Trump vows to press ahead after surviving assassination attempt

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Republican presidential candidate and former US. President Donald Trump is assisted by security personnel after gunfire rang out during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 14 July 2024
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Trump vows to press ahead after surviving assassination attempt

  • Slain suspect, registered with Republican party, identified as 20-year-old Pennsylvania man
  • Authorities identify 50-year-old fatal victim of shooting

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump vowed on Sunday to push on to the Republican convention where his party will formally make him their presidential nominee after he survived an assassination attempt that further inflames an already bitter US political divide.
It was unclear how a 20-year-old man carrying an AR-15-style rifle managed on Saturday to get close enough to shoot from a rooftop at Trump, who as a former president has lifetime protection by the US Secret Service, a unit of the federal Department of Homeland Security.
Trump, 78, was holding a Saturday campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — one of the states expected to be most competitive in the Nov. 5 election — when shots rang out, hitting his right ear and streaking his face with blood. His campaign said he was doing well and appeared to have suffered no major injury besides a wound on his upper right ear.
The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the suspect in what it called an attempted assassination. He was a registered Republican, according to state voter records and had made a $15 donation to a Democratic political action committee at the age of 17.
Law enforcement officials told reporters they had yet to identify a motive for the attack. Both Republicans and Democrats will be looking for evidence of Crooks’ political affiliation as they seek to cast the rival party as representing extremism.
Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden are locked in a close election rematch, according to most opinion polls including those by Reuters/Ipsos.

Trump is due to receive his party’s formal nomination at the Republican National Convention, which kicks off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Monday. RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said on Fox News on Sunday that authorities are working together to safeguard the venue, where officials have spent months making security preparations.
“In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media website on Sunday.
“I truly love our Country, and love you all, and look forward to speaking to our Great Nation this week from Wisconsin.”
The shooting whipsawed the discussion around the presidential campaign, which had recently focused on whether Biden, 81, should drop out following a disastrous June debate performance.
The Biden campaign had been seeking to reset its message, depicting Trump as a danger to democracy for his continued false claims about election fraud but said on Saturday it was suspending its political advertising for now.
Secret Service agents fatally shot the suspect, the agency said, after he opened fire from the roof of a building about 150 yards (140 m) from the stage where Trump was speaking. An AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle used in the shooting was recovered near his body, according to sources.
The firearm was legally purchased by the suspect’s father, ABC and the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources. Bomb-making materials were found in the suspect’s car, the Associated Press reported, citing sources.

VICTIM WAS SHELTERING FAMILY
Authorities identified a rally attendee who was shot and killed as Corey Comperatore, 50, of Sarver, Pennsylvania, who Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told reporters was killed when he dove on top of his family to protect them from the hail of bullets.
“Corey was an avid supporter of the former president, and was so excited to be there last night with him in the community,” Shapiro said, adding, “Political disagreements can never, ever be addressed through violence.”
Two other rally attendees were critically wounded, the Secret Service said.
The Secret Service in a statement denied accusations by some Trump supporters that it had rejected campaign requests for additional security.
“The assertion that a member of the former President’s security team requested additional security resources that the US Secret Service or the Department of Homeland Security rebuffed is absolutely false,” Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement. “In fact, recently the US Secret Service added protective resources and capabilities to the former President’s security detail.”

NEIGHBORS STUNNED
Residents of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, where the alleged shooter lived, expressed shock at the news on Sunday.
“It’s a little crazy to think that somebody that did an assassination attempt is that close, but it just kind of shows the political dynamic that we’re in right now with the craziness on each side,” said Wes Morgan, 42, who added that he rides bikes with his children on the street where the alleged shooter lived. “Bethel Park is a pretty blue-collar type of area. And to think that somebody was that close is a little insane.”
While mass shootings at schools, nightclubs and other public places are a regular feature of American life, the attack was the first shooting of a US president or major party presidential candidate since the 1981 attempted assassination of Republican President Ronald Reagan.
In 2011, Democratic then-Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was seriously wounded in an attack on a gathering of constituents in Arizona. Republican US Representative Steve Scalize was also badly wounded in a politically motivated 2017 attack on a group of Republican representatives practicing for a charity baseball game.
Giffords later founded a leading gun control organization, Scalize has remained a stalwart defender of gun rights.

POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Americans fear rising political violence, recent Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, with two out of three respondents to a May survey saying they worried violence could follow the election.
Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn his election defeat, fueled by his false claims that his loss was the result of widespread fraud. About 140 police officers were injured in the violence, four riot participants died that day, one police officer who responded died the following day and four responding officers later died by suicide.

The shots appeared to come from outside the area secured by the Secret Service, the agency said.
Hours after the attack, the Oversight Committee in the Republican-led US House of Representatives summoned Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify at a hearing scheduled for July 22.
Leading Republicans and Democrats quickly condemned the violence, as did foreign leaders.
“There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it,” Biden said in a statement.
Some of Trump’s Republican allies said they believed the attack was politically motivated.
“It’s one side that is going after Donald Trump in a way to demonize him personally,” said Scalize, the No. 2 House Republican. “The left seems to have targeted Donald Trump as a person.”
Trump began the year facing multiple legal worries, including four separate criminal prosecutions.
He was found guilty in late May of trying to cover up hush money payments to a porn star. But the other three prosecutions he faces — including two for his attempts to overturn his defeat — have been ground to a halt by various factors, including a Supreme Court decision this month that found him to be partly immune to prosecution.
Trump contends, without evidence, that all four prosecutions have been orchestrated by Biden to try to prevent him from returning to power.


UN report finds women’s rights weakened in quarter of all countries

Updated 7 sec ago
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UN report finds women’s rights weakened in quarter of all countries

  • Number of women with social protection benefits increased by a third between 2010 and 2023
  • Though two billion women and girls still live in places without such protections
UNITED NATIONS, United States: Women’s rights regressed last year in a quarter of countries around the world, according to a report published by UN Women on Thursday, due to factors ranging from climate change to democratic backsliding.
“The weakening of democratic institutions has gone hand in hand with backlash on gender equality,” the report said, adding that “anti-rights actors are actively undermining long-standing consensus on key women’s rights issues.”
“Almost one-quarter of countries reported that backlash on gender equality is hampering implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action,” the report continued, referring to the document from the 1995 World Conference on Women.
In the 30 years since the conference, the UN said that progress has been mixed.
In parliaments around the world, female representation has more than doubled since 1995, but men still comprise about three-quarters of parliamentarians.
The number of women with social protection benefits increased by a third between 2010 and 2023, though two billion women and girls still live in places without such protections.
Gender employment gaps “have stagnated for decades.” Sixty-three percent of women between the ages of 25 and 54 have paid employment, compared to 92 percent of men in the same demographic.
The report cites the COVID-19 pandemic, global conflicts, climate change and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) as all new potential threats to gender equality.
Data presented by the UN Women report found that conflict-related sexual violence has spiked 50 percent in the past 10 years, with 95 percent of victims being children or young women.
In 2023, 612 million women lived within 50 kilometers of armed conflict, a 54-percent increase since 2010.
And in 12 countries in Europe and Central Asia, at least 53 percent of women have experienced one or more forms of gender-based violence online.
“Globally, violence against women and girls persists at alarming rates. Across their lifetime, around one in three women are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence by a non-partner,” the report said.
The report sets out a multi-part roadmap to address gender inequality, such as fostering equitable access to new technologies like AI, measures toward climate justice, investments to combat poverty, increasing participation in public affairs and fighting against gendered violence.

