pennsylvania

Sept. 24, 2026 9:29 PM PT

PITTSBURGH — James Copenhaver, one of three campaign rally attendees shot in 2024 during an assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump, has died in Pittsburgh, his lawyer said Thursday. He was 76.

Copenhaver was in the bleachers during the event in Butler, Pa., when a 20-year-old gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop, grazing Trump’s right ear with one bullet. Copenhaver was struck in the arm and in the abdomen, wounds that left him with lingering injuries and walking with a cane.

Two other attendees were also shot: David Dutch, who survived, and Corey Comperatore, who shielded his family from gunfire and was killed.

Copenhaver died Wednesday at Allegheny Health Network’s West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh, according to a statement from the Allegheny County medical examiner cited in local media accounts.

Copenhaver’s lawyer, Joseph Feldman, said in a statement issued on behalf of the family that he died surrounded by loved ones. The statement did not specify whether his death was directly related to the injuries he suffered at the rally.

Copenhaver and his wife, Marianne Copenhaver, sued the federal government in June, alleging that the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security had “utterly failed” to provide appropriate security at the rally. Copenhaver’s injuries required multiple surgeries, including a transection of his colon, and he had lingering kidney and other damage, including a loss of feeling in his leg. The lawsuit described the wounds as “debilitating, grievous, permanent and life altering.”

The family’s statement Thursday called Copenhaver above all else a devoted husband, father and grandfather who instilled the values of hard work, integrity and the service to others in his children.

“James’s dedication to this great country was a defining part of his life,” it said. “As a veteran, he proudly served our nation in the armed forces, and his love of country never wavered. James was a true American patriot who believed deeply in the freedoms and ideals upon which this nation was founded, and he embodied the very best traits of our great nation.”

In a statement posted to social media, President Trump on Thursday called Copenhaver “a true American Patriot.”

“Jim showed tremendous bravery, courageously continuing to FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, and maintaining a positive spirit despite unimaginable hardships,” Trump wrote.

Johnson and Smyth write for the Associated Press.

Pennsylvania has asked the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for help containing an expanding measles outbreak that has seen several people die, but says it will withdraw the request unless the federal agency recognises four measles-associated deaths reported by the state.

The CDC, however, said it has not been properly notified of any such request.

The US is currently seeing the worst measles outbreak in the country since 1991, with several deaths over the last couple of years. Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, but has made a comeback in recent years, which some have linked to a rise in vaccine scepticism. The US state of Pennsylvania has been hit especially hard.

In a letter sent to CDC Director Erica Schwartz on Wednesday, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Debra Bogen said the state had begun the process of requesting emergency assistance from the CDC, known as an Epi-Aid.

“The CDC’s choice not to publicly recognize the deaths undermines our response,” Bogen wrote. “For this reason, if CDC is unable to transparently and accurately communicate information about those measles-associated deaths, the Department will respectfully rescind our request for a CDC Epi-Aid.”

However, in a statement to Al Jazeera, Grace Davis Jamison, press secretary for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said that the CDC had not received Pennsylvania’s request through its normal channels and that federal outbreak assistance was separate from how the agency tabulates deaths.

“CDC will not allow [Pennsylvania Democratic] Governor [Josh] Shapiro to politicize this process. We owe the American people accurate, consistent, and transparent public health information,” Jamison said. “CDC will not submit to political blackmail that conditions critical public health assistance. The people of Pennsylvania should never be used as leverage in a political dispute over how deaths are classified.”

Disagreement grows as Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak spreads

The dispute over the deaths began in August, when Pennsylvania reported that two unvaccinated people died of measles in Lancaster County, which is located in the South Central part of the state. Lancaster is considered the centre of Pennsylvania Dutch Country and home to the nation’s oldest Amish and Mennonite communities. Both communities have under-vaccinated populations.

The CDC initially included the deaths in its national tally, but subsequently removed them after Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr questioned whether measles had caused or contributed to the fatalities. The agency said at the time that available information did not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths.

Pennsylvania continued to stand by its determination.

The outbreak has spread well beyond its initial epicentre in Lancaster County. On September 13, a county coroner reported that a 40-year-old woman had died from complications associated with measles. The state later confirmed the death as measles-associated and announced two additional deaths on September 15. All four people were unvaccinated, according to the state.

