PROVO, Utah — In a highly anticipated court session this Thursday, Utah prosecutors aim to showcase audio recordings of law enforcement officials questioning the roommate of the suspect in the death of conservative figure Charlie Kirk.

The defense team has strongly opposed the public dissemination of statements made by Tyler Robinson’s roommate and romantic partner, Lance Twiggs. They argue that presenting these statements as admissions could prejudice public opinion, thereby infringing upon Robinson’s right to an impartial trial if aired by the media.

Facing an aggravated murder charge, Robinson has yet to submit a plea. He surrendered to authorities a day following the shooting that claimed Kirk’s life. Kirk, a prominent supporter of former President Donald Trump, was instrumental in energizing young voters for Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Prosecutors claim that Robinson left a note for Twiggs allegedly confessing, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.” Moreover, it’s alleged Robinson texted Twiggs, indicating Kirk was targeted out of a personal vendetta against his “hatred.”

Twiggs provided statements to law enforcement on September 12, just two days after Kirk was killed during an event at Utah Valley University, and again on April 20. With immunity granted for these interviews, Twiggs’ comments are protected from being used against him in any legal proceedings.

State District Judge Tony Graf will decide at the conclusion of this week’s preliminary hearing if prosecutors have enough evidence to bring Robinson to trial.

Robinson’s attorneys have not commented on his guilt or innocence but have sought to get the death penalty taken off the table, so far unsuccessfully.

Attorneys for Kirk’s family and the media had urged the judge to make Twiggs’ statements and other evidence public.

“To not be transparent, to not be open and let the world see what happened will create doubt and distrust in the judicial system,” Kirk family lawyer Jeffrey Neiman told Graf.

Investigators say Robinson went to a rooftop near where Kirk was speaking and shot him once through the neck as the activist was taking questions from a crowd of several thousand people. Kirk was declared dead after being taken to a hospital.

Investigators found the suspected murder weapon – a bolt-action rifle with one spent round – wrapped in a towel in a wooded area near where Kirk was shot.

Robinson’s lawyers earlier this week questioned the reliability of DNA testing used to link the defendant to the towel and gun.

A member of Tyler Robinson’s defense team interrogated a DNA analyst from the FBI about the techniques she used to connect Robinson to the evidence. Defense lawyer Michael Burt cast doubt on the analyst’s conclusions.

“She can’t match Mr. Robinson to the questioned samples,” Burt argued.

But forensics expert Lawrence Quarino said law enforcement agencies use “extremely reliable” tests to determine the probability that a person matches with DNA found at a crime scene.

DNA testing “is the gold standard in forensic science,” said Quarino, a professor and director of the forensic science program at Cedar Crest College in Pennsylvania.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

The Air Force has admitted that a human error involving an outdated test answer key has compromised this year’s technical sergeant selection process. This mistake led officials to revoke 135 promotions, reallocating these positions to other troops who were rightfully entitled to them.

The incident impacted only the security forces career field of the service. After discovering the outdated scoring key was used for the Specialty Knowledge Test, officials rescored all 2,285 eligible airmen to rectify the situation.

“We owe it to those affected to address it immediately,” explained Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David R. Wolfe in a statement. He acknowledged the difficulty of the situation for all involved.

Upon completing the rescoring, the Air Force found that 451 airmen would retain their promotions, although 135 others no longer met the required cutoff score. Consequently, these positions will be offered to another 135 airmen who were initially overlooked in the original process.

Air Force officials said the error was discovered after the promotion list was released and an enlisted promotions team member at the Air Force Personnel Center identified the outdated scoring key. Officials described the mistake as an isolated and unprecedented human error, adding that no other Air Force specialty codes were affected.

Officials said they verified the correct answer key with subject matter experts before rescoring every eligible exam. The total number of promotions did not change, remaining at 586.

“We promote Airmen based on merit, which is established in federal law and policy,” Lt. Gen. Jefferson O’Donnell, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, said in a statement. “Who we are as an Air Force, defined by our core values, demands integrity in the meritocratic promotion system.”

The Air Force Personnel Center plans to announce the 135 newly selected technical sergeants in a supplemental promotion release during the week of July 13. Officials said the new selectees will receive adjusted line numbers that will not affect when they are promoted.

The Air Force said it has tightened its review process and is examining how the error occurred to prevent a similar mistake in future promotion cycles. Leaders are notifying affected airmen directly and have set up a hotline to answer questions.

Officials said the mistake was caused by human error, not artificial intelligence.

Lena Dunham recently shed light on her past relationship with Jack Antonoff, making surprising comments just months before details of his separation from wife Margaret Qualley became public.

In her 2026 memoir titled “Famesick,” the “Girls” creator reflected on her nearly six-year romance with the music producer, whom she dated from 2012 to the end of 2017. She mentioned that Antonoff often spent time with an unnamed “teen pop star.”

Within the pages of her memoir, Dunham described an instance when she video-called Antonoff while visiting her grandmother. She found him in the recording studio at their apartment, collaborating with the young pop star, who she admits she didn’t feel threatened by.

