By Lisa Mascaro and Gary Fields, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — “Tone it down!”

That was the plea from one Republican congressman as he came to grips with the assassination attempt against Donald Trump at a political rally in the Butler Farm area where he grew up.

“I am in a state of bewilderment of how and what has happened to the United States of America,” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-PA., told The Associated Press early Sunday.

People rally in support of Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump in Huntington Beach, Calif., Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

The shocking attempt on Trump’s life has brought into stark relief the toxic climate in America’s political life. While the details of the shooter’s motive remain unclear, the violence is a further gauge of how what was once unacceptable, if not unthinkable, in American society has become painfully commonplace.

As the 2024 election enters a crucial phase ahead of the national conventions, how the nation responds will test the first presidential contest since 2020, an election that became defined by efforts to overturn Trump’s defeat and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On Sunday, civic leaders, pastors and elected officials from President Joe Biden on down appealed to Americans for unity, urging an end to vitriol.

“We can’t allow this violence to be normalized,” Biden said in an evening address to the nation from the Oval Office.

Under a charged atmosphere, the Republican National Convention opens this week in Milwaukee to renominate Trump to lead the ticket, while Democrats prepare for their own convention next month uncertain if the party will stick with the incumbent Biden in an expected rematch.

Activists pray for the safety of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and other politicians at Lafayette Square near the White House, Sunday, July 14, 2024, in Washington, one day after an assassination attempt on Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Trump’s rhetoric, though tempered in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, had taken on deeper and darker tones in this, his third campaign for the White House.

This spring, Trump who has accused migrants of “poisoning the blood of the country” and vowed to launch the largest domestic deportation operation, told autoworkers there would be a “ bloodbath ” in this country if he is not reelected.

“If we don’t win, I think our country is finished,” he said during the New Hampshire primary.

Trump has promised retribution on his political rivals, particularly those in the Justice Department after he was indicted on federal charges of storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home and in the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump also made make light of violence. When Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked by an intruder looking for the former House speaker at the family’s San Francisco home in 2022 — beaten over the head with a hammer — Trump mocked the security fencing she had installed as insufficient.

Trump drew chuckles in a speech before California Republicans last year when he asked, “How’s her husband doing, by the way?”

A motorcade of supporters of former President Donald Trump makes a stop at Trump Tower, Sunday, July 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Biden, in turn, has warned that Trump’s return to power poses a grave threat to the country’s civic traditions. He chose a location near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for his initial 2024 campaign event, portraying the likely rematch as “all about” whether democracy can survive.

Addressing the nation Sunday, Biden pointed to past examples of political upheaval, including Jan. 6 and more recently harassment of election workers, and said, “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence, ever.”

Still, one of Trump’s potential vice-presidential picks, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, said on social media over the weekend that Biden’s earlier rhetoric against Trump “led directly” to the attempted assassination.

And House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said it’s time to “turn the temperature down in this country,” also singled out for blame Biden’s recent comments during a call with political donors in which the president said, “It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

Johnson said he knows Biden didn’t literally mean Trump should be targeted, but added, “that kind of language on either side should be called out.”

Nick Beauchamp, an associate professor of political science at Boston’s Northeastern University, said there is an opportunity now for political leaders to “start framing their critiques of the others in words that explicitly denounce violence.”

From the the 1968 killings of American leaders Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to the 1981 attack on President Ronald Reagan, to shootings of Republicans and Democrats in the past decade, the violent strain has always been part of American politics.

A few Donald Trump supporters react to passing cars at an intersection a few miles from Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Other violent incidents have intersected more recently with the nation’s political struggles in frightful ways.

Outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s suburban home, a man with a knife and gun who threated to kill the justice was arrested in 2022. Members of Congress have experienced increased security threats. And harassment against elections officials from cities and states across the nation has led to a wave of departures because of threats on their livelihoods.

Last summer, FBI agents fatally shot a Utah man who had threatened to assassinate Biden and had referred to himself as a “MAGA Trumper.” That followed a series of drive-by shootings earlier in the year targeting Democrats in New Mexico, a startling outburst that led to criminal charges against a failed state legislative candidate who had parroted Trump’s rigged-election rhetoric.

