A man accused of breaking into and setting fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence while the governor’s family slept admitted to “harboring hatred” for Shapiro, and said he would have beaten the governor with a hammer if they had encountered one another, court records allege.

Shapiro, his wife Lori, their four children, two dogs and another family were forced to evacuate the state-owned Harrisburg residence, which was significantly damaged by the fire early Sunday, hours after the family hosted a Passover dinner, the governor said. No injuries were reported.

Cody Balmer, 38, turned himself in to police and was being held on charges of attempted murder, aggravated arson, terrorism and other charges, authorities said. As of Monday morning, however, he was receiving treatment at a hospital following a “medical event not connected to this incident or his arrest,” police said.

Investigators believe mental health issues may be a factor, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Officials were struck by how casual and relaxed the suspect was throughout the ordeal, the source said.

Balmer admitted to setting the fire using homemade Molotov cocktails he fashioned from lawnmower gasoline and beer bottles, according to an affidavit filed by state police early Monday. Balmer knew it was possible the governor was home at the time, he said, and that people could have been hurt.

The case is seemingly the latest instance of violence or threats against an American elected official. A prominent Democrat, the 51-year-old Shapiro was one of several candidates considered for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate during her 2024 presidential bid. He has also been floated as a potential presidential candidate for 2028.

A surge in violent threats against politicians in recent years has included a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in 2023 and two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump, a Republican, last year.

“This type of violence is not OK,” Shapiro said at a news conference Sunday, his voice rising. “We have to be better than this.”

Here’s what we know about the fire at Shapiro’s home and the response by officials:

Family woken by pounding on the door

It took Balmer about an hour to walk from his Harrisburg home to the governor’s residence early Sunday, he told police in an interview outlined in Monday’s affidavit.

When he arrived, Balmer hopped the fence surrounding the residence, broke two windows with a hammer, threw an incendiary device through one of the broken windows – starting a fire – and climbed in through the other to enter the home, according to the affidavit, which cited footage captured by security cameras. Inside, Balmer threw a second incendiary device, causing more flames, the affidavit said.

Balmer then kicked a dining room door down and fled the scene, according to the affidavit.

Balmer was inside the governor’s residence for less than one minute, and “actively evaded” troopers who were searching for him at the same time, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said.

“He clearly had a plan,” Bivens said. “He was very methodical in his approach.”

A caller to emergency services reported a “large fire on the first floor” of the governor’s residence, adding they could “see fire out the windows,” 

Shapiro and his family woke up around 2 a.m. Sunday to loud bangs on the door from one of the state troopers assigned to their detail alerting them to the flames, Shapiro told reporters.

Harrisburg Bureau of Fire responded around 2 a.m. and extinguished the flames, according to state police.

A security review is now underway “to determine how we can ensure that we don’t have a repeat situation like this,” Bivens said.

Shapiro has praised law enforcement for its response. Despite that, the incident is seen by many within the Pennsylvania State Police as a failure, and some personnel could face discipline, according to the source familiar with the investigation.

The governor’s residence has 24/7 security, even when Shapiro is not home, the source said. The property also has numerous security cameras equipped with motion sensor technology that are supposed to be monitored. There have been numerous past instances where the motion sensors were tripped by squirrels and cats, the source said.

When the fires began early Sunday, the security team assumed someone was at the residence, but the team’s first priority was securing the governor and his family, the source noted. It appears the suspect did not have any contact with the governor’s detail.

the genetic engineering company working to bring back the woolly mammoth, has actually already brought back one of its extinct Ice Age cohabitants: the dire wolf.

The Dallas, Texas-based biotech company revealed Monday the recent successful birth of three dire wolf puppies, a major step in proving the viability of Colossal’s “de-extinction technologies” and its potential use in bringing back other species.

The birth of the dire wolf pups marks the first successfully de-extincted animal, Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm said in a press release.

“Our team took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies,” Lamm said. “It was once said, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Today, our team gets to unveil some of the magic they are working on and its broader impact on conservation.”

Lamm and George Church, a biologist at Harvard Medical School, founded Colossal in 2021 with the goal of bringing back the woolly mammoth. Since then, the company has expanded its plans to include the de-extinction of the Australian thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) and the dodo.

Last month, Colossal revealed it had genetically engineered the Woolly Mouse, which shared some coat characteristics with a woolly mammoth, including longer, lighter-colored hair with a rough, woolly texture. “This is a very, very big step for us because it proves that all of the work we’ve been doing for the last three years on the woolly mammoth is exactly what we predicted,” Lamm said at the time.

With the reveal of the dire wolf puppies, Colossal shows “that our end-to-end (de-extinction) toolkit that we talked about with the mouse works, but now it’s working with ancient DNA and it’s been pretty incredible,” 

What is a dire wolf?

