FACING DEATH: The young man accused in the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was formally charged yesterday with aggravated murder and prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty.

  Tyler Robinson, 22, also was charged with felony discharge of a firearm, multiple counts of witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.

  Prosecutors have a mountain of evidence including fingerprints, DNA, and Robinson’s own words. They say he left a note for his romantic partner, a man transitioning to a woman, saying, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”

  The charging documents said that Robinson had a political motive but did not say that he had any greater radical ideology.  He said in a text message to his roommate that he wanted to recover his rifle and that,  “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”

  One of the pair’s exchanges went as follows: 

Robinson: “To be honest I had hoped to keep this secret till I  died of old age. I am sorry to involve vou.

Roommate: “you weren’t the one who did it right????”

Robinson: “I am, I’m sorry”

  He is being held without bail because of the severity of charges.

HATE AND SPEECH: Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday was backing away from comments she made during a podcast interview that she would pursue criminal prosecution for “hate speech.”

  Bondi said in a social media post that; “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime. For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over.” 

  That’s not what she said on Monday to podcaster Katie Miller; “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech. And there is no place — especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie — in our society. We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”

  Asked about all this yesterday by ABC’s Jonathan Karl, President Trump replied that members of the media should be targeted for their hateful coverage of his administration. “We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly, it’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart,” Trump told Karl.

THE REGIME: 

— Dr. Susan Monarez, who was fired as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is set to tell the Senate health Committee today that she was fired “for holding the line on scientific integrity.”

  In a prepared testimony, she is expected to say that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “repeatedly censored CDC science, politicized our processes, and stripped agency leaders of the ability to protect the health of the American people.” Her speech says, “CDC’s senior scientific leadership were no longer permitted to rely on their expertise – they were expected to serve as rubber stamps for the Secretary’s decisions.” 

— The Trump administration ordered several National Park Service sites to remove materials related to slavery and Native Americans, including a well-known 1863 photograph of a former slave whose back is crisscrossed with whipping scars that became a powerful anti-slavery image, both the Washington Post and NY Times report. It’s part of a Trump effort to put a more positive spin on American history.

  The Times reports that at Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia, Trump officials instructed park employees to take down a sign that criticizes the post-Civil War “Lost Cause” ideology, which romanticized the Confederacy and denied that slavery was a central cause of the war.

  The paper also reports that at Arlington House in Virginia, the former home of Gen. Robert E. Lee, park officials have been told to stop using a booklet that was designed to teach children about slavery. The booklet says, “In 1829, Robert E. Lee promised to serve the Army and protect the United States,” and that “In 1861, he broke his promise and fought for slavery.”

— President Trump was at Windsor Castle with King Charles this morning for his second state visit to England.

THE WAR ROOM:  Israeli ground troops have entered Gaza City for what is sure to be a brutal building to building fight to wipe out the last of Hamas militants.

THE OBIT PAGE: Robert Redford, a star who rose above the stars and went on to become a director, environmentalist, and founder of the Sundance Institute for development of independent movies, died yesterday morning at home in Utah. He was 89.

    “I can’t stop crying,” said actress Jane Fonda. “He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for.”

  One of the handsomest men ever to grace the screen, the blonde Redford starred in such films as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969) with Paul Newman, “Three Days of the Condor” (1975) in which he was a CIA analyst, and “All the President’s Men” (1976) about the Watergate scandal.

  Redford admitted that being so good looking was both a blessing and a curse. 

  As the director of  “Ordinary People” (1980), about a family’s disintegration after their son’s death, he won his only Oscar.  

  For decades, if you wanted people to come see your movie, you’d get Robert Redford. He starred opposite Barbra Streisand in “The Way We Were” (1973), and Meryl Streep in “Out of Africa” (1985).

  But Redford wanted to make his own movies. He directed and produced “A River Runs Through It” (1992), a drama about  a Montana fly family, and “Quiz Show” (1994), about the infamous 1950s television scandal.

  As an environmentalist he fought the building of a highway in a remote Utah canyon and of a coal-fired power plant in Utah.

  Actress Marlee Matlin said, “A genius has passed.”

BELOW THE FOLD:  The enormous rotund rapper Jelly Roll has lost 200  pounds. “I can fit in Louis Vuitton now,” he posted. “Pray for my bank account.”