A gunman who died in a shootout in 2022 after trying to get inside the FBI’s Cincinnati office apparently went on social media and called for federal agents to be killed “on sight” following the search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

Jacob Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who focuses on domestic terrorism, said, “The warning lights have been blinking red regarding violence in this election cycle for months, if not years now.”

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As Trump took the stage Saturday evening, he had opened the rally in Pennsylvania as he often does, marveling at the “big beautiful crowd” gathered to see him — and demeaning Biden’s own crowds as paltry in comparison.

The former president had just started his speech, launching into his mass deportation agenda and complaints of a nation in decline.

“Our country is going to hell,” Trump said.

Minutes later, shots rang out.

Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, who was sitting with other Republican officials behind Trump, called it all just a terrible tragedy. “The level of lack of civility and hostility, maybe this will send a ringing signal to all those to cool it,” he told the AP.

As Americans took stock Sunday, the common message was a call for unity.

The Rev. Chris Morgan, senior pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Bethel Park, which is a few streets away from where the shooter lived, urged his congregation during a morning service to pray for the country.

“Clearly there’s a lot going on and a lot that is causing people to have great anxiety and great struggle,” he said. “I want to encourage you to be praying for those that have been involved that they too can find what it means to show kindness to others.”

Associated Press writers Ali Swenson, Brian Slodysko and Holly Meyer contributed to this report.

Kaelen Culpepper sat in a chair at the Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas, in between his parents, clutching his mother’s hand with one hand and his father’s with the other.

As Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke the words, “With the 21st pick in the of the 2024 MLB Draft, the Minnesota Twins select Kaelen Culpepper, a shortstop from Kansas State,” he shook his head back and forth. When he heard his name, he squeezed his eyes shut and broke into tears, then going in for a big hug from each parent.

“When I heard my name being called, just a jolt of emotions ran through my body,” Culpepper said. “It was all excitement, joy. The tears were real. I came a long way in my journey just to get here. Looking back on it, it’s amazing. I’m just really excited and happy.”

The shortstop out of Kansas State hit .328 with a .419 on-base percentage and .574 slugging percentage in his junior season. He finished with 80 hits in 61 games, hitting 11 home runs, driving in 59 and swiping 17 bags.

Culpepper, 21, is athletic infielder, who said he would consider himself a five-tool player but touted his speed in particular, saying he hoped one day to steal 30, 40 or maybe even 50 bags.

MLB Pipeline’s scouting report describes Culpepper as having a “disciplined approach that prioritizes making consistent contact and using the entire field.”

Culpepper is the first position player to be selected in the first round from Kansas State, something which he said “really means a lot,” to him.

“The whole goal of Day 1, stepping on campus was, ‘Let’s get drafted,’ and I’m so happy and stoked that (the Twins) went with me,” he said.

While he spent his freshman and sophomore years at third base, he shifted over to shortstop once his former teammate, Nick Goodwin, was drafted last year and vacated the position.

Culpepper said he had always been a shortstop and could see himself sticking there long term at the position, which he said felt natural to him.

As he turns his sights to professional ball, he said his main focus is on being as consistent as he can, day in and day out.

“I think consistency plays a huge role at the next level,” he said. “Being a guy that’s (a) straight-line guy that’s always consistent is a lot better than being an up-and-down guy who has his best game sometimes and his worst game sometimes. I don’t want to be that person. I want to be the guy that’s at his best every single game.”

Culpepper wasn’t the only shortstop the Twins grabbed on the first day of the draft. With the 33rd overall pick, the one they received as compensation for losing starting pitcher Sonny Gray in free agency after he rejected their qualifying offer, the Twins selected Kyle DeBarge out of Louisiana-Lafayette.

The 20-year-old hit .356 with a 1.117 OPS and 21 home runs in 62 games played this season.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shannen Doherty, the “Beverly Hills, 90210” star whose life and career were roiled by illness and tabloid stories, has died at 53.

Doherty died Saturday, according to a statement from her publicist, Leslie Sloane. She had had breast cancer for years.

“The devoted daughter, sister, aunt and friend was surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie. The family asks for their privacy at this time so they can grieve in peace,” Sloane said in a statement. The news was first reported by People magazine.

Her illness was publicly revealed in a lawsuit filed in 2015 against her former business managers, in which she alleged they mismanaged her money and allowed her health insurance to lapse. She later shared intimate details of her treatment following a single mastectomy. In December 2016, she posted a photo of her first day of radiation, calling the treatment “frightening” for her.

