Possible mass shooting at graduation thwarted; guns recovered, 1 suspect at large: Sheriff
Oakland County Sheriff’s Office
(OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich.) — A possible mass shooting plot at a Michigan graduation ceremony was thwarted, authorities said, and police are searching for one of the suspects who remains at large.
The apparent plot was revealed after authorities responded to a fight that broke out during the Arts and Technology Academy of Pontiac graduation, which was held Tuesday at a business in Pontiac, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.
“A person approached our deputies and gave them information that a family member had told them that they had seen on Snapchat a threat to shoot up this graduation ceremony,” Bouchard said at a news conference Friday.
Authorities kept investigating and recovered two loaded guns with high-capacity magazines from under cars in the parking lot, the sheriff said.
Law enforcement “probably prevented a mass shooting,” the sheriff said.
One suspect, 19-year-old Deahveon Shamar-James Whaley, has been arrested, Bouchard said. Authorities are searching for a second suspect, 20-year-old Jamarion Jaryante Hardiman, the sheriff said.
Hardiman and Whaley were not students at the K-12 charter school but were connected via “friends and relatives,” the sheriff said, and they appeared to have “ongoing disputes with individuals in the community.”
Hardiman and Whaley “have a history of being involved with weapons and violence,” he added.
Bouchard said he’s alarmed “how close it was, potentially, to being another mass shooting.”
Oakland County is home to Oxford High School, where teenager Ethan Crumbley carried out a mass shooting in 2021.
The sheriff urged the public to share information about threats of violence.
“If you see something, say something,” he said.
In this thwarted attack, “Someone saw that [Snapchat] post,” Bouchard said, but deputies “didn’t hear about it until after we had arrived on the scene” to respond to the fight.
Anyone who sees Hardiman should call 911, the sheriff said.
(LOS ANGELES) — California importers could be hit hardest by the new import tariffs — potentially paying over $170 billion more for imports than they did last year, according to newly released data by trade economists.
Texas importers rank second, with an estimated $82 billion increase. Altogether, the United States could pay over $712 billion more in import tariffs this year compared to 2024.
At 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday, President Donald Trump is set to impose individualized reciprocal higher tariffs on the countries with which the United States has the largest trade deficits.
All other countries will continue to be subject to the original 10% tariff baseline.
During remarks Tuesday, Trump claimed his newly announced tariffs would bring in billions per day. “We’re taking in almost $2 billion a day in tariffs,” said Trump. “These are tailored — highly tailored deals.”
While the lasting economic impact of Trump’s sweeping tariffs stands to be seen, Trade Partnership Worldwide, a group of economists and trade policy consultants, has released data on how much importers could pay in each state for 2025.
These payment increase predictions are based on 2024 import data for each state, according to Trade Partnership Worldwide.
The predictions reflect how much more importers would pay in tariffs by state this year if demand remained identical to 2024 — indicating which states could end up paying the most under the new tariff policy.
“As a disclaimer, we do not foresee demand for imports remaining the same as 2024 due to the tariffs,” said Daniel Anthony, president of Trade Partnership Worldwide. “But this gives us a good indicator of the size, scope and impact these tariffs could have on each state.”
Michigan importers could see over $27 billion in tariff payments for 2025, according to the data. About 20% of all U.S. auto production occurred in Michigan in 2023, according to the Detroit Regional Chamber.
The group’s predictive analysis applies all of the new tariffs Trump announced last week to the number of goods Americans imported last year.
Those tariffs include the president’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act actions on Canada, Mexico, China and Hong Kong and additional tariffs on steel, aluminum, derivative products and auto parts.
For the moment, their prediction does not include the additional tariff on Chinese imports the president may implement on Wednesday.
This prediction excluded products covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, in accordance with the new tariffs.
(NEW YORK) — Wendy Brugh, owner of Dry Ridge Farm in Marshall, North Carolina, said President Donald Trump’s tariffs announcement is like “pouring salt in a wound that is just now beginning to heal.”
During a gathering of small business owners on Wednesday, she said tariffs will increase the costs of “everything from fertilizer and feed to construction materials and tractors,” hitting the farming community while it still recovers from crop losses after Hurricane Helene.
“We’re personally faced with the uncertainty of how retaliatory tariffs will affect our largest expense, our animal feed,” Brugh told ABC News’ Asheville affiliate WLOS.
Brugh and other small business owners are weighing in on the tariffs Trump unveiled against virtually all U.S. trading partners on Wednesday afternoon. He described the tariffs as “kind reciprocal” and will focus on nations he claimed were the worst offenders in trade relations with the U.S.
The new measures — which Trump described as “historic” — include a minimum baseline tariff of 10% on all trading partners and further, more targeted punitive levies on certain countries, including China, the European Union and Taiwan.
“We will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us,” he said, adding, “because we are being very kind.”
Hendrick Svendsen, the owner of a furniture store in Merriam, Kansas, told ABC News on Wednesday he has decided to close his store due to Trump’s tariffs announcement.
“We just made the decision we are going to close down, we will be out in August,” Svendsen said.
He said there is no way to continue the store’s operation by using American-made products, with 90% of their items made overseas.
“I don’t think that furniture manufacturing is ever going to come back to the U.S. North Carolina, where it used to be made, it’s like a ghost town,” Svendsen said on ABC News Live. “When it comes to skill and workers, I don’t think we have that in the U.S.”
