The FBI in July investigated social media accounts connected to the 16-year-old who shot two students and then himself at Evergreen High School last week, but did not identify the boy or take any further action before the attack, the agency confirmed Monday.

The FBI “opened an assessment into a social media account user whose identity was unknown and who was discussing the planning of a mass shooting with threats non-specific in nature,” the agency said in a statement.

“During the assessment investigation, the identity of the account user remained unknown, and thus there was no probable cause for arrest or additional law enforcement action at the federal level,” the statement continued.

Evergreen High School shooter’s online footprint reflects new wave of extremism, experts say

The FBI’s investigation, first reported by 9News, continued up to and until last week’s attack, the FBI said.

The teenager’s social media accounts showed that he was likely involved in online extremism that calls for violence as a way to destroy society, experts told The Denver Post. His accounts included a mix of white supremacy, antisemitism and a fascination with violence and mass shootings, including the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

They fit into a new wave of online extremism that seeks to use violence to destroy society, the experts said.

The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors online threats, tipped the FBI to 16-year-old Desmond Holly’s accounts, Oren Segal, the organization’s senior vice president of counter-extremism and intelligence, said in a statement Monday. The ADL regularly shares information with law enforcement.

“We shared profiles and activity at the time with law enforcement for actions they deemed necessary based on what was available at the time,” Segal said in the statement. “We have since learned those profiles belonged to the individual responsible for the shooting in Evergreen.”

The 16-year-old shooter, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, acted alone, Karlyn Tilley, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, said Monday. There was no second shooter during the attack, despite persistent rumors of one, she said Monday.

“We are 100% confident that he was acting alone,” she said.

Some students who were in lockdown in the school believed there were two shooters, in part because people banged on the doors to their hiding places and claimed to be police officers.

Those people banging on doors may in fact have been law enforcement and first responders, Tilley said Monday.

“Some of the law enforcement likely did pound on doors and say, ‘Hey, we are law enforcement, let us in,’” she said. “But what we try to train people on is that they do not unlock the doors for anyone, no matter what they are saying, and that eventually we will get to those doors with keys.”

An exception to keeping the doors shut would be if students inside were injured or needed immediate help, she noted. Authorities previously said much of the shooter’s attack was captured on surveillance video.

On Thursday, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said that closed, locked doors inside the school likely prevented the shooter from reaching additional victims.

The two students injured in the shooting, including 18-year-old Matthew Silverstone, remained hospitalized Monday. One student was in critical but stable condition, and the other was in serious condition.

Investigators believe the 16-year-old shooter opened fire with a revolver. Tilley on Monday declined to answer questions about how the 16-year-old accessed the gun he used in the attack or whether his parents or others could face criminal charges, citing the ongoing investigation.

By JANIE HAR, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Trump administration’s central human resources office acted illegally when it directed the mass firings of probationary workers as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce, a judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco said Friday in awarding judgment to a coalition of labor unions and nonprofits that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management “unlawfully exceeded its own powers and usurped and exercised powers reserved by Congress to each individual” federal agency to hire and fire its own workers.

He said the government “disagrees but does not persuade” in its defense that the office did not direct employment decisions, but merely offered guidance to other agencies.

“Judge Alsup’s decision makes clear that thousands of probationary workers were wrongfully fired, exposes the sham record the government relied upon, and requires the government to tell the wrongly terminated employees that OPM’s reasoning for firing them was false,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, in a statement.

The Office of Personnel Management did not immediately respond Monday to an email seeking comment.

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More than 25,000 probationary workers were terminated soon after Trump took office in January, according to legal declarations from departments gathered as part of the lawsuit.

Alsup in March ordered the reinstatement of probationary workers, saying OPM had likely acted unlawfully in ordering the terminations of workers at other agencies. But the U.S. Supreme Court set that decision aside in April on a technical basis without ruling on the underlying case.

Alsup, a nominee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, was particularly troubled that workers were fired for poor performance, which the administration defines as not being mission critical at a time of cutbacks. Probationary workers are generally younger employees who are just starting their careers, but they can also include older employees who have moved into new positions.

In his Friday ruling, Alsup said too much time had passed to reinstate fired workers, but he is ordering most of the agencies named as defendants to update personnel files and send individual letters to workers stating they were not terminated for performance.

Exempt agencies include the State Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“The terminated probationary employees have moved on with their lives and found new jobs. Many would no longer be willing or able to return to their posts. The agencies in question have also transformed in the intervening months by new executive priorities and sweeping reorganization. Many probationers would have no post to return to,” Alsup wrote.

By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press

Billings, Mont. (AP) — Young climate activists and their attorneys who won a landmark global warming trial against the state of Montana are trying to convince a federal judge to block President Donald Trump’s executive orders promoting fossil fuels.

During a two-day hearing starting Tuesday in Missoula, Montana, the activists and their experts plan to describe Trump’s actions to boost drilling and mining and discourage renewable energy as a growing danger to children and the planet. They say the Republican’s stoking of global warming violates their constitutional rights.

