Global News Podcast - FBI says Trump targeted in apparent assassination attempt at golf course

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

A man has been detained after US Secret Service agents spotted a rifle in the bushes at Donald Trump's Florida golf course. Also: MI5 security service in the UK lowers entry requirement for potential spies.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Keogh, and in the early hours of Monday 16th September, these are our main stories.

US police have arrested a suspect after gunshots were fired on a Florida golf course where Donald Trump was playing. Mr Trump's campaign says he's safe and well. Poland's prime minister says he's going to declare a state of disaster as the country faces severe floods that have hit much of eastern and central Europe. The Israeli military has denied claims by the Houthis in Yemen that a missile they fired at Israel was a hypersonic weapon. Also in this podcast...

People could come from the same backgrounds, they have the same type of education, then they can be vulnerable to groupthink, which is a really common route to intelligence failure. Now in the UK, the security service MI5 has made its entry requirements for recruits a lot more attainable. First to the US, where the FBI say they're investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination against Donald Trump after shots were fired in his vicinity as he was playing golf in Florida. A suspect has been taken into custody and the former president has confirmed that he's safe and well and that he'll never surrender. It comes two months after an assassination attempt on Mr Trump in Pennsylvania.

Speaking at a press conference, Sheriff Rick Bradshaw gave details of the evidence that had been found at the scene. In the bushes where this guy was is an 8K47 style rifle with a scope, two backpacks which were hung on the fence that had ceramic tile in them, and a GoPro which he was going to take pictures of. Those are being processed right now. The Secret Service agent that was on the course did a fantastic job. What they do is they have an agent that jumps one hole ahead of where the president was at, and he was able to spot this rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediately engage that individual, at which time the individual took off.

Standing beside the sheriff was a U.S. Secret Service spokesman who described more about what his agent did while on the golf course guarding Donald Trump. He noticed that the rifle was pointed out, our agents engaged. We are not sure right now if the individual was able to take a shot at our agents, but for sure our agents were able to engage with the soldier.

How far away was the president. How far away was the president? How far away was Donald Trump when this gentleman was caught and stopped? Probably between 300 and 500 yards, but with a rifle and a scope like that, that's not a long distance. The CBS News correspondent Christian Benavides is in Florida and says the FBI are now taking the lead in the investigation. At this point, what we know is that the Secret Service had already amped up the security around the former president because of what we saw happen in Butler, Pennsylvania about two months ago. At this point, the investigation is just getting underway. What we know is that a Secret Service

agent apparently spotted the alleged gunman as he was two holes ahead of the former president who was golfing. After he spotted the gunman, apparently the Secret Service agent engaged. And at that point, the suspect jumps out from the bushes and into the street. At this point, according to officials, is when a witness sees somebody running from the bushes and getting into a vehicle, a black Nissan. That Nissan then starts traveling towards the highway. At some point, this individual that spotted the suspect jumping out from the bushes takes a picture of the license plate of this vehicle. That individual then comes forward to police. Eventually, police are able to apprehend someone in that vehicle

just north of here in Martin County, about one jurisdiction away. At this point, again, investigation is very early on, and there's no sense on who this person is. The identity has not been released and the motive has not been released, but the FBI does suspect that this is a second attempt on the life of the former president. CBS News correspondent Christian Benavides. Storm Boris is continuing to hammer much of central and eastern Europe with exceptionally heavy rain, gale force winds and flooding.

The impact has been lethal. In Romania, at least five people have died and one person has been killed in both Austria and Poland. Scores of homes across the region have been flooded or swept away entirely, causing mass evacuations, more than 10,000 in the Czech Republic alone. These residents in the Romanian village of Slobozia, Konaki, described how flooding there has left them with nothing. It destroyed everything. I don't have anything left. The beds are filled with mud,

the pillows are filled. I have nowhere to sleep. We don't have food, water, clothes. The neighbour gave me a dress. It killed the ducks, the pigs, it killed all the chickens, all the grains. We have nothing left. Poland's Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, says he's going to declare a state of disaster. I spoke to our Eastern Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford on Sunday evening, who was in the flood-struck Polish city of Nisza near the Czech border.

She described the conditions there. We turned a corner here in Nisza and we were expecting to turn down a road, but it is a huge and very fast-moving river now. It has been completely flooded. The water is extremely dangerous-looking, frankly. And in front of me, there is a fire engine and a military truck that are stuck right in the middle of it. There are people perched on the top. And just in the last 10 minutes or so, a military vehicle has rolled, trundled down the road towards this raging

floodwater. And they're about to try to rescue the firefighters and the soldiers, in fact, who are trapped in the water. And that's just, I think, one illustration of how serious the situation here is, not just in Poland, but right across this region as that floodwater rushes down the mountains. The rain has stopped. It hasn't been raining here all day.

