WASHINGTON (AP) — The 20-year-old man who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump first came to law enforcement’s attention at Saturday’s rally when spectators noticed him acting strangely outside the campaign event. The tip sparked a frantic search but officers were unable to find him before he managed to get on a roof, where he opened fire.

In the wake of the shooting that killed one spectator, investigators were hunting for any clues about what may have drove Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, to carry out the shocking attack. The FBI said they were investigating it as a potential act of domestic terrorism, but the absence of a clear ideological motive by the man shot dead by the Secret Service led conspiracy theories to flourish.

“I urge everyone — everyone, please, don’t make assumptions about his motives or his affiliations,” President Joe Biden said in remarks Sunday from the White House. “Let the FBI do their job, and their partner agencies do their job. I’ve instructed that this investigation be thorough and swift.”

The FBI said it believes Crooks, who had bomb-making materials in the car he drove to the rally, acted alone. Investigators have found no threatening comments on social media accounts or ideological positions that could help explain what led him to target Trump before the Secret Service rushed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee off the stage, his face smeared with blood.

Trump said on social media the upper part of his right ear was pierced in the shooting, but advisers said he was “great spirits” ahead of his arrival Sunday in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention. Two spectators were critically injured, while a former fire chief from the area, Corey Comperatore was killed. Pennsylvania’s governor said Comperatore, 50, died a hero by diving onto his family to protect them.

Relatives of Crooks didn’t respond to numerous messages from The Associated Press. His father, Matthew Crooks, told CNN late Saturday that he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” but wouldn’t speak about his son until after he talked to law enforcement. An FBI official told reporters that Crooks’ family is cooperating with investigators.

Several rallygoers reported to local officers that Crooks was acting suspiciously and pacing near the magnetometers, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. Officers were then told Crooks was climbing a ladder, the official said. Officers searched for him but were unable to find him before he made it to the roof, the official added.

Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe told the AP that a local officer climbed to the roof and encountered Crooks, who saw the officer and turned toward him just before the officer dropped down to safety. Slupe said the officer couldn’t have wielded his own gun under the circumstances. The officer retreated down the ladder, and Crooks quickly took a shot toward Trump, and that’s when Secret Service snipers shot him, according to two officials who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

FBI officials said Sunday that they were combing Crooks’ background and social media activities while working to get access to his phone. The chatting app Discord, a social media platform popular with people playing online games, said Crooks appears to have had an account but used it rarely and not in the last several months. There’s no evidence he used his account to promote violence or discuss his political views, a Discord spokesperson said.

Crooks’ political leanings were not immediately clear. Records show Crooks was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on Jan. 20, 2021, the day Biden was sworn into office.

Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022. In a video of the school’s graduation ceremony posted online, Crooks can be seen crossing the stage to receive his diploma, appearing slight of build and wearing glasses. The school district said it will cooperate fully with investigators. His senior year, Crooks was among several students given an award for math and science, according to a Tribune-Review story at the time.

Crooks tried out for the school’s rifle team but was turned away because he was a bad shooter, said Frederick Mach, a current captain of the team who was a few years behind Crooks at the school.

Jason Kohler, who said he attended the same high school but did not share any classes with Crooks, said Crooks was bullied at school and sat alone at lunch time. Other students mocked him for the clothes he wore, which included hunting outfits, Kohler said.

“He was bullied almost every day,” Kohler told reporters. “He was just a outcast, and you know how kids are nowadays.”

Crooks worked at a nursing home as a dietary aide, a job that generally involves food preparation. Marcie Grimm, the administrator of Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation, said in a statement she was “shocked and saddened to learn of his involvement.” Grimm added that Crooks had a clean background check when he was hired.

A blockade had been set up Sunday preventing traffic near Crooks’ house, which is in an enclave of modest brick houses in the hills outside Pittsburgh and about an hour’s drive from the site of the Trump rally. Police cars were stationed at an intersection near the house and officers were seen walking through the neighborhood.

Crooks used an AR-style rifle, which authorities said they believe was purchased by his father. Kevin Rojek, FBI special agent in charge in Pittsburgh, said that investigators do not yet know if he took the gun without his father’s permission.

A video posted to social media and geolocated by AP shows Crooks wearing a gray t-shirt with a black American flag on the right arm lying motionless on the roof of a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds where Trump’s rally was held.

