The 'tough cookies' of Butler, Pa., remain united, hopeful one year after Trump rally shooting

No one in Butler, Pa. – population 13,000 – ever imagined their quiet community would become the backdrop to an attempted presidential assassination. But on July 13, 2024, gunman Thomas Mathew Crooks opened fire at a rally for once and future President Donald Trump at the local farm showgrounds, a burst of violence that reverberated far beyond western Pennsylvania's rolling hills and changed the course of American history. One bullet grazed Trump’s ear and could have ended his life had he tilted his head even slightly. In the months that followed, Republicans rallied fiercely behind him. Trump