US Secret Service boss resigns over Trump shooting failures 29:20

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Keogh, and in the early hours of Wednesday 24th July, these are our main stories. The director of the US Secret Service has resigned after facing sharp criticism for her agency's failure to prevent the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris has promised to bring the fight to Donald Trump in her first rally since becoming the Democrats' presumptive nominee for president. A major rescue operation is underway in the remote South Atlantic after almost 30 people aboard a fishing vessel had to abandon their sinking ship.

Also in this podcast... This is the first time that actually cocaine has been detected in the muscle of sharks. We've detected it in other animals before, but this is at a higher concentration than you see in other animals. Sharks off the coast of Brazil test positive for cocaine.

We begin in Washington, where Kimberly Cheetle has caved into intense pressure and resigned as director of the U.S. Secret Service after admitting to a colossal failure for not preventing the attempted assassination of Donald Trump 10 days ago.

On Monday, she failed to give lawmakers at a congressional hearing the answers they wanted during fiery exchanges. Ms. Cheadle even appeared determined to stay in post when she was questioned by the Democrat congressman, Ro Khanna. Would you agree that this is the most serious security lapse since President Reagan was shot in 1981 of the Secret Service? Yes, sir, I would.

And, you know, do you know what Stuart Knight did when he was in charge at the time of the Secret Service? Do you know what he did afterwards? He remained on duty. He resigned. He resigned.

But her fate was sealed after this appearance. The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, was announcing a task force made up of Democrats and Republicans to investigate the shooting of Mr. Trump when he learned about Ms. Cheadle's decision. The immediate reaction to her resignation is that it is overdue. She should have done this at least a week ago. I'm happy to see that.

Now we have to pick up the pieces. We have to rebuild the American people's faith and trust in the Secret Service as an agency. It has an incredibly important responsibility in protecting presidents, former presidents, and other officials.

For more on why Kimberly Cheadle decided to step down, I spoke to our Washington correspondent, Nomiya Iqbal. In the hearing, she was very adamant that she wouldn't stand down. She was very adamant that she was the best person for the job. But clearly the pressure has become too much. And she sent out this letter this morning saying that it was with a heavy heart...

that she now resigns. She's been in the job for less than two years and one of only two women to ever serve as the head of the Secret Service, but I think it was quite clear that her position was untenable. Well, as you say, Monday was a bruising day for her. Did her evidence and her responses seal her fate? I think so. There were crucial questions to be answered. One of them was, why weren't there Secret Service agents on the rooftop?

and especially considering the gunman was already highlighted to the Secret Service. And Kimberly Cheadle said that, that the FBI had warned the Secret Service that he had been flying a drone above the rally beforehand. And so why weren't precautions taken? And Ms Cheadle gave a very bizarre response to the question of why weren't there Secret Service agents on the rooftop. She said that

They preferred sterile roofs. And previously she had said that they don't like sloping roofs, which she apologised for. But by sterile, it was very confusing as to what she meant. Does she mean flat roofs? We weren't quite sure.

And that really exacerbated the anger that was already in that hearing amongst the lawmakers. And one lawmaker in particular, a Republican congresswoman called Nancy Mace, swore in the hearing, accusing Ms. Cheetle of being really dishonest. They just weren't happy with the answers.

Ms. Cheetle said, look, I can't answer these questions because an investigation is underway, but I do think that her stonewalling essentially did seal her fate. So where does her decision to step down leave the investigation into what happened at the Trump rally? Well, the deputy of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, he will stand in for the moment. The investigation will still continue. And in terms of the hearing...

That's still continuing on the Capitol. So you've got the Homeland Security Department holding a hearing as well. You've got the head of Pennsylvania police and local law enforcement being questioned as well about the security failures that day. And will Kimberly Cheadle's resignation in any way calm nerves in Washington? I think to a certain extent it will, because the Secret Service has been blighted with a lot of problems over the years, and there's

There's not been a huge amount of confidence in the Secret Service. It's obviously one of the most important agencies in this country. A lot of Republicans and Democrats felt that her stepping down was the only way to restore some sense of confidence. So I think that's probably why she's done it as well. But for lawmakers, certainly, that's what they were wanting yesterday, and that's what they've got.

