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Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  Yahoo! Voices

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

Arizona home inspector posted videos online. One builder filed a complaint  The Arizona Republic

General Daily Insight for July 24, 2024

Clarity can be glimpsed through cosmic fog. Still, with the intuitive Moon squaring optimistic Jupiter, it may be hard to see any red flags through our rose-colored glasses. The Moon also misunderstands balanced Venus, bringing a contrast between what we think should happen in a perfect world and what we’re actually feeling inside. Finally, the Moon will conjoin consistent Saturn at 4:31 pm EDT, grounding us and providing us with the mental fortitude to make long-term, stable decisions. Come back down to earth.

Aries

March 21 – April 19

Ignored issues could come back to bite you. You might be completely unaware of a problem or you may have consciously avoided this knowledge. Either way, it’s likely to make you feel lost in the dark, whatever form it takes. It could be that you don’t want it to be true because you liked how you felt better before you knew this piece of information, but disregarding it in this way doesn’t make it untrue. Be aware — it’s for the best.

Taurus

April 20 – May 20

Let your friends lead the way. The obvious answer may not be so obvious to you today, but to the people around you, it’s more likely to be understood. This can incite feelings of isolation or fear — that’s natural. Everyone is in the dark sometimes, and you deserve someone to lead us out of the darkness just as much as others do. Even though it might not initially resonate with you, pay attention to any recent advice you’ve received. It may come in handy.

Gemini

May 21 – June 20

You could be speaking up without knowing the whole story. While you may feel that you have all the information you need to make an informed decision about an idea, a business, or a person of authority in your life, it’s important to make sure that you actually know what you’re talking about. If not, you could run into trouble, so the less you say might be the better. Stick to talking about what you can back up with objective sources for the time being.

Cancer

June 21 – July 22

What makes you feel secure might require an upgrade. You may have been hanging onto something out of sentimentality or staying somewhere because of a sense of comfort it brings, but look around! If you’re outgrowing this comfort zone, you’ll notice the places where it’s starting to lose its luster. You could find your soul longing to step outside of the box that you’ve drawn around yourself — making plans to travel could be your best way out. Don’t confuse familiarity with positivity.

Leo

July 23 – August 22

Be wary of skipping over an important step. You may have many hopes and dreams, but when you picture them in your head, you could be mentally fast-forwarding over the more difficult tracks on the roadmap to success because they’re not as fun. However, if you continue to avoid these opportunities to work hard and prove that you’re tough enough to live your dreams, then you might find that you’re making less progress than you want to be. Don’t attempt to bypass necessary hard work!

Virgo

August 23 – September 22

You might be caught between what you want to do and what you have a responsibility to do. Temptation calls your name throughout the day, and exhaustion or impressionability could be making it even more difficult to resist. No matter how relaxing it sounds to ignore your work or let someone else pick up your slack, procrastination is unlikely to pay off in the end. To avoid souring future fun, it would be smart to get your responsibilities out of the way first!

Libra

September 23 – October 22

You might be made aware of a timewaster in your life. This could be a repetitive pattern that’s keeping you stuck in a rut, a habit that’s taking up too much of your focus, or even a person who’s impeding your full potential. You could be mentally living in the future or in a fantasy by getting lost in art, but stay alert! Such distractions mean you may miss out on what’s happening in your life in the present. Use your time wisely.

Scorpio

October 23 – November 21

Promises that you make could be risky. It’s important to make sure that you aren’t making unkeepable oaths –because you’re in danger of being tempted or even encouraged to make promises that are a bit out of your range. The people on the other side of these agreements won’t be happy if you fall short of what you said you would deliver! It’s a good idea to refrain from exaggerating, even if something feels possible in the heat of the moment.

Sagittarius

November 22 – December 21

Your emotions may be overly dependent on another person. Maybe there’s a peer or mentor in your life that you care deeply for or that you are counting on, but you may end up struggling if you rely on them too heavily at present. They may either be unwilling or unable to give you what you’re looking for, and it can be difficult to emotionally accept being let down by them. Make sure that you have a backup plan for any important projects.

Capricorn

December 22 – January 19

Hidden jealousy from others might be hard to spot. You might find that someone in your circle is not happy for you when it comes to a recent accomplishment or step up in the world. Perhaps they’ll consciously or unconsciously work to divert attention from you rather than encourage you or be honest about their envy. Those who are not in your corner may downplay your accomplishments or attempt to overshadow them, so pay attention to the genuine reactions your good news gets.

Aquarius

January 20 – February 18

You’re capable of having a fun day, but indulging in joyful distractions could cause you to miss out on an opportunity that you’ve been waiting for. It might be a choice between the smart, responsible thing to do and the fun, spontaneous thing to do. There’s not really a wrong direction to take, but you may feel a little disappointed if you focus on what you didn’t do rather than what you did. Just enjoy whichever path you choose to take!

Pisces

February 19 – March 20

Your heart can guide you back to what you truly want. It may be harder to see through the desires of everybody else when you’re trying to find your calling — or even just a hobby that makes you feel alive. You may be soul-searching right now, and it’s particularly important to find a quiet place where you can listen to your innermost desires and feelings. This should allow you to plot a course straight for them. Don’t shy away from feeling your feelings!

MIAMI — Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Nick Gordon each drove in two runs, Jesús Sánchez homered and Kyle Tyler and four relievers held Baltimore without a run after the third inning as the Miami Marlins beat the Orioles 6-3 on Tuesday night.

Baltimore, which slipped into a tie with Cleveland for the best record in the American League at 60-40, was slowed after losing second baseman Jorge Mateo and starting pitcher Albert Suárez due to injuries in the third inning.

Mateo collided with shortstop Gunnar Henderson as they dove to catch a grounder off the bat of Sánchez behind the second base bag and exited because of left elbow pain. He will undergo an MRI on Wednesday.

Suárez’s outing ended when Miami’s next hitter, Otto López, hit a comebacker that deflected off the pitcher’s right shin and rolled near the Marlins’ dugout on the third-base side for a single that loaded the bases. Suárez was diagnosed with a contusion.

“It hurts more now than when I got hit. The adrenaline is down now,” Suárez said. “The X-rays came out negative, thankfully. Just swollen. Nothing else.”

Chisholm had two hits, including a two-run double that capped a four-run second inning and put Miami ahead 4-1. Sánchez led off the inning with a 429-foot homer, his 12th of the season, and Gordon added a run-scoring single.

“Everybody before the game was talking about how they feel so good today and how we’re going to have a great series against the Orioles,” Chisholm said.

Chisholm also had two stolen bases and made a throw from center field that caught Colton Cowser at third after he took off from first on Ryan Mountcastle’s single in the third.

“We talked about in the pre-game that you can’t hurt ourselves on the bases and give away extra outs,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “We have to play the game the right way in order to beat a team like that. I felt like we did that.”

Josh Bell and Otto López each had a pair of singles for the Marlins, who have the worst record in the National League at 36-65.

Tyler, promoted from Triple-A Tuesday, struck out five and allowed three earned runs in 4 2/3 innings. A.J. Puk (4-8) pitched two perfect innings of relief for the win. Tanner Scott closed with a scoreless ninth for his 17th save.

Marlins relievers have allowed three runs over 18 innings since the All-Star break.

“That’s our jobs down there, when your name’s called, get the job done,” Puk said. “We’re relaxed and confident and throwing the ball well.”

Suárez (5-4) gave up six runs and eight hits in two-plus innings.

The Orioles scored two runs in the third on RBI singles by Ryan O’Hearn and Colton Cowser, before the Marlins extended their lead to 6-3 in the bottom half of the inning on a sacrifice fly by Xavier Edwards and Gordon’s RBI groundout.

“We just did not play well,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “We made a lot of mistakes early in the game, ran ourselves out of innings twice. We need to play better.”

Jordan Westburg’s run-scoring single in the first provided an early lead for Baltimore, which leads the majors in homers with 157 but didn’t have another hit after O’Hearn’s two-out single in the fifth.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Marlins: LHP Josh Simpson (left elbow neuritis) threw a 35-pitch bullpen Tuesday and could be scheduled for two additional bullpens before he progresses to throw live batting practice. … RHP Yonny Chirinos was designated for assignment to make room Tyler’ on the roster.

