The person’s condition and the circumstances surrounding the shooting around 15th Street and Independence Avenue were not immediately known.

The Secret Service encouraged people to avoid the area as emergency crews responded to the shooting not far from the White House, where President Donald Trump was holding a small business event.

The White House was briefly locked down as authorities investigated the incident. The Secret Service ushered journalists who were outside into the briefing room, and Trump continued his event without interruption.

Vito Maggiolo, spokesman for the D.C. Fire and EMS Department, said emergency units transported an adult male to the hospital and were treating what appeared to be a teenage male for minor injuries. He referred other questions to the police department.

The incident drew a large police presence, coming just over a week after a gunman tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with guns and knives. Cole Tomas Allen has been charged in that incident, in which a Secret Service officer was wounded.

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She had spent three daystelling a jury that the ex-movie mogul raped her, explaining why she continued a relationship with him afterward and discussing other deeply personal aspects of her life, once sobbing so hard that court ended early. Weinstein had then been convicted, in a 2020 verdict seen as a victory for the #MeToo campaign against sexual misconduct.

Yet six years later, Mann again walked to a witness stand, passing Weinstein in court on Monday, and beginning — for a third time — to give a jury her account of what happened between them.

Mann testified that she met Weinstein at an acquaintance’s engagement party around the beginning of 2013. She said he was wearing a tuxedo and “looked very jolly, so I went up and introduced myself to him.”

Mann was living in Los Angeles and trying to break into acting, she said. Later that evening, she said, she ran into Weinstein again. She testified that he boasted about his moviemaking prowess and his ability to spot talent.

“He said I was really pretty, prettier than Natalie Portman,” Mann testified, echoing her prior testimony. She added that she ended up giving Weinstein her phone number, thinking she’d make a professional — not romantic — connection.

“He was interested in my look. I thought I just got discovered,” she said.

Weinstein denies sexually assaulting anyone. He watched from his wheelchair at the defense table as Mann testified, occasionally leaning over to talk with his lawyer. Mann only looked at Weinstein when asked to point him out in the courtroom.

Mann’s allegation of a 2013 rape in a Manhattan hotel is again up for consideration because of a series of legal switchbacks. First, Weinstein’s 2020 conviction was overturned for reasons unrelated to her testimony. Then a jury failed to decide her part of a retrial that involved multiple accusers and allegations last year, leaving only her rape charge to be tried again.

“I am ready, willing and able to endure this as many times as it takes for justice and accountability to be served,” Mann said in a statement at the time.

That determination now stands to be tested.

Mann could face days of questioning by prosecutors and Weinstein’s new lawyers. Like their predecessors, they have portrayed Mann as a canny wannabe who got involved with a Hollywood heavy-hitter, had entirely consensual sex with him, enjoyed his connections and invitations, then turned on him after news reports about other women’s claims about Weinstein. The 2017 reporting catalyzed the #MeToo movement.

Mann, 40, grew up in a small town in Washington state and trained as a hairstylist, but she yearned to pursue acting and moved to Los Angeles in her 20s. She was sometimes so broke that she lived in her car, but she had done some commercial and film work before she met Weinstein.

Thrilled that the Oscar-winning producer expressed interest in her career, Mann accepted invitations to get together, starting with a shopping trip for books about cinema, she testified. Within a couple months, she has said, Weinstein started making sexual overtures that she didn’t invite but accepted.

She has said she embarked, with jumbled feelings, on a relationship with the then-married mogul. Sometimes she appreciated his encouragement, other times she resented his sexual demands, and she was always cognizant of his career-making power.

In March 2013, Mann and a friend traveled to New York, and she arranged to meet Weinstein for breakfast with her pals. She testified at prior trials that he got her alone in a hotel room, slammed the door shut when she tried to leave and ultimately raped her, though she told him “I don’t want to do this” and “no.”

Afterward, Mann kept seeing and having what she has said were largely consensual sexual encounters with Weinstein. At points over the next roughly four years, she emailed him “miss you,” “there is no one else I would enjoy catching up with that understands me quite like you” and “I love you, always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call.”

