Talk of the Town
(MIDLAND, Texas) — At least 11 victims have been reported in an active shooter situation in Midland, Texas, on Friday morning, with at least one person dead, according to Midland Mayor Lori Blong.
Midland police said responding officers heard gunfire coming from a building.
A standoff is ongoing with the suspected shooter, police said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(MINNEAPOLIS) — Vance Boelter, the man charged in the attacks against Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, changed his plea to guilty in his federal case on Thursday, according to ABC Minneapolis affiliate KSTP.
John and Yvette Hoffman sat in the front row of the federal courtroom as Boelter admitted to firing multiple shots at them, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
When Boelter admitted that he shot Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman several times and then put a gun to her head and killed her, sobs broke out in the courtroom, KSTP reported.
Boelter initially pleaded not guilty to six federal counts, including murder, attempted murder and stalking.
This week, a Justice Department spokesperson said federal prosecutors would not seek the death penalty because a federal judge ruled earlier this year in an unrelated murder case that interstate stalking charges do not rise to the level to support a capital crime.
The crimes unfolded on June 14, 2025, when Boelter allegedly disguised himself as a police officer and fatally shot Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home.
That same day he allegedly drove to the home of Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and shot the lawmaker and his wife, Yvette, and attempted to shoot their daughter, according to prosecutors.
Following the attacks, police said they found a notebook in Boelter’s abandoned, fake police car containing a list of elected officials who investigators suspect were targeted in a plot that the Minnesota U.S. attorney described at the time as the “stuff of nightmares.”
Prosecutors said Boelter traveled to the homes of two other state lawmakers only to find no one at those locations.
Boelter has also pleaded not guilty to state charges of murder and attempted murder.
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(WASHINGTON) — A former CIA officer accused of stealing money from the government by lying about his academic credentials and military experience who authorities said had roughly $40 million worth of gold bars stashed in his house was ordered detained pending trial Friday by a federal judge in Virginia.
David Rush was described by a Justice Department prosecutor as a “master manipulator” who “cannot be trusted” — detailing a damning track record of lies that the government says only grows by the day as the FBI and intelligence community continue their investigation.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Pam Bondi was being ousted as his attorney general in a post on his social media platform, saying she’ll move to a role working in the private sector.
“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future,” Trump said in the post.
Trump’s deputy attorney general and former personal attorney Todd Blanche will serve as acting Attorney General, the president said.
“And our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General,” Trump wrote.
Trump had raised potentially removing Bondi as attorney general in recent discussions with senior administration officials, sources told ABC News on Wednesday, amid months of mounting frustration that the Justice Department isn’t doing enough to target his political opponents for prosecution.
Blanche previously served as Trump’s defense attorney in the cases brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and former special counsel Jack Smith.
He has served as the nation’s No. 2 law enforcement official since being confirmed by the Senate in March of last year, and previously served in the Justice Department as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.
Like Bondi, he has been vocal about his personal loyalties to President Trump and just last week appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he cheered the purge of prosecutors who previously worked on investigations into Trump and defended the DOJ from criticism by the MAGA base.
“So when people say, ‘Why aren’t you doing more?’ I welcome that criticism,” Blanche said. “Keep on putting pressure on us. Do you think it makes me upset when you go on X and say, ‘Come on, Blanche, why aren’t we doing more?’ You don’t know me. That’s what motivates me.”
The shakeup comes as Democrats and voting rights groups have expressed alarm that the White House may seek to use the DOJ and FBI to intervene in the midterm elections in November.
The president’s announcement brings an end to a rocky tenure for Bondi as the nation’s top law enforcement official, during which she aggressively sought to reshape the Justice Department as an enforcer of Trump’s agenda — repeatedly breaking with institutional norms implemented after the Watergate era that had encouraged independence from the political demands of the White House.
From her first days in office, Bondi emphasized her personal loyalty to Trump and echoed his longstanding grievances with the DOJ and FBI that the president and his allies have long accused of being “weaponized” against him.
During Trump’s first term in office he faced resistance from top officials at the DOJ and FBI against using the vast powers of their agencies to punish the president’s perceived enemies, but Bondi publicly embraced Trump’s demands to launch prosecutions against specific targets — to mixed effect.
The department’s attempts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James fell apart after a federal judge ruled that the Trump-appointed prosecutor who indicted them was appointed unlawfully. Attempts to revive the case against James were twice rejected by a grand jury, sources previously told ABC News.
A separate effort by the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, to indict six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video urging military service members to refuse to follow unlawful orders was also rejected by a grand jury — despite Trump’s accusation the group was guilty of “treason.”
Pirro and the department are separately appealing an order from the chief judge in Washington, D.C., that has put on hold their attempt to launch a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, another frequent target of Trump’s ire.
In recent months, Trump has repeatedly vented frustration to aides regarding both the pace and the effectiveness of the Justice Department’s ability to target his foes — concerns he had also conveyed directly to Bondi — according to sources familiar with the matter.
Trump and other senior White House officials have also criticized Bondi’s handling of the DOJ’s files from its investigations into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which has consumed months of media attention and led to widespread backlash from some of Trump’s most devoted supporters.
Bondi’s appearance in front of the House Judiciary Committee in February, in which she repeatedly yelled at lawmakers and sidestepped questions about the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files and other sensitive matters, was also a subject of some criticism at the White House, sources say. Trump posted afterward on social media that Bondi was “fantastic” at the hearing.
Weeks later, a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Oversight committee voted to subpoena Bondi with a demand that she sit for a deposition on the Epstein files in mid-April.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.
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