DENVER (AP) — A man sitting in his van after fixing a coffee machine inside a supermarket in the college town of Boulder was the first person killed. In just over a minute, nine more people died in a barrage of gunfire inside and outside the store in 2021 as the shooter targeted and pursued people who were moving.
Survivors fled out of the back of the store to escape the bullets. For more than an hour, others hid in shelves, checkout stands and offices.
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FILE - Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, accused of killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in March 2021, is led into a courtroom for a hearing, Sept. 7, 2021, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, Pool, File)
FILE - Pictures of the 10 victims of a mass shooting in a King Soopers grocery store are posted on a cement barrier outside the supermarket in Boulder, Colo., on April 23, 2021. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
FILE - Tributes cover the temporary fence around the King Soopers grocery store in which 10 people died in a mass shooting in late March on Friday, April 23, 2021, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
A tribute to Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, is set up in her grandmother's home in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
A tribute to Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, is set up in her grandmother's home in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Robert Olds, uncle of Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, looks through a memorial scrapbook in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Robert Olds, uncle of Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, is interviewed in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, then 21, surrendered after being shot in the leg by a police officer in the store, emerging wearing only his underwear and repeatedly asking officers to call his mother. His attorneys don't dispute he was the shooter.
But why he carried out the mass shooting remains unknown as his trial is set to begin this week. Public questioning of potential jurors began Tuesday with opening statements expected before the end of the week. Alissa is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, 15 counts of attempted murder and other offenses, including having six high-capacity ammunition magazine devices banned in Colorado after previous mass shootings.
The closest thing to a possible motive revealed so far was when a mental health evaluator testified during a competency hearing last year that Alissa said he bought firearms to carry out a mass shooting and suggested that he wanted police to kill him.
Robert Olds, whose 25-year-old niece Rikki Olds was the manager Alissa fatally shot at close range near the entrance, plans to sit in his usual spot in the front row throughout the trial. He has sometimes wished Alissa had just died in the attack. But he has held out hope that he would one day learn why his niece, known for her sense of humor and outgoing personality, and the others were killed. He has become less hopeful of that but is certain Alissa knew what he was doing.
“I hope he goes to prison for the rest of his life, and then he’ll serve the real penalty when he has to meet God and answer for killing 10 people,” he said.
The trial is expected to focus largely on Alissa's mental state at the time of the shooting. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers argue he should be acquitted because his mental illness prevented him from being able to tell right from wrong.
The defense argued in a court filing that his relatives said he irrationally believed that the FBI was following him and that he would talk to himself as if he were talking to someone who was not there. However, prosecutors point out Alissa was never previously treated for mental illness and was able to work up to 60 hours a week leading up to the shooting, something they say would not have been possible for someone severely mentally ill.
Alissa’s trial has been delayed because experts repeatedly found he was not able to understand legal proceedings and help his defense. But after Alissa improved after being forcibly medicated, Judge Ingrid Bakke ruled in October that he was mentally competent, allowing proceedings to resume.
Prosecutors will have the burden of proving he was sane, attempting to show Alissa that knew what he was doing and intended to kill people in the store.
Authorities have not explained why Alissa bypassed a King Soopers near his home in the Denver suburb of Arvada and drove about 15 miles (24 kilometers) to the chain’s store in Boulder, a city he had never visited before the shooting, according to the defense.
Prosecutors have presented evidence that, in the months before the shooting, Alissa had researched things like how to move and shoot with an assault rifle and what kinds of bullets are the most deadly. One court document noted without elaboration that he searched for information about the “Christ Church attacks," an apparent reference to the livestreamed shooting attacks by a white nationalist on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 people in 2019.
Alissa immigrated from Syria with his family as a toddler. He lived with his family in Arvada, where they owned a restaurant.
The only known problem Alissa had before the shooting was an incident in high school in 2018 when he was convicted of assaulting a fellow student, according to police documents. A former classmate also told The Associated Press that Alissa was kicked off the wrestling team after yelling he would kill everyone following a loss in a practice match.
A sister-in-law who lived in Alissa’s home told police that he had been playing with what she thought was a “machine gun” two days before the shooting before two relatives took it away, according to court documents.
Several of Alissa’s relatives are listed as potential witnesses for the defense during the trial.
Both sides will rely on experts to testify about his sanity, possibly including videos of their interviews with Alissa, said defense lawyer Karen Steinhauser, a former prosecutor and University of Denver law professor.
If jurors don’t believe Alissa was legally insane, they could also consider whether his mental illness prevented him from being able to act with deliberation and intent and find him guilty of second-degree murder instead, she said.
A sanity evaluation done by experts at the state mental hospital found Alissa was legally sane at the time of the attack, according to details provided by the defense in a court hearing this spring. According to the defense, the evaluators found the attack would not have happened but for Alissa’s untreated mental illness, which attorney Sam Dunn said was schizophrenia that included “auditory hallucinations.”
