WACO, Texas: Staring down a possible indictment, a defiant Donald Trump is hoping to put on a show of force Saturday as he holds the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign in a city made famous by deadly resistance against law enforcement.
The former president will gather with supporters at an airport in Waco, which will mark the 30th anniversary of the Waco massacre next month. In 1993, an attempted raid by law enforcement of a compound belonging to the Branch Davidians, a religious cult, resulted in a shootout that led to a 51-day siege, ending in a blaze that left dozens dead.
The rally comes as Trump has berated prosecutors, encouraged protests and raised the prospect of possible violence should he become the first former president in US history to face criminal charges. Some of his recent rhetoric has echoed language he used before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters seeking to stop the transfer of power.
“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States ... and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?” Trump wrote on his social media site early Friday.
Trump’s campaign insisted the location and timing of the event had nothing to do with the Waco siege or anniversary. Instead, a spokesperson said the site was chosen because it was conveniently situated near four of the state’s biggest metropolitan areas — Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio — and has the infrastructure to handle a sizable crowd.
“This is the ideal location to have as many supporters from across the state and in neighboring states attend this historic rally,” said Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung.
The city is part of McLennan County, which Trump won in 2020 by more than 23 points. The airport where the rally is being held is 17 miles from the Branch Davidian compound.
The rally had already been in the works before it became clear that a grand jury in New York was drawing closer to a possible indictment as it investigates hush money payments made to women who alleged sexual encounters with Trump during the height of his 2016 campaign. Trump has denied the women’s claims.
But the timing will give Trump an opportunity to demonstrate his continued popularity with the GOP base and to portray himself as the victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt” as he campaigns for a second term in the White House.
The grand jury investigating the hush money payment is expected to meet again Monday in New York.
Trump has spent weeks now railing against the investigation. In a move that seemed designed to preempt a formal announcement and to galvanize his loyal base, he claimed last Saturday that he would be arrested the following Tuesday. While that did not happen, Trump has used the days since to try to shape public perception, claiming, for instance, that the Manhattan district attorney’s office had plunged into “Total disarray,” though there was no evidence to suggest prosecutors were backing away from the case.
His efforts echoed a strategy the former president has used before, including during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Trump has also launched a series of increasingly personal attacks against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, calling him “a danger to our Country” who “should be removed immediately,” and using increasingly racist and dehumanizing rhetoric.
On Thursday, he sought to tie Bragg, Manhattan’s first Black district attorney, to George Soros, a liberal billionaire donor who doesn’t know Bragg and hasn’t donated directly to him. “A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL,” Trump wrote of Bragg, adding, “THIS IS NO LEGAL SYSTEM, THIS IS THE GESTAPO.” He also shared an article that juxtaposed a picture of Bragg with a photo of Trump swinging a baseball bat in Bragg’s direction.
The former president has also repeatedly involved violence. Last Saturday, he called on his supporters to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” And on Thursday, he bemoaned, “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”
On Friday, a powdery substance was found with a threatening letter in a mailroom at Bragg’s offices, authorities said. Officials later determined the substance wasn’t dangerous.
Bragg’s office sent an internal email to staff last Saturday saying, “We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York.” After the powder was discovered, Bragg sent another email to staffers telling them their safety was the top priority.
“We will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, which is what each of you does every single day,” he wrote Friday.
Even before the threatening letter was sent to Bragg’s office, Democrats warned that Trump’s remarks had the potential to incite violence.
“The twice-impeached former president’s rhetoric is reckless, reprehensible and irresponsible. It’s dangerous, and if he keeps it up he’s going to get someone killed,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said earlier Friday.
The Manhattan case focuses on a $130,000 payment that Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, made to porn actor Stormy Daniels as Trump was in the throes of the 2016 campaign. Trump later reimbursed Cohen and his company logged the reimbursements as a legal expense. Cohen has already served time in prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes.
Trump is also facing an investigation in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election as well as federal probes into his handling of classified documents and possible obstruction, as well as his efforts on Jan. 6.
Trump rallying supporters in Waco ahead of possible charges
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Trump rallying supporters in Waco ahead of possible charges
France’s prison population reaches all-time high
Over the past year, France’s prison population grew by 6,000 inmates, taking the occupancy rate to 133.7 percent.