Furniture manufacturing jobs in the United States have declined over the past few months, with 336,900 reported in February, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But, there are individuals who are optimistic about the tariffs, including Duane Paddock, the owner of a Chevrolet dealership in Buffalo, New York. He told ABC News Live that he has seen the best sales in 13 years.
While he is uncertain of the exact impact of the tariffs, he said he is hopeful that Trump’s announcement is the “best thing for our country” and that his dealership will continue to “keep prices as low as possible and do our fair share to help the customers.”
“Whether President Trump was a Democrat or Republican, I have to have faith in my president and that’s what I choose to do,” Paddock said.
He also stressed the importance of these tariffs allowing for products to be made in the United States.
“It’s a great opportunity for people to get back with manufacturing and have an opportunity to have a great middle-class life and increase their compensation over the course of time,” Paddock said.
But Leah Ashburn, the president and CEO of Highland Brewing in North Carolina, said moving to American production is not feasible in all industries, especially her company, which relies on aluminum to make beer cans. While there are existing aluminum manufacturers in the United States, Canada is still the fourth-largest primary aluminum provider, behind China, India and Russia, according to the Canadian government.
In 2021, the United States accounted for less than 2% of global aluminum production, according to a Congressional Research Service Report.
“The U.S. simply can’t pivot to making aluminum cans,” Ashburn told WLOS. “Mining is not done here. Aluminum is 95% brought in from other countries, and we are dependent on Canada. The effort to make aluminum here would be complex, costly and take a lot of time. It won’t come soon enough.”
She also said her business cannot raise their prices because consumers have “hit their limit on what they’re going to pay for a six-pack.”
The 10% baseline tariff rate goes into effect on April 5, according to senior White House officials. The “kind reciprocal” tariffs go into effect April 9 at 12:01 a.m., officials said, and will affect roughly 60 countries.
ABC News’ Jaclyn Lee, Alexandra Hutzler, Lauren Lantry and Michael Pappano contributed to this report
(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors are urging a judge to sentence disgraced former U.S. Rep. George Santos to seven years and three months in prison, calling his conduct a “brazen web of deceit” that defrauded donors, misled voters, and fueled his political rise through lies, theft, and identity fraud.
The government outlined the extent of Santos’s fraudulent activity across the 2020 and 2022 election cycles in a detailed sentencing memo filed on Friday.
Prosecutors allege Santos, 35, with the help of former Campaign Treasurer Nancy Marks, falsified Federal Election Commission filings, fabricating donor contributions and inflating fundraising totals to meet the $250,000 threshold required to join the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) coveted “Young Guns” program. Marks pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing in June.
When informed he hadn’t reached the NRCC benchmark, Santos texted an associate, “We are going to do this a little differently. I got it.”
That “different” approach included submitting fake donations attributed to family members, fictitious individuals and even identities stolen from elderly supporters, according to the filing.
In tandem, Santos was running a fraudulent political consulting firm, Redstone Strategies LLC, falsely presenting it as a registered Super PAC or 501(c)(4) nonprofit. It was neither, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Santos used Redstone to launder donor money, keep commissions and fund personal expenses. In one scheme, he used an elderly woman’s credit card — originally provided for a one-time donation — to charge $12,000 through Redstone’s merchant account, netting himself $11,580 after fees. He wired the money directly into his personal bank account.
When questioned by his business partner, Santos lied, claiming the woman — who suffers from a brain injury — was a consulting client, according to the filing. Between February and August 2022, prosecutors say Santos used her credit card repeatedly, attributing donations to her, her daughter, or fictitious names.
Another victim, referred to as “Individual 2” in the filing, had their credit card charged at least five times in March 2022, totaling more than $30,000 in fake campaign contributions, including some attributed to Santos’s uncle and to people who didn’t exist. These donations were strategically routed to other campaigns that were clients of Redstone, ensuring Santos earned a financial kickback while boosting his political visibility.
In July 2020, he used another victim’s credit card to contribute $28,400 to his own campaign, some under the name of a personal friend who neither donated nor gave consent, according to the filing.
In April 2022, prosecutors say Santos falsely reported a $500,000 personal loan to his campaign, enabling him to boast an $800,000 Q1 fundraising haul. He approved a press release promoting the lie and pitched the narrative in conversations with Republican leaders, including a sitting congresswoman. According to the prosecution, the loan never existed.
That lie, combined with his doctored FEC filings and a fabricated resume claiming degrees from NYU and jobs at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, helped Santos secure Young Guns status from the NRCC in June 2022. The designation brought significant support: $103,000 in advertising, $33,000 in polling, and direct contributions from joint fundraising efforts.
However, by fall 2022, campaign staffers discovered the truth. When confronted about the nonexistent loan, Santos admitted it wasn’t real and scrambled to fill the gap by soliciting a $450,000 loan from a donor referred to as “Individual 1” in the filing. Santos wired $400,000 of it to his campaign, never reported it to the FEC, and never repaid the donor. He covered the remaining $100,000 by misappropriating more funds from the same donor via Redstone.
Santos was expelled from Congress in December 2023 and has pleaded guilty wire fraud and aggravated identity fraud.
Defense attorneys said in their own memo Santos deserves no more than two years in prison, arguing he “accepted full responsibility for his actions.”
“This plea is not just an admission of guilt,” Santos told reporters in August. “It’s an acknowledgment that I need to be held accountable like any other American that breaks the law.”
The former congressman’s sentencing is on April 30.