UP NEXT

RHP Chayce McDermott will make his major league debut for the Orioles in the second game of the series Wednesday while the Marlins will go with RHP Edward Cabrera (1-3, 7.36 ERA).

By STEVE KARNOWSKI

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — State election directors from across the country voiced serious concerns to a top U.S. Postal Service official Tuesday that the system won’t be able to handle an expected crush of mail-in ballots in the November election.

Steven Carter, manager of election and government programs for the postal service, attempted to reassure the directors at a meeting in Minneapolis that the system’s Office of Inspector General will publish an election mail report next week containing “encouraging” performance numbers for this year so far.

“The data that that we’re seeing showing improvements in the right direction,” Carter told a conference of the National Association of State Election Directors. “And I think the OIG report is especially complimentary of how we’re handling the election now.”

But state election directors stressed to Carter that they’re still worried that too many ballots won’t be delivered in time to be counted in November. They based their fears on past problems and a disruptive consolidation of postal facilities across the country that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has put on hold until after the elections.

Monica Evans, executive director of the District of Columbia Board of Elections, recounted how she never received her mail ballot for her own June primary. She ended up voting in person.

“We had, at last count, over 80 ballots that were timely mailed as early as May for our June 4 primary election,” Evans said, noting that her office could have accepted them as late as June 14, but they still arrived too late. “We followed up and we just kept getting, ‘We don’t know what happened. We don’t know what happened.’”

While former President Donald Trump has complained without foundation that fraudulent mailed ballots cost him a second term in 2020, mail-in voting has become a key component of each party’s strategy to maximize the turnout of their voters in 2024. Now Republicans, sometimes including Trump, see it as necessary for an election that is likely to be decided by razor-thin margins in a handful of swing states. Republicans once were at least as likely as Democrats to vote by mail, but Trump changed the dynamics in 2020 when he began to argue against it months before voting began.

Bryan Caskey, the elections director for Kansas who’s also the association’s incoming president, asked Carter to consider a hypothetical jurisdiction that has a 95% on-time rate for mail deliveries, which he said is better than what almost all states are getting.

“That still means that in the state that sends out 100,000 ballots, that’s 5,000 pissed-off, angry voters that are mad about the mail service,” Caskey said, adding, “Actual elections are being determined by these delays, and I just want to make sure that you’re hearing why we’re so upset.”

“It’s totally understandable,” Carter said. “The frustration is understandable.”

The association’s current president, Mandy Vigil, the elections director for New Mexico, said in an interview afterward that she appreciated that the service was at least willing to engage with the state officials, but that she’s concerned that there isn’t enough time before the general election.

“I think that we are at a place where we really need them to pay attention,” Vigil said. “You know, we’ve been voicing our concerns since last November. But we just aren’t seeing the changes as we’re working through our primary elections. And when it comes to November, like, we need to see a difference.”

Nineteen senators wrote to DeJoy last month asking the postmaster general about the service’s policies and plans to prepare for the 2024 election cycle. They pointed out how the first regional consolidation, in Virginia last year, led to delivery delays that led some local election officials there to direct residents to bypass the mail and place their primary election ballots in designated drop boxes. They noted that Virginia’s on-time delivery rate fell below 72% for fiscal 2024, or over 15% below the national average.

Other consolidations have been blamed for degraded service in Oregon, Virginia, Texas and Missouri. The consolidation has also created concern among lawmakers in Utah, where state law requires that ballots be mailed from within Utah, but the postal service now processes mail from some counties in Nevada after moving some operations from Provo to Las Vegas. The entire Minnesota and North Dakota congressional delegations wrote to DeLoy last month after an inspector general’s audit documented nearly 131,000 missing or delayed pieces of mail at six post offices over the course of just two days.

DeJoy paused the cost-cutting consolidations until January 2025 in the wake of bipartisan criticism, but lawmakers want a commitment that the resumption won’t lead to further delivery delays.