A victory for the activists would have much broader implications than their 2023 win, where a state court faulted officials for permitting oil, gas and coal projects without regard for global warming.

But legal experts say the young activists and their lawyers from the environmental group Our Children’s Trust face longer odds in federal court. The Montana case hinged on a provision in the state constitution declaring people have a “right to a clean and healthful environment.” That language is absent from the U.S. Constitution.

“Federal law doesn’t really offer anything to really work with for these groups,” said David Dana, a professor at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago.

FILE – Lead plaintiff Rikki Held listens to testimony during a hearing in the climate change lawsuit, Held vs. Montana, at the Lewis and Clark County Courthouse on, June 20, 2023, in Helena, Mont. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP, File)

Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice and 19 states plus Guam want Judge Dana Christensen to dismiss the case.

A previous federal climate lawsuit in Oregon from Our Children’s Trust went on for a decade and ended in a denial this year from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Our Children’s Trust attorney Andrea Rodgers acknowledged the Montana litigation faces challenges. But she said the Constitution contains protections for life and liberty that cannot be ignored.

“We’re asking the Court to apply traditional laws with respect to what constitutes the right to life and the right for liberty,” Rodgers said.

A 19-year-old from California plans to testify to Christensen about the harms of wildfire smoke. A 17-year-old from Montana is slated to speak about Trump’s actions frustrating her attempts to get electric buses for her school. And a 20-year-old Oregon woman going to school in Florida will talk about how Trump’s plans could result in worse hurricanes and wildfires.

“No matter where I live, I cannot escape extreme climate events resulting from fossil fuel pollution,” Avery McRae, the student from Oregon, said in a declaration to the court.

FILE – Gas emissions rises from a coal-burning power plant in Colstrip, Mont., July 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

The 22 plaintiffs include youths and young adults from Montana and several other states. Only the Montana plaintiffs were involved in the 2023 trial.

It’s a similar playbook as the 2023 trial. Young plaintiffs spent days on the witness stand describing how worsening fires foul the air they breathe, while drought and decreased snowpack deplete rivers that sustain farming, fish, wildlife and recreation.

Carbon dioxide, which is released when fossil fuels are burned, traps heat in the atmosphere and is largely responsible for the warming of the climate.

The federal government and states do not plan to call any witnesses.

Amanda Braynack, a spokesperson for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, said the states were trying to prevent the litigants from “destroying our country’s energy security.”

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Even if the activists lose, it could draw attention to Trump’s perceived failures to act against climate change, said Jonathan Adler, a climate law expert at William and Mary Law School in Virginia.

“These cases have always been about not just what occurs in the court of law, but also in the court of public opinion,” Adler said.

Montana’s Supreme Court last year upheld the ruling in the 2023 trial. However, to date that’s yielded few meaningful changes in a state dominated by Republicans who want to drill more oil and gas and dig more coal.

Utility regulators this month denied a petition from environmentalists who cited the 2023 case in a request for the Montana Public Service Commission to consider climate change when considering energy projects.

Gov. Greg Gianforte told The Associated Press that the state would follow the law but needs more electricity including from fossil fuels.

“We have an obligation to our constitution and just morally to protect the environment, he said. ”But I don’t think that’s inconsistent with electricity production, and we need to be using fossil fuels coal, gas, oil, hydro, wind and potentially nuclear.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said the U.S. military again targeted a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing three aboard the vessel.

“The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the U.S.,” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the strike. “These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests.”

Trump said the strike was carried out Monday, two weeks after another military strike on what the Trump administration says was a drug-carrying speedboat from Venezuela that killed 11.

The Trump administration justified the earlier strike as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

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But several senators, Democrats and some Republicans, have indicated their dissatisfaction with the administration’s rationale and questioned the legality of the action. They view it as a potential overreach of executive authority in part because the military was used for law enforcement purposes.

The Trump has claimed self-defense as a legal justification for the first strike, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio arguing the drug cartels “pose an immediate threat” to the nation.

U.S. officials said the strike early this month targeted Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. And they indicated more military strikes on drug targets would be coming as the U.S. looks to “wage war” on cartels.

Trump did not specify whether Tren de Aragua was also the target of Monday’s strike.

The Trump administration has railed specifically against Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro for the scourge of illegal drugs in U.S. communities.

Speaking to Fox News earlier Monday, Rubio reiterated that the U.S. doesn’t see Maduro as the rightful leader of Venezuela but as head of a drug cartel.

“We’re not going to have a cartel, operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere,” Rubio said.

Following the first military strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, America’s chief diplomat said Trump was “going to use the U.S. military and all the elements of American power to target cartels who are targeting America.”

AP and others have reported that the boat had turned around and was heading back to shore when it was struck. But Rubio on Monday said he didn’t know if that’s accurate.

“What needs to start happening is some of these boats need to get blown up,” Rubio said. “We can’t live in a world where all of a sudden they do a U-turn and so we can’t touch them anymore.”

AP writer Matthew Lee in Jerusalem contributed reporting.