World

Trump to take RNC stage for first speech since assassination attempt

Published

1 year ago

July 18, 2024

Trump to take RNC stage for first speech since assassination attempt

Former United States President Donald Trump is set to take the stage at the Republican National Convention (RNC), where he will deliver a speech as the party’s standard bearer just five days after surviving an assassination attempt.

The address on Thursday night will cap a convention that has largely been a reminder of how Trump’s brand of populist, pugilistic politics has transformed the Republican Party.

But surrogates have said Trump will embrace a more unifying message in the wake of Saturday’s attack, in which he was grazed in the ear by a gunman’s bullet.

Trump has said he rewrote his speech after surviving the incident at a Pennsylvania campaign rally. His family and close allies have maintained the president has been profoundly changed as Trump and his supporters at the RNC have repeatedly referred to the near-miss as an act of God.

“I think you may see a bit of a different version of Donald Trump tonight, perhaps a bit softer version than maybe some of the people at home have seen in the past,” Republican National Committee co-chair and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump told CBS News on Thursday.

“I don’t think you can go through what he went through on Saturday, really a near-death experience, and not come out on the other side impacted,” she said.

Donald Trump Jr echoed the sentiment.

“He’s going to be tough when he has to be. We’ve seen that. He’s never gonna change,” the former president’s eldest son said at an event for the Axios news site. “But I think there will be something. I think these are momentous occasions that change people permanently.”

Political observers have questioned what a more unifying message from Trump will actually look like and to whom it will apply.

While Trump told the Washington Examiner this week that the attack is a “chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together”, he and his supporters have also mixed their message with one of defiance.

Trump’s recently announced running mate, Senator JD Vance, said shortly after the shooting that the rhetoric from President Joe Biden’s campaign had led to the assassination attempt although he has since veered away from the claim.

Attendees at the RNC have seized on Trump’s yelled appeal in the moment after the attack with “fight, fight, fight” becoming a rallying cry. Wearing a bandage over an ear like Trump has become a symbol of solidarity.

In a continuation of the theme, Trump will also be introduced by Ultimate Fighting Championship President and CEO Dana White and former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan on Thursday.

Reporting from the convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said the party’s platform, which has been heavily influenced by Trump, has yet to reflect the promised change in tone.

“He is expected to say he’s going to unify the country, but the platform – what the party says they’re going to run on – is deeply divisive,” she said.

It includes promises to expel millions of undocumented immigrants, reinstate travel bans on some Muslim majority countries, close the federal Department of Education and cut funding to schools depending on how they teach about race and gender.

The party’s platform also pledges to “hold accountable those who have misused the power of government to unjustly prosecute their political opponents”, which appears to be a reference to Trump’s conviction in a New York court in May on charges related to hush money payments made to an adult film star as well his two other criminal trials related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Biden.

Democrats divided

Thursday’s speech comes after a string of political victories for Trump in recent weeks.

On Monday, a judge in Florida threw out a federal case related to his hiding and hoarding of classified documents after he left the White House. That came after the Supreme Court ruled that US presidents enjoy broader immunity from prosecution than previously defined.

Democrats have also become increasingly divided over the viability of Biden’s candidacy after a weak debate performance last month.

On Thursday, US media reported that several top Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, have put pressure on Biden to reconsider his run.

That news came just hours after the White House announced Biden had tested positive for COVID-19 while campaigning in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

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World

Team Races Against Time to Save a Tangled Sea Lion in British Columbia

Published

3 hours ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Team Races Against Time to Save a Tangled Sea Lion in British Columbia

A team of marine mammal experts had spent several days in Cowichan Bay, British Columbia, searching for a sea lion with an orange rope wrapped around its neck. As the sun set on Dec. 8, they were packing up, for good, when a call came in.

The tangled animal, a female Steller sea lion weighing 330 pounds, had been spotted on a dock in front of an inn, leading into the bay in southwestern Canada.

The rope was wrenched four times around her neck, carving a deep gash. Without help, the sea lion would die.

The team had been trying to find the sea lion for a month, and on that day, with daylight running out, the nine members that day knew they needed to work fast. They relaunched their boats and a team member loaded a dart gun and shot her with a sedative.

“Launching the dart is the easiest part of the whole operation,” said Dr. Martin Haulena, executive director of the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society, which conducted the rescue alongside Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “It’s everything that happens after that, that you just have no control over.”

Steller sea lions, also known as northern sea lions, are the largest such breed. They are found as far south as Northern California and in parts of Russia and Japan. A male Steller sea lion can weigh up to 2,500 pounds.

The Cowichan Tribes Marine Monitoring Team assisted the rescue society, calling it whenever the sea lion was spotted. The tribe named her Stl’eluqum, meaning “fierce” or “exceptional” in Hul’q’umi’num’, an Indigenous language, according to the rescue society.

After Stl’eluqum was sedated, she jumped from the dock into the water. Recent torrential rains and flooding had stirred up debris, making the water brown, and harder to spot the sea lion, Dr. Haulena said.

Several minutes after the sea lion dived into the bay, the drone spotted her and the team moved in.