TALLAHASSEE — University of Florida trustees Tuesday brought back former President Kent Fuchs to lead the school on an interim basis, after the sudden resignation of President Ben Sasse.

Fuchs, who spent about eight years as UF president, will return to the role on Aug. 1.

Sasse, who has been president less than two years, announced Thursday he will step down effective July 31 because of his wife’s health. He said he would work with Fuchs on the transition.

“I just want to offer whatever help. I’ll be able to carry water and row alongside him,” Sasse said.
Fuchs’ return was first announced in an email distributed to the university before a vote by the Board of Trustees late Tuesday afternoon. The appointment also requires approval from the state university system’s Board of Governors.

Fuchs said his role over the next year will be to ensure the university maintains its momentum and to “make sure the university’s in just great shape and prepared for that next leader.”

“I plan to lean into the job and enjoy it. And I believe that can become contagious for all of us,” Fuchs said during the brief trustees conference call. “So, it’ll be a year of fun, as well as hard work.”

Fuchs, who left the presidency in early 2023, came to UF in 2015 after serving as provost of Cornell University. During his time as president, he was credited with helping boost UF into the top 10 of public universities in the closely watched U.S. News & World Report rankings and for guiding the university during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Fuchs also drew controversy over issues such as a decision to prevent three political-science professors from serving as expert witnesses against the state in a lawsuit over a high-profile elections law. The university ultimately walked back the decision, but not before the issue drew national media attention and a federal lawsuit in which six professors alleged a UF policy violated First Amendment rights.

After leaving the presidency, Fuchs worked as a professor in the university’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.

Sasse left a Nebraska U.S. Senate seat to take the Gainesville job and will remain at the university as a professor.

A compensation package for Fuchs wasn’t immediately released.

Sasse’s five-year contract includes a $1 million base salary, with annual performance bonuses of up to 15 percent. He will forego a $1 million payout that would have been provided if he served the full five-year term.

Fuchs had a total compensation package of $1.4 million a year when he left the president position.
The Board of Trustees is expected to start a national search for a permanent replacement for Sasse.

What once seemed like an easy decision — disciplining the mom of a transgender student for allegedly violating a state law — has turned into a tough dilemma for Broward School Board members.

They weren’t ready to make a decision at a Tuesday board meeting at Plantation High about whether to fire or impose some other discipline against Jessica Norton, an employee who allowed her transgender daughter to play girls’ volleyball for Monarch High in Coconut Creek. A 2021 state law known as the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act bans students who are born male from playing girls’ sports.

The School Board plans to discuss the issue again at a July 30 meeting.

Superintendent Howard Hepburn has recommended firing her. Whether that will be his recommendation next week remains to be seen. Some board members said termination was too harsh and that she was a scapegoat. Others criticized the district’s investigation as flawed.

Norton was removed from her job as information specialist at Monarch High in late November, as the district launched an investigation. She said after Tuesday’s meeting she appreciates the board is reviewing the case closely, but she’s also ready for the matter to be over.

“It’s been 239 days. It’s been very taxing on my family, and we deserve a resolution,” she said. “It’s been really hard to deal with this.”

Jessica Norton, parent of a transgender student and volleyball player formerly at Monarch High School, reacts Tuesday as the Broward County School Board discusses her daughter during a meeting at Plantation High School. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

The matter was supposed to be resolved last month but was pulled by Hepburn a few days before the meeting, with district officials citing a packed agenda.

The latest delay came after board member Torey Alston asked Hepburn on Tuesday to provide information on what discipline has been imposed on other employees who violated state laws. Alston said he’d heard allegations the efforts to terminate Norton are political, and he said he wants to make a “data-driven decision” consistent with similar cases.

Hepburn told him there are no similar cases but agreed to review the matter further.

Several board members and public speakers said the issue had been politicized by the state. The district used to be a champion of LGBTQ issues, even passing a resolution in 2021 opposing the transgender sports ban.

But the School Board, while still left-leaning, has shifted more to the right in recent years, due to several Republicans joining and the state Legislature passing a number of laws that critics see as anti-LGBTQ that the district has tried to enforce.

