Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday invoked the annihilation of U.S. adversary Iran in a social media post reminiscent of his most incendiary outbursts while in the White House.
"If they do 'assassinate President Trump,' which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth — If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered 'gutless' cowards!" he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. Trump made the remarks alongside a brief video of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu bringing up alleged Iranian plots against Trump in his address to the US Congress on Wednesday. US media reported last week that the US Secret Service had increased security for Trump weeks ago after authorities learned of an Iranian plot to kill him, although it was not linked to the recent attempt on his life in which a 20-year-old American fired shots during a campaign rally.
CNN reported that US authorities received intelligence from a "human source" on a plan by Tehran targeting the former president, causing protection to be boosted for Trump. Other US outlets also reported the plot. But it was not connected to the campaign shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire, lightly wounding Trump and killing a rally attendee, they said.
Relations between Washington and Iran have long been strained and reached a breaking point as Tehran sought revenge for the 2020 killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, ordered by Trump when he was president. The US National Security Council said it had been "tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years." Trump's post recalled a controversial episode in 2019 when, as president, he threatened the "obliteration" of Iran if the country carried out an attack on "anything American.
" That confrontation came after Iranian officials said the path to diplomacy between the two nations was permanently closed after Trump's new round of sanctions Monday. As president, he also threatened North Korea with "fire and fury like the world has never seen," although he later became friends with the isolated country's dictator, Kim Jong Un, and often referred to their "love." France's rail network was paralyzed Friday by coordinated acts of sabotage which knocked out most of its high-speed train services hours before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
French rail operator SNCF said three night-time arson attacks had destroyed cabling boxes at strategic junctions around its network at locations north, south-west and east of Paris. A fourth attempted act of vandalism south-east of the capital was thwarted by rail workers who spotted intruders in the early hours of Friday. "Our intelligence services and law enforcement are mobilized to find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts," Prime Minister Gabriel Attal posted on X, calling the attacks "prepared and coordinated acts of sabotage.
" The Paris Olympics are set to open in a spectacular and unprecedented ceremony on the river Seine on Friday evening, with many ticket holders set to travel to the City of Light by train. Several Eurostar trains between Paris and London were cancelled Friday because of the rail disruption, which is likely to affect British sports fans heading to the French capital. The parade will see up to 7,500 competitors sail down a six-kilometer (four-mile) stretch of the Seine on a flotilla of 85 boats.
Passengers gather at Gare Montparnasse in Paris after the French high-speed network was targeted by acts of 'sabotage' © Thibaud MORITZ / AFP As well as the rail attacks, poor weather -- with Paris under thick cloud and occasional rain -- also risked dampening the party. "We'll see tonight..
. but the closer it gets the more the models suggest we're likely to get rain," chief Games organizer Tony Estanguet told France Inter radio, while adding that there would be some modifications if it was wet. "It's going to be a beautiful moment, it's going to be a great party," he added.
Hunt for culprits French security forces are on their highest alert to prevent terror attacks spoiling the start of the first Olympics in Paris in 100 years, while acts of sabotage from hostile foreign powers were also a known risk. French officials refused to comment on the identity of the culprits of the rail sabotage who appear to have had a sophisticated understanding of the network. Far-left French anarchists have a history of targeting the train network with arson attacks.
Suspicions might also fall on Russia, which French President Emmanuel Macron has said in the past was planning to target the Games. Police arrested a Russian man this week in Paris who was suspected of "organizing events likely to lead to destabilization during the Olympic Games." Map of Paris showing the two security perimeters where traffic will be restricted from Thursday © Sylvie HUSSON, Paz PIZARRO / AFP Commenting on the rail disruption, which will affect 800,000 people over the weekend, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach told the media that he had no concerns.
"We have full confidence in the French authorities," he said at the Athletes' Village. The USA basketball team was also set to take a high-speed train to play their opening a game on Sunday against Serbia in Lille, northern France. - Security blanket - Compared to the Covid-blighted 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were delayed by a year and opened in an empty stadium, the Paris opening ceremony will take place in front of 300,000 ticketed spectators and many more from overlooking buildings.
It will be the first time a Summer Olympics has opened outside the main athletics stadium, a decision fraught with danger at a time when France is on its highest alert for terrorism. A huge security perimeter has been erected along both banks of the Seine, guarded around the clock by some of the 45,000 police and paramilitary officers who will be on duty on Friday evening. Another 10,000 soldiers are set to add to the security blanket along with 22,000 private security guards.
"Without any doubt, it is much more difficult to secure half of Paris than to secure a stadium, where you have 80,000 people and you can frisk them and send them through turnstiles," Frederic Pechenard, an ex-director general of the French police, told AFP. Police snipers are set to be positioned on high points along the river, which is overlooked by hundreds of buildings. President Emmanuel Macron told a pre-Games dinner for dignitaries: "Tomorrow you will have one of the most incredible opening ceremonies.
" The line-up of performers is a closely guarded secret but US pop star Lady Gaga and French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura are rumoured to be among them. Beach volleyball will be played in front of the Eiffel Tower © Odd ANDERSEN / AFP US rappers Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams have also been in Paris for the torch relay. Around 3,000 dancers are set to perform from the banks of the river and monuments including Notre-Dame cathedral in a show that will promote diversity, gender equality and French history.