The state reported 393 cases across 28 counties when the first two deaths were announced on August 25. Pennsylvania now reports 731 confirmed cases across 38 counties and 141 hospitalisations. Of those reported cases, only four people, or less than one percent, are vaccinated.

What are officials arguing about?

The disagreement between Pennsylvania and the CDC centres on the distinction between a “measles-associated” death versus a death “caused” by measles. Pennsylvania uses “measles-associated” under its state surveillance definition, while HHS said it is working with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists to establish a standardised definition for measles deaths.

Infectious disease experts warn that the dispute over how to classify the deaths puts the CDC at odds with a long-standing approach to tracking the consequences of measles. Matthew Ferrari, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, told Al Jazeera that “measles-associated” death has long been a standard used by the World Health Organization and CDC.

“It’s the most useful distinction because it is a case that could have been prevented by a measles vaccination, or by early detection and isolation,” Ferrari said. “Measles is severely immunocompromising, so it is very often a secondary infection that is the ultimate cause of death.”

Experts say the CDC’s dispute with Pennsylvania risks distracting from efforts to contain the outbreak. Dr Andrew Pavia, spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America and professor at the University of Utah, told Al Jazeera the distinction should not be controversial.

“The impact, though, is confusion for the public and erosion of trust in the ability of CDC staff to communicate to the public without political interference,” Pavia said.

HHS said federal outbreak assistance and national mortality reporting are separate processes and rejected the idea that the two should be linked.

How would an Epi-Aid help Pennsylvania?

An Epi-Aid is a CDC mechanism for providing rapid, short-term assistance during an urgent public health problem. The CDC says Epi-Aids generally last one to three weeks, during which they deploy Epidemic Intelligence Service officers to analyse epidemiological data, evaluate surveillance systems, and recommend measures to control and prevent the spread of disease.

The requesting health authority retains overall leadership of the investigation, while CDC personnel provide technical assistance, including epidemiological expertise and access to laboratory resources.

“The most important thing for an effective response is communication and trust,” Ferrari said. “It is important for all partners to agree on the foundational elements of the problem and the metrics for evaluating the severity of the problem.”

NEW YORK — Americans commemorated the 25th anniversary of 9/11 on Friday, remembering the shock, the dead and the sweeping consequences of the al Qaeda attacks on symbols of U.S. might and prosperity.

The milestone anniversary brought memorial rituals — wreath-laying, flag-flying, moments of silence, vigils and readings of victims’ names — and volunteer projects in tribute to a day that about half of U.S. adults remember as the most historic event of their lifetime, according to a new poll. On Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda extremists hijacked four commercial jets and crashed them into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Elsie Caldwell carried a photograph of her son Kenny Caldwell to the trade center to hear his name and all the others read aloud Friday morning. She last spoke to him that morning a quarter-century ago.

“Mom, I just want to let you know that I love you,” Caldwell said he told her in a final phone call. His remains, like those of many other victims, have never been recovered.

Trump attends Pentagon observance

The attacks brought down the World Trade Center’s twin towers — icons of U.S. economic power, and among the tallest buildings on Earth — and blew a hole in the Pentagon, the U.S. military’s fortress-like headquarters near Washington. The fourth plane was headed for Washington, officials concluded, but the aircraft went down in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew members stormed the cockpit and fought the hijackers.

“Sept. 11 reminded us of the terrible power of hate,” President Trump said Friday at the Pentagon’s anniversary ceremony Friday.

“The 25 years since have shown us the even greater power of the American spirit to endure and prevail, and to win,” added the Republican, who was in his native New York on 9/11.

Former President George W. Bush, who was in office on 9/11, and ex-Presidents Clinton, Obama and Biden and current Vice President JD Vance convened for the observance at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in New York. Other administration officials went to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.

At ground zero, a new tribute to those who fell ill

For Angilic Casalduc, attending the New York commemoration “helps to show you’re not alone.” She lost her mother, Vivian Casalduc.

“There’s no timeline for grief, and unfortunately, no one can say how can you can grieve, but coming here once a year makes it feel just a little bit better,” she said.

Traditionally, there are no political speeches at the ground zero commemoration, where victims’ relatives read aloud the long list of names and added personal messages. They thanked first responders and the military, invoked religious faith, appealed for national unity and touched on the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom was the homeland of most of the hijackers but denied any involvement in the attacks.

