Due to security concerns, Trump likely won’t golf again until after election: Sources
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(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump has not played golf since the apparent assassination attempt near one of his courses last month, and is not expected to hit the golf course again until a new security plan is in place — which sources tell ABC News is not expected to be in effect until after the election.
The Secret Service had previously expressed its concern to Trump over his golfing and told him during a briefing last month that additional planning and security procedures are needed for him to be able to continue his golf outings.
Trump, who owns several golf courses, typically plays on a regular basis.
Asked about the development, a Secret Service spokesperson referred questions to the Trump campaign.
“Since the attempted assassination of former President Trump on July 13, the U.S. Secret Service has made comprehensive changes and enhancements to our communications capabilities, resourcing, and protective operations,” said Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi. “Today, the former President is receiving heightened protection and we take the responsibility to ensure his safety and security very seriously.”
Ryan Routh, 58, pleaded not guilty on Sept. 30 to federal charges in connection with an alleged attempt to assassinate Trump at the former president’s golf club in Florida. On the day of the alleged attempted assassination, Trump was playing golf on the course when a Secret Service agent spotted a gun barrel poking out from the tree line near the sixth green, according to investigators.
Routh fled after the agent fired in his direction, and was subsequently apprehended. Trump was not harmed in the incident.
(WILMINGTON, Del.) — The federal judge who oversaw Hunter Biden’s conviction on gun charges in Delaware has again agreed to delay his sentencing.
At the request of prosecutors, Hunter Biden’s sentencing in Delaware will be pushed back one week, from Dec. 4 to Dec. 12, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika ordered on Thursday.
Prosecutors in special counsel David Weiss’ office asked for the delay due to a conflict with their trial in the case against Alexander Smirnov, the FBI confidential source who is facing felony false statement and obstruction charges after authorities say he provided derogatory information about Hunter Biden and his father, President Joe Biden.
That trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 3.
Judge Noreika previously pushed back Hunter Biden’s Delaware sentencing date from Nov. 13 to Dec. 4, to allow Hunter Biden more time for his attorneys to gather materials for his sentencing memorandum.
Hunter Biden was found guilty in June on three felony counts related to his purchase of a firearm in 2018 while allegedly addicted to drugs.
Earlier this month, in a separate case, he pleaded guilty to nine federal tax-related charges in Los Angeles, where he is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16.
Text messages sent between parents and students at Apalachee High School during the Sept. 4, deadly shooting are shown here. — ABCNews Photo Illustration/ Sonya Turner/ ABC via Erin Clark/ Becky Van Der Walt
(WINDER, Ga.) — As students hid behind desks and doors during the latest deadly school shooting in the United States, they pulled out their cell phones.
It was just before 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, that Becky Van Der Walt received a text message from her son that no parent wants to receive.
“I think there’s a school shooting,” Van Der Walt’s son, Henry, a junior at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, wrote, according to text messages shared with ABC News. “We heard gunshots and the police shouting … We’re all in hard lockdown.”
Around eight minutes later, Henry sent another text to his mom with three simple words, “I love you.”
Around the same time Wednesday, Erin Clark, also a parent of an Apalachee High School student, saw a concerning text message pop up on her phone from her son, Ethan.
“School shooting rn .. i’m scared,” Ethan, the high school student, wrote to his mom. “pls i’m not joking.”
When Clark responded that she was leaving work, Ethan, too, responded with just three words: ” I love you.”
Sonya Turner was home for less than an hour Wednesday after dropping off her 15-year-old daughter at Apalachee High School when she too got a worrisome text.
“There’s a real lockdown,” Turner’s daughter Abby, a sophomore, wrote to her mom from biology class. “idk how to explain it … i heard shots but i don’t anymore.”
While Abby and her fellow classmates were texting their parents Wednesday morning, not knowing what would happen, a 14-year-old student had allegedly opened fire at Apalachee High, killing four people and injuring nine.
The 14-year-old student accused of opening fire at the school has been charged with four counts of felony murder, with additional charges expected, Georgia Bureau of Investigation officials said Thursday. A motive is not known.
Two teachers and two students were killed in the shooting: math teacher and football coach Richard Aspinwall, 39; math teacher Cristina Irimie, 53; and students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, according to officials.
