World
What to know about the Secret Service's Counter Sniper Team
WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. Secret Service sniper killed the would-be assassin of former President Donald Trump in a split-second decision, taking out the man perched on an adjacent rooftop.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has publicly praised the sniper’s quick work on Saturday. But the Counter Sniper Team is now subject to a review by the Office of the Inspector General, which aims to determine how well the team is “prepared to respond to threats at events.”
The Secret Service was already subject to a more general probe from the Inspector General as well as congressional subpoenas regarding the shooting at the Trump campaign rally, in what has become the most intense scrutiny the agency has faced since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
Here’s what to know about the agency’s elite sniper group.
Sniper team is ‘very elite and difficult to get into’
The Counter Sniper Team was established in 1971. It provides intelligence and observations of potential threats from far away in an effort to protect U.S. presidents, vice presidents, first ladies and others, according to a 2020 report by the Government Accountability Office on federal tactical teams.
Those who join the team have already worked for the Secret Service for at least two years, according to the agency’s website. They must undergo 11 weeks of counter sniper selection and basic training, along with a color vision test. Counter snipers must have excellent eyesight and hearing.
“It’s very sought after, it’s very elite and difficult to get into,” Pete Piraino, who spent 23 years with the Secret Service, including five years in the presidential protective division, told The Associated Press on Thursday.
They typically work in pairs
The counter snipers are on the look out for threats from far away, even beyond the established security perimeter, said Piraino, who is now vice provost for academics and a criminal justice professor at Tiffin University in Ohio. They often work outdoors, focusing on rooftops and the windows of surrounding buildings.
They typically work in teams of two — one serves as a spotter while the other trains their rifle’s sight on the same area.
“They’re trained to scan an area, remember what they see and come back to scan it again and see if there’s any change,” Piraino said. “It’s not just a matter of picking up their binoculars and looking around. They are trained very thoroughly and specifically with rangefinders and their equipment.”
If they don’t qualify, they don’t work
The counter snipers, code named “Hercules,” can respond to a threat from a distance with their .300 Winchester Magnum rifles, according to Ronald Kessler’s 2009 book, “In the President’s Secret Service.” And they have to prove they can do so on a monthly basis.
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“Counter-Snipers are required to qualify shooting out to a thousand yards each month,” Kessler wrote. “If they don’t qualify, they don’t travel or work.”
The snipers shoot with a rifle called a JAR, said Paul Eckloff, a retired Secret Service agent who served on details protecting three different presidents during his 23-year career.
“You’ve never heard of it because the Secret Service makes them,” Eckloff said.
It stands for “just another rifle” and they’re built specifically for each counter sniper by the Secret Service’s armorer to take into account things like the length of the shooter’s arms, wrists and trigger finger.
Eckloff wouldn’t disclose how many counter sniper teams there are but noted that it’s a finite resource and they could always use more.
What happened?
Police learned of a suspicious character outside the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, before Trump took the stage. Minutes into his speech, shots were fired.
A counter sniper shot and killed Thomas Matthew Crooks in the seconds after he opened fire from a rooftop some 150 yards (135 meters) from the stage. Secret Service agents threw themselves on top of the former president before hustling him off stage.
Stephen Colo, who retired from the Secret Service in 2003 as an assistant director, told The AP on Sunday that presidential candidates and former presidents don’t typically get the same level of protection as the sitting president.
Colo said he was surprised that the agency had staffed the event with a counter sniper team because there are not many of those highly trained operatives and they are usually reserved for the president.
Kessler told the AP that the Counter Sniper Team should not be the focus of all of the scrutiny and investigations. He said the Secret Service members working closer to Trump should have called off the speech and moved him to safety as soon as they heard reports of a suspicious person in the crowd and then on a nearby rooftop.
“They should have just evacuated as soon as there was any hint of danger,” Kessler said.
Trump was not seriously injured and two days later he arrived in Milwaukee, with his right ear bandaged, to the adulation of his supporters at the Republican National Convention.
The shooting had more serious ramifications for others at the rally. Former fire chief Corey Comperatore was shot and killed and two other people were wounded.
Cheatle, the Secret Service director, told ABC News on Tuesday that the sniper who shot Crooks made a “split-second decision.”
“They have the ability to make that decision on their own. If they see that it’s a threat and they did that in that instance,” she said.
“And I applaud the fact that they made that decision and didn’t have to check with anybody and thankfully neutralized the threat.”
___
Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.
World
Keir Starmer reportedly considering stepping down as PM and could announce timetable for departure
British PM Keir Starmer could face leadership challenge amid internal troubles
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces significant internal pressure following Andy Burnham’s special election win, potentially triggering a leadership contest. Starmer is under fire for economic pressures, illegal immigration issues, and controversies surrounding his previous role in prosecuting grooming gangs. Elon Musk also accused Starmer of complicity.
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reportedly considering stepping down and could announce a timetable for his departure as early as Monday, according to a report published Saturday.
Britain’s Observer newspaper reported that Starmer was discussing his future with his wife at his Chequers country residence before making a final decision.
The outlet reported that senior Labour Party figures expect a statement addressing his future as early as next week.
A government source told Reuters that Starmer remains focused on governing and pointed to previous comments in which he vowed to remain in office.
AS EPSTEIN-LINKED APPOINTMENT SPARKS BACKLASH, UK PM STARMER FACES PARTY REVOLT AMID RESIGNATION CALLS
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer awaits Switzerland’s Federal President Guy Parmelin on the sidelines of the G7 summit, in Evian-les-Bains, France, Tuesday. (Isabel Infantes/Pool Reuters via AP)
Fox News Digital has reached out to the prime minister’s office for comment.