As Broward started investigating the Monarch High student in November, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education released a statement saying Gov. Ron DeSantis won’t tolerate anyone being born male playing girls sports, and the state expected “serious consequences” for those who broke the law.

But who exactly should be held accountable and what the discipline should be has proven elusive for the school district. At least seven district administrators at two schools were investigated related to the athlete but all denied knowing for sure the student was transgender. Former Superintendent Peter Licata recommended the administrators get three-day suspensions, but Hepburn cleared them before their cases could come to the board, leaving only Norton to face discipline.

Norton had worked for the district since 2017 with no prior issues and had received top marks on most evaluations.

Creating more uncertainty, General Counsel Marylin Batista told the School Board there is nothing in the state law that addresses discipline for employees who violate the law. The law says the recourse is a family who believes their child has been harmed as a result of a transgender child’s participation gets to sue the school district.

Broward School Board member Daniel Foganholi speaks during a discussion about Jessica Norton, parent of a transgender student and volleyball player formerly at Monarch High School, during a meeting at Plantation High School on Tuesday. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Board member Daniel Foganholi, who has said he is opposed to transgender girls playing on girls sports teams, questioned whether there was selective enforcement. He said “it’s clear” other people in the district knew the student played girls’ sports, since the family had filed a lawsuit against the school district and the state in 2021 challenging the law.

“This whole situation feels like it’s literally putting out one sole person for what multiple people should be held accountable for,” Foganholi said. “It feels like you’re using one person as a scapegoat in this situation and it feels wrong.”

Norton said after the meeting, “I agree with him. There’s no other way around it.”

In an unexpected juxtaposition to the normal divide on the board, Debbi Hixon, one of the board’s more liberal members, called for strict consequences against the mom. Hixon said she should be banned from being able to access student records, a restriction that would disqualify Norton from her current job.

“I just don’t believe she understands the severity of what happened when she decided to do what she did and would not feel bad doing it again,” Hixon said. “I appreciate a mom fighting for the rights of their children, but she crossed a line in protecting her daughter that affected many other people and children.”

The case led the Florida High School Athletic Association to fine the school $16,500 for violating the state law, and the Monarch principal was temporarily reassigned, causing the school to be led by an assistant principal for most of the school year.

But some board members said they didn’t understand why Hepburn recommended termination, when a professional standards committee, made up of district administrators, reviewed the case and recommended a 10-day suspension. Hepburn said Tuesday there was “willful neglect to follow the law” as outlined in a report by the district’s Special Investigative Unit.

But that investigation included a number of errors as well as details that were later contradicted by the district. Norton’s lawyers also argued the report often criticized her for actions she took as a parent, not an employee, before the state law was even passed.

One allegation is the mom listed the child’s birth as female on a sports participation form, which was contrary to the child’s birth certificate at the time. However, that request was made prior to the women’s sports law taking effect in July 2021, and the mother was months away from finalizing a gender change on the child’s birth certificate, the report showed.

Jessica and Gary Norton, parents of a transgender student and volleyball player formerly of Monarch High School, leave a Broward County School Board meeting at Plantation High School, on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

The investigative report said the mom asked an employee at her child’s elementary school in 2017 to change the gender of the child and didn’t provide proper documentation, which the investigation said was a violation of district policy. But on Tuesday, Board member Sarah Leonardi asked Jaime Alberti, chief of safety and security, about that and got a different answer.

“I do not think the policy was in place in 2017. I think the policy changed later,” Alberti responded.

Norton told investigators she made the request for the school to make a gender change in the computer system after attending an LGBTQ roundtable with then-Superintendent Robert Runcie. The police investigation questioned whether the meeting took place.

“All calendars were reviewed and no LGBTQ+ roundtable meeting was found between March 2017 and June 2017,” a detective wrote in a supplementary investigative report.

But within the exhibits of the same report, there are three pages of emails and a calendar entry about a superintendent’s LGBTQ roundtable held on May 5, 2017.

