Politics
Threats of terrorism in the U.S. are 'more diverse and difficult to counter'
She wanted a rifle. He needed a soldier for his plan to overthrow the government.
Sarah Beth Clendaniel was a radical looking for a target when, authorities say, she plotted with Brandon Russell — a white supremacist who belongs to an organization known as Atomwaffen Division — to destroy the power grid around Baltimore. Clendaniel dressed in camouflage fatigues. Russell went by the alias “Raccoon” and, according to federal agents, kept a framed picture of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on his dresser.
They communicated through encrypted messages, but the mission was foiled by authorities. Clendaniel pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to damage or destroy electrical stations in Maryland. Russell, who was charged earlier with possessing explosives, is awaiting trial. The case did not attract much attention outside Baltimore, but it was another reminder of the danger of terrorism in an unsettled nation.
The U.S. is facing security threats in a presidential election year coming from Islamic militants, far-right extremists, leftist radicals and an array of zealots disgruntled over the nation’s culture wars and our polarized society. Officials are increasingly worried about the deepening strands of left- and right-wing venom rooted in antiestablishment anger and amplified by social media that are testing the government’s ability to track militants like Clendaniel and Russell.
Timothy McVeigh’s hatred of the federal government led him to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, killing 186 people and injuring hundreds more. According to federal agents, Brandon Russell, who is accused of plotting to blow up the Baltimore power grid, kept a photo of McVeigh on his dresser.
(Associated Press)
“The threat’s not more potent than it was around 9/11, but it’s certainly more diverse and difficult to counter,” said Colin P. Clarke, the director of research at the Soufan Group, an intelligence and security consulting firm in New York City. “We’re dealing with a more aggressive far-right, left-wing and what we call ‘salad bar people,’ who take a little bit of each ideology and thread them together. Incels. Q-Anon. The range of actors at play now is a lot broader than what we’re used to.”
The race between President Biden and Donald Trump underscores the prospects for unrest and violence. GOP senators have asked the Secret Service to keep demonstrators farther from the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. Protesters are also expected to arrive en masse at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where in 1968, during an era of intense upheaval around the Vietnam War that some suggest parallels today’s political tremors, police beat and tear-gassed hundreds of marchers.
On a visit to Chicago this month, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle met with nearly 100 agents who will be protecting both conventions. She told CNN she was concerned about a number of threats, including “the lone gunman.”
“You’ve got folks that are radicalized. You’ve got demonstrations that may pop up. And obviously, we hope they remain peaceful here, but they could turn violent,” she said.
Most of the violence and “other threat indicators [are] from groups that lean more conservative,” said Amy Cooter, a terrorism expert with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. What’s notable, she added, was that the extremist narratives, particularly accelerationist ones — like those espoused by Clendaniel that use violence to speed up social collapse — can appeal to radicals across the political spectrum.
“There’s potential for people who have very different underlying political beliefs,” said Cooter, “to join forces on issues they have common ground on.”
National militant organizations complicit in the Jan 6. riots, including the Proud Boys, remain a danger, Cooter said, despite arrests of its leaders and loss of a centralized online home since Facebook blocked extremist groups. Before the 2020 election, Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” Reuters reported that after Trump was found guilty in May of falsifying business records, a Proud Boys chapter in Ohio promised “war” in a statement that read: “Fighting solves everything.”
Trump’s increasingly militant campaign speeches against immigrants and conspiracies about the “deep state” also resonate with other groups in the so-called patriot movement. The former president suggested in veiled language that his followers might rise up if he were sent to prison: “I’m not sure the public would stand for it,” he told Fox News. “You know, at a certain point, there’s a breaking point.”
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle told CNN she was concerned about a number of threats to the U.S.
(Julia Nikhinson / Associated Press)
“Not all militia members like Trump. Some think he’s too brash, too old,” said Cooter, who spent years interviewing and investigating militia groups in Michigan. “But they are very responsive to his rhetoric because he appeals to their worries about immigration or about changing culture in other ways. Even if they’re not going to vote for him, their urgency around these issues gets stirred up.”
Today’s turmoil has yet to reach the magnitude of the late 1960s or the 1970s, when far-left domestic terror groups like the Weather Underground and Symbionese Liberation Army orchestrated scores of bombings. Many of the threats these days come from varied agendas, including Payton Gendron, who wrote a 180-page racist screed before killing 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., in 2022, and James Hodgkinson, a left-wing radical who in 2017 shot and wounded at least four people at a softball practice for Republican congressmen in Alexandria, Va.
In April, Kyran Caples, who police say was radicalized while at Fresno State and joined an obscure antigovernment group known as the Moorish sovereign citizens, shot and critically wounded two police officers in Florida. Caples was killed by police. In the plot to destroy the Baltimore power grid, the Justice Department quoted Clendaniel, once photographed heavily armed and wearing camouflage fatigues, a headscarf and a skull mask, as saying an attack “would probably permanently completely lay this city to waste.”