In fact, the skies are pretty clear, but there is more that's forecast to come. But the problem, even without any more rain, is that there is a lot more water coming down the mountains. Dams are bursting, rivers are bursting their banks, and reservoirs are overflowing. And that's precisely what's happened here in Nisa, where the situation is extremely serious right in the centre of the town.

With devastating effects across a wide area, which regions or areas are seeing the worst impact of the flooding? It's the whole of this border region, really, between the Czech Republic and Poland. And, of course, this is a region that in 1997 experienced the worst ever floods, historic floods that people here still remember. And they're kind of shocked, I think,

to see it all happening again in front of their eyes. Just in Nis, where I am, in the town centre, I've seen people rolling up their trousers and trying to wade through fast-moving water to get to their homes. The town hospital has been flooded. They've been evacuating people from emergency care. The military is involved. The police are involved. Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister, has said he's going to declare a state of natural emergency,

and it is definitely what is playing out here in front of us in Nisa and, as I say, right across this region because the danger is anywhere where the river water and the rainwater can come gushing through and flood what is already rivers and reservoirs that are under great strain. Sarah Rainsford in Poland. My colleague Julian Marshall spoke to Professor Miroslav Tinka in Brno in the southwest of the Czech Republic. He's with the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. So what's his meteorological explanation for these heavy rains and flooding? We basically had a slowly moving cold front that turned around, if I put it in very simple terms,

and went back over the same area and basically brought an unusual amount of precipitation over the same relatively small region. And that's usually what causes floods in this case, because we get it at multiple catchments and river basins. We are facing both local flooding, but also we are expecting to have floods downstream as these smaller sort of rivers join together at the lowlands. That's about the rain doesn't have to be so heavy, but because the sheer amount of water that is coming from the catchment, that's what's causing the flooding downstream. So it's a combination of sort of intense rain in many cases over the large areas. So when the river meets the major sort of river, then we have unusually high levels.

And have you been affected where you are? In Brno itself, we have flooding, especially south of Brno, where two rivers, one of the rivers is relatively well managed with two dams. So they were able to slow down the peak of the flood wave. The other river doesn't have a major dam system. So it's pretty much not a free flowing, but it's relatively more difficult to regulate. So where these rivers meet then and below, there is a major problem with local evacuations needed. You used the word unusual earlier on. So you're saying this is unusual because of what?

Well, it's unusual from probably several perspectives. One unusual thing is that, yes, we get floods time to time. But in many areas, these are worse than ones in the 100-year flood events. And we had similar events in 1997, 2002, and now. And we didn't have it over the most of 20th century. So flooding is sort of looks like returning to Central Europe and it's probably at the peak compared to the last 500 years. Looking at the long term data with a large eastern European area, not only the Czech Republic. The second unusual thing is that it's coming relatively late in the season.

Climatologically, we have the most rain in the summer months, June, July, August. September, it's on average, much sort of poor in the rainfall. But as the season is getting longer, we pace the longer temperatures, then we get more rain later. But it's unusual in terms of the historical records. Professor Miroslav Tinka from the Global Change Research Institute. The Israeli military has rejected claims by the Houthis in Yemen that a missile they fired towards central Israel early on Sunday was a hypersonic weapon. The ballistic missile landed in an uninhabited area after Israeli air defence systems failed to destroy it. Israeli military officials said it was not an especially

new or advanced kind of weapon. The military said it fired multiple interceptors and at least one struck the missile but failed to destroy it completely. At a meeting on Sunday of Israel's cabinet in Jerusalem, the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Houthis in Yemen would pay a heavy price for launching the attack. We're in a multi-front battle against Iran's axis of evil that strives to destroy us. This morning, the Houthis launched a surface-to-air missile from Yemen into our territory. They should have known by now that we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us. Those who need a reminder on the matter are invited to visit the port of Hodeidah. I heard more from our Middle East correspondent, Paul Adams,

who's been following developments from Jerusalem. This was a ballistic missile fired from Yemen, a very, very long way away, which seems to have reached much further into Israel than any previous Houthi missiles. It landed in the center of the country. The previous ballistic missiles fired in this direction had all basically reached the very southern tip of Israel. Of course, there was that drone incident a month or so back in which a Houthi drone landed right in the center of Tel Aviv and killed one civilian. And interestingly, it was not properly intercepted by Israel's air defense system. We've learned this evening from a military official that the missile was hit but not fully destroyed.