Mostly, relatives spoke of, and to, loved ones — who some were too young to remember.

“You dreamed my whole life for me, and you only got eight months of it,” said Trisha Pakka, who lost her mother, Deepa Pakkala.

The ceremony has long been punctuated with moments of silence at key points in the attack timeline and this year organizers added another moment to honor people who were exposed to the clouds of toxic dust released by the twin towers’ fiery collapse and have since died of cancer and other illnesses. Questions remain about how many people developed health problems linked to the dust.

The impact of 9/11 endures

It’s a reminder of how the attacks’ long shadow has reached into many corners of life in the U.S. and beyond.

The U.S.-led global war on terrorism included invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan — the latter Washington’s longest war — and detentions and harsh interrogation of terror suspects in an international network of secret CIA prisons. The U.S. found and killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, but accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed still awaits a trial 23 years after his capture.

The attacks changed U.S. air travel, led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, prompted new federal surveillance and intelligence-gathering powers and banking regulations and generated ongoing debate over the balance between security and freedom.

Sept. 11 engendered a culture of individual vigilance summed up by the slogan “ if you see something, say something,” while a wave of patriotism propelled some Americans to join the military, fire departments, police forces or other public agencies.

Casey Kloepfer became a New York police officer this June. He was 4 when his father, Officer Ronald Kloepfer, was killed at the trade center.

“It’s big footsteps to fill, but it’s definitely something that I take very seriously and want to continue to honor him and be the best police officer I can,” the 29-year-old, who wears his father’s badge number, said by phone this week.

New York’s mayor comes under scrutiny

Amid the post-9/11 calls to service and appeals for national unity, the attacks also fanned mistrust, prejudice and hate crimes directed at Muslims.

In the quarter-century since, Muslim Americans have played a growing role in public life from statehouses to Congress to New York City Hall, where Zohran Mamdani is the city’s first Muslim mayor. Yet he faced some criticism for attending the anniversary ceremony at ground zero.

Republican ex-Gov. George Pataki and 9/11 victims’ relatives cited, among other things, past remarks that some of Mamdani’s political associates have made about the attacks. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, also inveighed against Mamdani attending the remembrance, though the two shook hands there Friday.

Mamdani, a Democrat, said this week he loves the city and country and that he wanted the anniversary to focus on victims’ families, first responders and New Yorkers who helped one another after the attacks, which he called a “horrific act of terror.” The 34-year-old mayor was an elementary school student in New York on 9/11.

Times Square billboards pause advertisements

Remembrances extended far from the attack sites, including beams of light projecting from New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, a stair climb at Mississippi State University’s football stadium and a ceremony at Honolulu’s 9/11 memorial.

Sept. 11 isn’t a federal holiday, but Congress has designated it both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

“One appropriate way to remember is by serving,” says Jay Winuk, who lost his brother Glenn Winuk and then co-founded the volunteer organization 9/11 Day with friend David Paine. The group helps people find volunteer opportunities and this year arranged for dozens of Times Square billboards to pause their advertising at 9:11 a.m. Friday.

Instead, they simply displayed the time.

Peltz and Shaffrey write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Michael R. Sisak, Anthony Izaguirre, and Julie Walker contributed to this report.

Bruce Davis spent more than two decades as the motion picture academy’s chief executive. Even when he retired in 2011, it was not because he didn’t still love the work. In fact, he kept at it in retirement, retaining an office at the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study where he focused on writing a definitive history of the early days of the Oscars.

“I don’t think I’ve been bored for a minute in 30 years here,” Davis told the Associated Press upon leaving the academy. “I feel like such a rube sometimes. To this day, when I get out of the car on Oscar night and step up there onto that carpet, you get that rush of energy. The lights are popping — not that anybody’s aiming at me — but still I think it’s one of the great rushes, emotionally speaking, that a person can have.”

Following a battle with leukemia, Davis died Saturday. He was 83.

Davis’ career at the academy was, according to wife Joann, partly a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

“Not that he wasn’t really good at what he did,” she says by phone. “But he was also a lucky man.”

Davis was working as chair of the theater department at Juniata College in Pennsylvania when he and Joann loaded all of their belongings atop their Mazda GLC and headed to Los Angles in pursuit of Hollywood dreams. Davis had been working on a few screenplays while teaching, and his agent told him needed to move closer to the action to network and take meetings.