Olds said he is bracing himself to learn more horrific details about the shooting, including surveillance video not previously shown in public.
But he said having the trial behind him will help him and many of the families finally grieve what they’ve lost, he said.
“There’s no such thing as moving on. It’s finding other ways to live without your loved one,” he said.
FILE - Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, accused of killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in March 2021, is led into a courtroom for a hearing, Sept. 7, 2021, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, Pool, File)
FILE - Pictures of the 10 victims of a mass shooting in a King Soopers grocery store are posted on a cement barrier outside the supermarket in Boulder, Colo., on April 23, 2021. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
FILE - Tributes cover the temporary fence around the King Soopers grocery store in which 10 people died in a mass shooting in late March on Friday, April 23, 2021, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
A tribute to Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, is set up in her grandmother's home in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
A tribute to Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, is set up in her grandmother's home in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Robert Olds, uncle of Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, looks through a memorial scrapbook in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Robert Olds, uncle of Rikki Olds, who was fatally shot along with nine other people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., in 2021, is interviewed in Lafayette, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, becoming the first foreign leader to visit Trump since he unleashed tariffs on countries around the world.
Whether Netanyahu’s visit succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israel’s tariffs remains to be seen, but how it plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.
Here's the latest:
The White House did not offer any immediate explanation for why the news conference was canceled, but Trump and Netanyahu were expected to make comments to reporters at the start of their scheduled Oval Office meeting.
President Trump threatened to raise the tariffs if Beijing doesn’t withdraw its retaliatory tariffs.
“At this point, it is extremely unlikely for China to back down,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center, adding any leadership summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping “doesn’t appear likely in the near future.”
“China is increasingly convinced that the tariff is not negotiable because Trump’s eventual goal is to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.,” Sun said.
Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at another Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, called Trump’s threat Monday “a blunt ultimatum to Beijing that sharply raises the takes in the U.S.-China tariff war.” He said Beijing’s rigid system and fear of looking weak prevent Xi from opening back channels with the Trump administration that could offer relief.
A member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team has terminated some of the last remaining life-saving programs for refugees and others in the Middle East, two U.S. and U.N. officials tell The Associated Press.
The AP viewed some of the new contract termination notices, sent late last week by Jeremy Lewin, a DOGE associate now overseeing the dismantling of USAID. A USAID official and an official with the U.N. spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak.
The move severs U.S. funding for some key projects by the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid. Another notice viewed by the AP terminated funding for sending Afghan women overseas for education. An administrator for the program, which is a project of Texas A & M University, said the women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives may be in danger from the Taliban. That administrator also spoke on condition of anonymity because that person wasn’t authorized to speak.
— Ellen Knickmeyer and Sam Magdy
The Monday visit was to congratulate the baseball team for winning the World Series last season.
Trump singled out several Los Angeles Dodgers for their achievements last season, praising Ohtani for becoming baseball’s first 50/50 player, Japanese pitcher Yoshi Yamamoto and NL Championship Series MVP Tommy Edman.
Trump praised Betts for his play — and took a dig at the Boston Red Sox for trading him to the Dodgers — and they shook hands at the ceremony.
Trump also boasted that egg prices have dropped “73%” on his watch and he refused to introduce some senators at the ceremony, because “I just don’t particularly like them, so I won’t introduce (them).”
Trump campaigned last year in opposition of the deal, saying a Japanese company’s acquisition of the company would hurt American manufacturing. But shortly after becoming president, Trump said he’d reached an agreement for Nippon Steel to instead invest in U.S. Steel without providing details.
The directive signed Monday by Trump would give the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, CFIUS, 45 days to review the proposed purchase.
It raises fresh concerns that Trump’s drive to rebalance the global economy could lead to a trade war.
The threat, which Trump delivered Monday on social media, came after China said it would retaliate against U.S. tariffs announced last week.
“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!”
Trump has remained defiant as the stock market continued plunging and fears of a recession grew.
▶ Read more about Trump’s tariffs
The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it’s terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a U.S. and U.N. official told The Associated Press.
An official with USAID says about 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including to the World Food Program.
An official with the United Nations says WFP received termination letters for Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
The USAID official says U.S. funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe also were affected, including those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war.
▶ Read more about the canceled USAID contracts
— Ellen Knickmeyer and Sam Magdy
The Justice Department argued in an emergency appeal to the justices that U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis overstepped her authority when she ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the United States.
Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody and the government has no way to get him back, the administration argued.
Xinis gave the administration until just before midnight Tuesday to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, denied the administration’s request for a stay.
▶ Read more about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation
Wilmer Escaray left Venezuela in 2007 and enrolled at Miami Dade College, opening his first restaurant six years later.