Weinstein’s lawyers have argued that the messages show there was nothing but a caring relationship. Mann has said she was trying to manage a complicated dynamic with a volatile man.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, unless they agree to be named, as Mann has done.

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Cole Tomas Allen appeared in court Monday to face federal charges after the chaotic encounter Saturday that resulted in shots being fired, Trump being hurried off the stage unharmed and guests ducking for cover underneath their tables. He was ordered to remain jailed pending additional court hearings, and faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.

An FBI affidavit filed in the case reveals additional details about the planning behind the assault, with authorities alleging that Allen on April 6 reserved a room for himself at the Washington hotel where the event would be held weeks later under its typical tight security. He traveled by train cross-country from California last week, checking himself into the Washington Hilton one day before the dinner with a room reserved through the weekend.

The event had barely begun when officials say the 31-year-old Torrance, California, man, armed with a shotgun and pistol, tried to race past a security barricade near the cavernous ballroom holding hundreds of journalists and their guests, prompting an exchange of gunfire with Secret Service agents tasked with safeguarding the event.

“Violence has no place in civic life,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference. “We will ensure accountability is swift and certain.”

Allen was injured but was not shot. A Secret Service officer was shot but was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and survived, officials say. The Justice Department charged Allen with two additional firearms counts, including discharging a weapon during a crime of violence, but the affidavit does not directly say that Allen was responsible for shooting the officer.

Suspect’s email sheds light on motive

The shooting resulted in the cancellation of the dinner, the first Trump had attended as president.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said the night was supposed to be one of joy but instead was “hijacked by a crazed anti-Trump individual who traveled across the country to assassinate the president and as many administration officials as possible.”

Allen invoked his constitutional right to remain silent after his arrest, but authorities say an email he sent to family members and a former employer helps shed light on a motive.

In the message, a copy of which was included in the affidavit, Allen referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” alluded obliquely to grievances over a range of Trump administration actions. The rambling text moves between confession, grievance and farewell, with Allen apologizing to family members, co-workers and even strangers he feared could be caught in the violence while at the same time seeking to explain the attack.

A magistrate judge granted a prosecutor’s request to keep Allen locked up pending additional hearings, including a detention hearing set for Thursday.

Allen did not speak at length during the quick appearance, as is customary, though one of his lawyers, Texira Abe, noted that he has no criminal record.

“He also is presumed innocent at this time,” she said.

The Associated Press called multiple phone numbers listed for Allen and relatives in public records, and there was no answer when a reporter knocked on the door of his home.

Records reveal that Allen is a highly educated tutor and amateur video game developer. A social media profile for a man with the same name and a photo that appears to match that of the suspect show he worked part-time for the last six years at a company that offers admissions counseling and test preparation services to aspiring college students.

Voter registration records from California lists Allen’s home address as his parent’s house on a tree-lined street in one of the most historic neighborhoods in Torrance, a city within the Los Angeles metro area. No one answered the door Sunday when an Associated Press reporter knocked. By the afternoon, several people who appeared to be law enforcement agents were canvassing the neighborhood, with one wearing an FBI sweatshirt.

A yard sign displayed at the family home supported a local candidate for judge who was endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. Federal campaign finance records show Cole Allen contributed $25 to a Democratic Party political action committee in support of Kamala Harris for president in 2024 and listed his employer as C2 Education.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in 2017 in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, according to his profile on the social networking site LinkedIn. The small university is academically prestigious with a very low acceptance rate. He also listed his involvement there in a campus group that battled with Nerf guns and a Christian student fellowship.

Allen’s profile photo on LinkedIn shows him wearing a cap and gown when graduating with a master’s degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills. The photo appears to have been taken May 2025.

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U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s latest ruling comes in response to an appeals court’s instruction to clarify an earlier decision on the 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom planned for the site where it demolished the East Wing of the White House.

Trump on social media called Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, a “Trump Hating” judge who “has gone out of his way to undermine National Security, and to make sure that this Great Gift to America gets delayed, or doesn’t get built.”

Leon said that below-ground work on security measures is exempt from his order suspending above-ground construction. Government lawyers have argued that the project includes critical security features to guard against a range of possible threats, such as drones, ballistic missiles and biohazards.

