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07_16_25_Headlines Ainsley Coogan
Pearl Street suspect hearing
The man accused of carrying out the June 1 attacks on peaceful protestors on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall has waived his right to a preliminary hearing yesterday.
The attack killed one person and wounded more than a dozen others. The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, reportedly threw more than two dozen Molotov cocktails at 20 pedestrians participating in a weekly demonstration in support of Israelis still being held by Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attacks. During last month’s Pearl Street attack, Soliman reportedly yelled “Free Palestine.”
After waiving his preliminary hearing yesterday, Soliman had an arraignment scheduled for Sept. 9. He faces charges on multiple counts including federal hate crimes, first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and use of incendiary devices.
Soliman is alleged to have carried out his attack because he “hated the Zionist group.”
Western wildfires
Five wildfires are burning in western Colorado, with little containment so far.
The largest of them is the Deer Creek fire, which has burned nearly 13,000 acres. The Deer Creek fire is mostly in Utah, but spread into Colorado early yesterday. That fire is seven percent contained, according to fire officials cited by the Denver Post. Nearly 400 firefighters are engaged in the Deer Creek fire, according to the InciWeb site.
Elsewhere, the Turner Gulch fire has expanded to more than eight thousand acres in size and is the largest one burning in Colorado. Rugged terrain is making it difficult for firefighters there. Rugged terrain is also hampering efforts to fight the Wright Draw fire, which like Turner Gulch is burning north of Gateway, a small community in Mesa County. The Wright Draw fire has not grown as quickly as some of the other fires, and at last word had burned 341 acres. InciWeb says that 475 firefighters are battling those blazes.
The South Rim fire at Black Canyon of the Gunnison is at zero containment. 420 firefighters are there, where flames have consumed more than 41-hundred acres.
Finally the Sowbelly fire is burning in the Dominguez Canyon Wilderness Area in Delta and Mesa counties. It has burned about 2,300 acres, and is at zero containment. The terrain there is making it difficult to fight.
All told, the fires have destroyed nearly 15,000 acres, according to fire agencies.
The Deer Creek fire, which began in Utah but has now crossed into Colorado, is under investigation. The four other wildfires were all started by lightning strikes on July 10.
Effects of Megabill on Colorado
Colorado leaders are reviewing the language of the Republican tax bill, signed into law earlier this month.
The bill includes trillions of dollars in tax cuts, rolls back clean energy tax incentives, and adds billions of dollars for more immigrant detention and deportation.
Democratic state lawmakers have said the bill could reduce revenue in Colorado by hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
State Representative Shannon Bird, a member of the Joint Budget Committee, said the bill will probably force the state to cut spending in core areas, according to Colorado Newsline. Those core areas will likely include the state’s Medicaid program, and nutritional assistance for families.
Republican State Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, however, said the real issue is not the bill itself, but that Democrats have been on a spending spree for years.
Tariff mitigation strategies
At the same time, Governor Jared Polis is telling the Office of State Planning and Budgeting to write a report on how President Trump’s tariffs will impact the state.
In an executive order Monday, the governor gave the agency 45 days to deliver their report. He said it should identify how harmful the tariffs will be to Colorado companies, and find ways to mitigate that harm.
It a meeting with small business leaders in Boulder, the governor said that the tariffs do not work, and will only drive up the cost of groceries and consumer goods, according to a press release.
Governor Polis has said that tariff taxes will have a devastating impact on agriculture, car manufacturing, and other key industries.
He has joined with Democratic governors from Illinois, New York and several other states to take action against the tariffs.
County Clerk firebomb arrest
An Archuleta County man is facing felony arson charges, for allegedly firebombing the Archuleta County Clerk’s office last month.
Authorities say 71-year-old William Bryant wanted to destroy the county’s Dominion Voting Systems machines, and that he appears to believe the discredited theory that the equipment was used to steal elections. He was arrested by Pagosa Springs police in late June and is currently out on bail.
The firebombing happened in the early hours of June 12, according to the Colorado Sun. The entire office burned, and has not been usable since then. Voting equipment was destroyed, but was covered by insurance.
Bryant ran for Sheriff of Archuleta County in 2022 and got 16 percent of the vote in a three-way race.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold called the attack on the County Clerk office shocking, noting that it’s part of a trend that traces back to Donald Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