Cyclone Alfred stalls off Australia’s east as millions brace for impact

Updated 06 March 2025
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Cyclone Alfred stalls off Australia’s east as millions brace for impact

  • Cyclone Alfred is now likely to make landfall by Saturday morning near Brisbane, Australia’s third-most populous city
  • The storm’s destructive reach will stretch across the border regions of the states of Queensland and New South Wales

SYDNEY: Cyclone Alfred stalled off Australia’s east coast on Thursday as officials shut airports, schools and public transport while residents stockpiled supplies and sandbagged homes against flooding expected when the category-two storm hits.
The storm is now likely to make landfall by Saturday morning near Brisbane, Australia’s third-most populous city, the Bureau of Meteorology said in its latest update, compared with a prior projection of landfall by early Friday.
The storm’s destructive reach will stretch across the border regions of the states of Queensland and New South Wales, the bureau said, bringing heavy rain, flooding and damaging wind.
“Alfred is behaving at the moment like a completely unwanted houseguest. It’s told us it’s going to be late but linger even longer,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told reporters.
“Unfortunately that means the window for destruction in our community – heavy rains, winds, powerful surf – is longer than we would have otherwise liked.”
Storm warnings on Thursday stretched for more than 500km across the northeast coast, as huge waves whipped up by the cyclone eroded beaches, and officials urged residents in flood-prone areas to evacuate soon.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the defense force would be ready to support emergency services.
Heavy rain from the weather system has already drenched some regions, said Dean Narramore, forecaster at Australia’s weather bureau.
Narramore said the cyclone’s stalling could result in “a longer and prolonged period of heavy rainfall, particularly in northern New South Wales” leading to life-threatening flash flooding.
New South Wales resident Sara Robertson and her family has moved all their valuables from their home in the rural town of Murwillumbah to a motel ahead of the storm.
“I’m glad we’ve got a little bit more of a breather, feeling very tired today and we still have a lot to do,” Robertson told ABC News after moving computers and electronics into the motel.
More than 5,000 properties in southeast Queensland and thousands in northern New South Wales are without power as officials warned there would be more outages when the wind speed increases.
Brisbane airport said it will suspend operations around 4 p.m. (0600 GMT) on Thursday but keep its terminals open for defense operations.
Qantas Airways said its international operations from Brisbane would remain suspended until Saturday noon and domestic flights until Sunday morning.
More than 1,000 schools in southeast Queensland and 250 in northern New South Wales were closed on Thursday, while public transport in Brisbane has been suspended.
Alfred has been called by officials a “very rare event” for Brisbane, Queensland’s state capital, with the city last hit by a cyclone more than half a century ago in 1974. The city of around 2.7 million had near misses from cyclones in 1990 in 2019.


South Korea says military jet misdrops 8 bombs, injuring civilians

Updated 06 March 2025
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South Korea says military jet misdrops 8 bombs, injuring civilians

  • ‘Eight MK-82 general-purpose bombs were abnormally released from an Air Force KF-16 aircraft’
  • Air Force says in statement that it had established an accident response committee to investigate the incident

SEOUL: South Korea’s Air Force said Thursday that one of its fighter jets had accidentally dropped eight bombs in the wrong place during a training exercise, resulting in civilian injuries.
“Eight MK-82 general-purpose bombs were abnormally released from an Air Force KF-16 aircraft, landing outside the designated firing range,” the Air Force said.
The incident occurred around 10:00 a.m. in Pocheon, around 25 kilometers south of the heavily fortified border with the nuclear-armed North.
“We deeply regret the unintended release of the bombs, which resulted in civilian casualties, and wish those injured a swift recovery,” the Air Force said in a statement.
It said it had established an accident response committee to investigate the incident, and said it would “take all necessary measures, including compensation for damages.”
The Air Force said the military jet had been “participating in a joint live-fire exercise involving both the Air Force and Army.”
South Korea was holding combined live-fire drills with the United States Thursday in Pocheon, the Yonhap news agency reported.
South Korea’s National Fire Agency said that the bombs were “presumed to have fallen on a village during a South Korea-US joint exercise.”
This resulted in “casualties and property damage, with many displaced residents,” it said, adding that four people had been seriously injured and three suffered minor injuries.
One church building and sections of two houses were damaged, according to the statement.
Joint South Korea-US “Freedom Shield” military exercises, one of the security allies’ largest annual joint exercises, are set to begin later this month.
The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-1953 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The United States stations tens of thousands of soldiers in the South, in part to protect Seoul against Pyongyang.


