AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Suspect in apparent assassination attempt on Trump was near golf course for 12 hours, records show

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The man suspected in an apparent assassination attempt targeting Donald Trump camped outside a Florida golf course with food and a rifle for nearly 12 hours, lying in wait for the former president before a Secret Service agent thwarted the potential attack and opened fire, according to court documents filed Monday.

Ryan Wesley Routh did not fire any shots, never had Trump in his line of sight and sped away after an agent who spotted him shot in his direction, officials said. He was arrested in a neighboring county.

Routh, 58, appeared in federal court in West Palm Beach to face federal firearms charges, starting a criminal case in the final weeks of a presidential race already touched by violence and upheaval. Though no one was injured, the episode marked the second attempt on Trump's life in as many months, raising questions about the security provided to him during a time of amped-up political rhetoric and what the Secret Service chief called an “unprecedented and hyper-dynamic threat environment.”

Even as Trump's Republican allies and some Democrats demanded answers about how a would-be shooter was able to get so close to Trump, Ronald Rowe Jr., the Secret Service's acting director, offered a fiery defense of the agents he said were “rising to this moment” despite needing additional resources.

“The men and women of the Secret Service, right now, we are redlining them, and they are rising to this moment, and they are meeting the challenges,” Rowe said, citing recent political conventions and other major events that required extensive protective details.

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Man who appeared intent on killing Trump wrote a book urging Iran to assassinate the ex-president

KAAAWA, Hawaii (AP) — Ryan Wesley Routh portrayed himself online as a man who built housing for homeless people in Hawaii, tried to recruit fighters for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, and described his support and then disdain for Donald Trump — even urging Iran to kill him.

“You are free to assassinate Trump,” Routh wrote of Iran in an apparently self-published book in 2023, “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” which described the former president as a “fool” and “buffoon” for both the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the “tremendous blunder” of leaving the Iran nuclear deal.

Routh wrote that he once voted for Trump and must take part of the blame for the "child that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless.”

Routh, 58, was arrested Sunday after authorities say he stalked the GOP presidential nominee as he golfed in West Palm Beach, Florida, with an SKS-style rifle in an apparent assassination attempt thwarted by the Secret Service.

Through his voluminous online footprint, public records, news interviews and videos, a picture emerged of Routh as a man with a criminal past, plenty of outrage and views ranging from the left to the right, including support for Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Nikki Haley and Trump.

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Sean 'Diddy' Combs is arrested in New York after federal indictment

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy" Combs was arrested late Monday in New York, where he faces a sealed criminal indictment, prosecutors announced late Monday.

Details of the charges weren't immediately announced by prosecutors, but the hip-hop mogul has faced a stream of allegations by women in recent months who accused him of sexual assault.

The U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Damian Williams, said in a statement that federal agents arrested Combs. “We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”

Combs' lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, issued a statement saying: “We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

He added that Combs had gone to New York last week in anticipation of the charges being brought.

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Donald Trump doesn't share details about his family's cryptocurrency venture during X launch event

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday launched his family's cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, with an interview on the X social media platform in which he also gave his first public comments on the apparent assassination attempt against him a day earlier.

Trump did not discuss specifics about World Liberty Financial or how it would work, pivoting from questions about cryptocurrency to talking about artificial intelligence or other topics. Instead, he recounted his experience Sunday, saying he and a friend playing golf “heard shots being fired in the air, and I guess probably four or five.”

“I would have loved to have sank that last putt,” Trump said. He credited the Secret Service agent who spotted the barrel of a rifle and began firing toward it as well as law enforcement and a civilian who he said helped track down the suspect.

World Liberty Financial is expected to be a borrowing and lending service used to trade cryptocurrencies, which are forms of digital money that can be traded over the internet without relying on the global banking system. Exchanges often charge fees for withdrawals of Bitcoin and other currencies.

Other speakers after Trump, including his eldest son, Don Jr., talked about embracing cryptocurrency as an alternative to what they allege is a banking system tilted against conservatives.

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Vance and Georgia Gov. Kemp project Republican unity at evangelical event after Trump tensions

ATLANTA (AP) — A leading conservative Christian group put on a show of Republican unity Monday, cementing the new détente between Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and GOP nominee Donald Trump while vice presidential nominee JD Vance tried to smooth over differences on abortion policy across the evangelical community ahead of Election Day.

The Faith & Freedom Coalition, led by longtime evangelical political powerhouse Ralph Reed, brought Vance and Kemp to the same stage with a shared focus: advocating for Trump, criticizing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and ignoring several years of tension stemming from Trump’s attacks on Kemp for his refusal to help overturn Trump's 2020 defeat. Trump's efforts to undo the election results led to criminal charges against him in the state.

“We have to expand our majority in Congress, take back control of the U.S. Senate and send Donald Trump back to the White House,” Kemp told a full ballroom of evangelical political activists and donors.

Vance, for his part, praised Kemp as “incredible, patriotic and very effective,” and added praise for Kemp’s wife, Marty — a far cry from Trump's using social media posts and an Atlanta rally in August to accuse the governor of “fighting Unity and the Republican Party” and criticizing Georgia’s first lady for saying she planned to write in her husband’s name on her presidential ballot.