“Neither of us had jobs when we left Pennsylvania,” Joann says. “We just bit the bullet and drove out. It was a leap of faith.”

Shortly after arriving, Davis met someone at a party whose wife worked at the motion picture academy. That soon led to Davis taking a job arranging lectures and seminars and, later, overseeing the organization’s public programming.

Davis became the academy’s seventh executive director in 1989, leading it through a sizable expansion of staff, relocating the academy’s Margaret Herrick Library to the Beverly Hills Waterworks building in 1991 and setting up its film archive at the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in 2002.

“Bruce would drive back and forth to work and see that Waterworks building at the time that they were looking for places for the library to expand,” Joann says. “And one day, it just occurred to him that maybe that would be a building, and so initiated conversation with Beverly Hills. It was kismet.”

Davis had hoped to build an academy museum next to the Pickford, convincing the group’s board of governors to purchase a nearby 3.5-acre site in 2006 for a reported $50 million, but the 2008 recession derailed those plans. His successor, Dawn Hudson, led the push to partner with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, eventually building the museum at the former May Co. building at Wilshire and Fairfax. It opened in 2021.

Davis was also instrumental in doubling the Oscars’ best picture category from five nominees to 10 in 2009, establishing the preferential ballot system that determines the academy’s top prize.

“That way, best picture reflects the choice of the greatest number of people,” Davis told The Times.

Davis’ Oscar book, “The Academy and the Award,” was first published in 2022, long after he originally anticipated it would hit stores.

“He thought a couple months of research, a couple more months to write it, and voila, in two years, he’d have it done,” Joann says. “But he kept finding new things he wanted to explore.”

Shortly before it published, Davis told The Times that he hoped the book would dispel myths surrounding the Oscars, including Susan Orlean’s assertion in her Rin Tin Tin biography that the dog received more votes than any male actor at the first Academy Awards and that Bette Davis gave the golden statue its nickname because its backside mirrored that of her then-husband Harmon Oscar Nelson.

“There’s a lot of nonsense out there,” Davis said, “and the real story is almost always more interesting.”

“He was deeply committed to preserving the academy’s history, establishing dedicated homes for our library and film archive, and relaunching the concept of creating a museum,” current academy CEO Bill Kramer and President Lynette Howell Taylor said in a statement. “He had a profound love for the academy.”

Davis loved to read and collect books, devouring anything from John Updike and Margaret Atwood, among other authors, a passion that necessitated having bookshelves in every room of his home. Language itself was an obsession, with many family dinners ending with Davis pulling out his unabridged Oxford English Dictionary to share the derivation of a word.

“He was a really fascinating guy,” Joann says.

Perhaps the only thing Davis didn’t like about the Oscars was the ceremony’s annual in memoriam segment, which pays tribute to those who died in the previous year.

“It is the single most troubling element of the Oscar show every year,” Davis told the Associated Press, “because more people die each year than can possibly be included in that segment.”

Next year’s ceremony now has one certain addition.

In addition to Joann, Davis is survived by four daughters: Brangien Davis, Alexandra Davis, Archer Davis and Roxanne Davis.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Around this time two years ago, Sen. John Fetterman was in high demand on the campaign trail, going county-to-county in Pennsylvania to help Democrats up and down the ballot.

Now, after two years of crossing swords with Democrats and backing some of President Trump’s priorities, he’s nowhere on the stump.

No Democrat in the state wants to be seen with him. His approval ratings are better with Republicans — far better — than they are with Democrats. And a shadow primary of sorts is taking shape for Fetterman’s Senate seat in 2028, even if he runs again.

Fetterman has acknowledged his isolation in the party as he maintains staunch support of Israel’s war in Gaza and criticizes left-wing candidates who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America. He’s often gone his own way in the Senate, voting repeatedly with Republicans to end the shutdown last year while supporting multiple Trump nominations and opposing efforts to end the war in Iran.

Still, Fetterman has repeatedly said that he wouldn’t switch parties because of his support for labor unions, LGBT rights and other issues held dear by the left.

“I’m not going to be a Republican, but I’m going to be a Democrat that’s going to have a conversation with whoever is playing it straight,” Fetterman told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Fetterman’s office and political adviser did not return messages seeking comment.

Fetterman has fallen out of favor with Pennsylvania Democrats

Fetterman has been silent about any plans to campaign in Pennsylvania this year, and Democrats say they aren’t asking him for help.