In February 2020, Doherty revealed that the cancer had returned and she was at stage four. She said she came forward because her health conditions could come out in court. The actor had sued insurance giant State Farm after her California home was damaged in a fire in 2018.

A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Doherty moved to Los Angeles with her family at age 7 and, within a few years, became an actor.

“It was completely my decision,” she told The Associated Press in a 1994 interview. “My parents never pushed me into anything. They support me. It really wouldn’t matter if I was a professional soccer player — they’d still be as supportive and loving.”

As a child star, she worked steadily in such TV series as “Little House on the Prairie,” in which she played Jenny Wilder. She detoured as a teenager to the big screen in “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (1985) and “Heathers.”

In 1990, the doe-eyed, dark-haired actor won her breakout role as Brenda Walsh in producer Aaron Spelling’s hit teenage melodrama set in posh Beverly Hills. She and Jason Priestley’s Brandon, Brenda’s twin brother, were fish-out-of-water Midwesterners.

But Doherty’s fame came with media scrutiny and accounts of outbursts, drinking and impulsiveness — the latter most notably after a very brief marriage to George Hamilton’s son. Doherty’s second marriage, in 2002, was to Rick Salomon, who was involved in a sex-tape incident with Paris Hilton. The marriage was annulled within a year. In 2011, Doherty married photographer Kurt Iswarienko. She filed for divorce in April 2023.

She left “90210” at the end of its fourth season in 1994 (the show aired until 2000), reportedly removed by Spelling because of conflicts with her co-stars and chronic lateness.

But in her 1994 AP interview, Doherty described her life as peaceful.

“It must be, if you pick up the Enquirer and find the only thing they can write about me is that I installed a pay phone next to my house and was seen at Stroud’s (a discount bed-and-bath chain) buying $1,400 worth of bed linens and wouldn’t go to an expensive store,” she said. “It must be calm if they’re pulling that stuff out of their heads.”

Three years later, in 1997, Doherty was sentenced to anger-management counseling by a Beverly Hills Municipal Court judge after she allegedly smashed a beer bottle onto a man’s windshield during a quarrel. In another legal scrape, she pleaded no contest after a 2001 drunken driving arrest and was ordered to serve five days in a work-release program.

Doherty reunited with Spelling when he cast her in 1998 as Prue Halliwell in “Charmed.” In an AP interview that year, the actor expressed regrets about her past.

“I did bring a lot of it on myself,” Doherty said. “I don’t think I can point fingers and say, ‘Oh, YOU’RE to blame.’ And I don’t do that with myself, either. Because I was just growing up.”

Her personality was “grotesquely misconstrued” by the media, Doherty added.

Spelling said at the time that their relationship was never as bad as some made it seem.

“We had a few bumps along the road, but golly, who doesn’t?” said Spelling, who died in 2006. “Everything Shannen did was blown out of proportion by the rag sheets.”

Doherty co-starred with Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano in “Charmed” from 1998-2001, at which point her character was replaced by one played by Rose McGowan. Doherty appeared in the “90210” sequel series seven years later, along with original series star Jennie Garth, and competed on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2010. She also worked on the third “Beverly Hills, 90210” reboot, called “BH90210,” a meta send-up of the show that aired for one season in 2019.

She also appeared in a tribute episode of “Riverdale” dedicated to that show’s star — and her late “Beverly Hills, 90210” on-screen love interest — Luke Perry.

Doherty struggled to recapture her “Beverly Hills, 90210” star status, but worked in big-screen films including “Mallrats” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” and in such TV movies as “A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story,” in which she played the “Gone with the Wind” author. A nadir was “Blindfold: Acts of Obsession,” an erotic thriller opposite Judd Nelson.

Doherty’s lawsuit against her ex-business managers was settled in 2016. She was open about the toll that cancer was taking on her. She posted photos that showed the baldness that followed treatment and, in an August 2016 interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” shared her fears.

“The unknown is always the scariest part,” she said. “Is the chemo going to work? Is the radiation going to work?” she said. “Pain is manageable, you know living without a breast is manageable, it’s the worry of your future and how your future is going to affect the people that you love.”

___

Lynn Elber, a longtime television writer, retired from The Associated Press in 2022.