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After Attempt on His Life, Trump Sees Moment for Unity

Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump arrives at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport a day after he survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 14, 2024 in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. Dan Scavino Jr. via X/via REUTERS
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump arrives at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport a day after he survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 14, 2024 in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. Dan Scavino Jr. via X/via REUTERS
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After Attempt on His Life, Trump Sees Moment for Unity

Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump arrives at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport a day after he survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 14, 2024 in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. Dan Scavino Jr. via X/via REUTERS
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump arrives at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport a day after he survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 14, 2024 in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. Dan Scavino Jr. via X/via REUTERS

A grateful Donald Trump was in Milwaukee on Monday to make final preparations for the Republican presidential nomination later this week after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt that he said presented an opportunity to bring the country together.
Trump, 78, was holding a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania - a key state in the Nov. 5 election - when a 20-year-old man with an AR-15-style rifle got close enough to shoot at the former Republican president from a rooftop, Reuters said.
One shot hit Trump's upper right ear, leaving his face streaked with blood, but he was not severely wounded. His campaign said he was doing fine.
"That reality is just setting in," Trump told the Washington Examiner on Sunday. "I rarely look away from the crowd. Had I not done that in that moment, well, we would not be talking today, would we?"
One person in the crowd was killed and two others wounded before Secret Service agents fatally shot the suspect.
In their remarks on Sunday, both Trump and President Joe Biden counseled calm and unity, aiming to lower temperatures in a country whose a deep political divide has grown even more pronounced during the presidential race.
Biden delivered a televised address from the Oval Office in the White House on Sunday.
"There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions," "We can't allow this violence to be normalized," he said. "The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It's time to cool it down."
Trump pumped his fist in the air several times on Sunday as he descended the stairs from his plane after arriving in Milwaukee, where he will accept his party's formal nomination at the Republican National Convention with a speech on Thursday.
"This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would've been two days ago," Trump told the Washington Examiner.
"I want to try to unite our country," the New York Post reported Trump saying during the same interview, conducted during the flight to Milwaukee. "But I don’t know if that’s possible. People are very divided."
Biden, a Democrat, ordered a review of how the gunman, who was shot dead by agents moments after opening fire, could have taken up an elevated position so close to Trump, who as a former president has lifetime protection by the U.S. Secret Service.
Biden and Trump spoke to each other on Saturday night after the shooting. First Lady Jill Biden also spoke with former First Lady Melania Trump on Sunday afternoon, said a White House official.
Trump and Biden are locked in a close election rematch, according to most opinion polls including by Reuters/Ipsos. The shooting on Saturday whipsawed discussion around the presidential campaign, which had been focused on if Biden, 81, should drop out following a halting June 27 debate performance.
SUSPECT A NURSING HOME AIDE
The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the suspect and said the shooting was being investigated as an attempted assassination.
FBI officials said on Sunday that the shooter acted alone. The agency said it had yet to identify an ideology linked to the suspect or any indications of mental health issues or found any threatening language on the suspect's social media accounts.
Crooks was a registered Republican, according to state voter records, and donated $15 to a Democratic political action committee when he was 17. At the time of the shooting he was employed as a dietary aide at a nursing home. The Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center said Crooks "performed his job without concern and his background check was clean."
The gun - an AR-style-5.56 caliber rifle - had been legally bought, FBI officials said, adding they believed it had been purchased by the suspect's father. The officials said "a suspicious device" was found in the suspect's vehicle, which was inspected by bomb technicians and rendered safe.
The Secret Service denied accusations by some Trump supporters that it had rejected a campaign request for more security, saying that it recently "added protective resources and capabilities to the former President's security detail."
Hours after the assassination attempt, the Oversight Committee in the Republican-led US House of Representatives summoned Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify at a hearing scheduled for July 22.
The shots on Saturday appeared to come from outside the area secured by the Secret Service, the agency said.
SPECTATOR KILLED PROTECTING FAMILY
The rally attendee killed on Saturday was identified by authorities as Corey Comperatore, 50, of Sarver, Pennsylvania. He died trying to protect his family from the hail of bullets, said Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
"Corey was an avid supporter of the former president, and was so excited to be there," Shapiro said, adding, "Political disagreements can never, ever be addressed through violence."
Two people wounded in the shooting were in a stable condition on Sunday. Pennsylvania State identified them as David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, Pennsylvania and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, Pennsylvania.
Residents of Bethel Park, where the suspected shooter lived, expressed shock at the news on Sunday.
"It's a little crazy to think that somebody that did an assassination attempt is that close, but it just kind of shows the political dynamic that we're in right now with the craziness on each side," said resident Wes Morgan, 42, describing Bethel Park as "a pretty blue-collar type of area."
While mass shootings at schools, nightclubs and other public places are common in the United States, the attack was the first shooting of a US president or major party presidential candidate since the 1981 attempted assassination of Republican President Ronald Reagan.
Americans fear rising political violence, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, with two out of three respondents to a May survey saying they worried violence could follow the election.
After Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election, Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a deadly riot fueled by Trump's false claims that his loss was the result of widespread fraud.

