The Brief

Facing a nearly $1 billion shortfall driven by dwindling revenues and increasing costs, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Monday proposed laying off 1,647 workers and closing some city departments in the fiscal year that starts July 1.

It's the most austere budget since the city was wracked by the 2008 recession.

In her State of the City speech delivered shortly before the budget was released, Bass addressed city workers directly, saying "you are the city’s greatest asset... my proposed budget, unfortunately includes layoffs, which was a decision of absolute last resort."

The budget proposal must still go before the City Council for a vote.

City officials said the mayor was contemplating as many as 3,500 layoffs, but was able to cut that in half by, among other things, deferring capital projects.

There are currently about 38,000 city positions, not counting the departments of water and power, harbor and airport. In all, the city employs 32,405 people.

The layoffs would occur across a range of departments and affect city services. The proposal would also eliminate several vacant positions.

Some victories

In a wide-ranging speech, Bass also sought to highlight victories, saying there was a 10% reduction in street homelessness, a 14% drop in homicides and what she described as the "fast" pace of recovery from the Palisades Fire.

"The state of our city is this: homelessness is down, crime is down," said Bass. "These are tough, tough challenges and they show we can do so much more."

She went on to announce new action to expedite the permitting process for fire victims, establishing a self certification program and calling on the City Council to waive all plan check and permit fees.

The move drew praise from Larry Vein with community initiative Pali Strong.

“We are so delighted to see that the fees are being waived for permits. We’ve been asking for some relief in that area,” he said. “And we are super excited that it's what’s called self certification on the plans. That is going to be huge.”

The mayor also looked forward to the Olympics in 2028, saying current investments will make life better for Angelenos in the future.

Strong reactions

Labor leaders immediately denounced the proposed layoffs.

“We’re going to fight for every single one of these city jobs. One layoff is too many,” said David Green, president of the Service Employees International Union, Local 721, which represents 10,000 city workers.

He warned the ramifications of the layoffs would be broad.

“These are folks who are frontline workers serving the community every day,” said Green, whose union represents tree trimmers, sanitation workers and trash truck drivers, among others.

Ironically, the layoffs are being driven in part by increased labor costs resulting from union contracts signed just last year. Those contracts will cost the city an extra $250 million in the coming year, according to city officials.

A number of City Council members expressed resignation that the layoffs were inevitable.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield 85% to 90% of the city’s budget is labor costs.

“So if you have this kind of huge deficit, it is almost impossible to solve for that deficit without affecting labor costs,” he said.

Liability payments

Liability payments have also ballooned and are costing the city more. Legal payouts have averaged $100 million annually for the past 10 years, according to city officials.

The new proposed budget set aside $187 million for liability claims against the city — more than twice as much as had been budgeted in recent years — but this is still well below the anticipated $320 million in liability expenses to be paid this fiscal year.

Officials blamed costlier jury verdicts and legal settlements with people who sued the city over such things as police use of force and internal staff harassment.

The unexpected, significant costs of fighting the Palisades Fire, as well the aftermath, have also contributed to budget pressures.

Meanwhile, as costs increase, revenues are on the decline.

Business and sales taxes are both down, according to city officials, while hotel and property taxes, which make up 35% of revenues, are expected to be below projected growth.

President Donald Trump’s tariffs are also expected to hit L.A. hard, adding to the fiscal uncertainty.

General fund revenue is projected to be $8 billion — down from the forecasted $8.14 billion.

Homelessness, police and fire

Mayor Bass gives the State of the City address on April 21, 2025.

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Under the mayor’s plan, the budget for her signature Inside Safe homelessness program would remain the same, but spending on helping people on the streets would be slightly lower, according to city officials.

The plan also forecasts a smaller Police Department, which has been shrinking in part because evidence indicates fewer people want to become police officers than in previous years.

The LAPD is expected to finish this fiscal year with 8,733 officers. The mayor’s plan projects it will end the next fiscal year with 8,639 officers.

In the wake of the Palisades Fire, the Fire Department will see an increase of funding by 12.7%, according to city officials. The plan adds 277 new positions and calls for more paramedics, mechanics and fast response vehicles — pickup trucks with a small water tank, hose and medical supplies that can respond to an increasing number of calls for help from unhoused people.

Bass’ proposal also calls for consolidating four city departments — the departments of Aging, Economic, and Workforce Development, and Youth Development will be consolidated under the Community and Family Investment Department.

In addition, the plan calls for eliminating the Health Commission, which is an advisory body. It would also get rid of the Innovation and Performance Commission, as well as the Climate Emergency Mobilization Commission.

The mayor’s budget also maintains a 6% reserve fund, above the 5% required by city policy.

Bass said she will travel to Sacramento this week in hopes of getting some financial help from state officials, according to city officials.

LAist reporter Jordan Rynning contributed to this story.

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.

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

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.

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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

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.

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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."

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.

Buena Vista elementary school teacher Andy Luong goes over different elements of mahjong with the afterschool math club.

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Some of the 16 students that make up the mahjong math club at Bella Vista Elementary, with club co-founder Rachel Hwang.

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"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.

Intergenerational Mahjong is a monthly series held in Monterey Park, one of many new mahjong social clubs in L.A.

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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.

Principal Jennifer Martinez of Bella Vista Elementary in Monterey Park

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"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

Fifth graders Emily Le and Brianna Azpeitia at the mahjong math club.

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Fifth grader Liam Torres.

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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.

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Fifth grader Benjamin Garcia.

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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.

Fourth grader Bonnie Kuang (left) and fifth grader Ian Maldonado.

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Fourth grader Sofia Mandic explains how the club has taught her pattern recognition.

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"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.

A slide used in the mahjong math club to teach kids how to calculate points.

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A slide used in the mahjong math club teaching kids how to increase points with certain combinations.

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" 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.

Teachers Rachel Hwang, Ruolin Chen and Andy Luong. They run the Mahjong Math Club at Bella Vista Elementary in Monterey Park.

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"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."

Updated April 26, 2026 at 16:56 PM ET

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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.

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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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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