And the very slight damage that was done on the ground was, we believe, done by fragments of the Israeli interceptor missiles. So I think this will cause concern in Israel because it is a step up in the kind of capability that the Houthis seem to have at their disposal. And in fact, a Houthi spokesman called this a new hypersonic missile. Benjamin Netanyahu has warned of retaliation. What's likely to happen? Well, after that drone attack on Tel Aviv, the Israelis mounted a very, very sizable air raid on the Yemeni port of Haddadah, destroying port facilities and a huge oil storage depot. It was designed, I think, to send a very, very emphatic message to the Houthis not to try this again. Well, they have tried it again.

They seem undeterred. In this case, no Israeli civilians were injured or killed. But I think the fact that this new capability has been demonstrated means that Israel does feel the need to do something about it. And indeed, Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would extract a heavy price. And he reminded anyone paying attention of the raid on Hodeidah. So I think it is not, it wouldn't be surprising if in the coming days or week or so, we see something again, something dramatic mounted by the Israelis. Have the Houthis said anything else about the attack? Yes, they said that it was the start of a series of attacks leading up to the anniversary

of October the 7th. Of course, that's the date at which Hamas fighters raided into Israel, killed in brutal fashion 1,200 people, and triggered the war in Gaza that continues to this day. And so the Houthis, who have said that all of their actions, both attacks on Israel and attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, have all been in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, they are saying we are going to do more of this in the run-up to that anniversary. Paul Adams in Jerusalem. The Polaris Dawn mission, whose crew travelled further into space than any humans for half a century, has come to a successful end. The SpaceX Dragon capsule safely splashed down off the coast of Florida. Pallab Ghosh reports.

Welcome back to planet Earth, Polaris Dawn. Re-entry and splashdown for Jared Isaacman's mission went smoothly. The Dragon capsule re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, its parachutes opened, and the vessel, with its four-person crew, then drifted down to splashdown off the coast of Florida. SpaceX has done this many times before, but there was nothing routine about the Polaris Dawn mission. The crew went higher than any other since the Apollo astronauts of the 1960s and 70s. They went through a radiation belt and carried out the first private sector spacewalk. Pala Gosh. Still to come, the Lebanese writer and fervent advocate of the Palestinian cause, Elias Khoury, has died.

To him, the Palestinian tragedy was not just about the Palestinians. It was a universal humanist question that affects all human beings. I'm going to bed. plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. French authorities have described the death of eight migrants in the channel as a new tragedy and said smugglers were putting people at greater and greater risk. A boat which was carrying about 60 migrants from countries including Eritrea, Sudan and Syria came apart off the coast near Boulogne.

Six survivors, including a baby, were taken to hospital. Simon Jones reports. On the beach in the village of Ombloteurs, a crumpled, deflated dinghy tells the story of the latest loss of life in the channel. There is a child's rubber ring used as a makeshift life jacket, a canister of petrol and a shoe discarded in the sand. Scores of people packed onto the boat in the early hours of this morning. The dead are believed to be from Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt and Iran. A 10-month-old baby was taken to hospital with hypothermia. Jacques Billon is a senior official in the Calais region.

The figures are terrible. Eight people have died. The boat set sail from the Slack area, close to Vimereux, with 59 people on board. It quickly got into trouble. It ran aground on the shore. The boat evidently tore apart on the rocks. At least 45 migrants have died so far this year attempting the crossing. That's more than four times the number for the whole of last year. Many of the migrants drowned. Others were crushed in dangerously overloaded boats. But despite the risks, the desire to get to the UK remains undiminished. Yesterday, more than 800 people on 14 boats were brought to Dover by the Border Force and the RNLI. The French authorities, like the British, say the gangs organising the journeys need to be stopped.

But both admit this will not be an easy task. Simon Jones. The Nigerian authorities say more than 270 inmates are now known to be missing after escaping from custody when severe flooding damaged a prison. The flooding was caused by the collapse of a dam following heavy rainfall. Our Africa regional editor, Will Ross, reports. This is the first time that the Nigerian authorities have admitted the scale of the prison break. The governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, had earlier told the BBC

that some members of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram were amongst those who'd got out. What we don't know is how many of the more than 270 missing prisoners are linked to jihadist violence. The government department that runs Nigeria's prisons says it's working with security agencies to recapture the fugitives. It's published their photos and has urged people to remain calm, even adding that the prison break does not affect public safety. Will Ross. Something rare in the world of ballet took place on stage in Australia in recent days. A male pas de deux. Now as the jury filed back into court, Oscar leaned over the dock, eagerly scanning the faces

of the 12 good men and true, seemingly trying to read in their physiognomies his fate. No one spoke, no one hardly dared to breathe. The sentence of the court is that you be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for two years. Oscar is a classical ballet featuring gay romance in the portrayal of the love life of the famous 19th century Irish writer Oscar Wilde. Oscar is the brainchild of David Hallberg, artistic director of the Australian Ballet and the first American to have been made a principal of the Bolshoi Ballet. The choreographer is Tony Award-winning Christopher Wheldon, whose credits include MJ the Musical, now running in London and New York. David Hallberg took a break from his hectic