Kamala Harris hit the US campaign trail on Tuesday, having already secured enough backing to be formally selected next month as the Democratic presidential contender. She addressed a rally in Milwaukee in Wisconsin, her first rally since President Biden withdrew from the race. Supporters queuing up to enter the rally were enthusiastic.

I am super excited about Kamala. She is the perfect candidate to run against Trump. I'm excited that she's giving us a platform for the future, not a platform for the past. I think that Kamala Harris has completely invigorated the entire base of the Democratic Party. Young people are going to come out in a way that they weren't going to come out before. There's only one old man in the race now.

and it's not Joe Biden. It's just something new, something. I think we needed somebody new. Well, the vice president spoke to a loud, large and appreciative audience who chanted her name as she approached the podium. And as she spoke, Kamala Harris made it clear that she's very much running on her past record. I was elected attorney general of the state of California, and I was a courtroom prosecutor before then. And in those roles...

Our correspondent, Anthony Zirko, was following events...

Some of what Ms Harris had to say may have sounded familiar, but did it go down well? It did. The contrast between a Kamala Harris event, this Kamala Harris event, and the Joe Biden campaign events I've been covering for the past year, year and a half, was dramatic. The crowd was so enthusiastic. They were engaged.

with what the vice president was saying. And she was in a very direct way, as you heard there, drawing the contrast between herself and her background as a criminal prosecutor and Donald Trump. That's actually something that Kamala Harris didn't do when she ran for president in 2020. She didn't talk as much about that prosecutorial background, but now it looks like she's going to make it a central point in her campaign.

Democratic endorsements have been building up, money's been pouring in. Is there a chance that it won't be her as candidate?

Well, it's looking increasingly unlikely. She has secured the commitments from a majority of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention at the end of August. Those are the people who will determine who the nominee is. And just in a matter of days, she has locked down that support. So unless there is some dramatic shift, something that changes the support and makes these people move away after committing to Kamala Harris, the nomination is hers to lock up. Her campaign already is referring to her

as the presumptive nominee, and you mentioned those endorsements, virtually all of her potential rivals for the nomination have endorsed her, and top Democrats across the board have endorsed her. The only one who hasn't as of so far is former President Barack Obama, who has remained silent. That man in the queue wasn't the first to say there's only one old man left in the race now. How has Donald Trump reacted?

Donald Trump has gone on the attack against Democrats as the process where Joe Biden stepped down and endorsed Kamala Harris being unfair. And he has also specifically targeted Kamala Harris, saying that she is too liberal and also trying to tie her to the immigration policies of the Biden administration, which public opinion politics.

polls show are generally viewed unfavorably. So they want to make her the face of the immigration policies for the Biden administration and also tie her to the economic issues, rise in inflation and everything else that some voters find distasteful about the past four years.

Anthony Zerker talking to Paul Henley. Well, after Joe Biden endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, misleading claims about both of them surfaced online, including one alleging that Mr. Biden is in fact dead. And this is why Ms. Harris has replaced him.

Cheyenne Sardari-Zadeh from BBC Verify has been looking at the claims. This is one of those bizarre ones that the last 24 hours we've seen being shared by some sort of right-wing influential accounts online and they're claiming that there's some sort of cover-up going on in the White House and the letter that we saw from Joe Biden's official account posted to the platform X and

announcing his dropping out of the presidential race and then endorsing Kamala Harris later, that that particular letter was not signed by him and might have been written by somebody else for him and that Joe Biden has not been seen in public for several days.

And then the phone call that he made to Kamala Harris yesterday while she was at a rally might have been a recorded voice. And then the news that he's going to address the nation, that might again be a recorded message. I mean, it's really bizarre in the sense that, you know, we know that President Biden has had COVID and has been resting and recovering. And I'm assuming that...

going to see the real Joe Biden at a press in the nation. What more would he have to do in that speech? Hold up a copy of that day's newspaper to say, look, I'm really here? I mean, at what point, if he's giving a video at a national address from the White House, would people simply say, well, I don't believe it? I mean, I don't know, James. Like, honestly, some of this stuff can get really bizarre. Today we've been tracking some of them, you know, 20 million views, 30 million views. You generally sort of wonder from, you know, perfectly legitimate activists,

And they've been misleading false claims about Kamala Harris as well?

