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      Trump Is Briefed on Iranian Assassination Threats

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      U.S. intelligence agencies had previously tracked a potential Iranian assassination plot. The Trump campaign said in a statement that the threat is now heightened.Former President Donald J. Trump was briefed on Tuesday by U.S. intelligence officials about “specific threats from Iran to assassinate him,” according to his campaign.U.S. intelligence agencies had previously tracked a potential Iranian assassination plot earlier this summer, with officials stressing that they did not consider the threat related to the shooting in July that wounded Mr. Trump. Earlier this month, another man was arrested by the police after he was found lurking with a gun near Mr. Trump’s golf course in Florida. The federal government will pursue a charge of attempted assassination against that man, and there is no evidence to suggest that plot was related to Iran.Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said that the threats from Iran were part of “an effort to destabilize and sow chaos” and that “intelligence officials have identified that these continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months.”A spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged the briefing took place but declined to answer questions or provide any specifics. It is not clear if the intelligence officials provided new details about existing threats by Iran against Mr. Trump or if spy agencies had gathered information about new plots against him.Iranian hackers seeking to influence the 2024 election breached Mr. Trump’s campaign and then sent excerpts from documents pilfered from the campaign to people associated with President Biden’s re-election campaign this summer, though law enforcement officials said that the recipients of those materials had not responded. Iranian hackers also tried to breach the Biden-Harris campaign.Iran has also engaged in an ambitious and brazen effort to spread disinformation about the election. The effort appears intended to undermine Mr. Trump’s campaign, according to officials, but they have also targeted Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting a wider goal of sowing discord and discrediting American democracy.Russia and China have also engaged in disinformation campaigns aimed at influencing American elections. American spy agencies have assessed that Russia favors Mr. Trump, seeing him as skeptical of U.S. support for Ukraine, and U.S. officials announced a broad effort to push back on Russian influence campaigns this month.Julian Barnes More

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      Harris Is Set to Visit Border, Trying to Cut Into Trump’s Immigration Edge

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      Vice President Kamala Harris is planning to visit the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday during a trip to Arizona, according to two people briefed on the preparations, as she seeks to counter former President Donald J. Trump’s advantage with voters on the issue of immigration.The trip is set to be her first visit to the southern border since President Biden dropped out of the race.Ms. Harris may give remarks about border issues during the visit, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a trip that has not yet been made public. The people said final details about exactly where Ms. Harris would visit or what else she might do on the trip have not been decided. The Harris campaign did not immediately provide a comment.Mr. Trump and Republicans have blamed Ms. Harris for the large numbers of migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico over the past several years. Early in his administration, Mr. Biden made Ms. Harris responsible for addressing the root causes of migration from Latin America.But she struggled in that role and drew criticism after telling the NBC News host Lester Holt in a 2021 interview, when he asked why she had not yet visited the southern border, that she had “never been to Europe” either. The Trump campaign has used that exchange in advertisements attacking her record on immigration. Ms. Harris traveled to the border soon after her interview with Mr. Holt.In recent months, border crossings have fallen to their lowest levels since she and Mr. Biden took office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk Hails Italian Leader Giorgia Meloni at Awards Ceremony

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      Mr. Musk described Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as “authentic, honest and thoughtful.” She used her Atlantic Council spotlight to defend Western values.Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, and Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, were the stars of a black-tie dinner in New York on Monday that highlighted Mr. Musk’s increasing involvement in politics.Ms. Meloni had chosen Mr. Musk to introduce her as she received a Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank that cited “her political and economic leadership of Italy, in the European Union” and of the Group of 7 nations “as well as her support of Ukraine in Russia’s war against it.”The prime minister and the billionaire business leader have bonded over the years. They share concerns about artificial intelligence and declining birthrates in Western countries, which Mr. Musk has called an existential threat to civilization.He described Ms. Meloni on Monday as “someone who is even more beautiful inside than outside” and “authentic, honest and thoughtful.”“That can’t always be said about politicians,” Mr. Musk added, to laughter from the crowd of 700 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Manhattan.After thanking Mr. Musk for his “precious genius,” Ms. Meloni delivered a passionate defense of Western values. While rejecting authoritarian nationalism, she said, “we should not be afraid to defend words like ‘nation’ and ‘patriotism.’”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Says That if He Loses, ‘the Jewish People Would Have a Lot to Do’ With It

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      Former President Donald J. Trump, speaking on Thursday at a campaign event in Washington centered on denouncing antisemitism in America, said that “if I don’t win this election,” then “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”Mr. Trump repeated that assertion at a second event, this one focused on Israeli Americans, where he blamed Jews whom he described as “voting for the enemy,” for the hypothetical destruction of Israel that he insisted would happen if he lost in November.Mr. Trump on Thursday offered an extended airing of grievances against Jewish Americans who have not voted for him. He repeated his denunciation of Jews who vote for Democrats before suggesting that the Democratic Party had a “hold, or curse,” on Jewish Americans and that he should be getting “100 percent” of Jewish votes because of his policies on Israel.Jews, who make up just over 2 percent of America’s population, are considered to be one of the most consistently liberal demographics in the country, a trend that Mr. Trump has lamented repeatedly this year as he tries to chip away at their longstanding affiliation with Democrats.Much as he repeatedly spins a doomsday vision of America as he campaigns this year, Mr. Trump has pointed to Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 massacre and to the war in Gaza as he has insisted that Israel will “cease to exist” within a few years if he does not win in November.“With all I have done for Israel, I received only 24 percent of the Jewish vote,” he said during his earlier speech on Thursday, at a campaign event where he spoke to an audience of prominent Republican Jews — including Miriam Adelson, the megadonor who is a major Trump benefactor — and lawmakers. Mr. Trump added that “I really haven’t been treated very well, but it’s the story of my life.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Wants Long-Range Weapons. Here’s a Look at What They Are.

