigators, Gray lied about having called a suicide hotline right before the shooting, which Holmes had done, Smith said. He also told investigators he had damaged his computer the morning of the shooting and left it in the middle of his room, as Lanza had done. Smith called these “easter eggs” that Gray was planting to “gain fame and status” within the online community that fetishized those killings.

In an online conversation just days before the shooting, Gray mentioned Sept. 4. When the person he was chatting with asked what was happening that day, he wrote, “something i have for nik!” — an apparent reference to the Parkland shooter’s first name. He also noted that day was a Wednesday, just like the Parkland shooting.

Gray had more than 2,000 photos of Cruz saved on his phone and had 16 photos of Cruz printed and posted on his bedroom wall, Ashley Gilleland, an investigator with the district attorney’s office, testified. He shared photos of that “shrine” with another Discord user in the days before the shooting.

Similarly, he saved photos of other mass shooters and searched for details of those shootings, Gilleland said.

In phone calls with his mother while he was in custody just over a month after the shooting, Gray had her search online for mentions of his name within the “true crime community” and got excited when she found “fan art” drawings of him, Gilleland said. It appears his mother printed out some of the images she found to bring to her son, Gilleland said.

After Gray entered his plea Friday, the judge heard from family members of those killed and victims of the shooting. Most asked the judge to sentence Gray to life without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors also played recordings of two interviews the lead investigator did with Gray, one that took place less than an hour after the shooting at the school and another that was done several hours later at the sheriff’s office. Though the teenager seemed hysterical, repeatedly apologized and described what had happened as “horrible” during the interview at the school, Barrow County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Jason Smith said Monday that he believed “a majority of that interview to be performative.”

A jury in March convicted his father, Colin Gray, on charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. He is scheduled to be sentenced later this week. Prosecutors said he gave his son the assault-style rifle used to open fire at the school.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press. 

Man Killed Wife and 6 Kids, Then Himself, Before All Were Found in Michigan Home Fire

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Man Killed Wife and 6 Kids, Then Himself, Before All Were Found in Michigan Home Fire

(Headline USA) A man fatally shot his wife and their six children, then himself, before they all were found in their burning Michigan home last week, investigators said Monday.

Kristopher and Amanda Karolkiewicz and their six children, aged 5 to 15, died Friday in their home in Grand Haven Township, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Authorities were summoned for a fire and then discovered the bodies.

The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department said in a release Monday that autopsies determined all the family members died of gunshot wounds, and that Kristopher Karolkiewicz took his own life.

“This is an unspeakable tragedy that we may never completely understand,” Sheriff Eric DeBoer said in a statement read aloud at a news conference by one of his deputies, Capt. Jacob Sparks.

The fire appears to have been set intentionally in multiple parts of the home after the killings, but officials still are investigating the origin point, Sparks said.

It’s unclear exactly when the series of events began; officials got calls about a smoky smell in the area Monday morning, checked it out but found nothing. After getting more calls about three hours later, they returned, saw smoke coming from the Karolkiewicz home and found the bodies, at least some of them in bedrooms, Sparks said.

The family’s dogs and at least one cat perished in the blaze.

Amanda Karolkiewicz, 39, an elementary school substitute teacher who went by Mandy, “was a kind and devoted soul who loved her family and her students,” her mother and stepfather, Becky and Steve Lawwill, said in a statement.

“We treasured every moment we had with her and her six children, and words cannot adequately address our devastation,” they wrote, adding that they “pray for God’s peace and comfort as we grieve their deaths and honor their lives.”

A message seeking comment were sent Monday to Kris Karolkiewicz’s family.

The 47-year-old man was a vice president of sales and marketing for the American Heart Association from September 2023 to earlier this month, when his employment ended, an organization spokesperson said. The association did not release further details, saying it does not comment on personnel matters. While with the AHA, he worked remotely for a division responsible for CPR and first aid training and products, it said.

Mandy Karolkiewicz went “above and beyond for students, especially when they’re having a hard day, responding with empathy, patience, and care,” as the local school district put it in a Facebook post in January. A message seeking comment was sent Monday to the Grand Haven Area Public Schools system.

