WASHINGTON: Facing growing criticism over a massive security failure, the US Secret Service on Monday vowed to cooperate with an independent review after a shooter was allowed to open fire on Donald Trump.
The 78-year-old former president was injured but survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, a brazen attack that shocked a nation already deeply polarized ahead of the November election.
“The Secret Service is working with all involved federal, state and local agencies to understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent an incident like this from ever taking place again,” the agency’s director Kimberly Cheatle said in a statement.
“We understand the importance of the independent review announced by President (Joe) Biden yesterday and will participate fully,” Cheatle added.
Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when multiple bangs rang out.
He clutched his ear, with blood visible on his ear and cheek, then ducked to the floor as Secret Service agents swarmed onto the podium, surrounding him and rushing him to a nearby vehicle.
The shooter and a bystander were killed, and two spectators injured.
Newly surfaced video backs up reports from witnesses that they had called out to police and physically pointed at the shooter as he lay on the roof preparing to open fire, the Washington Post reported Monday.
The shots targeting Trump rang out 86 seconds after the first audible attempts to warn the police, the Post said, citing an analysis it did of video clips from the scene of the attack.
Biden ordered a full review of the security at the rally, as well as at this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Trump will be crowned the party’s presidential nominee.
He also ordered Secret Service protection for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and long-time vaccine skeptic who has no chance of winning in November, but whose candidacy could potentially sway close contests in key swing states.
The Secret Service faces intense scrutiny over how a gunman aiming an assault rifle was able to take position on a roof some 500 feet (150 meters) from one of the most protected political figures on the planet.
With Trump set to star at the convention, Cheatle said the agency was working to toughen security.
The Secret Service designs plans for major events “to respond to a kinetic security environment and the most up-to-date intelligence,” her statement said.
Earlier in the day, Trump had called for Secret Service protection for Kennedy “in light of what is going on in the world today.”
“Given the history of the Kennedy Family, this is the obvious right thing to do!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social web site.
Kenedy’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1963. Five years later, the candidate’s father, Robert, was shot to death in Los Angeles while on the campaign trail.
The US Secret Service is responsible for the safety of the president, vice president and former presidents, and their families, as well as major election candidates and visiting foreign heads of state.
Secret Service agrees to independent probe over Trump shooting
https://arab.news/g8adp
Secret Service agrees to independent probe over Trump shooting
- The Secret Service faces intense scrutiny over how a gunman aiming an assault rifle was able to take position on a roof some 500 feet (150 meters) from one of the most protected political figures on the planet
Kremlin says no date yet for next round of Ukraine peace talks
They have made no progress toward a ceasefire
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Thursday there was no progress yet toward setting a date for the next round of peace talks with Ukraine, Interfax news agency reported.
Another agency, TASS, quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Russia was in favor of continued US efforts to mediate.
Resuming negotiations after a gap of more than three years, Russia and Ukraine held face-to-face talks in Istanbul on May 16 and June 2 that led to a series of prisoner exchanges and the return of the bodies of dead soldiers.
But they have made no progress toward a ceasefire which Ukraine, with Western backing, has been pressing for.
16 dead, thousands of businesses destroyed after Kenya protests
- The marches had been called to mark one year since anti-tax demonstrations
- “What unfolded yesterday was not a protest. It was terrorism disguised as dissent,” Kipchumba Murkomen, interior cabinet secretary, said
NAIROBI: At least 16 people died in protests across Kenya on Wednesday, Amnesty International said Thursday, as businesses and residents were left to clean up the devastation in the capital and beyond.
The marches had been called to mark one year since anti-tax demonstrations that peaked when a huge crowd stormed parliament and dozens were killed by security forces.
The anniversary marches began peacefully Wednesday but descended into chaos as young men held running battles with police, lit fires, and ripped up pavements to use as projectiles.
“What unfolded yesterday was not a protest. It was terrorism disguised as dissent,” Kipchumba Murkomen, interior cabinet secretary, said in a televised speech.
“We condemn the criminal anarchists who in the name of peaceful demonstrations unleashed a wave of violence, looting, sexual assault and destruction upon our people,” he added.
In Nairobi’s business district, the epicenter of the unrest, AFP journalists found entire shopping centers and thousands of businesses destroyed, many still smoldering.
At least two banks had been broken into, while businesses ranging from supermarkets to small electronics and clothing stores were reduced to ashes or ransacked by looters.
“When we came we found the whole premise burnt down,” said Raphael Omondi, 36, owner of a print shop, adding that he had lost machines worth $150,000.
“There were guys stealing, and after stealing they set the whole premises on fire... If this is what protest is, it is not worth it.”
“They looted everything... I do not know where to start,” said Maureen Chepkemoi, 32, owner of a perfume store.
“To protest is not bad but why are you coming to protest inside my shop? It is wicked,” she added.
Several business owners told AFP that looting had started in the afternoon after the government ordered TV and radio stations to stop broadcasting live images of the protests.
Amnesty International’s Kenya director Irungu Houghton said the death toll had risen to 16.
Rights group Vocal Africa, which was documenting the deaths and helping affected families at a Nairobi morgue, said at least four bodies had been brought there so far.
“All of them had signs of gunshots, so we suspect they all died of gunshot wounds,” its head Hussein Khalid told AFP.
“We condemn this excessive use of force,” he said. “We believe that the police could have handled themselves with restraint.”
“You come out to protest police killings, and they kill even more.”
A coalition of rights groups had earlier said at least 400 people were wounded, with 83 in serious condition in hospital. It recorded protests in 23 counties around Kenya.