Leon’s latest ruling comes several days after a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit instructed him to reconsider the possible national security implications of stopping construction.

In his previous order, Leon barred above-ground work on the ballroom from proceeding without congressional approval. The judge also ruled on March 31 that any construction work that’s necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House is exempt from the scope of the injunction. Leon said he reviewed material that the government privately submitted to him before concluding that halting construction wouldn’t jeopardize national security.

Leon had suspended his March 31 order for two weeks. He stayed his latest decision for another week, which gives the administration more time to seek Supreme Court review.

Leon said he is ordering a stop only to the above-ground construction of the planned ballroom, apart from any work needed to cover or secure that part of the project. Otherwise, the Trump administration is free to proceed with the construction of any excavations, bunkers, military installations, and medical facilities below the ballroom.

“Defendants argue that the entire ballroom construction project, from tip to tail, falls within the safety-and-security exception and therefore may proceed unabated,” the judge wrote. “That is neither a reasonable nor a correct reading of my Order!”

On Saturday, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said it didn’t have enough information to decide how much of the project can be suspended without jeopardizing the safety of the president, his family or the White House staff.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly tapped by former President Donald Trump to unilaterally enact a sweeping crackdown at the southern border, according to three people familiar with the deliberations.

The administration, stymied by Republican lawmakers who rejected a negotiated border bill earlier this month, has been exploring options that President Joe Biden could deploy on his own without congressional approval, multiple officials and others familiar with the talks said. But the plans are nowhere near finalized and it’s unclear how the administration would draft any such executive actions in a way that would survive the inevitable legal challenges. The officials and those familiar with the talks spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to comment on private ongoing White House discussions.

The exploration of such avenues by Biden’s team underscores the pressure the president faces this election year on immigration and the border, which have been among his biggest political liabilities since he took office. For now, the White House has been hammering congressional Republicans for refusing to act on border legislation that the GOP demanded, but the administration is also aware of the political perils that high numbers of migrants could pose for the president and is scrambling to figure out how Biden could ease the problem on his own.

White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández stressed that “no executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected.”

“The administration spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make significant policy reforms and to provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system,” he said. “Congressional Republicans chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, rejected what border agents have said they need, and then gave themselves a two-week vacation.”

Arrests for illegal crossings on the U.S. border with Mexico fell by half in January from record highs in December to the third lowest month of Biden’s presidency. But officials fear those figures could eventually rise again, particularly as the November presidential election nears.

The immigration authority the administration has been looking into is outlined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives a president broad leeway to block entry of certain immigrants into the United States if it would be “detrimental” to the national interest of the United States.

Trump, who is the likely GOP candidate to face off against Biden this fall, repeatedly leaned on the 212(f) power while in office, including his controversial ban to bar travelers from Muslim-majority nations. Biden rescinded that ban on his first day in office through executive order.

But now, how Biden would deploy that power to deal with his own immigration challenges is currently being considered, and it could be used in a variety of ways, according to the people familiar with the discussions. For example, the ban could kick in when border crossings hit a certain number. That echoes a provision in the Senate border deal, which would have activated expulsions of migrants if the number of illegal border crossings reached above 5,000 daily for a five-day average.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has also called on Biden to use the 212(f) authority. Yet the comprehensive immigration overhaul Biden also introduced on his first day in office — which the White House continues to tout — includes provisions that would effectively scale back a president’s powers to bar immigrants under that authority.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump told thousands of members of the National Rifle Association that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” if he returns to the White House, and bragged that during his time as president he “did nothing” to curb guns.

“During my four years nothing happened. And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield,” he said as he addressed the NRA’s Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Friday evening.

Casting himself as ”the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House,” Trump pledged to continue to protect gun owners’ rights, even as the country grapples with a crisis of gun violence and mass shootings that have left more than 3,000 dead since 2006.

“Your Second Amendment will always be safe with me as your president,” he said.

Fresh off another dominant win in the Nevada caucuses Thursday night, Trump used the NRA forum to highlight his support of gun rights, a major priority for GOP voters. The issue is also a major motivator for Democrats as well as younger voters who grew up participating in active shooter drills and have witnessed a spate of school shootings in recent years.