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Ukrainian President Says Push into Russia’s Kursk Region Is to Create Buffer Zone 

A civilian bus rides past a Ukrainian tank on a road in the village of Yunakivka, 9 kilometers from the border with Russia in the Sumy region, Ukraine, 18 August 2024 amid the Russian invasion. (EPA) 
A civilian bus rides past a Ukrainian tank on a road in the village of Yunakivka, 9 kilometers from the border with Russia in the Sumy region, Ukraine, 18 August 2024 amid the Russian invasion. (EPA) 
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Ukrainian President Says Push into Russia’s Kursk Region Is to Create Buffer Zone 

A civilian bus rides past a Ukrainian tank on a road in the village of Yunakivka, 9 kilometers from the border with Russia in the Sumy region, Ukraine, 18 August 2024 amid the Russian invasion. (EPA) 
A civilian bus rides past a Ukrainian tank on a road in the village of Yunakivka, 9 kilometers from the border with Russia in the Sumy region, Ukraine, 18 August 2024 amid the Russian invasion. (EPA) 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday the daring military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow across the border.

It was the first time Zelenskyy clearly stated the aim of the operation that began Aug. 6. Previously, he had said the operation aimed to protect communities in the bordering Sumy region from constant shelling.

"It is now our primary task in defensive operations overall: to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions. This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory -– our operation in the Kursk region," he said in his nightly address.

This weekend, Ukraine destroyed a key bridge in the region and struck a second one nearby, disrupting supply lines as it pressed the incursion, officials said.

Pro-Kremlin military bloggers acknowledged the destruction of the first bridge on the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo will impede deliveries of supplies to Russian forces repelling Ukraine’s incursion, although Moscow could still use pontoons and smaller bridges. Ukraine’s air force chief, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, on Friday released a video of an airstrike that cut the bridge in two.

Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops hit a second bridge in Russia, according to Oleshchuk and Russian regional Gov. Alexei Smirnov.

As of Sunday morning, there were no officials giving the exact location of the second bridge attack. But Russian Telegram channels claimed that a second bridge over the Seim, in the village of Zvannoe, had been struck.

According to Russia’s Mash news site, the attacks left only one intact bridge in the area. The Associated Press could not immediately verify these claims. If confirmed, the Ukrainian strikes would further complicate Moscow's attempts to replenish its forces and evacuate civilians.

Glushkovo is about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) north of the Ukrainian border, and approximately 16 kilometers (10 miles) northwest of the main battle zone in Kursk. Zvannoe is located another 8 kilometers (5 miles) to the northwest.

Kyiv previously has said little about the goals of its push into Russia with tanks and other armored vehicles, the largest attack on the country since World War II, which took the Kremlin by surprise and saw scores of villages and hundreds of prisoners fall into Ukrainian hands.

The Ukrainians drove deep into the region in several directions, facing little resistance and sowing chaos and panic as tens of thousands of civilians fled. Ukraine’s Commander in Chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed last week that his forces had advanced across 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles) of the region, although it was not possible to independently verify what Ukrainian forces effectively control.

Buffer zones sought by both sides

In his remarks on creating a buffer zone, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces "achieved good and much-needed results."

Analysts say that although Ukraine could try to consolidate its gains inside Russia, it would be risky, given Kyiv’s limited resources, because its own supply lines extending deep into Kursk would be vulnerable.

The incursion has proven Ukraine's ability to seize the initiative and has boosted its morale, which was sapped by a failed counteroffensive last summer and months of grinding Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region.

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin said while visiting China in May that Moscow’s offensive that month in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region was aimed at creating a buffer zone there.

That offensive opened a new front and displaced thousands of Ukrainians. The attacks were a response to Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region, Putin said.

"I have said publicly that if it continues, we will be forced to create a security zone, a sanitary zone," he said. "That’s what we are doing."

Ukraine’s move into Kursk resembled its lightning operation from September 2022, led by Syrskyi, in which its forces reclaimed control of the northeastern Kharkiv region after taking advantage of Russian manpower shortages and a lack of field fortifications.

Zelenskyy seeks permission to strike deeper into Russia

On Saturday, Zelenskyy urged Kyiv’s allies to lift remaining restrictions on using Western weapons to attack targets deeper in Russia, including in Kursk, saying his troops could deprive Moscow "of any ability to advance and cause destruction" if granted sufficient long-range capabilities.

"It is crucial that our partners remove barriers that hinder us from weakening Russian positions in the way this war demands. ... The bravery of our soldiers and the resilience of our combat brigades compensate for the lack of essential decisions from our partners," Zelenskyy said on the social platform X.

Russia's Foreign Ministry and pro-Kremlin bloggers alleged US-made HIMARS launchers have been used to destroy bridges on the Seim. These claims could not be independently verified.

Ukraine’s leaders have repeatedly sought authorization for long-range strikes on Russian air bases and other infrastructure used to pummel Ukraine’s energy facilities and other civilian targets, including with retrofitted Soviet-era "glide bombs" attacking Ukraine’s industrial east in recent months.

Moscow also appears to have increased attacks on Kyiv, targeting it Sunday with ballistic missiles for a third time this month, according to the head of the municipal military administration. Serhii Popko said in a Telegram post the "almost identical" August strikes on the capital "most likely used" North Korean-supplied KN-23 missiles.

Another attempt to target Kyiv followed at about 7 a.m. Popko said, this time with Iskander cruise missiles. Ukrainian air defenses struck down all the missiles fired in both attacks on the city, he said.

Fears mount for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Elsewhere, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said Saturday the safety situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is deteriorating.

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi urged "maximum restraint from all sides" after an IAEA team at the plant reported an explosive carried by a drone detonated just outside its protected area.

According to Grossi, the impact was "close to the essential water sprinkle ponds" and about 100 meters (100 yards) from the only power line supplying the plant. The IAEA team at the plant has reported intense military activity in the surrounding area in the past week, it said.

Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame for attacks near the power plant since it was captured by Russian forces early in the 2022 invasion, including a fire at the facility last weekend. Grossi said the blaze had caused "considerable damage," but posed no immediate danger to nuclear safety.