schedule of rehearsals to tell my colleague Paul Henley more about the concept. The concept is basically the life and the writings of Oscar Wilde. Christopher Wheldon, the choreographer, has interconnected two of the great stories that he wrote, The Nightingale and the Rose and The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as the life that Oscar led, a very colourful life to say the least, but including his trial and the time that he spent in prison. So it's really the life and the writings of this literary genius. Gay ballet isn't an unheard of genre. Why do you say this is the first classical gay ballet? It is because I think, you know,

ballets have always been very heteronormative. The prince falls in love with the princess. Romeo falls in love with Juliet. I myself as a dancer, you know, for 20 plus years played those roles. And the ballet world never really veered into another direction until now. And I think, you know, as we start to diversify and include other people that have other walks of life, queer people, in this instance, I think it's really important to tell stories like that. But ballet does not have a history of doing that. Actually quite surprising when you think that so many gay lead dancers have never played a gay role? It is. I was never afforded that opportunity. I am a gay man and I honestly can't imagine what it would have been like to be able to express the way I express love in my personal life on the stage.

I was never afforded the opportunity, but the dancers of the Australian Ballet are being afforded this opportunity now. You'd definitely never have been afforded that opportunity at the Bolshoi in Moscow, would you? No, no, not at all. I had some, you know, some great moments at Bolshoi Theatre, dancing the great classics, but I was never given an opportunity like this. David Hallberg, Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet. The Lebanese writer and political activist Elias Khoury has died in Beirut aged 76. Born to a middle-class Christian family in Beirut, he joined the armed wing of the Palestine Liberation Organisation as a young man

and fought in the Lebanese civil war. He went on to write over a dozen novels in Arabic, including Gate of the Sun, which has been described as the first true magnum opus of the Palestinian saga. Fawaz Gerges, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, told us more about him. Elias Khoury was one of the leading and the most impactful writer, a novelist, a thinker, and a public intellectual. He was also an activist. He participated in the Lebanese Civil War as a progressive leftist activist. He fully supported the Arab Spring uprisings in 2010-2012. The Palestinian tragedy was one of the most important questions that animated the writings of Ilyas Khoury, and of course his opposition to Arab political authoritarianism. I think

to him, the Palestinian tragedy was not just about the Palestinians. It was a universal humanist question that affects all human beings. Most of his writings focus on questions of exile, on questions of basically fragmented societies and identities. Sadly and tragically, Elias Khoury was very embittered in the past few months. I follow his writings in Al-Quds al-Arabi, a newspaper published in London. And he basically drew a link, an organic link, between what Israel was doing in Gaza and the deepening political authoritarianism in Arab societies in the past 40 or 50 years. Professor Fawaz Gerges, could you see yourself as the next James Bond,

a fictional spy character, but didn't get all A grades at school? Well, here in the UK, the security service MI5 has made its entry requirements a lot more attainable. Keris Maidment reports. International travel, gadgets galore and martinis shaken, not stirred. Working for MI5 may be the dream for many, but it's traditionally seen as open to few. Until now, the days of needing a degree from a world-class university seem to be over. In fact, there's now a position at MI5 which requires just one GCSE, exams that British 16-year-olds sit across the country.

As a foundation analyst, you'd be working with data. From audio files to communications, your research would be used in investigations to keep the country safe. And their reasoning for making entry requirements so accessible? According to their website... All our analysts have different backgrounds and come from different walks of life. However, they do have one thing in common, a passion and interest in helping to protect people and places. You don't need experience in analysis or a degree to join us.

It's all about your potential. Louis Sage Passant is a researcher of intelligence and espionage at Loughborough University in the UK and an adjunct professor at Sciences Po in Paris. He says that this change in old ways offers plenty of positives. I think traditionally there has been a leaning towards recruiting the best of the best. This is a national security measure, so it's only natural that that has been the focus. But I think there is often a risk, and I think that's what's probably prompted this type of thinking, that if you have people who are always thinking in the same way,

people could come from the same backgrounds, they have the same type of education, then they can be vulnerable to groupthink, which is a really common route to intelligence failure. So hiring analysts with different qualifications, different backgrounds, even different levels of qualifications can actually be a plus for national security, because people can think differently, they can bring new perspectives in. And that's really important in intelligence work. If you successfully get through the six to nine month recruitment process, who knows where your career could take you. But remember, all you need now is a GCSE. One GCSE.

Keris Maidment. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Liam McSheffrey. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Bernadette Keogh. Until next time, goodbye. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story,

plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.