Next week will mark the sixth anniversary of one of those shootings, the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.

Trump grappled with Parkland and other mass shootings as president, and at times pledged to strengthen gun laws, only to back away from those vows.

At a meeting with survivors and family members of the Parkland shooting in 2018, Trump promised to be “very strong on background checks” and later scolded a Republican senator for being “afraid of the NRA,” claiming he would stand up to the gun lobby and finally get results on quelling gun violence.

But he later retreated after a meeting with the group, expressing support for modest changes to the federal background check system and for arming teachers, while saying in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that there was “not much political support (to put it mildly).”

In December 2018, his administration banned bump stocks, the attachments that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like machine guns and were used during the October 2017 shooting massacre in Las Vegas.

TJ Ducklo, a spokesman for Biden’s reelection campaign, accused Trump of placating the gun lobby Friday night and said “the American people are the ones who will suffer and die if he’s allowed anywhere near the Oval Office again.”

Trump’s appearance Friday in the critical swing state came as the Republican nominating contest that he has been dominating turns toward South Carolina. The state’s Feb. 24 primary may prove the last chance for Nikki Haley, Trump’s last remaining rival, to blunt the former president’s march toward the nomination. He and Haley will hold dueling campaign events there this weekend.

Trump hopes that a commanding win in the first-in-the-South race will deliver a devastating blow to Haley, who has yet to win a GOP contest. Haley, who was elected South Carolina’s governor twice, is betting that a home state advantage will lift her to a strong performance that could keep her in the race through Super Tuesday on March 5, when more than a dozen states will hold contests awarding a massive swath of the delegates needed to capture the GOP nomination.

“We’re leading everybody,” Trump said late Thursday following his Nevada victory. “Is there any way we can call the election for next Tuesday? That’s all I want.”

Trump had no competition in Nevada after Haley chose to skip Thursday’s caucuses to participate in an earlier primary that offered no delegates. But even without Trump on that ballot, Haley came in a distant second, swamped by GOP voters who picked a “none of these candidates” option.

Beyond Haley’s embarrassing Nevada defeat, Trump had an especially fortuitous week.

On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court seemed weary of attempts to kick him off the 2024 ballot under the Constitution’s Insurrection Clause. Both conservative and liberal justices voiced skepticism during a hearing over Colorado’s decision to disqualify Trump from its primary ballot because he refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election, which culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Hours later, special counsel Robert Hur released a long-awaited and bitingly critical report that concluded criminal charges against President Joe Biden were not warranted but said there was evidence Biden willfully retained and shared highly classified information when he was a private citizen, including documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan. The report repeatedly pointed to Biden’s hazy memory in language that has raised new concerns about the president’s competency and age — a top concern for voters.

The findings will almost certainly blunt Biden’s ability to criticize Trump over his handling of classified documents. Trump was charged by a different special counsel, Jack Smith, for illegally hoarding classified records at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after he left office and then obstructing government efforts to get them back.

Despite abundant differences between the cases, Trump, who insists he did nothing wrong, on Friday cast the decision to charge him and not Biden as “nothing more than selective prosecution of Biden’s political opponent: me.”

“Trump was peanuts by comparison,” he claimed.

Trump’s speech to the NRA — his eighth, according to the group — comes as the former political juggernaut has played a diminished role this election cycle amid financial troubles, dwindling membership and infighting.

The group’s longtime CEO, Wayne LaPierre, resigned last month ahead of a trial in New York over allegations that he treated himself to millions of dollars in private jet flights, yacht trips, African safaris and other extravagant perks at the powerful gun rights organization’s expense.

The New York attorney general sued LaPierre and three co-defendants in 2020, claiming widespread misspending and self-enrichment. The organization filed for bankruptcy and sought to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, but a judge rejected the move.

___ Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont contributed to this report from Des Moines.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Friday sought to downplay sharp criticism levied against Israel by President Joe Biden and a senior national security official over how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has conducted Israel’s four-month-old war aimed at rooting out Hamas militants from Gaza.