The country has been shaken by anger and unrest in recent years around the COVID-19 pandemic, mass shootings, George Floyd protests, an insurrection at the Capitol and pro-Palestinian rallies on college campuses. Those domestic ruptures have coincided with a rejuvenated branch of ISIS that is recruiting militants beyond its base in Afghanistan and this year carried out attacks in Russia and Iran that killed at least 220 people.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray recently told cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point that his agency was concerned about “a rogues’ gallery” of foreign organizations calling for violence against Americans. But he suggested that the more pressing danger comes from individuals and small groups in the U.S. who “draw twisted inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home.” The agency, he said, has been “running down thousands of reported threats.”
(Allison Dinner / Associated Press)
He added that tensions around the Israel-Hamas war “will feed a pipeline of radicalization and mobilization for years to come.” In April, Wray, describing what he called a heightened threat environment, told the House Appropriations Committee that the agency’s 2024 fiscal year budget was nearly $500 million below what it needed. “This could not come at a worse time,” he said. “We need people…. Now is not the time to cut back.”
That threat landscape — radiating through a wide prism of anger and ideologies — has shaped America’s discourse and sharpened its divisions. The battles playing out in Congress have run parallel to social and political fervor around antisemitism, Gaza, abortion, immigration and gun rights unfolding on college campuses, state houses, podcasts, rallies and talk shows.
“The powerful emotions that have been unleashed aren’t fading,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert and professor at Georgetown University. “Terrorism never occurs in a vacuum. It always leverages off of the divisions, contentiousness and controversies that are in the political arena and that will lead to a very small fringe to conclude that violence is the only way” to overthrow a corrupt system.
The radicalization of the young is rooted in the generation that came of age during the isolation of the pandemic and has since seen governments as either powerless or indifferent to climate change, wealth gaps and stopping wars in Ukraine and Gaza. “This seeds a bed of frustration and mistrust,” said Hoffman, co-author of “God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America.” “They’re looking to be entertained and stimulated rather than informed and confident that they’re getting accurate information. TikTok is feeding them what they want.”
People pay their respects outside the scene of a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., on May 15, 2022. Payton Gendron wrote a 180-page racist screed before killing 10 Black people at the market.
(Matt Rourke / Associated Press)
When he was testifying testified before the House Appropriations Committee, Wray outlined the threats the U.S. faces from terrorism, cartels trafficking fentanyl, and cyberattacks on business and infrastructure.
“As I look back over my career in law enforcement,” he said, “I would be hard-pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once.”
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A Republican state senator who spotlighted his support for President Donald Trump and his MAGA agenda is one step closer to succeeding Ken Paxton as Texas attorney general.
State Sen. Mayes Middleton on Tuesday defeated Rep. Chip Roy, one of the most conservative members of the U.S. House, for the Republican attorney general nomination in Texas, the Associated Press reports.
Roy conceded the race shortly after the results came in, saying he had called Middleton to congratulate him.
“Just a little while ago, I called and congratulated @mayes_middleton for his victory in our race for the Republican nominee for Attorney General. I will have a full statement tomorrow. Onward,” Roy wrote on X.
The ballot-box battle between Roy and Middleton, the president of an independent oil and gas company, turned bitter and expensive, and partially became a test of which candidate was more of a fighter for Trump and his America First and MAGA movements.
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State Senator Mayes Middleton, a Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Grapevine, Texas, on Thursday, March 26, 2026. (Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Middleton, who edged Roy in the March primary, dished out roughly $17 million of his own money to back his campaign. But Roy, a former Texas assistant attorney general and former chief of staff to conservative Sen. Ted Cruz, received a late surge in fundraising from major backers.
“We’ve gotten the financial support necessary to compete with my self-funder opponent, who’s got his inheritance money that he can just spend,” Roy highlighted in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff.
Roy argued that Middleton’s lack of courtroom experience would make him a poor attorney general.
“Having been the first assistant attorney general makes me ready on day one, but it’s also that I’ve been a prosecutor, I’ve been in court, I’ve sat in front of a judge, stood in front of a judge, argued cases, and he has never done any of those things. And we think those things should matter,” Roy emphasized.
TED CRUZ ENDORSES CHIP ROY FOR TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: ‘NO ONE BETTER’
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, seen walking up the House steps for a vote in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, April 16, 2026, has won the GOP nomination for Texas Attorney General. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Middleton pushed back, questioning Roy’s conservative credentials and running ads claiming Roy’s “betrayed MAGA” as he pointed to the times the congressman has broken with Trump over policy.