Pressure on Starmer has been building for months amid growing dissatisfaction within his party and concerns over the government’s handling of the economy and cost-of-living issues.
The political threat to Starmer intensified Friday after rival Andy Burnham won a seat in Parliament, positioning him to mount a formal leadership challenge.
LABOUR MP PUTS CABINET ‘ON NOTICE,’ THREATENS TO TRIGGER LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE AGAINST STARMER BY MONDAY
Britain’s Labour party candidate Andy Burnham speaks to supporters after the Makerfield by-election in Ashton in Makerfield, England, Friday. (Jon Super/AP)
Starmer congratulated Burnham following the victory, writing on X that voters, “chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.”
When asked about Burnham’s apparent ambitions to replace him, Starmer insisted he intends to remain in office.
“I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that,” Starmer said.
UK’S STARMER JUGGLES TROUBLE AT HOME AS HE WALKS GEOPOLITICAL TIGHTROPE WITH TRUMP
Sir Keir Starmer is battling to save his position and refusing to stand aside despite dozens of Labout MP’s demanding he resigns. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Starmer has led the Labour Party since 2020 and became prime minister in 2024.
Calls for his resignation intensified last month, with more than 100 Labour lawmakers publicly urging him to step aside or set out a timetable for his departure. Several parliamentary aides also resigned in protest.
The internal revolt followed a series of disappointing local election results for Labour, which lost hundreds of council seats across England, surrendered long-held ground in Wales and fell behind political rivals in Scotland.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks a news conference at Downing Street in London, March 5. (Tolga Akmen/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images, File)
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Starmer’s popularity has also declined amid a persistently high cost of living, sluggish economic growth and criticism over his acceptance of gifts from wealthy donors.
Fox News Digital’s James Cirrone and Emma Bussey, and Reuters contributed to this report.
United States President Donald Trump has pledged there will be no tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, unless they are collected by his own country.
Trump’s statement, made in a Saturday afternoon post on Truth Social, is the latest sign that a recently signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) may be unravelling.
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“There will be NO TOLLS in the Hormuz Strait for 60 days during the Cease Fire Period, and there will be NO TOLLS after the 60 day period has expired,” Trump wrote, “unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America.”
Since the US and Israel launched a war against Iran on February 28, Iran has successfully used the Strait of Hormuz as a pressure point, closing the strategic waterway to traffic.
But under the terms of Wednesday’s ceasefire memorandum, the strait is supposed to reopen for an interim period of 60 days. During that time, Iran is barred from charging vessels for passage.
On Saturday, however, Iran’s joint military command said it had closed the Strait of Hormuz, citing a “clear breach” of the memorandum’s commitments.
US Central Command (CENTCOM), the agency that oversees military operations in the region, denied that report and maintained that the traffic continues to flow through the waterway.
The Strait of Hormuz has long been a flashpoint in the conflict between the US and Iran. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas is transported through the strait, as well as about 30 percent of the global fertiliser trade.
Closure of the strait has caused global fuel costs to soar and has tested agricultural sectors across the world.
Trump had responded to Iran’s chokehold over the strait by imposing a US naval blockade on Iran’s ports in the region.
But that naval blockade was lifted under the terms of Wednesday’s memorandum. The deal also paused fighting on all fronts in the regional conflict, including in Lebanon.
The memorandum, though, was not intended as a long-term deal. It serves as a launching point for negotiations on key issues, including the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.
Several points of divergence also went unaddressed in the memorandum. Nowhere does the memo say that future tolls cannot be collected from the strait after the 60-day period expires.
Before the war, there was no charge for passage through the strait. Trump himself said in an interview with The New York Times that the waterway should remain “permanently toll-free”.
But he appeared to reverse course in Saturday’s post, once again floating the possibility that the US could extract tolls in the strait, while barring Iran from doing so.
No fees should be levied, Trump wrote, “unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America, should the deal not be completed”.
He explained that such a charge would compensate the US “for services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East for purposes of both past, present, and future reimbursement of costs”.
Trump used similar language in his New York Times interview earlier this week, floating the US becoming “the guardian of the Middle East” in exchange for 20 percent of its revenue.
Saturday’s post is not the first time Trump has mused about the US imposing tolls in the strait, either.
In April, for instance, he discussed the idea with reporters, saying, “What about us charging tolls? I’d rather do that than let them have them. Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner. We won.”
There has been no indication that Trump’s plans have been officially presented to countries in the region, many of whom have struck a careful balance in their dealings with both the US and Iran during the war.
Iranian officials, meanwhile, have repeatedly said they will not rule out imposing tolls in the strait, framing the issue as a matter of sovereignty and regional negotiation. The strait sits between Iran and Oman.
Further discussions are expected on the matter in the coming weeks.
But such negotiations have been thrown into jeopardy amid ongoing Israeli military operations in Lebanon, which threaten to violate Wednesday’s ceasefire memorandum.
Iran claimed that Saturday’s closure of the strait was a result of new Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, which killed dozens of people after the ceasefire was announced.
Iranian officials have also said that any upcoming talks should focus on proper implementation of the initial memorandum, and that the 60-day negotiating period stipulated in Wednesday’s deal would begin after that was settled.
Pakistan, a top mediator between the US and Iran, has said that follow-up talks are set to begin in Switzerland on Sunday.
Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that an Iranian delegation, led by parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, has already arrived for the negotiations.
On the US side, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance are expected to attend.
Vance departed for Switzerland late Saturday.
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