The roof where Crooks lay was less than 150 meters (164 yards) from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. That is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M-16 rifle.

Images of Crooks’ body reviewed by AP show he appears to have been wearing a T-shirt from Demolition Ranch, a popular YouTube channel that regularly posts videos of its creator firing off handguns and assault rifles at targets that include human mannequins.

Matt Carriker, the Texas-based creator of Demolition Ranch, did not respond to a phone message or email on Sunday, but posted a photo of Crooks’ bloody corpse wearing his brand’s T-shirt on social media with the comment “What the hell.”

BOSTON (AP) — A lawsuit was filed Thursday against Hershey, Walgreens and several others in the case of a Massachusetts teen who died after he participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge that was widely promoted on social media.

Harris Wolobah, a 10th grader from the city of Worcester, died Sept. 1, 2023, after eating the Paqui chip as part of the manufacturer’s “One Chip Challenge.” An autopsy found Wolobah died after eating a large quantity of chile pepper extract and also had a congenital heart defect.

Harris died of cardiopulmonary arrest “in the setting of recent ingestion of food substance with high capsaicin concentration,” according to the autopsy from the Chief Office of the Medical Examiner. Capsaicin is the component that gives chile peppers their heat. The autopsy also said Harris had cardiomegaly, meaning an enlarged heart, and a congenital defect described as “myocardial bridging of the left anterior descending coronary artery.”

“Today we filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of this wonderful family for the loss of their beloved son, Harris,” said Douglas Sheff, one of the attorneys representing the family in the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court. The lawsuit seeks a judgement determined by the court that would include punitive damages.

Sheff said the parties created “a perfect storm” that led to Wolobah’s death that included Paqui producing the spicy chip and encouraging people to post videos of themselves eating the chip on social media while the lawsuit alleged Walgreens sold the “poisonous chip” to children.

“The defendants charged about $10 for each chip, $10 for the chip that killed Harris, $10 for his life,” Sheff said. “Isn’t it clear that these defendants knew full well that this chip was unreasonably dangerous? And isn’t this an obvious marketing campaign designed to attract kids to that very danger?”

Lois and Amos Wolobah, the parents of Harris, attended the news conference but did not speak. But at several points, Amos Wolobah appeared to become emotional and Lois seemed to blow a kiss to a photo that was shown of Harris.

The autopsy said Harris Wolobah had cardiomegaly, meaning an enlarged heart, and a congenital defect described as “myocardial bridging of the left anterior descending coronary artery.” But Sheff was adamant that had nothing to do with his death.

“The chip is what killed him,” he said.

Paqui, a Texas-based subsidiary of the Hershey Co., has expressed its sadness about Wolobah’s death but also cited the chip’s “clear and prominent labeling highlighting that the product was not for children or anyone sensitive to spicy foods or with underlying health conditions.”

The Paqui chip, sold individually for about $10, came wrapped in foil in a coffin-shaped box containing the warning that it was intended for the “vengeful pleasure of intense heat and pain.” The warning noted that the chip was for adult consumption only, and should be kept out of the reach of children. After seeing reports of teens and others not heeding those warnings, the company said it worked with retailers to “voluntarily remove the product from shelves in September 2023, and the One Chip Challenge has been discontinued.”

A spokesperson for Walgreens said it had no comment on the lawsuit while Hershey’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Despite the warning, children had no problem buying the chips, and there had been reports from around the country of teens who got sick after taking part in the chip-eating challenge. Among them were three California high school students who were taken to a hospital and seven students in Minnesota who were treated by paramedics after taking part in the challenge in 2022.

The challenge called for participants to eat the Paqui chip and then see how long they could go without consuming other food and water. Sales of the chip seemed largely driven by people posting videos on social media of them or their friends taking the challenge. They showed people, including children, unwrapping the packaging, eating the chips and then reacting to the heat. Some videos showed people gagging, coughing and begging for water and the lawsuit cites scores of examples of people becoming sick after eating the chip.

Harris Wolobah’s death spurred warnings from Massachusetts authorities and physicians, who cautioned that eating such spicy foods can have unintended consequences. Since the chip fad emerged, poison control centers have warned that the concentrated amount could cause allergic reactions, trouble breathing, irregular heartbeats and even heart attacks or strokes.