Biden, speaking to reporters Thursday evening, called Israel’s military operations in Gaza “over the top” and said the suffering of innocent people has “got to stop.” While Biden has previously expressed concern about the mounting Palestinian civilian toll — more than 27,000 have been killed in Gaza since the conflict erupted — his direct criticism of the Israelis has been muted.

Then on Friday, the New York Times reported it had obtained a recording in which the president’s deputy principal national security adviser, Jon Finer, expressed a “lack of confidence” in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government during a meeting with Arab American and Muslim community leaders this week. The White House National Security Council confirmed that Finer’s comments, as reported by the Times, were accurate.

An administration official told The Associated Press that Finer was speaking specifically about the Netanyahu government’s commitment to pursuing a two-state solution — one in which Israel would co-exist with an independent Palestinian state — once the war ends. Netanyahu throughout his political career has consistently opposed the creation of a Palestinian state.

“The President and Mr. Finer were reflecting on concerns we have had for some time and will continue to have as the Israeli operation proceeds, about the loss of Palestinian lives in this conflict and the need to reduce civilian harm,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement. “The President has made clear since the first days of this conflict that we share the aim of defeating Hamas, but that Israel must reduce, as much as possible, the impact of its operation on innocent civilians.”

Finer in the recording also spoke of “missteps” by the Biden administration and expressed regret that the administration may have left a “a very damaging impression” early in the war with its “wholly inadequate public accounting for how much the president, the administration and the country values the lives of Palestinians.”

The comments appear to reflect a growing frustration in the White House with the conflict that was sparked on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 others hostage. Earlier pauses in fighting led to release of mostly women and children taken by Hamas, but U.S. officials believe more than 100 remain in captivity.

Biden on Thursday said he hasn’t given up on a U.S.-Egypt-Qatar effort to get the two sides to agree to an extended pause in fighting to facilitate the release of the remaining hostages.

Hamas, however, has demanded that Israel release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and end the war as part of a hostage deal. Netanyahu has refused to agree to those terms.

Biden said he still is hopeful that a deal can be worked out that might create a path to ending the war.

“I am pushing very hard now to deal with this hostage cease-fire,” Biden said. “I’ve been working tirelessly on this deal.”

Biden had dispatched Finer and other senior aides to Michigan on Thursday to meet with Arab American and Muslim community leaders as his administration has been looking to mend rifts with a key constituency in a 2024 battleground state.

Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Steven Benjamin, who directs the Office of Public Engagement, and Tom Perez, who leads the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, were among administration officials who took part in the Michigan visit.

Some of Biden’s campaign team have faced a tough reception from Michigan’s sizable Arab American and Muslim community.

Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, and other campaign aides went to suburban Detroit late last month, but found a number of community leaders unwilling to meet with them.

Other community activists have gone even further as they press their disapproval of the president’s handling of the war and have formed a group called “Abandon Biden,” a movement discouraging voters from supporting the president in November.

Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation and over 310,000 residents are of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Nearly half of Dearborn’s roughly 110,000 residents claim Arab ancestry.

After Donald Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2016, Wayne County and its large Muslim communities helped Biden retake the state for the Democrats in 2020 by a roughly 154,000-vote margin. Biden enjoyed a roughly 3-to-1 advantage in Dearborn and 5-1 advantage in Hamtramck, and he won Wayne County by more than 330,000 votes.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump declined to rule out abusing power if he returns to the White House after Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity asked him Tuesday to respond to growing Democratic criticism of his rhetoric.

The GOP presidential front-runner has talked about targeting his rivals — referring to them as “vermin” — and vowed to seek retribution if he wins a second term for what he argues are politically motivated prosecutions against him. As Trump has dominated the Republican presidential primary, President Joe Biden has stepped up his own warnings, contending Trump is “ determined to destroy American democracy.”

“Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked Trump in the interview taped in Davenport, Iowa.

“Except for day one,” Trump responded. “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Trump then repeated his assertion. “I love this guy,” he said of the Fox News host. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”

Earlier in the interview, Hannity had asked Trump if he “in any way” had “any plans whatsoever, if reelected president, to abuse power, to break the law to use the government to go after people.”

“You mean like they’re using right now?” Trump replied.