Many may have first heard of the dire wolf from HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series of fantasy novels, on which the TV show is based. (The dire wolf was the sigil, or mascot, of House Stark.) Others may be familiar with the Grateful Dead song, “Dire Wolf.”

Dire wolves have also appeared in video games including Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft, tabletop game classic Dungeons & Dragons, and card game Magic the Gathering.

But the dire wolf is an actual real-world predator, which went extinct about 13,000 years ago after roaming North America for thousands of years before that, alongside saber tooth tigers and mastodons.

“Many people view dire wolves as mythical creatures that only exist in a fantasy world, but in reality, they have a rich history of contributing to the American ecosystem,” said George R.R. Martin, who is a Colossal investor and a cultural advisor, in a statement. “I get the luxury to write about magic, but Ben and Colossal have created magic by bringing these majestic beasts back to our world.”

About 25% larger than modern-day gray wolves, dire wolves had thicker, more muscular legs, more powerful shoulders, a wider head and snout with larger jaws and teeth. The dire wolf stood about 3½ feet tall and could be even longer than 6 feet and weigh up to 150 pounds.

Researchers have long been intrigued by the dire wolf because it coexisted with the gray wolf – which did not go extinct – but there hasn’t been enough dire wolf DNA found to analyze. Many dire wolf remains have been found in the La Brea tar pits, for example, but the tar pit damages the DNA, said Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer.

Shapiro and the researchers at Colossal contacted museums and laboratories with dire wolf specimens and got access to a tooth thought to be about 13,000 years old, found in Ohio, and a 72,000-year-old skull from Idaho. Inside the skull is the petrous, or inner ear bone, which is a good source of well-preserved DNA, Shapiro said.

From those two specimens, Shapiro and the team at Colossal recovered enough DNA to create two dire wolf genomes to compare with other canid species including coyotes, jackals, dholes and, of course, other wolves, Shapiro said. Using the genetic data, researchers could confirm the gray wolf as the closest living relative of the dire wolf – they share 99.5% of their DNA code.

Next, the Colossal researchers edited the gray wolf genome in 20 sites over 14 genes to express specific traits of dire wolves including a light-colored coat, hair length, coat patterning, along with body size and musculature.

Fertilized dire wolf eggs were implanted into and born by surrogate dog mothers. Two litters have led to a pair of male dire wolves, Romulus and Remus, now six months old, and Khaleesi, a female, born in January. These newcomers are not exact 100% exactly the same dire wolf that roamed the earth ages ago, but look as close to genetic experts could get.

Sidney Poitier, and Denzel Washington are three of the greatest Black actors to ever grace the silver screen. Widely considered one of the greatest comedians of all time, Murphy rose to fame as a stand-up comic and on Saturday Night Live before becoming a movie star during the 1980s and 1990s, starring in several successful studio comedies. However, it wasn’t until 2007 that Murphy earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the musical drama, Dreamgirls.

On the other hand, Sidney Poitier was the first African American actor to be nominated for and to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, for The Defiant Ones in 1959 and Lilies of the Field in 1964, respectively. Poitier remained the only one to win the award until 38 years later, when Denzel Washington won for 2001’s Training Day. Coincidentally, Washington won on the same night that Poitier received an Honorary Oscar. However, years earlier, Murphy and Washington almost starred together in a biopic, but it was Poitier who advised against it.

Sidney Poitier Advised Eddie Murphy Not To Star In Malcolm X

Sidney Poitier advised Eddie Murphy not to star in Malcolm X, telling him, “You are not Denzel [Washington].” Directed by Spike Lee, based on The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley, the 1992 biopic stars Washington as the titular African-American activist and chronicles his early life as a small-time gangster to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam and his eventual assassination. The movie also stars Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, Al Freeman Jr., and Delroy Lindo.

In Apple TV’s new documentary, Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood, Eddie Murphy opened up about how Sidney Poitier advised him to star in Malcolm X. The movie was originally going to be directed by Norman Jewison, having previously directed Poitier on In the Heat of the Night, who cast Washington before Spike Lee took over as director. Murphy was approached about playing Alex Haley, but Poitier advised against it, telling him, “You are not Denzel [Washington].” Read Murphy’s full story below:

They were talking about doing Malcolm X. Norman Jewison was putting it together. They were gonna use The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley. And they approached me about playing Alex Haley. Around that same time, I bumped into Sidney Poitier at something, and I asked him, “Yeah, I’m thinking about playing Alex Haley!” And Sidney Poitier said, “You are not Denzel [Washington], and you are not Morgan [Freeman]. You are a breath of fresh air, and don’t fuck with that!”

I was in uncharted waters. For Sidney and all those guys, when I showed up, it was something kinda new. They didn’t have a reference for me, they couldn’t give me advice, ’cause I was 20, 21 years old, and my audience was the mainstream — all of everywhere. My movies [were] all around the world, and they had never had that with a young Black person. So nobody could give me advice, really. Everything broke really big and really fast.