The rope had multiple strands and it was wrapped so deeply that she most likely wasn’t able to eat, Dr. Haulena said. At first, the team had trouble freeing her.

“You couldn’t see it because it was way dug in underneath the skin and blubber of the animal,” Dr. Haulena said.

After unraveling the rope, the team tagged her flipper, gave her some antibiotics and released her.

Freeing the sea lion was the culmination of weeks of searching and missed moments. The first call about the tangled marine mammal was made to the Fisheries and Oceans Canada hotline on Nov. 7, according to a news release from the rescue society. Then the society logged more calls.

The Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society, a nonprofit that works in partnership with the Vancouver Aquarium, searched for several days for the sea lion. The day they found her was the last of the rescue effort because bad weather was forecast for the area around the bay. The call that led them to Stl’eluqum came from the Cowichan Tribes, Dr. Haulena said.

The society, Dr. Haulena said, cares for about 150 marine mammals from its rescues every year — sea lions, otters, harbor seals and the occasional sea turtle. The group gives medical care to animals it takes in, such as Luna, an abandoned newborn sea otter who was three pounds when she was found and still had her umbilical cord attached.

Many of the society’s rescues involve animals tangled in garbage or debris, Dr. Haulena said.

Stl’eluqum was tangled in nylon rope commonly used to tie boats or crab traps, he said. When sea lions get something caught around their necks it can grow tighter until it cuts into their organs, sometimes fatally, he said.

“It’s our garbage; it’s our fault,” Dr. Haulena said. “It’s a large amount of animal suffering and not a good outcome unless we can do something.”

World

Poland foils ISIS-type bomb plot as Sydney attack triggers UK, Europe terror alerts

Published

5 hours ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Poland foils ISIS-type bomb plot as Sydney attack triggers UK, Europe terror alerts

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Polish authorities have foiled a suspected ISIS-inspired plot to attack a Christmas market, charging a student accused of preparing a mass casualty bombing, according to officials.

The case comes as Germany and the U.K. also raised security measures around religious and cultural events after the Sydney shooting Sunday in which 16 people were shot dead at a Jewish Hanukkah party on Bondi Beach.

Polish authorities say the suspect, identified as Mateusz W., 19, was detained in late November at an apartment in Lublin by officers from the Internal Security Agency (ABW).

According to Jacek Dobrzyński, a spokesperson for the Minister’s Coordinator of Special Services, investigators believe the teen had been studying how to make explosives and intended to join a terrorist organization to help carry out the attack.

EUROPEAN CHRISTMAS MARKETS FORTIFY SECURITY MEASURES AS TERROR THREATS FORCE MAJOR OPERATIONAL CHANGES

Polish authorities foil an alleged ISIS Christmas market bombing plot targeting holiday shoppers. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“The purpose of the crime was to intimidate many people, as well as to support the Islamic State,” Dobrzyński said in a statement shared on X.

Items linked to Islam and digital storage devices were seized, and the suspect has been remanded for three months as the Szczecin branch of ABW continues its investigation.

At a news conference, Dobrzyński also referenced a June case in which three 19-year-olds were charged over alleged extremist plots, including a reported plan to attack a school in Olsztyn.

MOSSAD–EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE OPERATION LAUNCHES SWEEPING CRACKDOWN ON HAMAS GLOBAL TERROR NETWORK

Authorities arrested five on suspicion of plotting a terror attack on a Christmas market in Bavaria. (Juergen Sack/Getty Images)

“You are familiar with this issue from Olsztyn; now we have another example of preparing an attack before Christmas,” he told reporters, according to GB News.

In Germany, police in Lower Bavaria also arrested five men on Dec. 12 on suspicion of preparing an attack on a Christmas market, according to reports.

Authorities said an Egyptian national described as an Islamic preacher had allegedly called for an assault during gatherings at a mosque in the Dingolfing-Landau area, per Euronews.

CANADIAN SPY CHIEF WARNS OF ALARMING RISE IN TEEN TERROR SUSPECTS, ‘POTENTIALLY LETHAL’ THREATS BY IRAN

In the U.K., counterterrorism officials have stepped up armed patrols and public alert messaging across London and other major cities. (Matthew Chattle/Future Publishing via Getty Image)

Special operations forces carried out the arrests, and investigators believe the group had begun early-stage preparations.

In the U.K., counterterrorism officials stepped up armed patrols and public alert messaging across London and other major cities on Tuesday.

“Sadly, as shown by the appalling attack on Sydney’s Jewish community during a Hanukkah event, we know they can also be a target for terrorist activity,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jon Savell said in a press release.

He cited large festive gatherings, religious services and Christmas markets as potential targets.

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In the release posted Tuesday, he urged the British public to report anything that “doesn’t feel right” as part of the annual winter vigilance campaign.

Meanwhile, U.S. authorities say they separately disrupted a New Year’s Eve plot in Southern California.

Four alleged members of an extremist anti-capitalist, anti-government group suspected of rehearsing coordinated bombings against sites linked to two U.S. companies were arrested on Monday.

Emma Bussey is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox, she worked at The Telegraph with the U.S. overnight team, across desks including foreign, politics, news, sport and culture.