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      Much of the public discourse about arming Ukraine has revolved around whether the United States will send “long range” weapons. But that can mean different things.There are roughly 500 miles between Kyiv and Moscow.The United States has weapons that can fly much farther than that, but it is unlikely to supply them to Ukraine for fear that an attack on the Russian capital with American weapons might spark a third world war.So within that 500-mile range the Biden administration has been pushed repeatedly to give Kyiv weapons that can hit targets as far away as possible. Discussion among Ukraine’s supporters often centers on calls for “long range” weapons — a term with no real military definition, but that has an emotional pull Ukrainian leaders have used to pressure the White House for ever more capable munitions.Over two and half years of war, “long range” has evolved in the public forum to describe a host of increasingly advanced U.S. weapons. The trend began soon after Russia’s 2022 invasion, when U.S. government officials first used the term to apply to …ArtillerySeveral 155-millimeter howitzer shells waiting to be fired in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in March.Nicole Tung for The New York TimesThe United States has sent Ukraine the longest-range artillery pieces in its arsenal: 155-millimeter howitzers, which can fire 100-pound shells at targets about 20 miles away. Each shell contains about 24 pounds of explosives.Since the beginning of the war, the United States has shipped three million M795 artillery shells to Ukraine for the weapon to fire. That model can be fitted with a guidance kit that steers the projectile to its target, though there is no evidence to suggest the Pentagon has sent those devices to Kyiv.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      El posible segundo atentado contra Trump genera alarma en el extranjero

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      Existe la preocupación generalizada de que las elecciones de noviembre no acaben bien y de que la democracia estadounidense haya llegado a un punto crítico.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]En los nueve años transcurridos desde que Donald Trump entró en la política estadounidense, la percepción global de Estados Unidos se ha visto sacudida por la imagen de una nación fracturada e impredecible. Primero un atentado contra la vida del expresidente, y ahora un segundo posible atentado, han acentuado la preocupación internacional, suscitando temores de una agitación violenta que podría desembocar en una guerra civil.Keir Starmer, el primer ministro británico, ha dicho que está “muy preocupado” y “profundamente perturbado” por lo que, según el FBI, fue un intento de asesinar a Trump en su campo de golf de Florida, a menos de 50 días de las elecciones presidenciales y dos meses después de que una bala ensangrentó la oreja de Trump durante un mitin de campaña en Pensilvania.“La violencia no tiene cabida alguna en un proceso político”, afirmó Starmer.Sin embargo, la violencia ha tenido un lugar preponderante en esta tormentosa y tambaleante campaña política estadounidense, y no solo en los dos posibles intentos de asesinato. Ahora existe una preocupación generalizada en todo el mundo de que las elecciones de noviembre no acaben bien y de que la democracia estadounidense, que solía ser un modelo para el mundo, haya llegado a un punto crítico.En México, donde este año se celebraron las elecciones más violentas de la historia reciente del país, con 41 candidatos y aspirantes a cargos públicos asesinados, el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador dijo en una publicación en la plataforma social X: “Aun cuando todavía no se conoce bien lo sucedido, lamentamos la violencia producida en contra del expresidente Donald Trump. El camino es la democracia y la paz”.En un momento de guerras en Europa y el Medio Oriente y de inseguridad global generalizada mientras China y Rusia afirman la superioridad de sus modelos autócratas, la precariedad estadounidense pesa bastante.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Harris Must Do to Win Over Skeptics (Like Me)

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      What does Kamala Harris think the United States should do about the Houthis, whose assaults on commercial shipping threaten global trade, and whose attacks on Israel risk a much wider Mideast war? If an interviewer were to ask the vice president about them, would she be able to give a coherent and compelling answer?It’s not an unfair or unprecedented question. As a presidential candidate, George W. Bush was quizzed on the names of the leaders of Taiwan, India, Pakistan and Chechnya. He got one right (Taiwan’s Lee Teng-hui) but drew blanks on the rest. It fueled criticism, as The Times’s Frank Bruni reported in 1999, that “he is not knowledgeable enough about foreign policy to lead the nation.”A few more questions for Harris: If, as president, she had intelligence that Iran was on the cusp of assembling a nuclear weapon, would she use force to stop it? Are there limits to American support for Ukraine, and what are they? Would she push for the creation of a Palestinian state if Hamas remained a potent political force within it? Are there any regulations she’d like to get rid of in her initiative to build three million new homes in the next four years? What role, if any, does she see for nuclear power in her energy and climate plans? If there were another pandemic similar to Covid-19, what might her administration do differently?It may be that Harris has thoughtful answers to these sorts of questions. If so, she isn’t letting on. She did well in the debate with Donald Trump, showing poise and intelligence against a buffoonish opponent. But her answers in two sit-down interviews, first with CNN’s Dana Bash and then with Brian Taff of 6ABC in Philadelphia, were lighter than air. Asked what she’d do to bring down prices, she talked at length about growing up middle-class among people who were proud of their lawns before pivoting to vague plans to support small business and create more housing.Lovely. Now how about interest-rate policy, federal spending and the resilience of our supply chains?All this helps explain my unease with the thought of voting for Harris — an unease I never felt, despite policy differences, when Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were on the ballot against Trump. If Harris can answer the sorts of questions I posed above, she should be quick to do so, if only to dispel a widespread perception of unseriousness. If she can’t, then what was she doing over nearly eight years as a senator and vice president?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More