PRIME SUSPECT: Investigators say the suspect in the sniper assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was turned in by his father and a friend. The suspect has been identified as Tyler Robinson, 22, of St. George, Utah.

   Investigators say they recovered shell casings with messages written on them, including one unfired bullet that said, “Hey, fascist! Catch!” They said they had other evidence connecting Robinson to the shooting, including messages he sent on the Discord chat app about needing to “retrieve a rifle from a drop point.”

  Utah Gov. Spencer Cox led off a morning press conference yesterday providing a few details of the evidence and arrest. FBI Director Kash Patel delivered a long speech thanking everyone from President down through the FBI and local law enforcement without adding a nit of information about the suspect or the case against him. He ended with a signoff to Charlie Kirk saying, “To my friend Charlie Kirk. Rest now brother. We have the watch and I’ll see you in Valhalla.”

  Much has been said and written about the tone of discourse in America and whether it influenced Kirk’s killing. Here’s a sample of the discourse still coming from White House aide Stephen Miller: “We haven’t even begun to grapple with the fact that a huge portion of our society have been fully and dangerously radicalized by a closed circuit of radical left propaganda.”

  President Trump told reporters, “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”

  Kirk’s widow, Erika, delivered a sternly angry video message saying, in part: “They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith and of God’s merciful love. They should all know this: if you thought my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea, you have no idea what you have unleashed across this entire country and this world.” 

 She went on: “You have no idea the fire you have ignited within his wife, the cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry. To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die. It won’t, I refuse to let that happen.”

  Gov. Cox returned to the podium yesterday following other speakers and delivered a stunningly calm and reasoned call for a change in the tenor of American politics. “I think it’s important that we understand with eyes wide open understand what’s happening in our country today,” he said. He said the killing of Charlie Kirk was more than an attack on one person, “It is an attack on the American experiment. It is an attack on our ideals. This cuts to the very foundation of who we are.”

  He said we can’t solve all our problems “if we can’t have a clash of ideas.” Quoting Kirk, the governor said, “When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence.”

  Cox said, “To my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage. It feels like rage is the only option.” He said, “Your generation has an opportunity to build a different culture from what we are suffering through right now.”

The Regime: 

— The Environmental Protection Agency is moving to stop requiring thousands of air-polluting facilities to report the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases they release into the atmosphere.

  If it follows through, the EPA proposal would end requirements for coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, and other polluting industrial facilities across the country. The government has been collecting data since 2010 to track planet warming gases. President Trump says climate change is a hoax. He and his administration are attempting to block efforts to fight it and erase mention of it from government literature and websites while they slash research funding for the subject.

— President Trump said on “Fox and Friends” that the next city where he would send the National Guard is Memphis, calling the city “deeply troubled.” He didn’t say when he might do that, but the governor of Tennessee said he would welcome it.

DEMOCRACY ON FIRE: Following a week of violent rioting and arson, Nepal has an interim government with a temporary president who has called for early elections next year to replace legislators halfway through their term, which critics say could further undermine Nepal’s democracy after its government collapsed in rioting. The civil unrest was sparked by a government ban on social media.

  The NY Times reports that Nepal’s only burn hospital is swamped with patients singed in the fires set, among other places, at the government building and the home of the former prime minister, whose wife was badly burned.

  The interim prime minister is Sushila Karki, a woman who used to serve as the chief justice of Nepal’s Supreme Court. 

LAST LAUGHS: After seven seasons, Ego Nwodim is the 5^th cast member to be leaving “Saturday Night Live” as the show shakes up for its 51^st season. Heidi Gardner was not renewed and  Devon Walker, Emil Wakim, and Michael Longfellow also announced they are gone.

THE SPIN RACK: New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani says that if he is elected he would order the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in the city. He told The NY Times that Netanyahu is a war criminal committing genocide in Gaza. — An ICE officer shot and killed a Chicago man who they say tried to get away from a traffic stop, dragging an officer. — A casino company that bought Publishers Clearing House out of bankruptcy said it will not pay past winners of the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes who were receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.  

BELOW THE FOLD:  Apple is reported to be preparing to introduce a $2,000 iPhone, which they wouldn’t do if they didn’t think people would buy it.

-30-