Forty minutes into last night's White House Correspondents' Association dinner, tuxedoed Cabinet members and bejeweled journalists heard gunfire. They dove under tables at the Washington Hilton as President Trump was rushed offstage.

• "Get down! Get down!" people yelled.

Many attendees believed someone in the massive subterranean ballroom had been shot.

• Axios was hosting a Cabinet member at one of our tables. Agents appeared, and the guest and their spouse vanished as if they'd levitated.

Law enforcement stopped an assailant, armed with guns and knives, as he rushed a security checkpoint in the lobby and fired at a Secret Service officer during the salad course.

• The gunman — a guest at the historic hotel, where President Ronald Reagan was shot 45 years ago — was taken into custody and faces firearms and assault charges. Officials believe he acted alone.
• He was apprehended in the hotel lobby before he got to the metal detectors, a source briefed by the FBI told Axios.

During a 10:35 p.m. ET appearance in the White House briefing room, Trump said those frightening minutes brought together the press and members of both political parties. "I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was a beautiful thing to see," Trump said.

• Trump said the officer was "shot from a very close distance with a very powerful gun" in his bullet-resistant vest "and the vest did the job."

The assailant was armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives, according to interim D.C. Police Chief Jeffery Carroll. Carroll said the suspect was taken to a hospital for evaluation, though he wasn't shot.

• Vice President JD Vance was hustled out first. Agents initially covered Trump before bundling him and first lady Melania Trump from the room.
• The room had been buzzing with speculation about how much Trump would needle the press in his remarks. The mentalist Oz Pearlman, who was at the head table, was set to perform.

The suspect is Cole Thomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, Calif., AP reports.

• Social media posts that appear to match the suspect suggest he's a highly educated tutor and amateur video game developer.
• He earned a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Caltech in 2017. He said he was involved in a Christian student fellowship and a campus group that battled with Nerf guns.

🥂 Trump was attending the dinner for the first time in either of his terms. "I thought it was a tray going down. It was a pretty loud noise and it was from quite far away," he said.

• Trump said he wanted to speak at the dinner after the threat was neutralized, but the Secret Service resisted.
• Guests were initially asked to reseat themselves, but then were asked to leave the premises.

Behind the scenes: At first, Trump was held in a secure presidential suite at the hotel as organizers sought to resume the dinner. Waiters refolded napkins and refilled water glasses. Aides adjusted the teleprompter for the president. Then Trump returned to the White House on the advice of the Secret Service.

• The president said he wants the black-tie dinner to be rescheduled and held within 30 days.

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⚖️ Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for D.C., during a late-night news conference, still in her ballgown: "Shots heard, and a whole room went silent. When I lifted my head, and when I looked up, every law enforcement officer was out there, as we all had our heads down … These are the men and women every day who do what they do silently, and they do it with courage and with dignity."

📝 White House Correspondents' Association president Weijia Jiang, CBS News' senior White House correspondent, during the network's special report after President Trump spoke: "What we do isn't about a big, fancy dinner party. In some ways, what happened tonight is actually a much better reflection of what it is we do."

• "I was scrolling [after the head table was evacuated], just trying to find out what people were reporting. I saw many reporters reporting live from in the room, and tweeting from in the room. … [T]hey didn't know if there was an ongoing threat. And that's what reporters do. And that was on full display."

IT budgets are being blown out as some companies spend more on AI than on employees' salaries, Axios' Mady Mills writes.

• "For my team, the cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees," Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning at Nvidia, told Axios.

Uber's chief technology officer already blew through his full 2026 AI budget due to token costs, according to The Information.

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Israel sent the United Arab Emirates an Iron Dome air defense system with troops to operate it early in the war with Iran, two Israeli officials and one U.S. official tell Axios' Barak Ravid.

• Why it matters: The military, security and intelligence cooperation between Israel and the UAE has reached new heights during the war.

Since the war began, Iran has targeted the UAE more than any other country in the region. The unprecedented Iron Dome deployment was not previously made public.

🚪 Behind the scenes: After massive attacks the UAE suffered, the country sought assistance from allies.

• This was the first time Israel had sent an Iron Dome battery to another country, and the UAE was the first country outside of the U.S. and Israel in which the system was used, a senior Israeli official said.

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Trump canceled the trip by his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Islamabad due to Iran's position in peace negotiations, he told Axios' Barak Ravid, who was at a youth soccer game when the president called.

• "I see no point of sending them on an 18-hour flight in the current situation [of the negotiations]. It's too long. We can do it just as well by telephone," Trump said.

Trump extended the ceasefire with Iran earlier this week, but diplomatic efforts haven't made any progress in recent days.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans say it's important that college students be taught how to use AI, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.

• But many don't trust them to use it productively: 47% say AI is used to help avoid learning, while 42% say it's used to help learn.

🤔 The intrigue: The younger the respondent, the more likely they are to believe that the technology is used to cut corners. By 23 points, 18–34-year-olds feel AI is used to avoid learning.

• The oldest age groups were more trusting.

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Research shows that Gen Z is a generation divided into two key groups, and the younger cohort is developing into a political force that could become an electoral bellwether, Axios' Avery Lotz writes.

• In Yale's spring youth poll, 52% of voters ages 18–22 favored Democrats on the congressional ballot — a dramatic reversal from a year earlier, when they favored Republicans by nearly 12 points.
• The one exception: men ages 18–22, the sole young demographic that shifted away from Democrats.

🧠 Rachel Janfaza, author of The Up and Up newsletter, coined "Gen Z 1.0 and Gen Z 2.0" based on her work with high school and college students.

• Gen Z 1.0 graduated high school before COVID-19 and grew up without TikTok. Black Lives Matter was part of the cultural zeitgeist.
• Gen Z 2.0 graduated after the pandemic, their school years shaped by masking, quarantines and remote learning.

Amanda Edelman of Edelman's Gen Z Lab says Gen Z 1.0 came of age during Trump's first term and rebelled against the right. But, with 2.0, "there has been a tremendous backlash."

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Crews sprayed a new "American flag blue" coating on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool yesterday.

• The swimming pool surface will cover up decades-old granite that President Trump said was "leaking like a sieve" and would take at least three years to replace.

How it happened: Trump announced the renovation at an Oval Office event on Thursday. He said he tackled the project after a friend visited from Germany and lamented that the water was filthy and looked disgusting:

• "And I went over there with Secret Service in tow, and I said: 'Isn't that a shame? That's terrible.'"

Trump said he called a few pool contractors he knows from past real estate projects — "I have a guy who's unbelievable at doing swimming pools up the road." (AP)

Security officials evacuate House Speaker Mike Johnson from last night's White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington.