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The Brief

The most important stories for you to know today
  • Judge says agents must have 'reasonable suspicion'
    A line of men stand behind a white pick up truck with the words "border patrol" painted in green
    A large group of migrants line up for a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at Jacumba Hot Spring, on June 6, 2024.

    Topline:

    A federal court on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction forbidding the Border Patrol from conducting warrantless immigration stops throughout a wide swath of California.

    Racial Profiling and Excessive Force Allegations: The ACLU’s lawsuit highlights widespread racial profiling and abusive behavior by Border Patrol agents during immigration stops, such as detaining people based on their appearance and using excessive force. “You just can’t walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers,’” U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer L. Thurston said during a Monday hearing in Fresno.

    The ruling: The ACLU filed their lawsuit after the El Centro Border Patrol traveled to Kern County to conduct a three-day sweep in January. The ruling prohibits Border Patrol agents from taking similar actions, restricting them from stopping people unless they have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in violation of U.S. immigration law. It also bars agents from carrying out warrantless arrests unless they have probable cause that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

    Additional training for Border Patrol: The court has ordered detailed reporting on arrests and ongoing training for agents to prevent future violations of constitutional rights. The Department of Homeland Security told a federal court earlier this month that it would retrain more than 900 California-based Border Patrol agents after the controversial immigration sweeps in Kern County in January. Despite that, agents from the El Centro sector traveled more than 200 miles north to Pomona last week and rounded up day laborers outside a Home Depot, an action reminiscent of the Kern County raid.

    A federal court on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction forbidding the Border Patrol from conducting warrantless immigration stops throughout a wide swath of California.

    The ruling came in response to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit filed after the El Centro Border Patrol traveled to Kern County to conduct a three-day sweep in January, detaining day laborers, farm workers and others in a Home Depot parking lot, outside a convenience store and along a highway between orchards.

    The ruling prohibits Border Patrol agents from taking similar actions, restricting them from stopping people unless they have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in violation of U.S. immigration law. It also bars agents from carrying out warrantless arrests unless they have probable cause that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

    “You just can’t walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers,’” U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer L. Thurston said during a Monday hearing in Fresno that featured moments of heated exchange between government attorneys and the judge.

    The ACLU filed suit on behalf of United Farm Workers, arguing that the stops violated the Fourth Amendment. The judge has not decided on the totality of the case, but on Tuesday granted the ACLU’s motion to stop the Border Patrol from conducting similar operations while the case moved through the courts.

    “I think that it’s pretty clear that half of a century of really established law is being upheld. It's unfortunate that this is a cause for celebration. It’s not legal to snatch people off the street for looking like farm workers or day laborers,” said Elizabeth Strater, vice president of United Farm Workers.

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta agreed. “That’s existing law, and the judge’s order reflects existing law.”

    "You can't just indiscriminately stop people and search them without any appropriate reasonable suspicion or probable cause or without a warrant," Bonta said at a news conference in San Diego on Monday about conditions in ICE detention. "So, it sounds like the judge had seen enough and wanted to issue an order. "

    The injunction is in effect in the jurisdiction of California’s Eastern District, which spans the Central Valley from Redding to Bakersfield.

    After the January sweep, the man who led it, Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino, said his agents specifically targeted people with criminal and immigration histories. However, a CalMatters investigation revealed that the Border Patrol had no criminal or immigration history on 77 of the 78 people it arrested.

    The court also ordered the Border Patrol to document every stop and provide reports within 60 days. During oral arguments on Monday, the government attorney said doing so would be burdensome to Border Patrol agents. Judge Thurston rebuked the government, saying: “They have to make a report for every arrest, not sure what the burden is.”

    According to sworn declarations filed in court by those detained, Border Patrol agents slashed tires, yanked people out of trucks, threw people to the ground, and called farmworkers “Mexican bitches.”

    Border Patrol attorneys characterized those examples as actions of individual agents, and not reflective of a policy from the agency.

    Thurston disagreed. “The evidence is that this was wide scale” and not limited to individual agents, she said.

    Border Patrol agents receive new training

    Border Patrol attorneys didn’t offer evidence of their own to dispute the evidence presented by the ACLU, including stopping people based on their race and warrantless arrests. They tried to persuade Thurston that the order would not be necessary because the agency is already taking steps to retrain its officers. In a previous court filing, government attorneys said Border Patrol had issued guidance to retrain the El Center sector’s 900 agents on the Fourth Amendment in order to prevent warrantless arrests.

    At Monday’s hearing, Thurston questioned why guidance would even be necessary since agents are trained on the Fourth Amendment in the academy.

    Government attorneys told the judge 270 agents have received the training. Thurston asked for details on how the training was being carried out. “Shift by shift?” she said. But government attorneys said they did not know.

    The packed courtroom was contentious at times. U.S. Department of Justice attorney Olga Y. Kuchins argued that the Border Patrol’s sweep in Kern County, known as “Operation Return to Sender” wasn’t standard policy. “This two-day operation does not a policy make,” she said.

    Thurston asked how many days were needed for an operation to be taken as policy, and on what authority the government was relying on to establish this operation could not be interpreted as part of Border Patrol policy.

    “Do you know of that authority?” Thurston said.

    “I don’t know of that authority,” Kuchins said.

    The injunction also compels the El Centro Sector to provide proof within 90 days, and every 30 days thereafter, that agents involved in these operations have been trained on these rules.

    “This ruling is a powerful recognition that what happened in Kern County and surrounding area in January was illegal,” said Bree Bernwanger, ACLU senior staff attorney.

    She called it a “powerful reminder that law enforcement agents – including immigration – cannot stop you, detain you because of the color of your skin.”

    Another immigration sweep

    Even after government attorneys pledged to retrain agents on the Constitution, El Centro sector traveled more than 200 miles north to Pomona last week and rounded up day laborers outside a Home Depot, an action reminiscent of the Kern County raid.

    Witnesses say federal agents arrived in unmarked vehicles around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, and quickly surrounded the Home Depot parking lot on South Towne Avenue.

    “When they saw that a critical mass was gathered, they executed the raid,” said Alexis Teodoro, a Worker Rights Director with the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center.

    According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, agents arrested 10 and placed them into removal proceedings. No other agencies were involved, said Michael Scappechio, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Advocates are adamant that more than 20 people were initially taken into custody, based on piecing together the accounts of different witnesses about what happened.

    Federal officials defended their actions, saying agents were initially targeting a single individual with an active arrest warrant. During the operation, nine other people were also taken into custody. Some of those detained had prior charges, including child abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, immigration violations, and DUI, said Hilton Beckham, the assistant commissioner for CBP’s office of public affairs.

    Jesus Domingo Ross, 38, was standing on a street corner looking for work near the Home Depot in Pomona last week when, he said, agents appeared from all sides, grabbed him and threw him to the ground.

    “I panicked,” he said, describing the moment he realized he was in custody of U.S. immigration authorities. “Just with everything you’re seeing on the news right now, I really panicked because we didn’t know what was going to happen.”

    He spoke to CalMatters on Saturday night during visiting hours at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, where he is now being held.

    “I’m trying to keep my confidence in God to carry me through this,” he said quietly.

    This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

  • Social media sustains Hollywood success
    a large group of people sit in a theater looking at a bright screen

    Topline:

    According to new data from TikTok and theater trade group Cinema United fan-made TikToks can now do what big marketing campaigns couldn't always achieve: keep a movie thriving after opening weekend.

    Why it matters: TikTokers post enthusiastic movie reviews, they cosplay and reenact scenes, and some create new edits from the official trailers and footage. For instance, 24-year-old college student Josiah Pilet remixed Spider-Man clips set to music.

    Read on ... for more on why Hollywood is embracing social media influencers.

    According to new data from TikTok and theater trade group Cinema United fan-made TikToks can now do what big marketing campaigns couldn't always achieve: keep a movie thriving after opening weekend.

    At this year's CinemaCon, the annual convention for movie theater owners, director Denis Villeneuve showed the first seven minutes of his third Dune film. He told the crowd he made his latest installment of the science fiction saga for the fans. And long before the December opening, fans have been posting their own reactions on TikTok.

    "There's this incredible chant in Dune 3 that's in the trailer and what we've seen is it's a soundbite that users on TikTok have embraced and made their own content with," says Cameron Curtis, executive vice president of global digital marketing for Warner Bros.

    He says TikTok is a tremendous platform for reaching new audiences.

    "We often see that the creator content on [the] platform outperforms our traditional advertising content by 3-to-1. It's become just critical to our strategy and everything that we do," says Curtis.

    He says Warner Bros. and other studios have been partnering with TikTok creators to market their films. According to TikTok executives, that's for good reason. "We really saw that the buzz doesn't stop with the opening weekend," says Dennis Papirowski, TikTok's global head of Entertainment and News.

    He says every day, the platform's users create 6.5 million posts related to content from new and classic films and TV shows. According to TikTok, half of their users say they discovered a new movie through the platform. And of those, more than a third looked up showtimes and purchased a movie ticket.

    Dawn Yang, the company's global head of entertainment partnerships and business development, says studios tend to do a lot of marketing for the first weekend a film opens.

    "But on TikTok, it really takes off after the first weekend," she says, "because people have seen the entire movie and they want to talk about it."

    TikTokers post enthusiastic movie reviews, they cosplay and reenact scenes, and some create new edits from the official trailers and footage. For instance, 24-year-old college student Josiah Pilet remixed Spider-Man clips set to music.

    Fan edits would have been no-nos in the old Hollywood strategy of protecting intellectual property, says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore, which analyzes the box office.

    "There was a time when studios did not want marketing messaging going out that wasn't from them," he says. Now, he says even negative responses to movies are welcome "as long as it's not something horrible, that can boost the profile of a movie and excitement around it, because sometimes people want to see what the fuss is all about."

    Dergarabedian says studios are increasingly embracing and harnessing the power of short TikToks made by the key Gen Z audience.

    "You have some movies that open huge, have a huge opening weekend, then drop by 70% or more in their second weekend," he says. "But the way you keep people coming back is that you not only have a great movie, but the social media engagement continues, amplifies and creates that excitement and the FOMO factor among potential moviegoers."

    Take last year's box office hit Sinners. Cinema United and TikTok's report found that buzz about the film surged on the platform during its opening week — and ticket sales barely dipped the following week.

    But social media platforms, including TikTok, have also sometimes caused minor headaches for theaters. Last year, fan-made posts chronicled the mayhem sparked by a line spoken by Jack Black's character in The Minecraft Movie.

    Audiences shouted "chicken jockey" along with him and tossed popcorn in theaters. The ruckus was so chaotic that one fan even carried a live chicken into the movie, as shown by one viral video.

    At CinemaCon, Warner Bros. executives offered a good-natured apology to theater owners for the mess.

    But it's not just fans posting TikToks. As executive director of communications and content for B&B Theatres, Paul Farnsworth makes funny TikToks, starring himself and the staff — often in the lobby, playing around with the latest movies.

    "It's like a little wink-wink joke, nothing that you're going to like, pay money to go see a stand-up comedian say," he says. "But I think for us, it indicates to our guests a sensibility of like the playfulness of the movies, the magic of the experience, the shared communal thing that we're all trying to achieve with them."

    Farnsworth says he asks the studios for guidance on the material — hoping his viral TikToks get people into movie theaters.

  • Sponsored message
  • Authorities say gunman traveled from California
    Two people in camouflage FBI uniforms speak to two men in police uniforms in front of a home with a white fence.
    FBI personnel confer with Torrance police officers on the street of the house connected to Cole Tomas Allen, the shooting suspect at the White House Correspondents' Dinner late Saturday.

    Topline:

    The man arrested in connection to the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday night was identified as Cole Allen by two sources familiar with the matter. The sources spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

    What happened: The shooting took place outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton where the dinner was underway. President Donald Trump and other top officials were safely evacuated.