The couple met at work at a beverage company in 2008 and began dating that summer, according to a parenting-oriented blog that Mandy Karolkiewicz kept over a decade ago. The two married in August 2009.

Their first child was born on April 25, 2011, which she hailed as “the best day of my life (so far).” Two more sons followed over the next four years, as she shifted from a banking job to a part-time position at a local insurance agency and later stopped working outside the home. The couple later adopted two daughters and had another biological son.

The blog frequently expressed her Christian faith, her joy in the family and her love and appreciation for her husband and his parenting.

Kris Karolkiewicz, too, hailed their life together: “I’m a very lucky guy,” he wrote in a 2019 Facebook post ahead of their 10th anniversary.

Although her blog ended in 2016, Mandy Karolkiewicz continued sharing updates on her family and activities in TikTok videos, including clips of a trip to China earlier this month with two of her children.

Her family endured another loss in 2020, when her adult stepbrother died from a fentanyl overdose. Friends of her parents were launching a GoFundMe campaign Monday to help with expenses and establish a scholarship in the Karolkiewicz children’s memory.

Grand Haven township is a community of about 18,000 people, about a half-hour drive west of Grand Rapids.

Another shooting wounded five people in Ottawa County early Sunday, when gunfire broke out at a party at the Bass River Recreation Area, One person was critically injured. A suspect has been arrested, the sheriff’s office said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Tate Brothers Will Remain in Jail at Least 2 More Weeks as they Fight Extradition to the UK

Headline USA Editor
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Tate Brothers Will Remain in Jail at Least 2 More Weeks as they Fight Extradition to the UK

(Headline USA) Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate will remain in jail at least two more weeks until their next hearing as they fight extradition to the United Kingdom, where the brothers are accused of rape and sex trafficking, a federal judge said Monday.

U.S. Magistrate Lauren Louis set a detention hearing for Aug. 13 to determine whether the Tates should stay in jail or be released during what could be a monthslong extradition process.

The brothers weren’t in court Monday or required to be there and have remained in jail since making a brief court appearance two days after their July 18 arrest.

The Tates have become among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities with their promotion of wealth, male dominance and misogyny through their social media empire. The new allegations are the latest in a long-running international legal saga involving the Tates that has spanned the U.S., Britain and Romania. The brothers have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

Attorneys for the brothers said Monday that they want the U.S. government to turn over documents that U.K. officials submitted to secure their arrest.

“They don’t have anything but the accusations,” attorney Joseph McBride said after the hearing. “It’s just their word against our word right now.”

The U.K. has until mid-September to turn over all of its materials to the State Department, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alejandra López said in court.

The brothers have long claimed that their violent and misogynistic statements have been taken out of context or were intended as jokes.

Jackie Perczek, another one of their attorneys, said the Tates have shown they are not a flight risk by returning to Romania every month after they were accused there of luring women for sexual exploitation.

“For three years they have not fled,” she said. “They’ve traveled the world and every month they return to Romania.”

The former professional kickboxers, who have dual U.S. and U.K. citizenship, have millions of social media followers and are vocal supporters of President Donald Trump. The White House has said the brothers shouldn’t expect any help from the president.

McBride said shortly after the Tates were arrested that “they’ve never done nothing wrong. They shouldn’t be extradited for crimes they did not commit,” he said.

McBride said the extradition attempt was politically motivated, though he provided no details.

Prosecutors in Britain said the new charges relate to four new accusers and were brought after authorities received evidence from police in Bedfordshire, in southeastern England. The allegations, which span from 2010 to 2017, include rape, assault, trafficking and offenses relating to “indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.”

The brothers are already charged with rape, bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain relating to three other accusers in the U.K. between 2012 and 2015.

The brothers moved to Romania in 2016 and were arrested there in 2022, accused of participating in schemes to lure women for sexual exploitation. They denied those allegations, and the Romanian case hasn’t gone forward because of legal and procedural problems.

Andrew Tate, 39, became known a decade ago when he was a contestant on the U.K. reality television show “Big Brother.” He was booted from the show when a video appeared to show him assaulting a woman.

He has amassed over 10 million followers on X but has been banned from other platforms, including YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, for violating hate speech guidelines. He has made widely condemned comments, such as saying women who are sexually assaulted should bear some responsibility for the attacks and sharing graphic descriptions of how he might attack women.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

There Were At Least 3 Shooters at Seattle Food Festival, Court Docs Say

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There Were At Least 3 Shooters at Seattle Food Festival, Court Docs Say

(Headline USA) Police now say there were at least three suspects involved in a food festival shooting near Seattle’s Space Needle over the weekend, and that one of them was among those killed in the violence.

In a document filed in juvenile court in Seattle, where a 15-year-old arrested in the case was making an initial appearance Monday, police said they believe there were at least three shooters: the 15-year-old; an acquaintance who died at the scene; and “at least one other unknown suspect.”

“Based on the evidence at the scene, investigators believe” the 15-year-old “and one of the deceased engaged in a gunfight with at least one other unknown suspect,” the document said.

The teen was being held in juvenile detention for investigation of firearms violations and first-degree assault ahead of the afternoon court appearance, Mayor Katie Wilson said at a news conference.

Authorities said earlier Monday they are still looking for an additional suspect, but could not rule out whether that individual was among those killed.

“We are trying to identify who that person is,” said Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes.

Investigators had said they believed the two suspects were shooting at each other. Police said late Sunday night it was not clear whether any of the victims had been involved in the confrontation between the two shooters.

Two people died at the scene and a third died at a hospital. They were described as two men, ages 19 and 44, and a woman, 56.

The four wounded included a 2-year-old boy, who was in satisfactory condition Monday. The others — two men, ages 23 and 27, and a woman, 39 — were discharged, a hospital spokesperson said.

Vendors were allowed to return to the sprawling campus Monday morning to clean up and collect their equipment and merchandise. Skewered squid on grills, roasted ducks in ovens and plates full of food were among the items left behind as people fled the gunfire.

Near the spot of the shooting, a stain of what appeared to be blood was still visible in the morning. A candlelight vigil was planned Monday night at the center’s International Fountain.

The gunfire erupted around 6 p.m. Sunday in the waning hours of the Bite of Seattle. The annual three-day festival draws hundreds of food and retail vendors and performers to Seattle Center, a sprawling park and event space in the shadow of the Space Needle. Many attendees rushed into campus buildings or ran from the park at the sound of the shots.

Dozens of officers were providing security at the event and some saw one of the suspects firing, authorities said. A large number of police and emergency crews responded and began evacuating the area. Police then searched an IMAX theater on the grounds where they initially believed a second shooter had fled.

Adam Lombardo, who had a Burmese food stand at the festival with his spouse, described the panic of fleeing people as a “stampede.” As he gathered his equipment Monday, he described how police escorted them into the crime scene to turn off their ovens and stoves.

“It’s really sad because you think that three innocent people aren’t getting up with their families,” he said. “They just came to enjoy a food festival with people, with friends, with new friends, and they lost their lives in just what sounds like meaningless bloodshed.”

Festival attendee Faith Adia Hunter said she and her friends had just gotten food from a crepe vendor when gunfire broke out nearby. In the scramble to find safety, she and others ran into the nearby Seattle Children’s Museum.

“We were about to start eating, then heard someone yell something, then we saw people start to run,” Hunter said. “So we took off running, too.”

Roberto Ramirez, a vendor at the event, said he heard what sounded like firecrackers before people began yelling “shooter” and frantically running.

“Suddenly everything was empty,” he said. “People were freaked out.”

After the initial panic, new guests continued to arrive, unaware of what had happened. Police told them to leave, he said.

Estan Wakonabo said he and his girlfriend were waiting in line for a photo booth when he was shoved from behind and turned to see a rush of people fleeing.

“People were hiding, were pushing, people were falling on the ground, baby strollers were falling,” Wakonabo said, adding that was when he heard gunshots.

“Once I heard a ‘pop, pop, pop,’ that’s when I knew it was a shooter,” he said.

After he escorted his girlfriend to safety, he returned to the scene to take photos and saw multiple victims on the ground, Wakonabo said.

The festival started in 1982 and draws 350,000 attendees, according to its website.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Pentagon Database Shows More Than 200 US Casualties in Iran War Since July 7

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Pentagon Database Shows More Than 200 US Casualties in Iran War Since July 7

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Since July 7, four US troops have been killed, and more than 200 have been wounded in the Iran war, according to the Pentagon’s official casualty database, known as the Defense Casualty Analysis System.

The four dead US soldiers include three who were killed in a July 17 Iranian missile attack on a US base in Jordan, and they have been identified as Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Sgt. Angel Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park.

The fourth soldier died on July 18 in Iraq, identified as Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, a 30-year-old father from North Carolina, during what the US military called a controlled demolition of an unexploded Iranian drone. A US official told The New York Times that Swinton was not involved in the actual detonation but was hit by flying debris from the blast.

The database says that 207 US troops were also wounded, including 182 US Army soldiers, 21 US Navy personnel, and four US Air Force airmen. Many of the wounded sustained injuries during Iranian attacks on US bases in Jordan, which became a frequent target of the IRGC during the latest exchange of strikes, which have been paused since Friday.

The 211 casualties are considered part of “Overseas Operations,” which began on July 7, as the Pentagon separated them from the earlier casualties in the war. During “Operation Epic Fury,” the codename for the first months of the war, at least 14 US troops were killed, and 417 were wounded, for a total of 642 casualties since President Donald Trump launched the war with Israel on February 28.

US and Israeli attacks on Iran since February 28 have killed around 3,500 Iranians, including more than 50 since the US renewed strikes several weeks ago. In April, Iranian officials said nearly half of those killed were civilians, including the 120 school children killed in the US bombing of an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran.

The Trump administration has consistently downplayed casualties in the war, with the Pentagon only admitting to more than 100 of the recent injuries after The New York Times reported that it didn’t disclose dozens of injuries in Jordan in the days leading up to the deadly July 17 attack.

President Trump has also downplayed the casualties by sharing statistics of other US wars with higher casualty rates, and he claimed that the four soldiers who were killed had said that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon” as he was going to attend a dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

“They said, and they — all of them said very strongly — we can’t let, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They won’t have a nuclear weapon. So we’re going to honor them. And it’s one of the hardest things to do. For me, it’s one of the hardest things to do as a president. But, has to be done,” Trump told reporters.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com. 

Rep. Massie Joins Democrats in Attempt To Sue White House Over Iran War

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Rep. Massie Joins Democrats in Attempt To Sue White House Over Iran War

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is joining a group of Democrats who are attempting to sue the White House over its refusal to follow a War Powers Resolution that was passed by Congress and directed President Donald Trump to end the war with Iran, Fox News Digital reported on Monday.

The War Powers Resolution was passed by both the House and Senate in June, marking the first time Congress approved a concurrent resolution under the 1973 War Powers Act directing the termination of an unauthorized war.

Section 5(c) of the 1973 War Powers Act states that “at any time that United States Armed Forces are engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its possessions and territories without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, such forces shall be removed by the President if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution.”

Massie told Fox that Trump and US War Secretary Pete Hegseth are “in blatant violation of two sections of the War Powers Resolution of 1973.”

“For the first time since the law was enacted, a concurrent resolution has passed in accordance with 5(c) of the law, but the White House has ignored it. It seems they’ve assumed the law is unconstitutional, but no court has ever found that to be the case, so the law remains on the books while the White House flouts it. In the 1983 case INS v. Chadha, the Supreme Court did not opine on the 1973 War Powers Resolution. It’s time for the courts to settle this, and that’s what our legislation directs,” Massie said.

“They’ve also violated section 5(b) of the law, but rather than ignore the law, they’ve perpetuated a ruse that the 60-day limit on Presidential military activity does not apply with respect to the Iran war, because each time they effect a temporary ceasefire, the statutory clock restarts. We believe no court would agree with this absurdity, and this should be litigated as well,” he added.