Kemp and Vance also met backstage during the event.

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Massive pipeline fire burning near Houston began after a vehicle struck a valve, officials say

DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — A massive pipeline explosion that sent a towering flame over neighborhoods near Houston for hours on Monday began after a vehicle drove through a fence and struck an above-ground valve, officials said.

Deer Park officials said police and local FBI agents found no evidence of “terroristic activity" and said it appears to be an isolated incident. The ongoing investigation includes an effort to identify the driver. The blaze forced evacuations and shelter orders in the area, including at schools.

Operators shut off the flow of natural gas liquids in the pipeline, but so much remained in the miles of pipe that firefighters could do nothing but watch and hose down adjacent homes as a towering flame still lit up the night sky after sunset Monday. Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr. said the flames might continue into Tuesday morning.

“The fire, it’s very hot, so a lot of the house structures that are adjacent to that are still catching on fire even though we’re putting a lot of water on them,” Mouton said at an afternoon news conference.

Firefighters were dispatched at 9:55 a.m., after an explosion at a valve station in Deer Park and right next to La Porte rattled adjacent homes and businesses, including a Walmart. Deer Park officials said an SUV drove into the valve after going through a fence on the side of the Walmart parking lot.

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US airs frustration with Israel's military about strikes in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Monday accused Israel’s military of striking schools, humanitarian workers and civilians in Gaza in a sign of growing American frustration with its close ally as the war approaches its first anniversary.

Israel has repeatedly said it targets Hamas militants, who often hide with civilians and use them as human shields, in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and launched the war in Gaza.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield was unusually outspoken against the Israeli military at a U.N. Security Council meeting, saying many of the strikes in recent weeks that injured or killed U.N. personnel and humanitarian workers “were preventable.”

Many council members cited last week’s Israeli strike on a former school turned civilian shelter run by the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, in which six UNRWA staffers were among at least 18 people killed, including women and children.

Israel said it targeted a Hamas command-and-control center in the compound, and Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, asserted Monday that Hamas militants were killed in the strike. He named four, claiming to the council that they worked for UNRWA during the day and Hamas at night.

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Ohio state police to protect schools after furor over Haitian immigrants in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Ohio state police will help protect schools in a city at the center of a political furor over Haitian migrants, the governor announced Monday, while local officials canceled an annual celebration of cultural diversity in the fallout over former President Donald Trump’s false claims about pet-eating.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has denounced the debunked rumors that spread online before Trump amplified them at last week's presidential debate, saying there is no evidence of it. He said at a news conference in Springfield on Monday that dozens of members of the Ohio State Highway Patrol will be stationed in city schools starting Tuesday following a series of threats across the city, sweeping each building every morning before the arrival of faculty or students. Security cameras have also been stationed at strategic spots in the city, and a bomb-sniffing dog will be in the city and available round-the-clock.

“We know that people are very, very concerned,” DeWine said. “But we’ve moved resources into Springfield. People have the right to feel safe as well as being safe.”

Springfield City Hall, several schools, and state motor vehicle offices in Springfield were forced to evacuate last week after receiving bomb threats. At least 33 separate bomb threats were made in recent days, all of them hoaxes, DeWine said. He said some of the threats came from overseas, but declined to name the country.

“The people who are doing this are doing this to sow discord in our community,” said Andy Wilson, director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety. "We just can’t let them do that. We can’t let them do that. We have to keep providing the services that the citizens of Springfield and Clark County expect."

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Boeing says it's considering temporary layoffs to save cash during the strike by machinists

SEATTLE (AP) — Boeing plans to freeze hiring and reduce travel and is considering temporary layoffs to save cash during a factory workers’ strike that began last week, the company told employees Monday.

The company said the moves, which include reduced spending on suppliers, were necessary because “our business is in a difficult period.”

Chief Financial Officer Brian West detailed 10 immediate cutbacks in a memo to employees. They include a freeze on hiring across all levels, pausing pay increases for managers and executives who get promoted, and stopping all travel that isn’t critical.

“We are also considering the difficult step of temporary furloughs for many employees, managers and executives in the coming weeks,” West said.

Boeing's business is in a difficult spot, he said, adding: “This strike jeopardizes our recovery in a significant way.”

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The Titan's former lead engineer says he felt pressured to get the submersible ready

The lead engineer for an experimental submersible that imploded en route to the wreck of the Titanic testified Monday that he felt pressured to get the vessel ready to dive and refused to pilot it for a journey several years earlier.

“'I'm not getting in it,'” Tony Nissen said he told Stockton Rush, co-founder of the OceanGate company that owned the Titan submersible.

Nissen, OceanGate’s former engineering director, was the first witness to testify at what is expected to be a two-week U.S. Coast Guard hearing. The Titan imploded on June 18, 2023, killing Rush and four others on board and setting off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.

Nissen said Rush could be difficult to work for and was often very concerned with costs and project schedules, among other issues. He said Rush would fight for what he wanted, which often changed day to day. He added that he tried to keep the clashes between the two of them behind closed doors so that others in the company wouldn’t be aware.

“Most people would eventually just back down to Stockton,” he said at the hearing in North Charleston, South Carolina.

The Associated Press