Eight students and one teacher were injured, officials said, but all are expected to survive.
Becky Van Der Walt told ABC News it was “terrifying” to receive a text message about a school shooting from her son, with whom she reunited later in the day.
Ethan Clark also survived the shooting, as did Turner’s two daughters, Abby and Isabella, a 14-year-old freshman at Apalachee High.
Turner told ABC News that as soon as texts from her daughters about gunshots came in just before 10:30 a.m., she called her husband to go to the school, telling him, “It’s real. Go. Go. Go.'”
For the next hour, Turner, also the mom of a 9-year-old son, said she stayed glued to her phone, keeping her daughters calm, making sure they had safe places to hide and praying with them.
“Where are you hiding,” Turner asks in one text message, with Abby responding, “I’m behind a long desk.”
“Is there an additional closet or anything you can get in,” Turner asks Abby in a later message.
“No I can’t move … I’m not aloud to mo[v]e,” Abby replies, leading Turner to tell her, “Ok. Pray …,” while also texting prayers.
In another message, Turner asks her daughters to simply keep communicating with her so she knows they’re alive, writing to them, “Keep talking to me.”
Isabella, just a few weeks into her first year of high school, texted her mom, “I love you. Mommy im scared.” Grief counselors from Columbine, Parkland, Sandy Hook describe what happens after a school shooting
Turner said over the course of the morning, she received text messages not only from her daughters inside the school, but from fellow parents who were also communicating with their kids and helping each other as they intermittently lost communication.
“[A friend] has two kids [at Apalachee High School], and she couldn’t get one of them on the phone, and he turned out to be in the classroom of the first teacher that was pronounced dead,” Turner said. “She’s texting and texting and couldn’t get him and couldn’t get him, and that’s because he was trying to save his teacher.”
In another instance, Turner said she temporarily lost communication with Isabella.
“That was a total freak-out moment but her phone had gotten taken, the whole class, they took their phones,” Turner said, adding. “But when they ushered them all out onto the football field, she got to a friend who was able to text me … so I knew she was safe.”
Turner, who is recovering from abdominal surgery, said she ended up walking over one mile from her home to the high school, where, after several hours, she was able to reunite with her daughters.
“Abby just keeps hearing the gunshots, and their question now is, how do we go back to school,” Turner said. “Izzy’s stuff is all in her classroom right where she left it, and she’s like, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to go get it. I don’t want to go back into that room.’’
ABC News’ Caroline Guthrie contributed to this report.
(PHOENIX) — A number of ballots were damaged after a United States Post Office collection mailbox was lit on fire in Phoenix, police said.
An unknown individual lit a fire inside a drive-up collection mailbox at a USPS station early Thursday morning, according to the Phoenix Police Department, which said it responded to the scene at 1:20 a.m.
The Phoenix Fire Department was able to open the mailbox and extinguish the fire and the Postal Inspector took possession of the damaged ballots and miscellaneous mail, police said.
Phoenix police initially said that approximately 20 electoral ballots were damaged, though the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office later said it believes the fire only destroyed five ballots while warning that the final figure could still change.
The Phoenix Fire Investigations Task Force — which includes police detectives and fire investigators — is working with U.S. Postal Inspectors on the investigation, police said.
“I’m deeply troubled by the arson attack on a USPS collection box in Phoenix,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said in a statement. “This deliberate act of vandalism undermines the integrity of our democratic process.”
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said in a statement Thursday that officials are “waiting for details from law enforcement” regarding the incident.
Voters who used that mailbox in the last 36 hours can check the status of their ballots here, with an update on successful delivery usually reflected within 72 hours, he said.
The last day for registered voters to request an early ballot for the election in the battleground state is Friday.
“If a voter believes they were impacted by this incident they can learn more about how to make that request at Request.Maricopa.Vote,” Richer said.
Unlike USPS mailboxes, county ballot drop boxes across Arizona have fire suppression equipment, according to Fontes.
“One of the things that we have done in my office, for the drop boxes across the counties, is make sure that they have fire suppression equipment inside of those drop boxes,” Fontes said during a Zoom call with election officials on Thursday. “Unfortunately, the United States Postal Service doesn’t have that.”