Top Trump allies hold talks with Zelensky’s political opponents, Politico reports

Updated 06 March 2025
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Top Trump allies hold talks with Zelensky’s political opponents, Politico reports

  • Discussions were held on whether Ukraine could have quick presidential elections, according to the report

Four senior members of President Donald Trump’s entourage have held discussions with some of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top political opponents, Politico reported on Wednesday.
Talks were held with Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and senior members of the party of Former President Petro Poroshenko, Politico reported, citing three Ukrainian lawmakers and a US Republican foreign policy expert.
Discussions were held on whether Ukraine could have quick presidential elections, according to the report.


US board reinstates thousands of USDA employees fired by Trump administration

Updated 06 March 2025
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US board reinstates thousands of USDA employees fired by Trump administration

  • Merit System Protection Board halts firing of USDA employees
  • Judge blocked Trump from removing board’s Democratic chair

A US board that reviews the firings of federal employees on Wednesday ordered the US Department of Agriculture to temporarily reinstate thousands of workers who lost their jobs as part of President Donald Trump’s layoffs of the federal workforce.
Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit System Protection Board, ordered the USDA to reinstate fired probationary employees for 45 days while a challenge to the terminations plays out.
The decision was issued a day after a federal judge blocked Trump from firing Harris, a Democrat, and from removing her from her position with the board without cause before her term expires in three years. The administration is appealing that decision.
“This is great news and needs to be done with all impacted agencies with similarly situated employees as fast as possible,” said J. Ward Morrow, assistant general counsel at the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents some of the reinstated workers.
Tanya Torst, who was fired from the US Forest Service, a USDA agency, on February 15, said she would be thrilled to return to her former job fundraising for a group of six national forests, though she worried about talk of shutting federal offices nationwide and of further staff reductions later this month.
“We’re thrilled to come back, but we’re hoping they have a place for us.”
The USDA and White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump and Elon Musk, the architect of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, are spearheading an unprecedented effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy, including through job cuts.
It’s estimated that more than 20,000 federal employees, almost all probationary workers, have lost their jobs and another 75,000 have taken a buyout, out of the 2.3 million federal civilian workforce. Probationary workers typically have less than a year of service in their current roles, although some are longtime federal workers.
Union efforts to contest the mass firings in federal court have faced procedural hurdles with judges questioning whether unions had standing to bring the cases or finding that they should have been brought to administrative boards like the MSPB.
The merit board has proved to be a potential roadblock in the Trump administration’s efforts to purge the federal workforce. The board hears appeals by federal government employees when they are fired or disciplined.
It has already halted the firing of six other such employees at various agencies at the request of a watchdog agency whose leader, Hampton Dellinger of the US Office of Special Counsel, was fired by Trump.
Dellinger, an appointee of Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, on Tuesday revealed that he had asked the board to halt the firing of thousands of USDA employees.
Dellinger argued that the Trump administration’s firing of the probationary employees was done unlawfully and without regard to the workers’ rights while circumventing regulations governing mass reductions in the federal workforce.
Harris agreed, saying she found reasonable grounds to believe that the agency fired them in violation of federal law. The board ordered all probationary USDA employees terminated since February 13 to be temporarily reinstated.
Dellinger in a statement welcomed the decision. He said his agency would continue investigating the firing of other federal probationary employees, and he called on federal agencies that had recently fired such workers to immediately reinstate them.
“Voluntarily rescinding these hasty and apparently unlawful personnel actions is the right thing to do and avoids the unnecessary wasting of taxpayer dollars,” he said.
Trump removed Dellinger on February 7, but he was reinstated by a judge until a Washington federal appeals court on Wednesday allowed Trump to fire him.
Dellinger told Reuters on Wednesday he was removed from his post shortly after the ruling, which is temporary while appeals court judges review the merits of the case.