Today, he has a dozen businesses that hire Venezuelan migrants like he once was, workers who are now terrified by what could be the end of their legal shield from deportation.
Since the start of February, the Trump administration has ended two federal programs that together allowed more 700,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S. along with hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.
In the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, people dread what could face them if lawsuits that aim to stop the government fail. It’s all anyone discusses in “Little Venezuela” or “Doralzuela,” a city of 80,000 people surrounded by Miami sprawl, freeways and the Florida Everglades.
▶ Read more about fears in Miami’s ‘Little Venezuela’
The Monday meeting will make Netanyahu the first foreign leader to visit Trump since he unleashed tariffs on countries around the world.
Whether Netanyahu’s visit succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israel’s tariffs remains to be seen, but how it plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.
Netanyahu’s office has put the focus of his hastily organized Washington visit on the tariffs, while stressing that the two leaders will discuss major geopolitical issues including the war in Gaza, tensions with Iran, Israel-Turkey ties and the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli leader last year. Trump in February signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC over its investigations of Israel.
▶ Read more about Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu
The stock market briefly spiked on a report that Kevin Hassett, a top White House economic adviser, said the president was considering a 90-day pause on tariffs.
The supposed remark from Hassett circulated on social media, but no one could pinpoint where it came from even as the market flashed from red to green.
Hassett had spoken to Fox News earlier in the morning, when he was asked about a potential pause. However, he was noncommittal.
“I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide,” he said.
▶ Read more updates on the financial markets
Vance’s mother, Beverly Aikins’ on Friday received a 10-year sobriety medallion in the Roosevelt Room at a ceremony with friends and family.
Vance described Aikins’ past drug addiction in his bestselling book “Hillbilly Elegy.”
The cases are likely headed to a Supreme Court showdown on the president’s power over independent agencies.
A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the ruling in the lawsuits separately brought by Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox.
The ruling reverses, at least for now, a judgement from a three-judge panel from the same appellate court.
▶ Read more about Trump and the board members
The dispute over tariffs has caused some fracturing within Trump’s political coalition.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said the president was “launching a global economic war against the whole world at once” and urged him to “call a time out.”
“We are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter,” he wrote on X on Sunday.
Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told Fox News on Monday morning that Ackman should “ease off the rhetoric a little bit.”
Hassett said critics were exaggerating the impact of trade disputes and talk of an “economic nuclear winter” was “completely irresponsible rhetoric.”
The president showed no interest in changing course despite turmoil in global markets.
He said other countries had been “taking advantage of the Good OL’ USA” on international trade.
“Our past ‘leaders’ are to blame for allowing this, and so much else, to happen to our Country,” he wrote on Truth Social. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump criticized China for increasing its own tariffs and “not acknowledging my warning for abusing countries not to retaliate.”
On a day when stock markets around the world dropped precipitously, Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl led a celebration of the president whose global tariffs sparked the sell-off.
With no mention of the Wall Street roller coaster and global economic uncertainty, Wahl declared his state GOP’s “Trump Victory Dinner” — and the broader national moment — a triumph. And for anyone who rejects Trump, his agenda and the “America First” army that backs it all, Wahl had an offer: “The Alabama Republican Party will buy them a plane ticket to any country in the world they want to go to.”
Wahl’s audience — an assembly of lobbyists and donors, state lawmakers, local party officials and grassroots activists — laughed, applauded and sometimes roared throughout last week’s gala in downtown Birmingham.
Yet beyond the cheerleading, there were signs of a more cautious optimism and some worried whispers over Trump’s sweeping tariffs, the particulars of his deportation policy and the aggressive slashing by his Department of Government Efficiency.
▶ Read more about Trump’s support in Alabama
This morning, at 11 a.m., World Series Champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, will visit the White House and meet the president. Later, at 1 p.m., Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House and meet with Trump. At 2 p.m., Netanyahu and Trump will participate in a Bilateral Meeting in the Oval Office. At 2:30 p.m., they will hold a joint news conference.
Trump said Sunday that he won’t back down on his sweeping tariffs on imports from most of the world unless countries even out their trade with the U.S.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he didn’t want global markets to fall, but also that he wasn’t concerned about the massive sell-off either, adding, “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
His comments came as global financial markets appeared on track to continue sharp declines once trading resumes Monday, and after Trump’s aides sought to soothe market concerns by saying more than 50 nations had reached out about launching negotiations to lift the tariffs.
The higher rates are set to be collected beginning Wednesday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said unfair trade practices are not “the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks.” The United States, he said, must see “what the countries offer and whether it’s believable.”
▶ Read more about the global impact of Trump’s tariffs
Pedestrian are reflected on a brokerage house's window as an electronic board displays shares trading index, in Beijing, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Shipping containers are stored at Bensenville intermodal terminal in Franklin Park, Ill., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
President Donald Trump arrives at the White House on Marine One, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