Emergency responders reported multiple gunshot wounds, and there were unconfirmed local media reports that police had opened fire on protesters, particularly in towns outside the capital.
There is deep resentment against President William Ruto, who came to power in 2022 promising rapid economic progress.
Many are disillusioned by continued economic stagnation, corruption and high taxes, as well as police brutality after a teacher was killed in custody earlier this month.
Vehicle hits pedestrians near school in Beijing: Chinese police
- A grey SUV wedged against a tree as several people and clothing were seen in the road
- “On June 26, 2025, at around 13:00, a traffic accident occurred near the intersection of Yucai Road and Dongmen Street in Miyun district,” local police wrote
BEIJING: A vehicle crashed into pedestrians in an “accident” near a school in Beijing on Thursday, Chinese police said, with footage shared online appearing to show young people lying injured in the street.
Videos geolocated by AFP to an intersection in Miyun district in the northeast of the capital showed a grey SUV wedged against a tree as several people and clothing were seen in the road.
In one clip a bloodied young person was seen being given first aid by somebody in white overalls.
“On June 26, 2025, at around 13:00, a traffic accident occurred near the intersection of Yucai Road and Dongmen Street in Miyun district,” local police wrote in an online statement.
A 35-year-old man surnamed Han “collided” with people “due to an improper operation,” it said, adding those injured were taken to hospital.
It did not give the number of injured.
“The accident is under further investigation,” the statement said.
China has seen a string of mass casualty incidents — from stabbings to car attacks — challenging its reputation for good public security.
Last year a man who plowed his car into a crowd of mostly school children in central China was handed a suspended death sentence with a two-year reprieve.
In November 2024 the attacker named as Huang Wen repeatedly rammed his car into a crowd outside a primary school in Hunan province.
When the vehicle malfunctioned and stopped, Huang got out and attacked bystanders with a weapon before being apprehended.
Thirty people, including 18 pupils, sustained minor injuries.
Some analysts have linked the incidents to growing anger and desperation at the country’s slowing economy and a sense that society is becoming more stratified.
In November last year, a man killed 35 people and wounded more than 40 when he rammed his car into a crowd in the southern city of Zhuhai, the country’s deadliest attack in a decade.
And in the same month, eight people were killed and 17 wounded in a knife attack at a vocational school in the eastern Chinese city of Yixing.
Lavrov says NATO spending increase won’t significantly affect Russia’s security
- NATO allies on Wednesday agreed to raise their collective spending goal to 5% of GDP over the next decade
MOSCOW: NATO’s decision to increase defense spending will not significantly affect Russia’s security, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
NATO allies on Wednesday agreed to raise their collective spending goal to 5 percent of gross domestic product over the next decade, citing what they called the long-term threat posed by Russia and the need to strengthen civil and military resilience.
“As for the impact of this 5 percent goal on our security, I don’t think it will be significant,” Lavrov told a press conference.
“We know what goals we are pursuing, we don’t hide them, we openly announce them, they are absolutely legal from the point of view of any interpretation of the principles of the UN Charter and international law, and we know by what means we will always ensure these goals.”
NATO adopted the higher spending target in response to pressure from US President Donald Trump for European members to pull their weight, and also to European fears that Russia poses a growing threat to their security following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russia, which is spending more than 40 percent of this year’s budget on defense and security, denies any intention to attack a NATO state.
The Kremlin accused the alliance this week of portraying Russia as a “fiend of hell” in order to justify its “rampant militarization.”
Myanmar burns confiscated drugs worth around $300 million
- The destroyed drugs included opium, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, ketamine and the stimulant known as ice
- Myanmar has a long history of drug production linked to political and economic insecurity caused by decades of armed conflict
YANGON: Officials in Myanmar’s major cities destroyed about $300 million worth of confiscated illegal drugs Thursday.
The destroyed drugs included opium, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, ketamine and the stimulant known as ice, or crystal meth, Yangon Police Brig. Gen. Sein Lwin said in a speech at a drug-burning ceremony.
The drug burnings came nearly a month after UN experts warned of unprecedented levels of methamphetamine production and trafficking from Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle region, where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet, and Myanmar’s eastern Shan State in particular.
The production of opium and heroin historically flourished there, largely because of the lawlessness in border areas where Myanmar’s central government has been able to exercise only minimum control over various ethnic minority militias, some of them partners in the drug trade.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a May report that the political crisis across the country after the military takeover in 2021 — which led to a civil war — has turbocharged growth of the methamphetamine trade.
In the country’s biggest city, Yangon, a massive pile of drugs worth more than $117 million went up in a blaze, Sein Lwin said.
Similar events to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking also occurred in the country’s second-largest city of Mandalay, and in Taunggyi, the capital of eastern Myanmar’s Shan state, all areas close to where the drugs are produced.
A police official from the capital Naypyitaw told The Associated Press that the substances burned in three locations were worth $297.95 million. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been publicly announced.
Myanmar has a long history of drug production linked to political and economic insecurity caused by decades of armed conflict. It has been a major source of illegal drugs destined for East and Southeast Asia, despite repeated efforts to crack down.
That has led the flow of drugs to surge “across not only East and Southeast Asia, but also increasingly into South Asia, in particular Northeast India,” the UN said last month. Drugs are increasingly trafficked from Myanmar to Cambodia, mostly through Laos, as well as through maritime routes linking Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with Sabah in Malaysia serving as a key transit hub, it added.
The UN agency labeled Myanmar in 2023 as the world’s largest opium producer.