    About the alleged gunman: Todd Blanche, the acting U.S. Attorney General, told Meet the Press on Sunday morning that they believed the gunman was targeting "administration officials," but didn't want to be more specific since the investigation was still underway. He also said investigators believed the gunman had traveled to D.C. from California via train and was staying at the hotel with two firearms.

    Read on... for statements from local schools about connections to a "Cole Allen."

    The man arrested in connection with the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner Saturday night was identified as Cole Allen by two sources familiar with the matter. The sources spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

    Shooting details

    A man points as he climbs on stage. Other men in suits surround an older man in a tux.
    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., third from left, is taken out of the ballroom by security agents during a shooting incident at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.
    (
    Andrew Harnik
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    The shooting took place outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner was underway. President Donald Trump on Saturday released what appears to be video surveillance footage that shows a man quickly moving past security officials, who then draw their weapons. Trump, who was safely evacuated with his wife, Melania, and other top officials, also shared images via his Truth Social account late Saturday of a shirtless man detained on the floor of the hotel.

    Todd Blanche, the acting U.S. Attorney General, told Meet the Press on Sunday morning that they believed the gunman was targeting "administration officials," but didn't want to be more specific since the investigation was still underway. He said the targets "likely" included the president.

    He also said investigators believed the gunman had traveled to D.C. from California via train and was staying at the hotel with two firearms. Blanche said the man purchased those firearms within the last couple of years.

    At a news conference following the shooting, Jeffery Carroll of D.C.'s Metropolitan Police said that the suspect said the suspect "was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives."

    Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said at that same news briefing that the gunman would face federal charges. Authorities say the man will be charged Monday.

    What we know about the gunman's SoCal ties

    Two people in camouflage FBI uniforms speak to two men in police uniforms in front of a home with a white fence.
    FBI personnel confer with Torrance police officers on the street of the house connected to Cole Tomas Allen, the shooting suspect at the White House Correspondents' Dinner late Saturday.
    (
    Robbin Goddard
    /
    Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
    )

    The FBI searched a home connected to Allen in Torrance late Saturday.

    According to a LinkedIn profile under his name, Allen obtained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2017, and a master's degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 2025.

    The profile also says that one of his employers is C2 Education, a tutoring and college test prep center with a location in Torrance, where he was named "Teacher of the Month" in a December 2024 post.

    A search of California's Commission on Teacher Credentialing did not surface a credentialed teacher by that name.

    “We were shocked to hear the news of the horrifying incident that transpired at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. We are cooperating fully with law enforcement to assist them in their investigation. Violence of any kind is never the answer," C2 Education said in an email response to LAist seeking comments.

    Statements from local schools

    As news reports spread identifying the gunman as a California teacher from Torrance, the Torrance Unified School District said in a statement Saturday night that the alleged gunman is not an employee of the school district and has never worked there.

    "While details are still emerging and facts remain under investigation, early reports have referenced a teacher from Torrance as being involved," the statement from Torrance Unified said. "We want to clarify that the individual named in the news is not an employee of the Torrance Unified School District and has never worked in our district."

    Cal State Dominguez Hills, in a statement, said a man with the name of the alleged gunman had graduated from the school in 2025, but could not confirm if it was the same person.

    "A student named Cole Allen graduated with a master’s degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 2025. The university cannot confirm if this is the same suspect identified in the April 25 shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner," the statement said.

    Caltech also said it had not independently confirmed the alleged gunman was the same person who attended their university.

    "An undergraduate student by the name of Cole Allen graduated from Caltech in 2017," university officials said in a statement. "Based on media reports, we are aware that federal authorities have identified a suspect by the name of Cole Allen in the April 25 shooting incident at the Washington Correspondents’ Dinner. We do not have details from the investigation to confirm that the suspect and our undergraduate alumnus are the same person."

  • SGV grade school teaches math via the tile game
    A 5th grade girl with long hair and glasses holds up a mahjong tile in class.
    Fifth grader Abigail Lam is one of 16 students in a mahjong math club at Bella Vista Elementary in Monterey Park. Behind her are second grader Josephine Lam and fourth grader Lucas Wong.

    Topline:

    Bella Vista Elementary School in Monterey Park is giving its after-class math club a different spin — by using mahjong.