“Chip Roy is someone that has spent a decade fighting the president. He actually said President Trump committed impeachable conduct on the House floor,” Middleton told Fox News Digital. “Instead of spending 10 years fighting President Trump, what have I done? I’ve spent 10 years fighting to defeat the left, which is what matters the most in this race.”
TEXAS REP CHIP ROY ANNOUNCES RUN FOR STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL TO REPLACE KEN PAXTON
While he stayed neutral in the Republican Attorney General runoff election in Texas, President Donald J. Trump was a key point of contention in the primary battle. (Kyle Mazza/Pool/Sipa USA)
But Roy, in response, said, “Everyone knows that I’m a longtime defender and supporter of the president’s agenda, of the America First agenda, the MAGA agenda, but I’m also an independent thinker who will stand up and make the case.”
And pointing to Middleton, Roy charged, “MAGA is not something you just buy. My opponent thinks you can buy the brand.”
Middleton returned fire, arguing, “Chip Roy is putting out there that he is a top ally to President Trump when the exact opposite is the case.”
Trump stayed neutral in the runoff showdown.
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Middleton will likely face Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson, who came close to clinching his party’s nomination in the primary. Johnson was facing off against former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski.
Paxton decided against seeking re-election, as he ran for the Republican Senate nomination against longtime GOP Sen. John Cornyn.
WASHINGTON — Precarious talks to end the war with Iran appeared close to collapse on Tuesday as renewed fighting across the region threatened to derail fragile progress toward a comprehensive settlement.
U.S. strikes against targets in southern Iran — the first since a ceasefire was declared in the war seven weeks ago — coupled with escalating attacks by Israel in Lebanon have undermined optimism that an agreement was within reach.
The attacks occurred just hours after U.S. and Iranian diplomats arrived in Qatar for peace talks. Iran’s top negotiators left Doha on Tuesday without comment. News of the strikes, and threats of retaliation by Tehran, sent global oil prices soaring back to more than $100 a barrel.
U.S. Central Command described Monday’s actions as “self-defense strikes” that were restrained and modest in scope, targeting missile launch sites and Iranian boats “attempting to emplace mines” in the Strait of Hormuz.
But the attack came as President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been projecting confidence that a framework agreement to end the war could be reached within days. Under the proposed deal, Iran would restore the strait to its prewar status as a free and open international waterway, while both sides entered 60 days of negotiations over the removal of Iran’s nuclear stockpile.
Laying mines in the strait in the 11th hour of the negotiations could signal to the Trump administration that Iran is not serious about reopening traffic there. But the Iranians said Tuesday that renewed U.S. strikes suggest it is Washington that is unprepared to commit to peace.
Iran’s Foreign Mministry condemned what it called “aggressive actions” by the United States, describing them in a statement as a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
“The commission of these aggressive acts — occurring concurrently with the ongoing diplomatic track mediated by Pakistan — has once again exposed the hostile nature and perfidy of the ruling establishment in the United States,” the statement said.
Iran “will not leave any hostile act unanswered,” the ministry added.
Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s elusive supreme leader, declared in a scheduled speech that U.S. allies throughout the Middle East “will no longer serve as a shield” for the American military, suggesting retaliatory strikes against U.S. assets in the region could be imminent.
Prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough were already dim. Over the last week, U.S. and Iranian officials projected optimism while outlining seemingly incompatible visions of a deal.
Trump has repeatedly said Iran would not receive any sanctions relief until its stockpile of fissile material is removed and destroyed. But Iranian officials reiterated Tuesday that unfreezing the country’s overseas assets remains a precondition for continued negotiations.
And it is unclear whether Iran would agree to a peace deal with the United States that does not also restrict the actions of Israel, whose leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has expressed deep skepticism about the diplomatic process.
Netanyahu said in recent days that Israel would not be bound by any nuclear pact, and that his government would continue military action against targets throughout the region — including in Lebanon — as it views necessary.
Israel’s continued assault on Lebanon nearly jeopardized the ceasefire between Iran and the United States before Trump brokered a separate, temporary halt to the fighting there. Since then, however, Israeli strikes have resumed, and Netanyahu vowed to intensify his campaign against Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group.
“We are not removing our foot from the pedal,” Netanyahu said in a video address Monday. “On the contrary, I said to step on the pedal even more.”
Israel’s military ramped up its operations Tuesday, attacking what it said were more than 100 Hezbollah sites across southern and eastern Lebanon, while extending ground incursions deeper into Lebanese territory.
The overnight strikes struck weapons storage facilities, command centers, observation posts and infrastructure sites, according to an Israeli military statement.
Israeli media also reported that Israeli troops were operating beyond a 6.2-mile zone they occupy in southern Lebanon, in what many fear may be a prelude to a wider invasion.
