WASHINGTON: The US Secret Service’s acting director said on Friday that local police in Pennsylvania warned that there was a man with a gun on a roof before the July 13 attempted assassination of Donald Trump, but the message did not reach its agents on time.
Local authorities and Secret Service agents were using different communications channels, which prevented the warning from getting through before a 20-year-old assailant opened fire on the Republican presidential candidate, Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe told reporters.
“In the final 30 seconds — which has been the focus of what happened before the assailant opened fire — there (were) clearly radio transmissions that may have happened on that local radio net that we did not have,” Rowe said.
Rowe said the FBI, the agency leading a criminal investigation into the shooting, is working to determine exactly what was communicated. But Rowe said investigators believe “there was somebody who did in fact radio out that they had seen the individual with a weapon.”
A local police officer confronted the shooter on the roof of the industrial building where he ultimately opened fire. But the officer, who had been hoisted up by a colleague, fell to the ground about 30 seconds before the assailant began shooting, law enforcement officials previously have said.
At the time shots rang out, the Secret Service were aware local police were dealing with an issue on the periphery of the event, but did not know about a weapon, Rowe said.
In testimony to Congress on Tuesday, Rowe had blamed the failure on local law enforcement while also saying he was “ashamed” of the security lapse that occurred on the day of the shooting. Rowe also noted that the Secret Service had not been present in a command post set up by local law enforcement in Butler, Pennsylvania for the outdoor campaign rally by the former president.
The first shooting of a US president or major party presidential candidate in more than four decades was a glaring security lapse that led last week to former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation under bipartisan congressional pressure.
Officials have said that Thomas Crooks, 20, fired the shots that wounded Trump’s right ear, killed one rally attendee and wounded two others with an AR-15-style rifle, before law enforcement snipers shot and killed him.
US Secret Service chief says local police warned of gunman at Trump shooting
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US Secret Service chief says local police warned of gunman at Trump shooting
Several passengers injured as plane skids off Indonesia runway
JAYAPURA: A plane with 48 people aboard skidded off the runway in Indonesia’s remote eastern region of Papua on Monday, police said, injuring several passengers.
The Southeast Asian archipelago has a poor aviation safety record, and Papua is covered in mountainous terrain where flying is hampered by frequent poor weather.
The ATR-42 aircraft belonging to Trigana Air was taking off from an airport in the remote Yapen Islands regency to Papuan capital Jayapura on Monday morning when it skidded off the runway.
The flight was carrying 42 passengers, including a baby, and six crew.
“Praise God everybody survived and has been taken to a hospital for a health checkup,” local police chief Ardyan Ukie Hercahyo said in a statement.
“We are investigating the incident and coordinating with related parties to ensure this will never happen again.”
The local search and rescue agency said in a statement that some passengers were injured and traumatized by the incident.
Indonesia relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands, but Papua is a particularly difficult area to reach.
In 2015, a Trigana Air plane crashed there, killing all 54 people on board.
Bangladesh to seek extradition of ousted leader from India
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal is to seek the extradition of ousted leader Sheikh Hasina from neighboring India, its chief prosecutor has said, accusing her of carrying out “massacres.”
Weeks of student-led demonstrations in Bangladesh escalated into mass protests last month, with Hasina quitting as prime minister and fleeing by helicopter to old ally India on August 5, ending her iron-fisted 15-year rule.
“As the main perpetrator has fled the country, we will start the legal procedure to bring her back,” Mohammad Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor of Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), told reporters on Sunday.
The ICT was set up by Hasina in 2010 to probe atrocities during the 1971 independence war from Pakistan.
Hasina’s government was accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of her political opponents.
“Bangladesh has a criminal extradition treaty with India which was signed in 2013, while Sheikh Hasina’s government was in power,” Islam added.
“As she has been made the main accused of the massacres in Bangladesh, we will try to legally bring her back to Bangladesh to face trial.”
Hasina, 76, has not been seen in public since fleeing Bangladesh, and her last official whereabouts is a military air base near India’s capital New Delhi. Her presence in India has infuriated Bangladesh.
Dhaka has revoked her diplomatic passport, and the countries have a bilateral extradition treaty which would permit her return to face criminal trial.
A clause in the treaty, however, says extradition might be refused if the offense is of a “political character.”
Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after the uprising, last week said Hasina should “keep quiet” while exiled in India until she is brought home for trial.
“If India wants to keep her until the time Bangladesh wants her back, the condition would be that she has to keep quiet,” Yunus, 84, told the Press Trust of India news agency.
His government has been under public pressure to demand her extradition and trial over the hundreds of demonstrators killed during the weeks of unrest that ultimately toppled her.
More than 600 people were killed in the weeks leading up to Hasina’s ouster, according to a preliminary United Nations report, suggesting the toll was “likely an underestimate.”
Bangladesh last month opened an investigation led by a retired high court judge into hundreds of enforced disappearances by security forces during Hasina’s rule.
Stop-gap US budget bill planned by Republicans will hurt thousands of military programs, defense chief warns
- Congress will have to pass some type of temporary measure by Sept. 30 in order to avoid a shutdown of the federal government
- Austin said a temporary bill would stall research and development projects, and slow progress key nuclear, ship-building, high-tech drone and other weapons programs
WASHINGTON: Passage of a six-month temporary spending bill would have widespread and devastating effects on the Defense Department, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said in a letter to key members of Congress on Sunday.
Austin said that passing a continuing resolution that caps spending at 2024 levels, rather than taking action on the proposed 2025 budget will hurt thousands of defense programs, and damage military recruiting just as it is beginning to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Asking the department to compete with (China), let alone manage conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, while under a lengthy CR, ties our hands behind our back while expecting us to be agile and to accelerate progress,” said Austin in the letter to leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has teed up a vote this week on a bill that would keep the federal government funded for six more months. The measure aims to garner support from his more conservative GOP members by also requiring states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when registering a person to vote.
