Politics
Read full manifesto of gunman Cole Allen
The accused gunman in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner attack, Cole Allen, sent a lengthy manifesto to family members roughly 10 minutes before Saturday’s incident, the New York Post reported, citing sources.
Allen had opened fire with a shotgun on security personnel during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night.
The chaotic events raised fresh questions about the security of top US officials, many of whom were gathered in the hotel’s expansive ballroom.
The suspect travelled by Amtrak train from Los Angeles to Chicago and then to Washington, checking into the Hilton on Friday, acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said on multiple Sunday talk shows, adding that Trump and top members of his administration were the likely targets. Train passengers in the United States are not required to pass through airport-style metal detectors.
Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Cabinet officials were rushed out as the incident unfolded.
The suspect will be charged in federal court on Monday with assault of a federal officer, discharging a firearm and attempting to kill a federal officer, Blanche said, adding he did not know if there was an Iran connection to the attack. Further federal indictments will be coming later, Blanche said.
The 1,052-word document, obtained by The Post on Sunday, was signed with aliases — “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen” — and detailed his so-called “rules of engagement”, claiming it was his duty to target President Donald Trump’s administration officials.
Read Allen’s full manifesto:
Hello everybody!
So I may have given a lot of people a surprise today. Let me start off by apologising to everyone whose trust I abused.
I apologise to my parents for saying I had an interview without specifying it was for “Most Wanted”.
I apologise to my colleagues and students for saying I had a personal emergency (by the time anyone reads this, I probably most certainly DO need to go to the ER, but can hardly call that not a self-inflicted status.)
I apologise to all of the people I travelled next to, all the workers who handled my luggage, and all the other non-targeted people at the hotel who I put in danger simply by being near.
I apologise to everyone who was abused and/or murdered before this, to all those who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure.
I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it. Again, my sincere apologies.
On to why I did any of this:
I am a citizen of the United States of America.
What my representatives do reflects on me.
And I am no longer willing to permit a paedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.
(Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)
While I’m discussing this, I’ll also go over my expected rules of engagement (probably in a terrible format, but I’m not military so too bad.)
Administration officials (not including Mr Patel): they are targets, prioritised from highest-ranking to lowest
Secret Service: they are targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible (aka, I hope they’re wearing body armor because center mass with shotguns messes up people who *aren’t*
Hotel Security: not targets if at all possible (aka unless they shoot at me)
Capitol Police: same as Hotel Security
National Guard: same as Hotel Security
Hotel Employees: not targets at all
Guests: not targets at all
In order to minimise casualties I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls)
I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.
Rebuttals to objections
Objection 1: As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.
Rebuttal: Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up, or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration.
Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behaviour; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.
Objection 2: This is not a convenient time for you to do this.
Rebuttal: I need whoever thinks this way to take a couple minutes and realise that the world isn’t about them. Do you think that when I see someone raped or murdered or abused, I should walk on by because it would be “inconvenient” for people who aren’t the victim?
This was the best timing and chance of success I could come up with.
Objection 3: You didn’t get them all.
Rebuttal: Gotta start somewhere.
Objection 4: As a half-black, half-white person, you shouldn’t be the one doing this.
Rebuttal: I don’t see anyone else picking up the slack
Objection 5: Yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Rebuttal: The United States of America are ruled by the law, not by any one or several people. In so far as representatives and judges do not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything so unlawfully ordered.
I would also like to extend my appreciation to a great many people since I will not be likely to be able to talk with them again (unless the Secret Service is *astoundingly* incompetent.)
Thank you to my family, both personal and church, for your love over these 31 years.
Thank you to my friends, for your companionship over many years.
Thank you to my colleagues over many jobs, for your positivity and professionalism.
Thank you to my students for your enthusiasm and love of learning.
Thank you to the many acquaintances I’ve met, in person and online, for short interactions and long-term relationships, for your perspectives and inspiration.
Thank you all for everything.
Sincerely,
Cole “coldForce” “Friendly Federal Assassin” Allen
PS: Ok now that all the sappy stuff is done, what the hell is the Secret Service doing? Sorry, gonna rant a bit here and drop the formal tone.
Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.
What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing.
No damn security.
Not in transport.
Not in the hotel.
Not in the event.
Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance.
I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.
The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.
Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.
Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed s–t.
Actually insane.
Oh and if anyone is curious is how doing something like feels: it’s awful. I want to throw up; I want to cry for all the things I wanted to do and never will, for all the people whose trust this betrays; I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.
Can’t really recommend it! Stay in school, kids.
[Note: A “Ma Deuce” is a Browning M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun, a US military staple for nearly a century, usually tripod-mounted.]
— Additional input from Reuters
- UN nuclear talks begin as global tensions intensify.
- Guterres says treaty commitments remain unfulfilled.
- US President Trump signals potential nuclear tests.
Signatories of the landmark nuclear non-proliferation treaty began a meeting Monday at the United Nations as fears of a renewed arms race escalate, with atomic powers again at loggerheads over safeguards.