The landmarks and architecture of the City of Light is set to feature as a backdrop both to Friday night's show and much of the sport afterwards. Paris's vision is for a more cost-effective and less polluting Olympics than previous editions, with competitions set to take place at historic locations around the capital. "It's going to be incredible," Laetitia Chaze, a 41-year-old landscape gardener, told AFP after arriving in Paris on a train early on Friday morning.
"It's something that only happens once in your lifetime and I definitely didn't want to miss it." © 2024 AFP CONTINUE READING Show less Questions continue to swirl about the injuries suffered by Donald Trump in an apparent assassination attempt. There has been no official report from Trump's team or government agencies about what caused the wound to his right ear when a gunman opened fire at his Pennsylvania rally, but a New York Times analysis relying on video from the event and a 3-D model found that Trump's ear most likely was grazed by the first of eight bullets fired by Thomas Crooks.
"A key piece of evidence in The Times’s analysis is a live video feed that captures Mr. Trump’s reaction as the first three gunshots are fired," the newspaper reported. "The crack of the bullets are heard as they pass the microphone that Mr.
Trump speaks into. Almost a second elapses between the first and second shots." ALSO READ: Milwaukee girded for massive convention protests.
But they got something else . The former president flinches and starts reaching toward his ear in the brief moment between the first audible shot and the second, and photos show his fingers were bloodied as soon as he touched his ear, and that same first bullet appears to pass him and strike bleachers to his left, where many of his supporters were standing. Rally attendee David Dutch appears to have been injured by the second shot, which was fired along a similar trajectory, and he winces and then crouches down as the third shot passes.
The Times produced a 3-D model of the rally grounds to help determine the trajectory of all eight gunshots – a burst of three followed by a burst of five – and found the first shot, which apparently struck Trump, was not deflected by first striking another object that would have sprayed him with debris . Another bullet injured 74-year-old James Copenhaver, who was standing a few feet away from Dutch, and video analysis shows 50-year-old Corey Comperatore was shot in the head and killed by the second volley of shots fired by the 20-year-old Crooks, who was quickly shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper. CONTINUE READING Show less Ever since Postmaster General Louis DeJoy — a major Republican donor — was selected to head the United States Postal Service (USPS) in 2020, he's been enacting massively unpopular policies criticized by postal workers and Democrats alike.
Now, President Joe Biden may soon be able to replace him. On Thursday, Politico congressional correspondent Anthony Adragna reported that Biden was nominating former Rep. Val Demings (D-Florida) to fill the last remaining vacancy on the USPS Board of Governors.
She, along with former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh , are now awaiting confirmation by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan). Should both Demings and Walsh be confirmed, that would give Biden seven appointees on the nine-member board overseeing USPS.
And because the Postmaster General's hiring and firing is up to the board and not Biden, that could mean that DeJoy could be removed from his post by the time Biden leaves office in January of 2025. READ MORE: Louis DeJoy backs down from plan to consolidate USPS facilities after national backlash Biden appointees have held a majority on the USPS board since 2022 , when three of his appointees were confirmed by Peters' committee. However, his appointees have been slow to fire DeJoy given his close partnership with the Biden administration on clean energy policy.
Politico reported last year that DeJoy is rolling out a plan to add roughly 106,000 new electric vehicles to the USPS' fleet of mail delivery trucks, with 66,000 of those trucks on the road by 2028. Biden's landmark Inflation Reduction Act allocated $3 billion to the initiative, and DeJoy has partnered with veteran Democratic strategist John Podesta to implement his plan. However, DeJoy is still reviled for his efforts to consolidate USPS sorting facilities, which has severely impacted the speed of mail delivery — particularly in populated metropolitan areas in battleground states like Atlanta, Georgia and Richmond, Virginia.
In one heated exchange earlier this year, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) confronted Ossoff about complaints from his constituents that they weren't getting important mail until after weeks of delays. “You don't have months to fix 36% of the mail being delivered on time," Ossoff said.
"I've got constituents with prescriptions that aren't being delivered. I've got constituents who can't pay their rent and their mortgages. I've got businesses who aren't able to ship products or receive supplies.
” During that committee hearing, Ossoff gave DeJoy a two-week deadline to address his concerns. When that deadline came and went with no action, Ossoff again pressed him for solutions. The two finally met earlier this month to talk about how to streamline mail delivery in Atlanta, and the Georgia Democrat asserted that he was still not confident in DeJoy's leadership after their conversation.
READ MORE: 'I don't think you're fit for this job': GA senator gives USPS chief DeJoy an ultimatum "For months I have sustained relentless pressure on USPS management to fully resolve disastrous performance failures impacting my constituents in Georgia. I’m still hearing from Georgia families and businesses about the difficulty they continue to face sending and receiving their mail, which is why I met today with Postmaster General DeJoy to again reiterate the need for further improvements and greater transparency," Ossoff stated. "I will not rest until my constituents are well and fully served by the U.
S. Postal Service." After pressure from numerous senators urging DeJoy to reconsider his consolidation plans that would harm the speed of mail service in rural communities, DeJoy finally relented and announced he would be postponing the initiative.
However, questions still remain about whether voters relying on voting by mail in the November election will be able to receive their ballots in time to vote, and whether the USPS will deliver their ballots to be counted on time. “We’re approaching a major November election,” Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), who represents parts of Houston, said in March.
“We need to make sure that we iron out any difficulties, any obstacles, any barriers, any issues now, so that we don’t end up in a situation much like we were in with the November ballots.” READ MORE: 'Dumpster fire': Experts say delays from DeJoy's USPS overhaul may affect swing state ballots CONTINUE READING Show less.