    How? It’s teaching fourth and fifth graders pattern recognition, strategy and probability through the traditional Chinese tile game.

    Why now? The mahjong math club is the brainchild of fourth grade teacher Andy Luong, who learned how to play the game a couple years ago. In figuring out how to play the game, he learned how to teach it.

    The math club at Bella Vista Elementary School is not a quiet affair — not with more than a dozen 10- and 11-year-olds stacking sets of mahjong.

    But before the games can begin, it's time for math lessons.

    "Remind me, math is the study of what?" fourth grade teacher Andy Luong asks the class.

    "Pattern, patterns," the kids say.

    Luong clicks through several slides, each featuring a mahjong tile the students call "seven sticks."

     "When you first learned this tile, what did you use to memorize this?" Luong, co-founder of the Mahjong Math Club, asks.

    "They look like sticks," a boy says.

    Luong locks in on a slide for a few seconds, just a flash. It features six tiles, divided into two rows. He asks the class how many tiles they see.

     "Three on the top and three on the bottom," a girl says. " So when I saw the pattern, I was like, 'Oh, it's six.'"

    Luong nods. " Recognizing those patterns are a lot faster than counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6," he says.

    The game that never goes out of style

    The tile game of mahjong is believed to have started in China in the 19th century, after decades if not centuries of evolution. It spread globally, adopting regional specificities, including in the U.S. after it landed in the late 1910s from Shanghai by way of an American businessman. A few decades later, a group of Jewish American women established the National Mah Jongg League in New York.

    The game never stopped being a staple of Chinese and many Asian cultures — anywhere in the world.

    A sign in Chinese and English. It says "Intergenerational Mahjong Series 2025"
    Intergenerational Mahjong is a monthly series held in Monterey Park, one of many new mahjong social clubs in L.A.
    (
    Fiona Ng
    /
    LAist
    )

    In recent years, fueled in part by the COVID-19 shutdown, an interest in the game has sparked among young Asian Americans. They form or attend social clubs in L.A. dedicated to the pastime, creating their own bond with the game.

    Luong is one of them. When he was growing up in Illinois, the game came with certain connotations.

    " Mahjong has such a bad rap in the Asian American community," Luong said, who moved to the San Gabriel Valley about a decade ago. "Part of a big reason why my parents don't play is because they associate it with gambling."

    The 30-year-old finally gave the game a spin in 2024, learning it from third grade teacher and math club co-founder Rachel Hwang. She cut her teeth by watching her family play. Naturally, she threw Luong in the deep end.

    " I was like, 'Here, we're just gonna play,'" Hwang said. " I just put the tiles on."

    "I was so overwhelmed. It's like, 'What do you mean I had to get a set? A set of how much?' I'm like, 'I don't know what I'm doing,'" he said.

    Still, Luong fell head over heels, quickly becoming a regular at the mahjong social clubs (in fact, it was at one of those events where I first met him) and a student of the game.

    In learning it, Luong figured out how to teach it.

    A Latino woman in glasses with long brown hair inside an office.
    Principal Jennifer Martinez of Bella Vista Elementary in Monterey Park
    (
    Fiona Ng
    /
    LAist
    )

    "He was the one [that] as a learner didn't grow up playing this game," Hwang said. "He was the one that found the tutorials, watched the tutorials, and he really, from a learner's perspective, figured out what a kid needed to learn and how they needed to learn in order to play the game."

    Last year, Luong submitted a proposal to start a math club focused on mahjong at the school.

    " It was pretty much slam dunk. It explores other avenues of the cultural experience that we want our students to learn," said Jennifer Martinez,  principal of Bella Vista Elementary School.  "It was something that we wanted to get off the ground right away and support."

    Since September, the club has been meeting on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It was so popular Luong and Hwang brought in help to run the club.

    “ I don't feel like they're really doing math,” said Ruolin Chen, a kindergarten teacher who was recruited. "It's like they're learning from playing or playing from learning.”

    Let the games begin

    Back in the classroom, Luong clicks to a last slide to remind the club how to maximize "points" with certain "hands." This semester, the club is playing Hong Kong style mahjong — three point minimum win.

    Finally, it's game time. The group of mainly fourth and fifth graders take their seats at the tables: mixing the tiles, stacking them into starting formation, casting the die, so on and so forth.

    Then, they build their hand, meticulously rearranging the 13 tiles according to their suits — or in math club parlance, patterns.

    The clank of tiles and sounds of "pong" and "gong" soon fill the air.

    Pattern recognition, strategy, situational awareness, probability, learning when to pivot or to fold — those are some of the learnings the math club intends.

    "Andy is so structured," Hwang said of Luong's design of the club. " The first two weeks, they didn't even play a game. It was like, 'Let's look at the tiles. How many tiles do you see? Pick out and group them into sets.'"

    Fifth grader Uma Alvarado shows me her hand. She's going all "pong" — trying to assemble four sets of three identical tiles. It'd be worth three points if she wins.

    Alvarado says what brings her to the club is the opportunity to hang out with her schoolmates. But trying something new is pretty cool too.

    "I get to mix the tiles and find new ways to play a game I have never been introduced to before," she adds.

    At another table, fourth grader Bonnie Kuang says the game keeps her on her toes.

    "I think it's fun to use different strategies, and maybe I need to change strategy mid-game," Kuang said. "And I like it when I win."

    Sofia Mandic, her same grade classmate and opponent across the table, says the pace of the game makes quick tile recognition key.

    "You need to think fast. You need to think to yourself if you need it or not," Mandic says, because oftentimes, there are just seconds to make a decision.

    Bringing mahjong into the classroom

    Pattern recognition, strategy, situational awareness, probability, learning when to pivot or to fold — those are some of the learnings the math club intends.

    "Andy is so structured," Hwang said of Luong's design of the club. " The first two weeks, they didn't even play a game. It was like, 'Let's look at the tiles. How many tiles do you see? Pick out and group them into sets.'"

    It's all part of a teaching method known as "counting collections" that focuses on hands-on, student-centered learning experiences to build informal math knowledge. It's one aspect of a body of research called Cognitively Guided Instruction, which all math teachers at Bella Vista are trained in. Luong is applying it to guide his approach.

    " We need to have them see there's four different types of tiles. There's [Chinese] characters, there's sticks, circles, and there's honorary tiles," Luong said. "They're not going to know unless they actually see it and they use their hands."

    Even then, it's a lot to process. It could be downright overwhelming when a kid has to juggle all the elements all at once during game play.

    "The very first time that we actually started playing, some of them didn't finish a game. It took an entire period," Luong said.

    It took about a month into the club before the mechanics of the game — things like drawing a tile, discarding the ones they don't want — became routine; and another two months for the kids to play faster and without supervision.

    Three people -- two Asian women and one Asian man -- posing in front of a TV in a classroom.
    Teachers Rachel Hwang, Ruolin Chen and Andy Luong. They run the Mahjong Math Club at Bella Vista Elementary in Monterey Park.
    (
    Fiona Ng
    /
    LAist
    )

    "A lot of the students who don't know Mandarin, or have any Chinese background, are starting to recognize the characters. I'm really proud to say that," Luong said.

    Ultimately, the teachers want the kids to take away from the game a lesson about life.

    "What we really want the kids to do is not to have such a fixed mindset," Luong said.

    " We want them to, A) be flexible, B) change up your game plan," Hwang said. "It's OK. Life is going to throw curve balls at you."

  • Gunfire heard at White House Correspondents' event

    Topline:

    President Donald Trump was reported uninjured after a possible shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner tonight in Washington, D.C., the Associated Press says. Secret Service agents said a suspect is in custody.

    What we know: What sounded like gunshots were heard by gathered reporters shortly after 8:30 p.m. ET in the Washington Hilton. Several guests were seen fleeing the ballroom where hundreds of journalists, politicians and attendees were gathered — including Trump, Vice President Vance and other members of the administration.

    Trump's response: He is expected to appear at a press briefing shortly. He praised Secret Service after being rushed from the ballroom.

    Updated April 26, 2026 at 16:56 PM ET

    Stay up to date with our Politics newsletter, sent weekly.


    President Trump and the first lady are uninjured after a shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday in Washington, D.C. A suspect is in custody, according to a statement from the U.S. Secret Service.

    In remarks from the White House after the incident, the president said a Secret Service agent is "doing great" after being shot in a bulletproof vest. The Secret Service said the incident took place at a security screening area inside the Washington Hilton hotel near the entrance to the main ballroom where the event was taking place. There are no reports of further injuries.

    The suspect has been identified as Cole Allen, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

    Trump shared surveillance footage online which appears to show law enforcement reacting to an assailant sprinting through an area of the hotel. He also posted pictures of a man, shirtless, with his eyes closed lying face down on a carpet.

    Cole is being charged with using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon, with more charges likely, according to Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

    At a law enforcement press conference, Jeffery Carroll of DC's Metropolitan Police said that the suspect "was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives." Law enforcement said they believe the suspect was a guest at the hotel.

    He was evaluated at a local hospital after the incident and was not hit by gunfire, according to law enforcement.

    Getty Images photographer Andrew Harnik takes photos as a security official points his weapon after an incident at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.
    (
    Chip Somodevilla
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    A chaotic scene

    Gunshots were heard by gathered reporters shortly after 8:30 p.m. ET. Several guests were seen fleeing the ballroom where hundreds of journalists, politicians and attendees were gathered — including Trump, Vice President Vance and other members of the administration.

    Video from inside the room showed security quickly clear the guests on the main stage — including the president and first lady. Someone can be heard shouting "stay down."

    President Trump took to social media shortly after being rushed out to praise the Secret Service.

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taken out of the ballroom by security agents during a shooting incident at the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner.
    (
    Andrew Harnik
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    "Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely. The shooter has been apprehended," Trump wrote.

    The president said in a later post that all cabinet members are safe.

    "I said earlier tonight that journalism is a public service, because when there is an emergency, we run to the crisis, not away from it. And on a night when we are thinking about the freedoms in the First Amendment, we must also think about how fragile they are," Weijia Jiang, the president of the correspondents' association, said. "I saw all of you reporting, and that's what we do. Thank God everybody's safe and and thank you for coming together tonight. We will do this again."

    First lady Melania Trump and President Trump were sitting next to each other just before they were rushed out of the ballroom at the Washington Hilton.
    (
    Tom Brenner
    /
    AP
    )

    Several members of Congress were seen leaving the event by foot, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.

    Attacks on Trump and the press

    Both the president and members of the press have been targeted for violence in recent years.

    During his 2024 reelection effort, Trump was injured in a shooting at a July rally in Pennsylvania when a bullet whizzed past his head, grazing his ear. Two attendees were wounded, and rally-goer and former fire chief Corey Comperatore was killed.

    A Secret Service sniper shot and killed the perpetrator.

    In September 2024, a Secret Service agent saw a man holding a semi-automatic rifle hidden in the tree line at Trump International in West Palm Beach. The suspect fled in his car and was arrested a short time later.

    White House Correspondents Association President and CBS Senior White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang pauses while coming back to the stage to speak after a shooting incident at the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner.
    (
    Andrew Harnik
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    He was later sentenced to life in prison.

    During the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol building, more than a dozen journalists were attacked in targeted assaults by rioters, according to a tally by the Freedom of the Press foundation. "Murder the media" was etched into a doorway during the attack.

    In 2018, a man mailed pipe bombs to people and organizations he perceived to be critics of Donald Trump, including CNN offices in New York and Atlanta. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

    The Washington Hilton, which played host to Saturday's dinner, is also the site of past political violence — in 1981, President Reagan was shot and seriously wounded outside of the hotel.

    Three others were also injured in the attack, including Reagan's press secretary James Brady, who sustained brain damage and was permanently disabled in the attack. He became a gun control activist, successfully lobbying alongside his wife Sarah Brady for a background check system for firearm sales.

    The White House Press Briefing Room, where Trump made brief remarks after the incident, was later renamed in his honor.

    Deepa Shivaram and Ryan Lucas contributed to this report.

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