Sheff said that the lawsuit aims to provide justice to the Wolobah family and serve as a warning ”to all those who endanger our children.”

NEW YORK (AP) — The NBA has agreed to terms on its new media deals, a record 11-year agreement worth $76 billion that would assure player salaries will continue rising for the foreseeable future and one that will surely change how some viewers access the game for years to come.

A person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press that the networks have the terms sheets, with the next step being for the league’s board of governors to approve the contracts.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Wednesday because they weren’t at liberty to discuss such impending matters.

There is a board of governors meeting in Las Vegas next week, coinciding with NBA Summer League, and it would seem logical that the deals — if they get through various committees and obtain other approvals — may be finalized around that time.

The NBA did not comment Wednesday.

The deal, which set NBA records for both its length and total value, goes into effect for the 2025-26 season. Games will continue being aired on ESPN and ABC, and now some will be going to NBC and Amazon Prime. TNT Sports, which has been part of the league’s broadcasting family since the 1980s, could be on its way out, but has five days to match one of the deals.

The five-day clock would begin once the league sends the finished contracts to TNT.

The Athletic was the first to report on the contracts.

ESPN and ABC will continue to have the league’s top package, which includes the NBA Finals and one of the conference finals series. ABC has aired the NBA Finals since 2003. ABC would continue to air games on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons when the NFL’s regular season ends.

ESPN’s main nights would continue to be Wednesday with some Friday and Sunday games.

Exclusivity of the Finals comes with a big price increase. Walt Disney Company, which owns ESPN and ABC, will pay $2.6 billion per year under the new contract compared to $1.4 billion in its current deal.

The return of NBC, which carried NBA games from 1990 through 2002, gives the league two broadcast network partners for the first time.

NBC — whose deal is expected to be $2.5 billion per season — would showcase games on Sunday night once the NFL season has ended. It will air games on Tuesdays throughout the regular season while a Monday night package of games would be exclusively streamed on Peacock.

Prime Video would have games on Thursday night after it is done carrying NFL games. Its other nights would be Friday and Saturday.

NBC and Prime Video would alternate who carries the other conference final. Prime Video’s rights would average $1.8 billion per year.

TNT Sports is paying $1.4 billion per season. Considering the amounts of the three proposed packages, that would make the Prime Video rights the ones it would be likely to try and match.

The length of the deals — he did not confirm the 11-year agreement specifically — are “good for the stability of the league,” Silver said during the NBA Finals last month.

“But it means to a certain extent you’re trying to predict the future, which is of course impossible,” Silver said in June. “So part of it is a bet on the partners that we will ultimately align with and their ability also to adjust with the times and their willingness to continue to invest in media and also become global, which to my earlier point is very important to the league, as well.”

In the short term, the deal almost certainly means the league’s salary cap will rise 10% annually — the maximum allowed by the terms of the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and its players. That means players like Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dallas’ Luka Doncic could be making around $80 million in the 2030-31 season and raises at least some possibility that top players may be earning somewhere near $100 million per season by the mid-2030s.

It also clears the way for the next major item on the NBA’s to-do list: Expansion.

Silver was very clear on the order of his top agenda items in recent seasons, those being preserving labor peace (which was achieved with the new CBA), getting a new media deal (now essentially completed) and then and only then would the league turn its attention toward adding new franchises. Las Vegas and Seattle are typically among the cities most prominently mentioned as top expansion candidates, with others such as Montreal, Vancouver and Kansas City expected to have groups with interest as well.

As the broadcast rights packages have grown in total value over the last 25 years, so, too, have salaries because of how much that revenue stream ends up fueling the salary cap.

When NBC and Turner agreed to a $2.6 billion, four-year deal that started with the 1998-99 season, the salary cap was $30 million per team and the average salary was around $2.5 million. The average salary this season exceeded $10 million per player — and it’s only going to keep going up from here.

When that NBC-Turner deal that started a quarter-century ago expired, the next deal — covering six seasons — cost ABC, ESPN and Turner about $4.6 billion. The next was a seven-year deal, costing those networks $7.4 billion.

The current deal, the one that will expire next season, smashed those records — nine years, nearly $24 billion.

And now, that seems like pocket change.