The record overcrowding has even seen 23 out of France’s 186 detention facilities operating at more than twice their capacity.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has called the overcrowding crisis “unacceptable,” has suggested building new facilities to accommodate the growing prison population.
The hard-line minister announced in mid-May a plan to build a high-security prison in French Guiana — an overseas territory situated north of Brazil — for the most “dangerous” criminals, including drug kingpins.
Prison overcrowding is “bad for absolutely everyone,” said Darmanin in late April, citing the “appalling conditions” for prisoners and “the insecurity and violence” faced by prison officers.
A series of coordinated attacks on French prisons in April saw assailants torching cars, spraying the entrance of one prison with automatic gunfire, and leaving mysterious inscriptions.
The assaults embarrassed the right-leaning government, whose tough-talking ministers — Darmanin and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau — have vowed to step up the fight against narcotics.
And in late April, lawmakers approved a major new bill to combat drug-related crime, with some of France’s most dangerous drug traffickers facing detention in high-security prison units in the coming months.
France ranks among the worst countries in Europe for prison overcrowding, placing third behind Cyprus and Romania, according to a Council of Europe study published in June 2024.
Evacuation order for 11 villages on Ukraine border with Russia
- Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian
KYIV: Authorities in Ukraine’s Sumy region bordering Russia on Saturday ordered the mandatory evacuation of 11 villages because of bombardments, as Kyiv feared a Russian offensive there.
“This decision takes into account the constant threat to civilian lives because of the bombardments of border communities,” Sumy’s administration said.
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian.
Russia in recent weeks has claimed to have taken several villages in the northeastern region, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that Moscow was massing more than 50,000 soldiers nearby in a sign of a possible offensive.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s border guard service, Andriy Demchenko, on Thursday said that Russia was poised to “attempt an attack” on Sumy.
He said the Russian troop build-up began when Moscow’s forces fought Ukrainian soldiers who last year had entered the Russian side of the border, in the Kursk region.
Russia has recently retaken control of virtually all of Kursk.
Currently, Russia — which launched its all-out invasion in February 2022 — controls around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. The ongoing conflict has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides.
Washington has been leading diplomatic efforts to try to bring about a ceasefire, but Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of not wanting peace.
The Kremlin has proposed further negotiations in Istanbul on Monday, after a May 16 round of talks that yielded little beyond a large prisoner-of-war exchange.
Kyiv has not yet said whether it will attend the Istanbul meeting, and is demanding that Moscow drop its opposition to an immediate truce.
Afghanistan welcomes upgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan
- The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries have cooled in recent months
- Tensions fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans
KABUL: Afghanistan has welcomed the decision to upgrade diplomatic relations with Pakistan, where the Taliban government’s foreign minister is due to travel in the coming days, his office said on Saturday.
The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries, as relations between the Taliban authorities and Pakistan – already rocky – have cooled in recent months, fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans.
Pakistan’s top diplomat on Friday said the charge d’affaires stationed in Kabul would be elevated to the rank of ambassador, with Kabul later announcing its representative in Islamabad would also be upgraded.
“This elevation in diplomatic representation between Afghanistan & Pakistan paves the way for enhanced bilateral cooperation in multiple domains,” the Aghan foreign ministry said on X.
Kabul’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is due to visit Pakistan “in the coming days,” ministry spokesman Zia Ahmad Takal said.
Muttaqi met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in May in Beijing as part of a trilateral meeting with their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
Wang afterwards announced Kabul and Islamabad’s intention to exchange ambassadors and expressed Beijing’s willingness “to continue to assist with improving Afghanistan-Pakistan ties.”
Dar hailed the “positive trajectory” of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations on Friday, saying the upgrading of their representatives would “promote further exchanges between two fraternal countries.”
Only a handful of countries – including China – have agreed to host Taliban government ambassadors since their return to power in 2021, with no country yet formally recognizing the administration.
Russia last month said it would also accredit a Taliban government ambassador, days after removing the group’s “terrorist” designation.
China rebukes Macron's comparison of Ukraine and Taiwan
- China's embassy fired back that the "Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair
SINGAPORE: China hit back at French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday for drawing a connection between the Ukraine conflict and the fate of Taiwan, saying the two issues are "different in nature, and not comparable at all".
