Political violence is threaded through recent US history. The motives and justifications vary

Political violence is threaded through recent US history. The motives and justifications vary
Law enforcement stage in a neighborhood on June 15, 2025 in Green Isle, Minnesota. Law enforcement agencies are searching for a suspect in the killing of DFL State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, who were shot at their home on Saturday, June 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 16 June 2025
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Political violence is threaded through recent US history. The motives and justifications vary

Political violence is threaded through recent US history. The motives and justifications vary
  • Often, those who engage in political violence don’t have clearly defined ideologies that easily map onto the country’s partisan divides

The assassination of a Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband and the shooting of another lawmaker and his wife at their homes are just the latest addition to a long and unsettling roll call of political violence in the United States.
The list, in the past two months alone: the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, the firebombing of a Colorado march calling for the release of Israeli hostages, and the firebombing of the official residence of Pennsylvania’s governor — on a Jewish holiday while he and his family were inside.
And here’s just a sampling of some other attacks before that — the killing of a health care executive on the streets of New York late last year, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in small-town Pennsylvania during his presidential campaign last year, the 2022 attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by a believer in right-wing conspiracy theories, and the 2017 shooting by a liberal gunman at a GOP practice for the congressional softball game.
“We’ve entered into this especially scary time in the country where it feels the sort of norms and rhetoric and rules that would tamp down on violence have been lifted,” said Matt Dallek, a political scientist at George Washington University who studies extremism. “A lot of people are receiving signals from the culture.”
Politics behind both individual shootings and massacres
Politics have also driven large-scale massacres. Gunmen who killed 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, 23 shoppers at a heavily Latino Walmart in El Paso in 2019 and 10 Black people at a Buffalo grocery store in 2022 each cited the conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of Jews were trying to replace white people with people of color. That has become a staple on parts of the right who support Trump’s push to limit immigration.
The Anti-Defamation League found that from 2022 through 2024, all of the 61 political killings in the United States were committed by right-wing extremists. That changed on the first day of 2025, when a Texas man flying the flag of the Daesh group killed 14 people by driving his truck through a crowded New Orleans street before being fatally shot by police.
“You’re seeing acts of violence from all different ideologies,” said Jacob Ware, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who researches terrorism. “It feels more random and chaotic and more frequent.”
The United States has a long and grim history of political violence, from presidential assassinations dating back to the killing of President Abraham Lincoln, lynching and violence aimed at Black people in the South, the 1954 shooting inside Congress by four Puerto Rican nationalists. Experts say the past few years, however, have most likely reached a level not seen since the tumultuous days of the 1960s and 1970s, when icons like Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.
Ware noted that the most recent surge comes after the new Trump administration has shuttered units that focus on investigating white supremacist extremism and pushed federal law enforcement to spend less time on anti-terrorism and more on detaining people who are in the country illegally.
“We’re at the point, after these six weeks, where we have to ask about how effectively the Trump administration is combating terrorism,” Ware said.
Of course, one of Trump’s first acts in office was to pardon those involved in the largest act of domestic political violence this century — the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol, intended to prevent Congress from certifying Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Those pardons broadcast a signal to would-be extremists on either side of the political debate, Dallek said: “They sent a very strong message that violence, as long as you’re a Trump supporter, will be permitted and may be rewarded.”
Ideologies aren’t always aligned — or coherent
Often, those who engage in political violence don’t have clearly defined ideologies that easily map onto the country’s partisan divides. A man who died after he detonated a car bomb outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic last month left writings urging people not to procreate and expressed what the FBI called “nihilistic ideations.”
But, like clockwork, each political attack seems to inspire partisans to find evidence the attacker is on the other side. Little was known about the man police identified as a suspect in the Minnesota attacks, 57-year-old Vance Boelter. Authorities say they found a list of other apparent targets that included other Democratic officials, abortion clinics and abortion rights advocates, as well as flyers for the day’s anti-Trump parades.
Conservatives online seized on the flyers — and the fact that Boetler had apparently once been appointed to a state workforce development board by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — to claim the suspect must be a liberal. “The far left is murderously violent,” billionaire Elon Musk posted on his social media site, X.
It was reminiscent of the fallout from the attack on Paul Pelosi, the former House speaker’s then-82-year-old husband, who was seriously injured by a man wielding a hammer. Right-wing figures theorized the assailant was a secret lover rather than what authorities said he was: a believer in pro-Trump conspiracy theories who broke into the Pelosi home echoing Jan. 6 rioters who broke into the Capitol by saying: “Where is Nancy?!”
On Saturday, Nancy Pelosi posted a statement on X decrying the Minnesota attack. “All of us must remember that it’s not only the act of violence, but also the reaction to it, that can normalize it,” she wrote.
Trump had mocked the Pelosis after the 2022 attack, but on Saturday he joined in the official bipartisan condemnation of the Minnesota shootings, calling them “horrific violence.” The president has, however, consistently broken new ground with his bellicose rhetoric toward his political opponents, whom he routinely calls “sick” and “evil,” and has talked repeatedly about how violence is needed to quell protests.
The Minnesota attack occurred after Trump took the extraordinary step of mobilizing the military to try to control protests against his administration’s immigration operations in Los Angeles during the past week, when he pledged to “HIT” disrespectful protesters and warned of a “migrant invasion” of the city.
Dallek said Trump has been “both a victim and an accelerant” of the charged, dehumanizing political rhetoric that is flooding the country.
“It feels as if the extremists are in the saddle,” he said, “and the extremists are the ones driving our rhetoric and politics.”


French deal on New Caledonia ‘state’ hits early criticism

French deal on New Caledonia ‘state’ hits early criticism
Updated 11 sec ago
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French deal on New Caledonia ‘state’ hits early criticism

French deal on New Caledonia ‘state’ hits early criticism

NOUMEA: An accord between France and New Caledonia, creating a state within a state and hailed by President Emmanuel Macron as “historic,” hit immediate fierce criticism in the Pacific territory on Sunday.

Following deadly protests that rocked New Caledonia last year, Macron called for talks to break a deadlock between forces loyal to France and those seeking independence.

After 10 days of negotiations near Paris, French officials and a delegation of 18 New Caledonian pro-independence and anti-independence representatives reached agreement on Saturday to create a “State of New Caledonia” within the French Republic.

The text, which still requires French parliamentary approval and to pass a referendum in the territory, provides for the creation of a Caledonian nationality and the sharing of powers. But it won few supporters in the archipelago.

The signatories of the draft agreement admitted during a meeting with Macron on Saturday evening that they were struggling to win over opponents of the deal that will be submitted to a referendum in February 2026.

Joel Kasarerhou, president of civil society group Construire Autrement, called the agreement “stillborn,” describing it as a “poor” replica of previous agreements and “lacking ambition and vision.”

Kasarerhou said the youth at the heart of the May 2024 uprising had been “forgotten or barely mentioned.” He feared another “May 13” — the date the 2024 riots began.

Home to around 270,000 people and located nearly 17,000 kilometers from Paris, New Caledonia is one of several overseas territories that remain an integral part of France.

It has been ruled from Paris since the 1800s, but many indigenous Kanaks resent France’s power over the islands and want more autonomy or independence.


France’s Macron announces plan to accelerate military spending

France’s Macron announces plan to accelerate military spending
Updated 41 sec ago
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France’s Macron announces plan to accelerate military spending

France’s Macron announces plan to accelerate military spending
  • The French president pledged to double the military budget by 2027 in response to a complex geopolitical moment

PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday announced a plan to push forward France’s defense spending, pledging to double the military budget by 2027 — three years earlier than originally planned — in response to a complex geopolitical moment.
France had aimed to double its defense budget from 2017 levels by 2030. However, Macron pledged to reach the target by 2027. A military budget that stood at 32 billion euros ($37.40 billion) in 2017 will rise to 64 billion euros by 2027, with an additional 3.5 billion euros allocated for next year and another 3 billion euros in 2027.
He said the accelerated spending, which comes as France is struggling to make 40 billion euros in savings in its 2026 budget, would be paid for by increased economic activity.
“Our military independence is inseparable from our financial independence,” he said. “This will be financed through more activity and more production.”
He said Prime Minister Francois Bayrou would provide more details in an address on his plans for the 2026 budget on Tuesday. Bayrou is facing an uphill battle to steer billions of euros worth of savings through a bitterly divided parliament, as France strives to lower its budget deficit to keep EU bean-counters and foreign investors at bay.


Nigeria’s former President Muhammadu Buhari dies in London

Former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has died. (File/AFP)
Former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has died. (File/AFP)
Updated 13 July 2025
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Nigeria’s former President Muhammadu Buhari dies in London

Former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has died. (File/AFP)
  • Buhari, 82, who first led the country as a military ruler after a coup in the 1980s, earned a devoted following for his brand of anti-corruption conviction politics

LAGOS: Nigeria’s former President Muhammadu Buhari, who led Africa’s most populous country from 2015-23 and was the first Nigerian president to oust an incumbent through the ballot box, died in London on Sunday, a presidential spokesperson said.
“President Buhari died today in London at about 4:30 p.m. (1530 GMT), following a prolonged illness,” President Bola Tinubu’s spokesperson said in a post on X.
Buhari, 82, who first led the country as a military ruler after a coup in the 1980s, earned a devoted following for his brand of anti-corruption conviction politics.
He referred to himself as a “converted democrat” and swapped his military uniform for kaftans and prayer caps.
“I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody,” was a constant refrain Buhari told supporters and critics alike.
Buhari defeated Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 in what was judged to be Nigeria’s fairest election to date. Many hoped the retired major general would crack down on armed groups, just as he had as the country’s military head of state.
Instead, violence that had mostly been confined to the northeast spread. That left swathes of Nigeria outside the control of its stretched security forces as gunmen in the northwest, armed separatists and gangs in the southeast roamed unchecked.
Much of his appeal lay in the anti-corruption ethos that was a central plank of his agenda both as a military and civilian ruler. He said endemic corruption in Nigeria’s political culture was holding people back.
“Baba Go Slow”
But Buhari quickly disappointed after his 2015 win.
He took six months to name his cabinet. During that time, the oil-dependent economy was hobbled by low crude prices, prompting people to call him “Baba Go Slow.”
His second victory in 2019 came despite his first term being blighted by Nigeria’s first recession in a generation, militant attacks on oilfields, and repeated hospital stays.
Born on December 17, 1942, in Daura in the northwestern state of Katsina state, Buhari enrolled in the army at 19. He would eventually rise to the rank of major-general.
He seized power in 1983 as a military ruler, promising to revitalize a mismanaged country. Buhari took a tough line on everything from the conditions sought by the International Monetary Fund to unruliness in bus queues.
In 1984, his administration attempted to kidnap a former minister and vocal critic living in Britain. The plot failed when London airport officials opened the crate containing the abducted politician.
His first stint in power was short-lived. He was removed after only 18 months by another military officer, Ibrahim Babangida.
Buhari spent much of the following 30 years in fringe political parties and trying to run for president until his eventual victory over Jonathan in 2015.


’Inexcusable’ failures led to Trump assassination attempt: Senate report

’Inexcusable’ failures led to Trump assassination attempt: Senate report
Updated 13 July 2025
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’Inexcusable’ failures led to Trump assassination attempt: Senate report

’Inexcusable’ failures led to Trump assassination attempt: Senate report
  • A congressional inquiry accused the Secret Service of ‘a cascade of preventable failures that nearly cost President Trump his life’
  • Six unidentified Secret Service staff have been disciplined with punishments range from 10 to 42 days’ suspension without pay

WASHINGTON: A congressional inquiry into the attempt to assassinate US President Donald Trump at a campaign rally a year ago on Sunday lamented “inexcusable” failures in the Secret Service’s operations and response, and called for more serious disciplinary action.
On July 13, 2024, a gunman shot the then-Republican presidential candidate during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing his ear.
One bystander was killed and two other people in addition to Trump were wounded before a government sniper killed the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks.
“What happened was inexcusable and the consequences imposed for the failures so far do not reflect the severity of the situation,” said the report released by the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The dramatic incident energized Trump’s bid to return to the White House, with his campaign using a photo of him bloodied and pumping his fist as he was hurried offstage to woo voters.
The report did not shed new light on the gunman’s motive, which still remains a mystery, but accused the Secret Service of “a cascade of preventable failures that nearly cost President Trump his life.”
“The United States Secret Service failed to act on credible intelligence, failed to coordinate with local law enforcement,” said the committee’s Republican chairman Rand Paul.
“Despite those failures, no one has been fired,” he added.
“It was a complete breakdown of security at every level-fueled by bureaucratic indifference, a lack of clear protocols, and a shocking refusal to act on direct threats.
“We must hold individuals accountable and ensure reforms are fully implemented so this never happens again.”
Staff disciplined
The Secret Service cited communication, technical and human errors and said reforms were underway, including on coordination between different law enforcement bodies and establishment of a division dedicated to aerial surveillance.
Six unidentified staff have been disciplined, according to the agency. The punishments range from 10 to 42 days’ suspension without pay, and all six were put into restricted or non-operational positions.
Reflecting on the assassination attempt earlier this week, Trump said “mistakes were made” but that he was satisfied with the investigation.
In an interview with his daughter-in-law on Fox News’ “My View with Lara Trump,” Trump said the sniper “was able to get him from a long distance with one shot. If he didn’t do that, you would have had an even worse situation.”
“It was unforgettable,” Trump said of the events.
“I didn’t know exactly what was going on. I got whacked. There’s no question about that. And fortunately, I got down quickly. People were screaming.”


Russia’s Lavrov visits Beijing to discuss Ukraine

Russia’s Lavrov visits Beijing to discuss Ukraine
Updated 13 July 2025
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Russia’s Lavrov visits Beijing to discuss Ukraine

Russia’s Lavrov visits Beijing to discuss Ukraine
  • Russia’s top diplomat arrived in China following a visit to North Korea
  • China claims to be neutral in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met Sunday in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart to discuss Ukraine and relations with the United States.
Russia’s top diplomat arrived in China following a visit to North Korea, where he received assurances of support in its conflict with Ukraine.
Lavrov and Wang Yi “discussed relations with the United States and the outlook for settling the Ukrainian crisis,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
China, a diplomatic and economic ally of Moscow, claims to be neutral in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
But it has never denounced Russia’s 2022 invasion nor called for it to withdraw its troops, and many of Ukraine’s allies believe that China has provided support for Russia.
Beijing regularly calls for an end to the fighting, while also accusing Western countries of prolonging the conflict by arming Ukraine.
The statement from the Russian foreign ministry said Levrov and Yi also discussed other “burning issues” such as the war in Gaza and the “situation on the Korean peninsula.”