“I absolutely think that Fetterman would bring us more harm than good,” said Lori McFarland, the Democratic Party chair in Lehigh County, which is home to a congressional seat and a state Senate seat that Democrats are trying to flip. “Nobody’s asked to see him, nobody’s requested his presence, and people, quite honestly, they’re mad at him and they don’t want anything to do with him. The local feel here is they feel betrayed by him.”

Polling captures the shift. Only about 2 in 10 registered Democrats in Pennsylvania have a favorable view of Fetterman, according to a New York Times poll from August. That’s a sharp reversal from 2024, when 74% had a positive view. He’s now seen more favorably by Republican voters in the state, with 73% giving him a positive rating. That’s up from 25% a couple years ago.

A Quinnipiac poll from July similarly found most Republicans approve of how Fetterman is handling his job, while most Democrats do not.

Cindy Durian, a Democrat voting in May’s primary in suburban Harrisburg, said she would never vote for Fetterman again.

“I think he might as well change parties, he might as well change from a D to an R,” she said.

Frustration with Fetterman has been building

Fetterman had a stroke on the campaign trail before winning his Senate seat in 2022 and then was hospitalized for clinical depression in the first months of his term.

Progressive frustration with Fetterman began to emerge in late 2023 with his support for Israel’s war against Hamas. But it’s moved beyond that since Trump took office. Democrats have watched him belittle their attempts to push back on Trump while emerging as a conservative media darling.

“He is antagonizing Democrats, seemingly for pleasure,” said J.J. Abbott, a Democratic strategist.

Fetterman’s dedication to the job has also been called into question. Last year, he began racking up missed votes and missed hearings in the Senate. A meeting in Washington with representatives from a teachers union broke up after he began repeating himself, shouting and slamming his hands on a desk. And he has avoided other meetings and public events, including the funeral for three police officers killed in the line of duty.

Public officials around Pennsylvania say they haven’t seen him in several years. Some can’t remember when they last saw him.

“I couldn’t tell you,” said state Rep. Peter Schweyer of Allentown. “We assumed that when we got him there that we were going to get somebody who’s going to fight for us. And what we got instead was somebody who just disappeared.”

Pennsylvania Democrats have a lot on the line in November

The state has several marquee races this year. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, seen as a likely presidential candidate in 2028, is running for reelection and leading the party’s efforts to hold a narrow state House majority, capture a state Senate majority for the first time in decades and flip four U.S. House seats.

In one of those competitive U.S. House races, Democrat Bob Harvie is trying to unseat Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick. A campaign spokesperson said Harvie hasn’t asked Fetterman for help.

It’s unclear whether Fetterman will ever return to the campaign trail, or whether he even wants another term in 2028, given that he spends much of his time criticizing his party and the dysfunction of Congress. He often sits alone in the hallway during Senate votes, eschewing conversations with colleagues inside the chamber.

Talk of 2028 among Democrats often turns to several others — Reps. Chris Deluzio and Brendan Boyle and former U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb — who have become outspoken critics of Fetterman.

“I don’t think that Democrats want John Fetterman campaigning for them, and I say that as a guy who’s campaigning with Democrats in the most competitive and toughest districts across Pennsylvania,” Deluzio told The Associated Press.

Deluzio said he’ll decide after the November election whether to run for Senate in 2028. But, he said, “Pennsylvanians elected John Fetterman as a Democrat to the United States Senate. They expect him to be a Democrat in these two years he has left in this term.”

Fetterman says he has a ‘red line’ with his party

While Fetterman has insisted he won’t change parties, he hasn’t ruled it out, saying the Democratic Party becoming anti-Israel would be a “red line” that would force him out.

He’s also become close with Pennsylvania’s other senator, Republican David McCormick, appearing at events alongside him and launching a joint political fundraising committee, an unusual arrangement for senators from opposing parties.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., in July said he and other Republicans had spoken with Fetterman about the “challenges” he has in the Democratic caucus. “If he ever comes to the conclusion that he’s ready to move, we’d certainly welcome him.”

Democrats hold 47 seats in the Senate. If they were to pick up four seats in the election, a Fetterman party-switch could reset the Senate back to a 50-50 split, giving Republicans the majority and putting Vice President JD Vance in a position to break ties.

Levy writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.