Those fears were further stoked Tuesday by fresh Israeli evacuation orders for the entirety of Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon’s second-largest city.
Hezbollah upped its campaign as well, peppering Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and areas of northern Israel with drones and rocket attacks, according to statements from the group. Hezbollah-affiliated media reported the group’s fighters clashing with Israeli troops to prevent their advance.
In recent weeks, Hezbollah has increasingly relied on fiber-optic drones — which are both low-cost and impervious to jamming — to harass Israeli positions.
On Sunday, an Israeli soldier was killed and another wounded when a Hezbollah kamikaze drone hit their armored personnel carrier, according to the Israeli military; 23 Israeli soldiers and a civilian defense contractor have been killed in the current conflagration between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel’s military says.
The latest bout of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel began March 2, when the Iran-backed group launched attacks on Israel to avenge the killing of Iran’s ayatollah, Ali Khamenei.
So far, Israeli strikes have killed 3,213 people, wounded more than triple that number, and left more than a million displaced, according to Lebanese health authorities.
A ceasefire signed April 17 sidelined the capital, Beirut, from strikes but has done little to stop the fighting otherwise, with Hezbollah and Israel continuing attacks despite unprecedented direct negotiations taking place between the Israeli and Lebanese governments.
It was unclear whether Netanyahu’s warning meant Beirut would be targeted once more. Israeli drones buzzed throughout the day over the capital and the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs Tuesday.
Hezbollah opposes direct negotiations and insists it will keep fighting until Israel withdraws from Lebanon and stops attacks. Israel has demanded the Lebanese government do more to disarm Hezbollah and to move toward a peace deal.
Bulos reported from Beirut.
Politics
Thomas blasts SCOTUS for decision on Florida lawsuit over illegal immigrant truckers with blue-state licenses
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Justice Clarence Thomas accused California and Washington of undermining federal immigration and trucking safety standards after a deadly Florida highway crash, blasting the Supreme Court on Tuesday for refusing to hear a case Florida had “nowhere else to bring.”
Florida alleged the two blue states improperly issued commercial driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants in violation of federal standards requiring English proficiency and lawful immigration status for certain commercial drivers, arguing the policies created a public safety threat on American roads.
Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, said the Supreme Court had a constitutional obligation to hear the dispute because lawsuits between states can only be brought before the high court.
“If this Court does not exercise jurisdiction over a controversy between two States, then the complaining State has no judicial forum in which to seek relief,” Thomas wrote.
FLORIDA AG ANNOUNCES PROBE OF SANCTUARY JURISDICTIONS THAT GIVE TRUCKING LICENSES TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks during a special lecture at the University of Texas in Austin on April 15, 2026, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. (Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman)
Thomas argued that Florida’s allegations against Washington and California were serious because failing to follow federal commercial licensing laws can create dangerous road conditions and, he said, has contributed to deadly crashes.
Thomas pointed to the fatal Florida highway crash involving truck driver Harjinder Singh, who he said “could not read the road signs,” and argued Florida deserved a chance to pursue its claims.
Singh received CDLs from both California and Washington.
EXCLUSIVE: CAMERAS CAPTURE TRUCKERS UNABLE TO READ ROAD SIGNS, ANSWER BASIC QUESTIONS DURING FLORIDA CRACKDOWN
Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito is pictured in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 7, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“An illegal alien who cannot read English road signs cannot drive an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer,” Thomas wrote. “Federal law and regulations prohibit States from providing commercial driver’s licenses to applicants unless they pass a driver’s test, sufficiently understand the English language, and show appropriate immigration status.”
Florida filed the lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court under the Court’s original jurisdiction, which gives the justices the sole authority to hear disputes between states.
Thomas said that while the court may be able to exercise discretion in ordinary appeals, lawsuits between states are different because the Constitution gives the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction over them.
FLORIDA AG ASKS SUPREME COURT TO ALLOW IT TO CONTINUE ENFORCING CONTROVERSIAL IMMIGRATION LAW
“We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given,” Thomas wrote.
Thomas accused the Supreme Court of failing to abide by the Constitution when it declines to hear disputes between states.
Firefighters respond to a fatal crash in Florida involving Harjinder Singh’s truck, and Singh is shown being cited for speeding in New Mexico on July 3, 2025. (St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office; New Mexico State Police)
“This Court has adopted a discretionary approach to its exclusive original jurisdiction based on policy judgments that are in conflict with the policy choices that Congress made in the statutory text,” Thomas wrote.
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He argued that if Florida, California and Washington were separate countries instead of U.S. states, a dispute over one government allegedly allowing dangerous drivers into another’s territory could create serious diplomatic tension and would likely be handled through international courts or other government action.
“By entering the Union, States agree to instead have such disputes resolved by this Court.”
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