Congress needs to approve a stop-gap spending bill before the end of the budget year on Sept. 30 to avoid a government shutdown just a few weeks before voters go to the polls and elect the next president.
Austin said the stop-gap measure would cut defense spending by more than $6 billion compared to the 2025 spending proposal. And it would take money from key new priorities while overfunding programs that no longer need it.
Under a continuing resolution, new projects or programs can’t be started. Austin said that passing the temporary bill would stall more than $4.3 billion in research and development projects and delay 135 new military housing and construction projects totaling nearly $10 billion.
It also would slow progress on a number of key nuclear, ship-building, high-tech drone and other weapons programs. Many of those projects are in an array of congressional districts, and could also have an impact on local residents and jobs.
Since the bill would not fund legally required pay raises for troops and civilians, the department would have to find other cuts to offset them. Those cuts could halt enlistment bonuses, delay training for National Guard and Reserve forces, limit flying hours and other training for active-duty troops and impede the replacement of weapons and other equipment that has been pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine.
Going forward with the continuing resolution, said Austin, will “subject service members and their families to unnecessary stress, empower our adversaries, misalign billions of dollars, damage our readiness, and impede our ability to react to emergent events.”
Noting that there have been 48 continuing resolutions during 14 of the last 15 fiscal years — for a total of nearly 1,800 days — Austin said Congress must break the pattern of inaction because the US military can’t compete with China “with our hands tied behind our back every fiscal year.”
Johnson’s bill is not expected to get support in the Democratic-controlled Senate, if it even makes it that far. But Congress will have to pass some type of temporary measure by Sept. 30 in order to avoid a shutdown.
Putin loyalists set to win local elections in war-affected Russian regions
- Results of the tightly controlled elections are already being interpreted in Russia as a vote of confidence in Putin
Supporters of President Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine were set to win gubernatorial races across Russia, according to early vote counts on Sunday, including in Kursk where Ukrainian forces have seized control of some towns and territory.
Russia’s three-day local and regional elections came to an end on Sunday evening, with voters expected to elect Kremlin-backed candidates in all 21 gubernatorial races, as well as legislative assembly members in 13 regions and city council officials across the country.
Results of the tightly controlled elections are already being interpreted in Russia as a vote of confidence in Putin and his operation in Ukraine, now in its third year — just as was the election in March that extended his presidential term and voting a year ago.
“Let’s be honest: there is a war going on. Our task is to defeat our enemy,” Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and now the chairman of the ruling United Russia party said on Sunday, as cited by the TASS state news agency.
“It is extremely important not to lose the trust of the citizens of Russia, our comrades, during this period.”
In the border Kursk region, which together with the Kremlin was caught by surprise in August by an ongoing incursion by Ukrainian forces, the acting governor leads the race with more than half of the vote counted.
Alexei Smirnov, who has led the region since May, has received nearly 66 percent of the vote so far, according to data from the Russian Central Election Commission.
In the Lipetsk region in Russia’s southwest — a frequent target of Ukrainian drone attacks — the current governor and United Russia candidate, Igor Artamonov, has received 80 percent of votes with nearly all votes counted.
Former Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin, also of United Russia, is leading in the by-election to the lower-house State Duma, in the border Bryansk region, another area frequently affected by Ukrainian air attacks.
Ethiopia PM issues warning over sovereignty
- Ethiopia is currently a major contributor to ATMIS, which is helping Somali forces in the fight against the Al-Shabab jihadist group
NAIROBI: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed warned Sunday that his country would “humiliate” any nation that threatens its sovereignty, as tensions spiral in the volatile Horn of Africa.
Africa’s second most populous nation is locked in a dispute with neighboring Somalia over a maritime deal it signed with the breakaway region of Somaliland. Relations with Egypt are also fraught over Ethiopia’s mega-dam on the Blue Nile.
“We will not be touched! However, we will humiliate anyone who dares to threaten us in order to dissuade them,” Abiy said at a Sovereignty Day ceremony in the capital Addis Ababa.
“We won’t negotiate with anyone on Ethiopia’s sovereignty and dignity,” he was quoted as saying by the official Ethiopian News Agency.
Ethiopia last month accused unnamed actors of seeking to “destabilize the region” after Egypt sent military equipment to Somalia following the signing of a military cooperation pact between Cairo and Mogadishu.
Egypt has also offered to deploy troops to Somalia under a new African Union-led mission that will replace the current peacekeeping force known as ATMIS next year.
Ethiopia is currently a major contributor to ATMIS, which is helping Somali forces in the fight against the Al-Shabab jihadist group.
But Mogadishu is furious over a deal signed in January between Ethiopia and Somaliland that gives Addis Ababa long-sought after access to the sea, saying it was an attack on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Under the pact, Somaliland agreed to lease 20 kilometers (12 miles) of its coast for 50 years to Ethiopia, which wants to set up a naval base and a commercial port on the coast.
In return, Somaliland has said Ethiopia would give it formal recognition, although this has never been confirmed by Addis Ababa.
Turkiye has been mediating indirect talks between Ethiopia and Somalia to try to resolve the dispute, but they have made no significant breakthrough.
Somaliland, a former British protectorate of 4.5 million people, declared independence in 1993 but the move is rejected by Mogadishu and not recognized by the international community.
Cairo and Addis Ababa have been at loggerheads for years, trading incendiary words over Ethiopia’s massive hydroelectric dam project, which Egypt says threatens its fragile water security.