In 2022, during the last review of the treaty considered the cornerstone of non-proliferation, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned humanity was “one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”
On Monday, he warned “the drivers” of nuclear weapons proliferation were accelerating.
“For too long, the treaty has been eroding. Commitments remain unfulfilled. Trust and credibility are wearing thin. The drivers of proliferation are accelerating. We need to breathe life into the treaty once more,” Guterres said in opening remarks.
With global geopolitical friction only heightened since the last meeting, it was unclear what the gathering at UN headquarters could achieve.
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told signatories that “never has the risk of nuclear proliferation been so high, and the threat posed by Iran’s and North Korea’s programmes is intolerable for each and every state party to this treaty.”
Tempering expectations, Do Hung Viet, Vietnam’s UN ambassador and president of the conference, said: “We should not expect this conference to resolve the underlying strategic tensions of our time.”
“But a balanced outcome that reaffirms core commitments and set out practical steps forward would strengthen the integrity of the NPT,” he said.
“The success or failure of this conference will have implications way beyond these halls,” Viet added. “The prospects of a new nuclear arms race are looming over us.”
The nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), signed by almost all countries on the planet — with notable exceptions including Israel, India and Pakistan — aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote complete disarmament, and encourage cooperation on civilian nuclear projects.
The nine nuclear-armed states — Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — possessed 12,241 nuclear warheads in January 2025, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) reported.
The US and Russia hold nearly 90% of nuclear weapons globally and have carried out major programs to modernise them in recent years, according to Sipri.
China has also rapidly increased its nuclear stockpile, Sipri said, with the G7 raising the alarm Friday over Moscow and Beijing boosting their nuclear capabilities.
US President Donald Trump has indicated his intention to conduct new nuclear tests, accusing others of doing so clandestinely.
In March, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a dramatic shift in nuclear deterrence, notably an increase in the atomic arsenal, currently numbering 290 warheads.
‘Affront’ to NPT
“It is obvious that trust is eroding, both inside and outside the NPT,” Seth Shelden of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, told AFP.
He questioned the likely outcome of the four-week summit.
Decisions on the NPT require agreement by consensus, with the previous two conferences failing to adopt final political declarations.
In 2015, the deadlock was largely due to opposition by Israel’s arch-ally Washington to creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.
A 2022 impasse was due mainly to Russian opposition to references to Ukraine’s nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, occupied by Moscow.
This year’s summit could hit any number of stumbling blocks.
The ongoing war in Ukraine, Iran’s nuclear programme and the war there, proliferation fears and Pyongyang’s developing arsenal could all be deal-breakers.
The United States along with its allies Britain, the UAE and Australia spoke out at Iran’s appointment as a conference vice president.
Washington’s meeting envoy said conferring a leadership role on Tehran was an “affront” to countries that take the NPT “seriously.”
Artificial intelligence could be a prominent issue as some countries call for all sides to keep human control over nuclear weapons.
- Putin says he received message from Iran’s Supreme Leader.
- Moscow “will do everything” to achieve regional peace: Putin.
- Russia building two new nuclear units in Iran’s Bushehr.
Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in St. Petersburg on Monday and told him he hoped the Iranian people would weather what he described as a “difficult period” and that peace would soon prevail.
Russia has offered to mediate to try to help restore calm to the Middle East following US and Israeli strikes on Iran, which Moscow has condemned. It has also repeatedly offered to store Iran’s enriched uranium as a way of defusing tensions, an offer the United States has not taken up.
“For our part, we will do everything that serves your interests and the interests of all the peoples of the region to ensure that peace is achieved as quickly as possible,” Putin told Araghchi, according to Russian state media.
“Last week I received a message from Iran’s Supreme Leader. I would like to ask you to convey my most sincere thanks for this and to confirm that Russia, like Iran, intends to continue our strategic relationship,” Putin added.
Iran last year sealed a 20-year strategic partnership agreement with Moscow, Russia is building two new nuclear units at Bushehr, the site of Iran’s only nuclear power plant, and Iran supplied Russia with Shahed drones for use against Ukraine.
Araghchi said relations between Russia and Iran would continue to strengthen and thanked Putin for Moscow’s support, the state RIA news agency reported.
A French teenager has been charged with mischief and public nuisance in Singapore for licking a straw and putting it back in an orange juice vending machine, court documents showed Monday.
Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 18, allegedly filmed himself “licking a straw and placing it back at the vending machine”, uploaded the video on Instagram knowing that it “would or would probably cause annoyance to the public”, according to the documents.
The teenager is studying in Singapore, according to court records.
The public nuisance offence carries a jail term of up to three months and a fine.
A second charge of committing mischief said Maximilien knew that he was “likely to cause wrongful loss or damage” to iJooz, the company operating the vending machine which had to replace all 500 straws in the dispenser.
The mischief offence carries a punishment of up to two years in jail on conviction and a fine, according to the charge sheet.
Both offences were allegedly committed on March 12.
The charges were lodged before a district court last Friday, and the next hearing will be on May 22.
The Straits Times newspaper said the video “quickly went viral, sparking shock and concern among netizens”.
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