What Sidney Poitier’s Advice Meant For Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy admits that he “didn’t know” if Sidney Poitier’s advice “was an insult or a compliment,” but he clearly didn’t put him in the same category as Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman. It’s understandable since, at the time, Murphy wasn’t known as a dramatic actor, as his Oscar nod for Dreamgirls didn’t come until 2007. In the end, Spike Lee’s Malcolm X didn’t even feature Alex Haley as a character. It’s unclear if Poitier’s advice had any effect on Eddie Murphy, but it could have contributed to him continuing to star in comedies for well over the next decade.

The national championship is here, and it couldn’t feature two more impressive programs. The No. 1 seed South Carolina Gamecocks, with three titles since 2017, will look to become the first team since 2016 to repeat as champions. No. 2 seed UConn, led by presumptive No. 1 WNBA draft pick Paige Bueckers, has a record 11 national championships.

Who will come out on top this season? Stay with NBC News all night to find out.

Walter Clayton Jr. has been the star for Florida, and while he’s led the Gators to the men’s Final Four for the first time since 2014, the senior guard could have been in Gainesville much earlier in his college career.

The only difference is he would’ve been wearing cleats and sporting the iconic orange helmet with the “Gators” script.

It’s a rewarding feeling for every player to make the Final Four, but there’s more to it for Clayton. Making it to San Antonio fulfills a bet he made on himself. People didn’t see a future on a basketball court, and as they laid out a path to college for him, he stuck to his gut, and created his own road toward success.

At Lake Wales High School, about 45 miles south of Orlando, Clayton was turning heads as a safety for the Highlanders football team. He was quick and a ball hawk. He became a four-star prospect and, according to 247Sports, got offers to play at Notre Dame, Florida State, Georgia, Nebraska and Tennessee.

And yes, even Florida. In fact, he took a recruiting visit to Florida with now former Gators player and current Chicago Bears defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Jr.

But for how good he was on the gridiron, Clayton wanted to pursue basketball. The only issue was not many schools had as much interest. He sought out to prove how serious he was about it by trying to attend Florida’s premier sports prep school in IMG Academy. Instead, he was told football would be his only path there.

Clayton didn’t let the rejections stop him. He transferred to Bartow High School prior to his junior season to focus solely on basketball, and he was a stud as a key contributor on a team that won back-to-back state titles. Even with the success, COVID-19 restrictions hampered his recruitment. Only mid-major schools such as Jacksonville, East Carolina and Iona offered him a scholarship.

Crowds of people angry about the way President Donald Trump is running the country marched and rallied in scores of American cities Saturday in the biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain its momentum after the shock of the Republican’s first weeks in office.

So-called Hands Off! demonstrations were organized for more than 1,200 locations in all 50 states by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists. The rallies appeared peaceful, with no immediate reports of arrests.

Thousands of protesters in cities dotting the nation from Midtown Manhattan to Anchorage, Alaska, including at multiple state capitols, assailed Trump and billionaire Elon Musk ‘s actions on government downsizing, the economy, immigration and human rights. On the West Coast, in the shadow of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle, protesters held signs with slogans like “Fight the oligarchy.” Protesters chanted as they took to the streets in Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles, where they marched from Pershing Square to City Hall.

Demonstrators voiced anger over the administration’s moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut funding for health programs

Musk, a Trump adviser who runs Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in the downsizing as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

Asked about the protests, the White House said in a statement that “President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors.”

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“The list of what they need to keep their hands off of is too long,” Moran said. “And it’s amazing how soon these protests are happening since he’s taken office.”

The president golfed in Florida Saturday and planned to do so again Sunday, the White House said.

Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump and Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office. But before Saturday the opposition movement had yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women’s March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington after Trump’s first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd’s killing by police in Minneapolis in 2020.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, protesters said they were supporting a variety of causes, from Social Security and education to immigration and women’s reproductive rights.

“Regardless of your party, regardless of who you voted for, what’s going on today, what’s happening today is abhorrent,” said Britt Castillo, 35, of Charlotte. “It’s disgusting, and as broken as our current system might be, the way that the current administration is going about trying to fix things — it is not the way to do it. They’re not listening to the people.”

Among thousands marching through downtown San Jose, California, were Deborah and Douglas Doherty.

Deborah, a graphic designer, is a veteran of the 2017 Women’s March and was nervous that fewer people have turned out against Trump this time. “All the cities need to show up,” she said. “Now people are kind of numb to it, which is itself frightening.”

Associated Press journalists Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, Fatima Hussein in West Palm Beach, Florida, Erik Verduzco in Charlotte, North Carolina, Nicholas Riccardi in San Jose, California, and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed.