News of the World
09-10-2025, 10:09 PM
(This post was last modified: Yesterday, 01:50 AM by kyonides.
Edit Reason: Added Articles
)
News of the World Special Edition
Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk Shot Dead
Before The Final Announcement
Quote:Conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been shot while addressing students at an event at Utah Valley University, in an attack caught on camera.
Kirk, a fervent supporter of President Donald Trump, is the founder of Turning Point USA, a group that seeks to spread conservative ideas to students on US campuses.
Officials say he had just begun speaking when a single gunshot rang out. Videos verified by BBC show him jolting backwards in his chair as students scatter in panic.
Police quickly detained a suspect, but he was released later, authorities said. Trump has posted, "We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom. God bless him."
A spokeswoman for Utah Valley University, Ellen Treanor, said the gunfire came from the Losee Center, a building about 200 yards away.
Another spokesman, Scott Trotter, told the BBC: "A single shot rang out in the quad near the food court on the Utah Valley University Orem Campus as Mr Charlie Kirk began speaking at his planned rally."
"We can confirm that Mr Kirk was shot, but we don't know his condition," he said.
BBC Verify has confirmed the authenticity of several videos of the shooting which have been posted online.
One video shows students crowded around a white tent emblasoned with the words, "THE AMERICAN COMEBACK" and "PROVE ME WRONG".
Charlie Kirk can be seen sitting alone under the tent with several others standing nearby.
In another video verified by the BBC, Mr Kirk is seen speaking at the rally for around four seconds, before a single gunshot is heard.
He then appears to jolt backwards in his chair, before the camera pans away and the crowd begins to run in panic.
According to CBS, the BBC's US partner, Mr Kirk was heard discussing gun violence in the US in the moments before he was shot.
"Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last ten years?" one audience member asks him.
"Counting or not counting gang violence," he responds, before the shot rings out.
Marina Minas, a spokeswoman for Turning Point USA, said: "He was shot in the neck. He's at the hospital. It doesn't look good."
Politicians from across the political spectrum, as well as right-wing influencers, have condemned the attack.
"FBI and ATF agents are on the way. PRAY FOR CHARLIE," wrote Attorney General Pam Bondi, the highest-ranking US law enforcement official.
Health Secretary Robert Kennedy wrote: "We love you Charlie Kirk. Praying for you."
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and one of Trump's top political rivals, called the attack "disgusting, vile, and reprehensible.
"In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form."
A former Utah congressman who witnessed the attack described to Fox News how "everyone hit the deck" and "scattered" after the gunshot was heard.
"The shot came straight at him," Jason Chaffetz said, adding he had talked to Kirk just before the event started.
As the news broke at the White House, several of Trump's press office staff reacted with visible shock.
One aide exclaimed, "Oh my god, Charlie Kirk has been shot!" - drawing gasps from colleagues.
Quote:Influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated Wednesday during a campus speaking event in Utah. He was 31.
Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA, was a close ally of President Trump and a powerful surrogate and adviser to his political movement.
Trump, 79, announced Kirk’s death in a post on Truth Social, writing: “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”
Shortly before confirming Kirk’s death, Trump told The Post in a brief phone interview: “He was a very, very good friend of mine and he was a tremendous person.”
Kirk was shot by a sniper shortly after noon local time while taking questions from attendees during a well-attended outdoor event on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem.
No one was immediately in custody in connection with the murder.
Kirk co-founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and rapidly built it into a national network of campus groups eclipsing traditional college Republican clubs.
Kirk is survived by his wife Erika Frantzve, whom he married in 2021, and two young children.
SUSPECT ARRESTED... OR NOT?
Quote:harlie Kirk, Turning Point USA co-founder and CEO, was fatally shot at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Wednesday.
According to FBI Director Kash Patel, the suspect is now "in custody."
The school initially told Newsweek: "This information is all preliminary but Charlie Kirk was invited to campus by a student group turning point USA he began his talking about 1 o'clock at about 120 there was a single shot fired from the top of a nearby building about 200 yards away to the best of our knowledge he has been hit and a suspect is in custody."
A person was then seen being detained after the shooting. According to Scott Trotter, university spokesman, police then said that the person taken into custody was not the shooter, The New York Times reported.
In an earlier email to Newsweek, the City of Orem said, in part: "There is still a suspect at large."
Why It Matters
The fatal attack targeted a high-profile conservative organizer speaking at a college campus, raising concerns of campus public-safety protocols, political violence and the security of public events.
What To Know
On X at 6:21 p.m. ET, Patel posted, "The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody. Thank you to the local and state authorities in Utah for your partnership with @fbi. We will provide updates when able."
Kirk, 31, was a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and a notable younger voice and advocate of MAGA, with a large following on social media.
Trump reacted to the shooting on Truth Social on Wednesday, saying: "We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom. GOD BLESS HIM!"
The president then confirmed Kirk's death in a subsequent post, saying: "The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!"
Kirk was shot near the neck while seated during a live question-and-answer session. Videos of the shooting's aftermath have since circulated on social media.
According to a post on X by the university, Kirk was "hit and taken from the location by his security." In a follow-up post around 3:30 p.m. ET, the school said it is closed and people should "Leave campus immediately."
The shooting has prompted a campus lockdown and investigation involving local and federal authorities and public statements from elected officials. Official details remain limited.
Quote:Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA co-founder and CEO, was fatally shot at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Wednesday.
According to FBI Director Kash Patel in an updated post on X Wednesday night, "The subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in interest of transparency".
Patel previously posted that "the subject" is now "in custody."
The school initially told Newsweek: "This information is all preliminary but Charlie Kirk was invited to campus by a student group turning point USA he began his talking about 1 o'clock at about 120 there was a single shot fired from the top of a nearby building about 200 yards away to the best of our knowledge he has been hit and a suspect is in custody."
A person was then seen being detained after the shooting. According to Scott Trotter, university spokesman, police then said that the person taken into custody was not the shooter, The New York Times reported.
In an earlier email to Newsweek, the City of Orem said, in part: "There is still a suspect at large."
Why It Matters
The fatal attack targeted a high-profile conservative organizer speaking at a college campus, raising concerns of campus public-safety protocols, political violence and the security of public events.
What To Know
On X at 6:21 p.m. ET, Patel posted, "The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody. Thank you to the local and state authorities in Utah for your partnership with @fbi. We will provide updates when able."
Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, called Kirk's shooting a "political assassination."
The "person of interest" was captured on security camera footage dressed in all dark clothing, officials said in a news conference Wednesday evening. Cox added that there is not another person sought in Kirk's killing at this time.
Kirk, 31, was a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and a notable younger voice and advocate of MAGA, with a large following on social media.
Trump reacted to the shooting on Truth Social on Wednesday, saying: "We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom. GOD BLESS HIM!"
The president then confirmed Kirk's death in a subsequent post, saying: "The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!"
Kirk was shot near the neck while seated during a live question-and-answer session. Videos of the shooting's aftermath have since circulated on social media.
According to a post on X by the university, Kirk was "hit and taken from the location by his security." In a follow-up post around 3:30 p.m. ET, the school said it is closed, and people should "Leave campus immediately."
The shooting has prompted a campus lockdown and investigation involving local and federal authorities and public statements from elected officials. Official details remain limited.
The saddening emphasis is mine.
LOOKS LIKE A PROFESSIONAL HIT
Quote:The shooting of Charlie Kirk in Utah had the hallmarks of a professional assassination, according to several security experts.
The prominent conservative activist, who was 31, was struck in the neck by a single gunshot as he delivered a speech to a large crowd on campus at Utah Valley University in Orem on Wednesday. He collapsed and was rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Analysts point to the firing of a single shot and a preestablished escape route as evidence that the shooting had been carefully planned.
Why It Matters
Kirk was the founder of the right-leaning youth organization Turning Point USA and a longtime ally of President Donald Trump.
Trump released a video message late on Wednesday saying he was "filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination", calling it a "dark moment for America."
The murder comes against the backdrop of bitter political divisions within American society with Alex Goldenberg, a senior adviser to the anti-extremism Network Contagion Research Institute, telling Newsweek the U.S. has an "emerging assassination culture."
What To Know
Kirk was shot as he was addressing the crowd from an open tent on a stage in Orem at about 12:20 p.m. (2:20 p.m. ET) on Wednesday.
Former FBI Agent Stuart Kaplan said the shooter likely put a lot of preparation into the attack, telling Fox News' Jesse Watters: "This assassination, different to the attack [on Trump] back in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a very well planned, very well orchestrated plot that was put in motion days before.
"This individual had a plan of escape to elude detection of being out on a rooftop, and also being able to evade and elude law enforcement," added Kaplan. "This assassination of Charlie Kirk to me is indicative of a professional hit, and I'm not so sure we are quickly going to be able to apprehend this individual without some luck."
Kaplan pointed to the shooter's use of only one shot and immediate disappearance as a sign of careful preparation ahead of the attack.
"The shot that was taken, was taken to immediately incapacitate Charlie Kirk, and so this was not some amateur who just got up on a rooftop," said Kaplan. "This seems the earmark of a professional that got up onto this rooftop well in advance. He was clearly undetected, and there was no indication that anyone saw him. After that, one single shot was taken.
"This is someone who had some experience, some level of sophistication, to have mapped out exactly how this was going to go down."
Former Republican New York State Senator and Homeland Security adviser Michael Balboni made a similar point, telling Fox News: "It's an incredibly chaotic scene on a college campus. Hundreds and hundreds of people there, right immediately afterward.
He added: "That a rifle sound... was heard, and yet nobody was able to identify an individual, which most likely means that the individual was shooting from concealment and maybe had some way to suppress or to hide the flash of the gun, and again, indicating that this is a sophisticated individual.
"One shot hitting the target from 200 meters away and then escaping without anybody seeing them—those are the hallmarks of a professional."
RFK JR. ON VIOLENCE
Quote:U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested a causal link between mass shootings and the playing of video games, though countless studies over the years have failed to definitively connect the two when it comes to a proliferation of violence.
Newsweek reached out to HHS via email for comment.