The legislation to enforce the War Powers Resolution was introduced by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and has five co-sponsors, four Democrats plus Massie. The bill would require House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to take legal action against the administration to enforce the concurrent War Powers Resolution.

“The power to declare war rests unequivocally with Congress, yet Speaker Johnson and the vast majority of Republicans have allowed President Trump to trample over the Constitution and wage a war that has not been authorized by Congress. Nevertheless, Democrats, together with the few Republicans who upheld their oath, successfully passed my Iran War Powers Resolution that requires the president to end his hostilities in Iran last month,” Meeks said in a statement on the bill.

“Despite what the administration might say, I believe my War Powers Resolution is binding, and it is time to settle that question in the courts. As the Speaker of the House, Johnson must bring this suit forward. If the Speaker won’t defend congressional prerogatives, we must compel him to do so, which is why I’ve introduced this legislation to force his hand,” he added.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.  

DeSantis: ‘Almost Divine Figure’ Like Fauci Unlikely to be Held Accountable

Headline USA Editor
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DeSantis: ‘Almost Divine Figure’ Like Fauci Unlikely to be Held Accountable

(Merrilee Gasser, The Center Square) Anthony Fauci would likely be viewed by a District of Columbia jury as “an almost divine figure,” says second-term Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ahead of the doctor’s voice from COVID-19 testifying at the U.S. Senate.

The governor also said the media’s fawning of him “fueled his vanity. Vicious cycle.”

Fauci’s diary entries during the era of the pandemic, released publicly, are drawing heavy scrutiny. In Florida, DeSantis originally went with Fauci recommendations.

Then, calling it “freedom over Faucism,” the state blocked federal strategies through rejections, roll backs and prohibitions.

“One issue the right has yet to deal with is the asymmetry in accountability vis-a-vis the Swamp,” he wrote on X Monday. “When a conservative clashes with the Swamp, he gets convicted in 15 minutes by a DC jury. When attempts are made to hold a member of the Swamp accountable… an acquittal usually follows. A DC jury would likely view Fauci as an almost divine figure. Such a jury would unquestionably vote to nullify any case against him.”

He also said that Fauci was “lionized” by legacy media.

“The more Fauci advocated for restrictions/lockdowns and the more he criticized states like FL and GA that spurned his edicts, the more the media would treat him as a saint,” DeSantis said. “Fauci’s increasingly hysterical approach to Covid fueled this adulatory coverage — which in turn fueled his vanity. Vicious cycle.”

The more than 1,000 pages of diary entries made public by Sen. Paul Rand, R-Ky., show inconsistencies between Fauci’s public assertions and what he was thinking privately.

Early 2020 entries show the lab leak theory was considered plausible very early on while Fauci publicly pushed the natural origin theory. His statements on the fatality of the virus were also conflicting. In his diary entries he referred to COVID-19 behaving like a bad flu with a fatality rate of 0.2% to 0.3% – much lower than the 2% rate he said publicly.

Fauci is scheduled to appear before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee on Wednesday for lawmakers to examine his testimony. DeSantis’ comments indicate he doesn’t have high hopes the doctor will be held accountable.

In Fauci’s diary entries, he kept track of news articles about himself and television appearances he made. Some entries tracked COVID-19 deaths and his media appearances within sentences of each other.

In a Jan. 29, 2020, entry, Fauci writes “Amazing day today!” and goes on to describe how U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi was “telling everyone how great I am” and that President Donald Trump told him “Anthony, you are a really a famous guy” and that other people in the room were “clearly stunned and impressed.” Fauci ends the entry stating there had been 170 deaths.

His diary entries also reveal conflicting narratives on reported gain-of-function research. Fauci has publicly denied that the National Institutes of Health conducted gain-of-function research on coronavirus but dairy entries refer to gain-of-function research taking place.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center stopped collecting data on March 10, 2023, for Florida. It recorded more than 7.5 million cases in the state and 86,850 deaths. It counted 103.8 million cases nationwide and more than 1.1 million deaths.

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