Some School Board members suggested that Norton used her position as an information management specialist to change her own child’s records. The investigation found one example of that, where she changed her child’s legal name to the current girl’s name. But the investigators voiced no concern about that in the report because the child’s name had been legally changed in court.

“That was a true and lawful change because you had the correct documentation,” Detective Holly Tello told Norton in an interview. “Just for the record I want to make sure that that’s clear.”

“Correct,” Norton replied.

Board member Jeff Holness was the only board member to oppose delaying the matter. He asked the School Board to approve a five-day suspension Tuesday. He said the family has already suffered a lot. The student withdrew from Monarch and enrolled in online school and was banned from playing any sports for year.

“All of us dropped the ball in some way. We need to collect information accurately, and I don’t believe we did that,” Holness said. “I believe we should provide some consequence to the parent but not termination.”

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, CLAUDIA LAUER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two local law enforcement officers stationed in the complex of buildings where a gunman opened fire at former President Donald Trump left to go search for the man before the shooting, the head of Pennsylvania State Police said Tuesday, raising questions about whether a key post was left unattended as the shooter climbed onto a roof.

Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher Paris told a congressional committee that two Butler County Emergency Services Unit officers were stationed at a second-floor window in the complex of buildings that form AGR International Inc. They spotted Thomas Matthew Crooks acting suspiciously on the ground and left their post to look for him along with other law enforcement officers, he said.

Paris said he didn’t know whether officers would have been able to see Crooks climbing onto the roof of an adjacent building had they remained at the window. A video taken by a lawmaker who visited the shooting site on Monday shows a second-story window of the building had a clear view of the roof where Crooks opened fire; it was unclear if the video showed the window where the officers had been stationed.

The Pennsylvania State Police commissioner’s testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee provides new insight into security preparations for the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, but raises further questions about law enforcement’s decisions before Crooks opened fire.

Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger, who oversees the emergency services unit, didn’t immediately respond to a text message Tuesday from The Associated Press. A Secret Service spokesperson didn’t respond to questions from the AP, including who gave the command for those officers to leave their post.

The revelation comes amid growing questions about a multitude of security failures that allowed the 20-year-old gunman to get onto the roof and fire eight shots with an AR-style rifle into the crowd shortly after Trump began speaking. One spectator was killed and two others were injured. Trump suffered an ear injury but was not seriously hurt.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned earlier Tuesday, a day after she was berated for hours by Democrats and Republicans over the agency’s failure to protect the Republican presidential nominee. Cheatle told lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Monday that the assassination attempt was the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades.

The Homeland Security Committee also had asked Cheatle to testify but lawmakers said she refused. Cheatle’s name was on a card on a table in front of an empty chair during the hearing, which began shortly before her decision to step down became public.

Several investigations into the shooting by the Biden administration and lawmakers are underway. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday they are supporting a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempt on Trump’s life. The House could vote as soon as Wednesday to establish the task force, which will be comprised of seven Republicans and six Democrats.

Local law enforcement began to search for Crooks after they noticed him acting strangely and saw him with a rangefinder, a small device resembling binoculars that hunters use to measure distance from a target. Officers didn’t find him around the building and a local officer climbed up to the roof to investigate. The gunman turned and pointed his rifle at him. The officer did not — or could not — fire a single shot. Crooks opened fire toward the former president seconds later, officials have said.

Cheatle acknowledged that the Secret Service was told about a suspicious person two to five times before the shooting, but there was no indication at that time that he had a weapon. She also revealed that the roof from which Crooks opened fire had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally. Cheatle said Trump would never have been brought onto the stage had Secret Service been aware there was an “actual threat,” but Crooks wasn’t deemed to be a “threat” until seconds before he began shooting.

Authorities have been hunting for clues into what motivated Crooks but have not found any ideological bent that could help explain his actions. Investigators who searched his phone found photos of Trump, President Joe Biden and other senior government officials. He also searched for the dates for the Democratic National Conventional as well as Trump’s appearances and searched for information about major depressive disorder.

_____

Lauer reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press reporters Michael R. Sisak in New York and Kevin Freking in Washington contributed.