Why It Matters
The Make America Healthy Again [MAHA] Commission on Tuesday released its Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy, described as a sweeping plan with more than 120 initiatives to reverse the failed policies that fueled America's childhood chronic disease epidemic. Targeted executive actions include to advance gold-standard science, realign incentives, increase public awareness and strengthen private-sector collaboration, per the HHS.
Kennedy has received criticism for how he's led HHS, including firing over 600 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees and showing an ambivalence toward vaccines and vaccine mandates that last week even drew consternation from some Senate Republicans who challenged the former independent presidential candidate on not following through on his past assurances.
What To Know
Upon unveiling the new 20-page MAHA report on Tuesday, Kennedy was asked by PBS News whether the commission has had any discussion on the relation between children's mental health and firearms.
"The firearms question is a complex question, and it's not an easy question," Kennedy replied.
The health secretary pointed to a "sudden onset of violence" in the 1990s when "somebody walks into a school or a church or a theater and starts shooting strangers."
"We're having mass shootings every 23 hours," he said, mentioning possible reasons as dependence on psychiatric drugs, video games or social media. He said the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is examining such root causes.
He did not elaborate on why he brought up video games, or what the connection could mean in the grander scheme of the conversation surrounding health and safety.
"We are initiating studies now that look at the correlation and the potential connection between overmedicating our kids and this violence," he added.
What Studies Show
Kennedy's connection between violence and video games is an argument that has been around for decades, becoming more part of the zeitgeist as gun violence and mass shootings have remained consistent in the United States.
But any links he or other lawmakers and advocates make have not been directly borne out of the data. Numerous scientific studies have not found a link between violent video games and mass shootings, according to the American Psychological Association (APA).
APA research published in 2019 in the journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture analyzed more than 200,000 news articles about 204 mass shootings over a 40-year period, finding that video games were eight times more likely to be mentioned when the shooting occurred at a school and the perpetrator was a white male than when the shooter was a Black male. Another experiment conducted with college students arrived at similar conclusions.
Another 2019 study published by JAMA involved a randomized clinical trial exploring whether children's exposure to a violent video game increases dangerous behavior around firearms.
The trial involved 220 children ages 8 to 12, assigned to play a video game in one of three conditions: with gun violence, with sword violence or with no violence. Compared with children who played a game that was nonviolent, children who played a video game that included violence with guns or swords were more likely to touch a real, disabled handgun, handle a handgun longer and pull the trigger more times—including at themselves or their partner.
Reported habitual exposure to violent media was also a risk factor for dangerous behavior around firearms, researchers noted.
A study from Oxford that same year found no correlation between aggression in teens and the time spent playing violent video games.
"Our findings suggest that researcher biases might have influenced previous studies on this topic, and have distorted our understanding of the effects of video games," study co-author Dr. Netta Weinstein said.
One year later, Ofir Turel, professor of information systems and decision sciences at Cal State Fullerton, theorized that video-gaming and bringing a gun to school have a U-shaped association rather than a linear one.
Even going back to 2004, results have varied and direct links between video games and violence were mixed. A study copublished that year by the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education found that over half of attackers demonstrated some interest in violence through movies, video games, books and other media.
"However, there was no one common type of interest in violence indicated," the study said. "Instead, the attackers' interest in violent themes took various forms."
Lack of Data Proves 'Invalid' Claim
David Dupee, adjunct professor at Stanford University, has explored whether there's a link between violence and video games.
In a 2023 op-ed for Fortune, he spoke of how he and the Stanford Brainstorm lab reviewed 82 medical research articles pertaining to any sort of causal link between playing video games and violent behavior. They found none.
Dupee told Newsweek via phone on Wednesday that he's "not surprised" Kennedy brought up video games, saying that politicians have attempted to make the connection for the past two decades without much proof, if any.
"There's a lot of work that's done looking at correlations, but anyone with the basic grasp of statistics knows that the correlation and causation are two different things entirely," Dupee said. "I'm not surprised to see this be kind of raised back to the top of the bin, so to speak, once again. But there hasn't been any new data that suggests that Secretary Kennedy's take is valid."
The argument in itself is compelling, Dupee said, but that doesn't mean it's accurate. He mentioned how first-person shooter video games, which include the popular Call of Duty franchise, have sold millions of copies worldwide for years.
"They're sold very well everywhere, seemingly, and the United States, far and away, has the highest rate of mass shootings or school shootings," he said. "Specifically, if you want to kind of drill down on that and what differs between these different places is not necessarily the penetrance of video games so much as the availability of firearms.
"We can look to, say, Switzerland as a place that has similarly high gun ownership, but pretty strenuous rules and regulations around being licensed for firearms who can actually get them doing good background checks. And we just don't have those same safeguards in places here in the states."
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
![[Image: SP1-Scripter.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Scripter.png)
![[Image: SP1-Writer.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Writer.png)
![[Image: SP1-Poet.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Poet.png)
![[Image: SP1-PixelArtist.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-PixelArtist.png)
![[Image: SP1-Reporter.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/GmxWbHyL/SP1-Reporter.png)
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
