West
Fire-juggling unicyclist caught on camera blocking traffic in major roadway as police intervene
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Traffic was stopped, but not for construction.
Police in Commerce City, Colorado, say they were just as surprised as motorists this week after a fire-juggling unicyclist turned a busy intersection into an impromptu street performance — a moment the department joked was “certainly not on our Bingo card.”
The Commerce City Police Department shared drone footage and photos of the unusual scene after receiving multiple calls from drivers who encountered the man juggling flaming torches while riding a unicycle in traffic near U.S. 85 and 60th Avenue.
“This post was certainly not on our Bingo card, yet here we are,” the department wrote in a social media post. “The intersection of U.S.-85 and 60th isn’t exactly the Las Vegas Strip… or is it?”
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A unicyclist stopped traffic while juggling fire in the street, according to police. (Commerce Police Department)
According to police, the performer rode through the median and crosswalk while traffic waited at the light, drawing both attention and concern from motorists.
“We got numerous calls the other day when drivers were treated to a little stoplight entertainment courtesy of this fire-juggling unicyclist,” police said.
Officers captured the scene using a drone, which showed the man balancing on the unicycle as flames flickered just feet from passing vehicles. While acknowledging the skill involved, saying it was “quite good,” police made clear the stunt crossed a legal line.
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A fire-juggling unicyclist rides through a crosswalk while juggling flaming torches at a busy Commerce City, Colo., intersection, prompting multiple calls to police, authorities said. (Commerce City Police Department via Facebook)
“Our drone caught his act, which was both quite good and quite illegal,” the department wrote, citing trespassing in the median and impeding traffic by failing to clear the crosswalk in time.
Police said they regularly conduct enforcement efforts at the intersection to ensure pedestrians selling wares or services are not interfering with traffic, noting that reports like this are rare.
“We don’t often get reports like this anymore… well to be fair… we have NEVER gotten a report quite like this one,” the post said.
A fire-juggling unicyclist carries his unicycle into the median at an intersection in Commerce City as traffic waits at a red light. (Commerce City Police Department via Facebook)
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The department ended its message on a lighthearted note, while still reminding the public that juggling fire in traffic is not encouraged.
“So let’s all take a moment to appreciate this man’s talents,” police wrote, before adding: “Then all agree that we aren’t going to do stuff like this. Mmkay?”
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President Donald Trump sharply reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah, undoing protections established by his Democratic predecessors on public lands that are sacred among many Native Americans.
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah have ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and scenic canyons, as well as coal and uranium deposits that state officials want made available for development.
Trump, a Republican, issued proclamations Monday under the Antiquities Act to reduce their size by about 90% each. He took similar actions during his first term, but those were reversed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The latest move comes as Trump and other Republicans have drastically reshaped the management of vast taxpayer-owned lands concentrated in Western states. Trump administration officials and congressional Republicans have sought to expand drilling, mining and logging on public lands, while removing protections for imperiled species and rolling back rules for conservation.
“They took the land from the people quite honestly,” Trump said at a signing event at the White House Monday. “We’re giving it back.”
President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, and President Barack Obama, also a Democrat, created Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 under the Antiquities Act. The 1906 law gives presidents the powers to protect sites considered historic, archaeologically significant or culturally important.
Davina Smith-Idjesa, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said tribal leaders had braced for a reduction since Trump was elected to a second term. She said it was “heartbreaking” and accused federal officials of sidestepping their legal responsibility to consult with tribal nations that would be impacted.
“From a Navajo perspective, Bears Ears is not simply a piece of federal public land,” Smith-Idjesa said. “This is a living cultural site that holds our histories, our ceremonies, our traditional foods and medicines and our ancestors’ footprints.”
‘Big day for Utah’
Utah officials had long fought against the monument designations and argued that the state should be in charge of controlling its own lands. Trump in his first term reduced their size, calling their creation a “massive land grab.” Combined they spanned more than 3.2 million acres (13 million hectares), an area nearly the size of Connecticut.
Trump reduced them Monday to less than 303,000 acres (123,000 hectares) combined.
That’s a greater reduction than his first term, when he left Grand Staircase Escalante at 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) and Bears Ears at 213,000 acres (86,000 hectares).
“This is a big day for Utah,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox as he stood next to Trump at the White House. “These monument designations are supposed to be the smallest area as possible to protect the antiquities.”
Bears Ears was the first national monument created at the request of tribal nations that consider the land sacred. The landscape contains ancestral villages, ceremonial and burial sites and features in some tribes’ creation and migration stories. Its designation honored five tribes in the region — Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute and Uintah-Ouray Ute.
Home to hundreds of thousands of objects of cultural and scientific significance, Bears Ears is jointly managed by an agreement between tribal nations and federal agencies.
Rick Bowmer/AP Photo
Rick Bowmer/AP Photo Newspaper Rock, featuring a rock panel of petroglyphs in the Indian Creek Area, is seen near Monticello, Utah, on July 14, 2016.
Grand Staircase-Escalante consists of cliffs, canyons, natural arches and archaeological sites, including rock paintings. It holds large coal reserves, while the Bears Ears area has uranium.
The national monument designation provides sweeping protections not just for significant geological features or artifacts but also for the surrounding landscape, banning drilling, mining and new construction nearby. Proponents of Trump’s move to downsize say the protective boundaries stretch too far and hinder mining for critical minerals.
Trump asserted Monday that people can not hunt, fish or “virtually not even walk” on the monuments. That’s false: Hunting, fishing, camping and other recreation are permitted under state and federal regulations, said Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a conservation group.
Biden designated or expanded more than a dozen monuments and had a goal to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
Trump’s policies are largely the opposite: He wants to tap into the natural resource wealth of federal lands that total more than 100,000 square miles (260,000 square kilometers) and offshore areas under federal control, such as in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.
That’s drawn backlash from Democrats who warn of the wholesale disposal of treasured landscapes for commercial gain.
“Today’s executive action is another chapter in this administration’s war on the West,” Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said Monday. He added that Trump was “turning the Antiquities Act on its head.”
Land sale proposals fell flat
Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said last year that federal officials would review and consider redrawing monument boundaries as part of a push to expand U.S. energy production.
Trump in his current term has used proclamations to lift commercial fishing prohibitions within expansive marine monuments in areas of the Pacific Ocean and in the Atlantic Ocean off the New England coast. Those monuments were created by Democratic and Republican administrations. The effort to boost the fishing industry, which has been challenged in court, marks a dramatic shift in federal policy by prioritizing commercial interests over efforts to allow the fish supply to increase.
Some Republicans have tried to sell or transfer federal lands to states or other entities. Those efforts have largely fallen flat: A push by some GOP lawmakers in the House to sell public lands ran into bipartisan opposition, while another proposal by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah to sell more than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square kilometers) of federal lands was removed from Republicans’ big tax and spending bill.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year turned back a lawsuit from Utah officials who sought to wrest control of vast areas of public land within the state from the federal government.
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Hannah Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City.
Diyar Guldogan
14 July 2026•Update: 14 July 2026
A US Air Force helicopter made a precautionary landing in northwest Washington, DC late Monday, local media reported.
The incident occurred at approximately 9.25 p.m. (0125GMT Tuesday) when a UH-1N Huey helicopter assigned to the 1st Helicopter Squadron at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland landed along Foxhall Road near Whitehaven Parkway NW, close to the Georgetown Reservoir.
All four crew members who were on board are safe, according to media reports.
Maintenance personnel and law enforcement officials remained at the scene into the early hours of Tuesday as authorities assessed the aircraft and investigated the circumstances surrounding the landing.
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