"Comparing the Taiwan question with the Ukraine issue is unacceptable," China's embassy in Singapore said on social media, a day after Macron warned Asian defence officials in Singapore not to view Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a far-away problem.
"If we consider that Russia could be allowed to take a part of the territory of Ukraine without any restriction, without any constraint, without any reaction of the global order, how would you phrase what could happen in Taiwan?" Macron told the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier annual security forum.
"What would you do the day something happens in the Philippines?"
China's embassy fired back that the "Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair. There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory."
While Taiwan considers itself a sovereign nation, China has said it will not rule out using force to bring it under its control.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned Saturday at the same forum in Singapore that China was "credibly preparing" to use military force to upend the balance of power in Asia, adding the Chinese military was building the capabilities to invade Taiwan and "rehearsing for the real deal".
South Koreans rally for presidential hopefuls days before vote
- All major polls have placed liberal Lee Jae-myung well ahead in the presidential race
SEOUL: Thousands of supporters of South Korea’s two leading presidential candidates rallied on Saturday in Seoul, days before a vote triggered by the ex-leader’s disastrous declaration of martial law.
Tuesday’s election caps months of political turmoil sparked by Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief suspension of civilian rule in December, for which he was impeached and removed from office.
All major polls have placed liberal Lee Jae-myung well ahead in the presidential race, with a recent Gallup survey showing 49 percent of respondents viewed him as the best candidate.
Kim Moon-soo, from the conservative People Power Party (PPP) that Yoon left this month, trailed behind at 35 percent.
Organizers from both camps told police they expected tens of thousands of supporters to rally in Seoul on Saturday.
In Seocho, in the south of the capital, Lee supporters gathered holding signs condemning Yoon’s “insurrection.”
“I believe the outcome of the presidential election is already decided,” Lee Kyung-joon, a Lee supporter, told AFP.
“I came to today’s rally to help condemn the forces involved in the martial law attempt,” he added, referring to ex-president Yoon’s political allies.
Yoon is currently on trial for insurrection, and Kwon Oh-hyeok, one of the organizers of Saturday’s rally, said a Lee victory in the June 3 vote was crucial to holding him accountable.
“Isn’t the People Power Party’s decision to run in the snap election — triggered by Yoon’s removal from office — an insult and a betrayal of the people?” Kwon told rally participants.
“Fellow citizens, we must win by a landslide to deliver the justice this moment demands.”
On the other side of town, in Gwanghwamun Square, conservatives — including supporters of disgraced ex-leader Yoon — filled the streets holding signs that read “Yoon Again” and “Early voting is invalid!“
Yoon’s martial law attempt, which he claimed was necessary to “root out” pro-North Korean, “anti-state” forces, emboldened a wave of extreme supporters including far-right YouTubers and radical religious figures.
Many have spread unverified content online, including allegations of Chinese espionage and fraud within South Korea’s electoral system.
That sentiment was on full display at Saturday’s rally, where protesters called for the dissolution of the National Election Commission over a series of mishaps during the two-day early voting period this week.
“People believe the root of all these problems lies with the National Election Commission, and that it should be held accountable,” conservative protester Rhee Kang-san told AFP.
Both frontrunner Lee of the liberal Democratic Party and conservative challenger Kim have cast the race as a battle for the soul of the country.
More than a third of those eligible cast their ballots in early voting on Thursday and Friday, according to the election commission.
Overseas voting reached a record high, with nearly four-fifths of the 1.97 million eligible voters casting their ballots last week.
Experts say that regardless of who wins, South Korea’s polarization is likely to deepen.
If Lee wins, the conservatives “will do whatever it takes to undermine him and his government, whether their logic makes sense or not,” political analyst Park Sang-byung told AFP.
“Unless the PPP distances itself from Yoon’s extremist base, it could turn to misinformation — such as unfounded claims of election fraud — to mobilize the right against Lee. That’s a troubling prospect,” he said.
Whoever succeeds Yoon will also have to grapple with a worsening economic downturn, one of the world’s lowest birth rates, the soaring cost of living and bellicose neighbor North Korea.
He will also have to navigate a mounting superpower standoff between the United States, South Korea’s traditional security guarantor, and China, its largest trade partner.