Trump’s campaign rhetoric and sweeping plans for a second term that include firing large swaths of the federal bureaucracy and targeting his rivals have alarmed Democrats and become a chief election argument for Biden as he prepares for a potential rematch against Trump.

“Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s reelected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

At a series of fundraisers Tuesday, Biden again warned that Trump and his allies are out to “destroy” democratic institutions as he assailed the GOP front-runner, who tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election and is facing criminal charges connected to those efforts.

Trump, meanwhile, has tried to turn the tables on Biden and argued in a Saturday speech in Iowa that the president is the real “destroyer of American democracy” as he repeated his longstanding contention that the four criminal indictments against him show Biden is misusing the federal justice system to damage his chief political rival.

Trump has promised to prosecute Biden if he wins.

Hannity, a longtime Trump supporter and adviser, has often seemed to use his interviews to coach the former president to say things that will benefit him politically. The questions Tuesday appeared to be another example of those efforts.

The event had been advertised as a town hall the day before Trump’s leading rivals gather at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa for the fourth GOP debate. While town halls typically feature audience questions, only Hannity asked questions of Trump on Tuesday. He taped a similar interview with Trump in July.

Trump is once again planning to skip the debate and will spend the evening at a fundraiser in Florida instead.

Trump has been dominating his rivals both nationally and in Iowa, which will kick off the election with its caucuses on Jan. 15. That includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has staked his campaign on the first-in-the-nation contest, and former United nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has been gaining momentum following a series of well-reviewed performances at the debates.

DeSantis, who on Saturday completed his campaign promise to visit each of Iowa’s 99 counties, has repeatedly called on Trump to join the debates.

“Get out of your dungeon. Get off the keyboard, stand on the debate stage and let’s go,” he said Tuesday in Florida.

After the taping, Trump visited the Front Street Pub & Eatery in Davenport, where he stopped by tables and signed red “Make America Great Again” hats, according to video of the event.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — After having just four official staffers on the payroll last quarter, President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign on Monday announced that former White House aide and congressman Cedric Richmond is joining as co-chair and that two veteran Democratic fundraisers are signing on to lead outreach to donors.

Richmond, who served as a senior adviser to Biden in the White House and director of the office of public engagement, has been a key political confidant to the president and is set to reprise that role on his campaign. Biden’s team also announced that Rufus Gifford and Chris Korge will serve as finance chairs of Biden’s campaign and victory fund, respectively.

Gifford has been chief of protocol at the Department of State and served as ambassador to Denmark in the Obama administration. He had previously served as finance director for Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and for the Democratic National Committee. Korge is the finance chairman for the DNC and held a similar role for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential effort.

“Bringing in these trusted and known leaders that have a strong and proven record of helping win presidential campaigns sends a clear signal to the American people that we continue to build out a powerhouse campaign leadership team that knows what it will take to win in November 2024,” said Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez in a statement.

Biden’s campaign has remained deliberately small in the early days, with only a small team of aides working from the DNC’s offices in Washington in anticipation of a larger expansion in coming months. The campaign reported on Saturday that it raised nearly $20 million since Biden declared his candidacy in April — with the total rising to over $72 million when other contributions to the DNC and other democratic entities are factored in.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House was briefly evacuated Sunday evening while President Joe Biden was at Camp David after the Secret Service discovered suspicious powder in a common area of the West Wing, and a preliminary test showed the substance was cocaine, two law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

Secret Service agents were doing routine rounds on Sunday when they found the white powder in an area accessible to tour groups, not in any particular West Wing office, the officials said. The officials were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The complex was evacuated at about 8:45 p.m. Sunday as fire and emergency crews were brought in to do a rapid test, which preliminarily identified cocaine. The White House was soon reopened and the powder was sent for further testing.

Biden and his family left for Camp David on Friday and returned to the White House on Tuesday.

The Secret Service said in a statement the White House was closed as a precaution as emergency crews investigated, and that the District of Columbia fire department was called in to evaluate and determine that the substance was not hazardous.

“The item was sent for further evaluation and an investigation into the cause and manner of how it entered the White House is pending,” the Secret Service said.

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