The 40-year-old Golden Globe winner recounted that Antonoff, now 42, frequently stayed cloistered in a room with the teen star. She noted how this young artist, whose needs seemed as significant and intricate as her own, affectionately referred to her as “Aunt Lena” when she would make her way to the kitchen with her walker to grab more green tea.

Dunham also shared an anecdote about returning from a doctor’s appointment to find the young pop star emotionally vulnerable on their sectional couch, sobbing on Antonoff’s lap. He comforted her lovingly, saying, “your teens are for experimenting,” in a manner so soothing it nearly moved Dunham to tears.

“It had been so long since he’d spoken to me with that kind of expansive generosity,” she recalled in the book.

Though Dunham never named the woman in question, fans suspected it was Lorde.

Antonoff worked with the “Royals” singer, now 29, on her second studio album, “Melodrama,” in 2015 and 2016. At the time, Lorde — born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor — was 18 and 19 years old.

The hitmaker denied rumors that he cheated on Dunham with Lorde, saying on X in 2018 that he was not “seeing anyone.”

“Normally i would never address rumors but i resent having the most important friendships and working relationships in my life reduced to dumb hetero normative gossip,” he wrote at the time.

“Those relationships are deeply important and sacred. with that said, im not seeing anyone. lol.”

Lorde also shut down the allegations, telling fans on Instagram Live that she and Antonoff were “not dating.”

“For the last time… I love him, he’s awesome. But we’re not dating. Please!” she said in February 2018.

In the memoir, Dunham revealed that Antonoff allegedly threw her pain medication down the toilet after they got into the “worst fight” of their relationship.

The “Too Much” alum said the couple argued when she spoke to Antonoff about her growing reliance on pain medication following her recent hysterectomy.

Dunham wrote that Antonoff’s response “was to go to the bathroom and angrily flush all my pills down the toilet, which necessitated a call to the doctor and a late-night trip to the pharmacy to get more so that I wouldn’t go into withdrawal — from any one of the drugs — overnight.”

Dunham’s memoir revelations resurfaced after news broke that Antonoff and his wife, Qualley, were calling it quits just weeks shy of their third wedding anniversary.

Page Six exclusively reported that the couple — who tied the knot in August 2023 — had challenges in their marriage.

“Jack could be very particular about how he liked things,” a source told us. “He’d often prefer for things to be done the way he thought was best, and Margaret didn’t always feel like her perspective was being heard or given the same weight.”

“Communication was definitely a challenge between him and Margaret,” the insider added.

Ahead of their breakup news, the “Maid” actress, 31, quietly deleted photos of Antonoff off her Instagram page. Qualley also did not accompany her husband to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s New York City wedding on July 3.

In a bid to calm growing unrest within Russia, President Vladimir Putin has reacted with anger to Ukraine’s persistent attacks targeting the nation’s oil refineries, depots, and tankers.

During a meeting with his ministers, Putin sought to reassure them by portraying the escalating economic turmoil as ‘temporary.’ He firmly denied claims that Kyiv’s unyielding offensives would undermine his leadership.

This development follows Ukraine’s dramatic overnight strikes on two significant oil hubs. Heavy smoke was visible rising from depots in both Tver and Mikhailovsk in the Stavropol region, exposing further lapses in Russian air defense capabilities.

Ukrainian drone assaults have now disabled as many as 24 oil tankers this week alone, significantly disrupting shipments to the contested Crimea peninsula.

Reports indicate that five additional tankers were struck and set afire overnight in the Azov Sea, exacerbating the crippling supply challenges.

Two were struck in Taganrog Bay, admitted Putin’s top official in Rostov region, Yuri Slyusar.

Dramatic footage shows a Sea Baby marine drone dodging intense incoming Russian fire to strike oil tanker Blue in the Black Sea off Crimean port Yalta.

The electricity ‘interconnector’ linking Crimea to Russia via undersea cables has been hit, along with 50 energy facilities on the peninsula, according to Ukrainian sources.

The major oil depot strikes in Russia overnight were at Tvernefteprodukt in Tver region and LUKOIL-Yugnefteprodukt depot in Mikhailovsk, Stavropol region.

Amid Ukraine’s turnaround in the war, Putin sought to reassure his ministers in a key televised meeting aimed at reassuring the public.

The Kremlin dictator said: ‘It’s absolutely obvious that the enemy [Ukraine] is trying to damage the economy, but most importantly, it seeks to create an atmosphere of anxiety in society.’

He insisted that ‘this goal is unattainable’, claiming – against the evidence of filling station queues across his country, and a feared collapse of the agricultural sector – that ‘resilience of Russia’s energy system is very high, one of the highest in the world’.

Putin failed to explain why Russians are forced to wait days in lines to buy rationed petrol in a major oil-producing country.

He made out there was only ‘temporary’ disruption, triggering doubts about whether he understood the crisis engulfing him due to his refusal to halt the war.

With fuel prices soaring, and millions of vacations to blockaded Crimea cancelled, one pro-war fanatic asked in response: ‘I wonder how the situation will normalise?’

A previous Ukrainian drone onslaught overnight on Tuesday took out two giant Kremlin energy complexes in Nizhnekamsk and Saratov, both engulfed by infernos. 

A military airfield was also set ablaze at Borisoglebsk in Voronezh region and 19 tankers were hit.

It was confirmed that the country’s largest refinery in Omsk, Siberia, was the latest to halt production following an audacious long-range attack.

Meanwhile, Fights are breaking out at petrol stations across Russia as repeated Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities and logistics hubs disrupt fuel supplies.

Shortages of petrol and diesel are paralysing Russia with gargantuan queues at filling stations where prices are spiralling, and people are losing patience.

One Telegram video appears to show two pairs of men trading punches outside a petrol station as a shocked onlooker films the brawl, saying: ‘It’s so scary to live like this.’

Another clip shows a woman yanking a petrol pump away from a motorcyclist accused of jumping the queue. ‘I’ve been waiting an hour,’ he protests, prompting others nearby to shout back: ‘We’ve been here for four hours!’

The latest videos join a growing stream of footage from across Russia over recent weeks, showing ordinary people from Moscow to Crimea brawling over dwindling fuel supplies.

Other clips show motorists throwing punches at petrol pumps, while one video appears to capture a man pulling a gun on someone accused of queue-jumping.

In another incident, the confrontation escalated so dramatically that a woman was left with a bloodied nose after allegedly being punched by an impatient man.

The chaos comes as a European state intelligence report recently revealed that Russia risks an ‘explosive’ banking crisis.

The two-page report also revealed that half a million Russians went bankrupt last year. 

While Russia’s banks have mostly weathered the sanctions imposed since Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the June report says deteriorating loans and growing household indebtedness create an ‘explosive’ risk, just as the EU prepares a 21st package of sanctions it hopes to finalise in July, targeting banks and cryptocurrency networks.

The Russian central bank declined to comment on the assessment, although it has recently played down the risks of a major banking crisis.

With the cost of a four-year war with Ukraine draining state coffers, Russia has increasingly leant on banks to support companies and borrowers. The report says this has lumbered banks with risks, as the economy teeters.

The Economy Ministry cut its gross domestic product​ growth forecast to 0.4 per cent in 2026 from 1.3 per cent previously and to 1.4 per cent in 2027 from 2.8 per cent.

The intelligence report, titled ‘Note on the probability of a banking crisis in Russia in 2026′, said banks have been pushed to give subsidised loans to defence companies, homebuyers and others. It noted that state-backed credit programmes, loan restructurings and government support masked the banks’ vulnerability.

‘The situation creates the illusion of a dynamic economy that, in reality, conceals an explosive situation which an economic shock, such as an ambitious package of sanctions against banks … could trigger,’ said the report.

Lending to defence firms, regional state-backed projects and homeowners has increased the amount of loans that may never be repaid, the authors said.

The family of the late Charlie Kirk, including his widow and parents, has expressed frustration at being unable to view critical evidence during a preliminary hearing for the accused murderer. They contend, in a recent court document, that victims are entitled to not only attend legal proceedings but also have full access to observe the presented evidence.

Tyler Robinson, a 23-year-old, faces allegations of assassinating conservative figure Charlie Kirk outside a “Prove Me Wrong” event held at Utah Valley University in Orem on September 10, 2025. A preliminary hearing is currently ongoing to establish whether the case will proceed to trial.

In a supplementary notice filed this past Wednesday, Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, petitioned a judge in Utah to ensure all evidence introduced in the remainder of Robinson’s preliminary hearing is made visible in real-time to everyone present in the courtroom legally. Additionally, she requested the court to display previously presented exhibits from the first three days of the hearing that had not been shown to the public.

The family’s formal statement is unequivocal: every piece of evidence submitted during the preliminary hearing should be visible to all lawful attendees, as their filing declared. “Hiding evidence from those in the courtroom, as occurred today, undermines transparency. Without transparency, speculation and conspiracy theories about Mr. Kirk’s tragic assassination will likely multiply, eroding trust in the justice system. No one desires this outcome.”

The filing says the Kirk family waited 10 months for the preliminary hearing and traveled to the courthouse to witness the proceedings, only to find themselves unable to view certain evidence admitted during testimony.

Attorneys wrote the family was “present in body” but denied the ability to “meaningfully observe the preliminary hearing.”

The filing also contends that Utah law guarantees crime victims and their representatives the right to be informed of, present at and heard during important criminal justice proceedings, and argues those protections are meaningless if victims cannot see the evidence being presented to the court.

“The right ‘to be present’ is hollow if the victim or his representative is physically in the room but is prevented from seeing the evidence the Court is receiving,” the document reads. “A right to attend that does not include the ability to perceive what is happening is not meaningful presence at all.”

The filing asks the court to display all previously admitted exhibits that were not shown publicly during proceedings scheduled for July 9 and to require that all future evidence admitted during the preliminary hearing be displayed openly and in real time for everyone lawfully present in the courtroom.

It also asks the judge to prohibit evidence from being received in a manner that conceals it from courtroom observers.

Robinson’s preliminary hearing began Monday and is expected to continue through the week. Prosecutors must establish probable cause for the case to proceed to trial on multiple charges, including aggravated murder, which carries the potential death penalty.