Yeah, the night that President Biden dropped out and endorsed Kamala Harris, we immediately saw some pieces of fake news being shared about her. One of them was an image of her, an edited fake image of her standing alongside Jeffrey Epstein, the sort of sex offender and notorious figure who's now dead. Obviously, that image was not real. That was edited. We found the real image from dating back to 2015. She was standing next to her husband.

And then there was a deepfake video of her speaking very incoherently and saying bizarre things. That wasn't, again, real. We found the real video posted to Facebook from last year at a rally at a university. And then there were sort of recycled claims. Back in 2019, Kamala Harris obviously ran for president, unsuccessfully dropped out of the Democratic primaries. But at the time that she ran, there were claims that she couldn't, you know, she wouldn't be eligible to run for president because her parents were not born in the United States.

At the time, constitutional experts clarified that that was not the case because she was born in America. She was born in California. And as a National Board citizen, she would be perfectly allowed to run for president. Cheyenne Sardarizade talking to James Reynolds.

As we record this podcast, Spain's foreign minister has said that 14 people have been rescued in a major operation in the South Atlantic after the crew of a fishing vessel, the Argos Georgia, had to abandon ship. But José Manuel Alvarez told Spain's public broadcaster that one person was confirmed to have died and at least two others were missing. Here's Danny Eberhard. This is an extremely complicated rescue with gale force winds and waves reported to be eight metres high.

The Argos Georgia got into trouble on Monday, some 200 nautical miles off the Falklands, known in the Spanish-speaking world as Las Malvinas. It sank overnight. According to Spain's foreign minister, those on board included nationals of Spain, Uruguay, Peru, Russia and Indonesia.

The Falklands government said the life rafts were located and tracked by planes. A first attempt to rescue the crew had failed when a helicopter operating at the limits of its range had to turn back. A patrol boat and two other fishing vessels also joined the search. Danny Eberhard.

Scientists in Brazil have found that multiple sharks have tested positive for cocaine. Experts believe cocaine is making its way into the sea through the manufacturing process at illegal labs or through sewage from people who've taken the drug.

Ella Bicknell has more. Researchers from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation tested 13 sharp-nosed sharks, a small species little threat to humans, who roam the waters of Rio de Janeiro. All 13 were found to have high levels of cocaine in their system.

In fact, concentrations were up to 100 times higher than previously reported in other aquatic creatures, which researchers say is having a harmful impact on their eyesight, hunting skills and overall life expectancy. Dr. Yanis Papastamitiou is from Florida International University. He's spent over 25 years researching sharks.

I mean, this is the first time that actually cocaine has been detected in the muscle of sharks. We've detected it in other animals before, but this is at a higher concentration than you see in other animals. It's not clear where the cocaine has come from. One theory is it's a spillover from illicit drug laboratories in the area. Another is that it's an overflow of Rio's untreated sewage. There may actually be quite a lot of illegal sewage sort of effluent as well.

So because of that, obviously, you're not getting the filtering you may get in other places. And so that is probably going to be a first step in terms of something you can actually address rather than a much more difficult sort of problem of tackling, let's say, drug use. However, it's not just sharks and it's not just cocaine. A real mixture of things, over-the-counter medicines, prescription medicines, veterinary medicines, pesticides, personal care products.

for things like UV filters in your sunscreens. All of those will be going out into the environment. That's Alistair Boxall from the University of York in England. Their 2022 research sampled more than 1,000 river sites in 100 countries for all kinds of drugs.

The concentrations of what they found were so high, more than a quarter were deemed unsafe for aquatic life. It follows research published last month from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. They found brown trout addicted to amphetamine and some fish populations undergoing sex reversals because of an exposure to the contraceptive pill. So drugs are changing animal biochemistry.

How about their behaviour? Well, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation says there's still more research to do on this, especially for the sharp-nosed shark. Dr Boxall agrees, but he says action can be taken now to improve water pollution. There are a number of ways in which we can fix the problem.

obviously we can reduce the use of illicit drugs then that's going to reduce the pressure on the environment. The pharmaceutical companies they could be designing greener drugs, the drugs that degrade in the environment and there are ways in which we can treat these substances so there are things that we can put on to the end of wastewater treatment works so as the wastewater comes into the works it goes through the typical processes

and then it goes through a further cleaning step which then removes these substances so that the effluent coming out at the end into the river

has much lower concentrations than it would do today. However, in Brazil, sewage remains a problem, with millions without access to clean water. In 2020, the government announced a new legal framework with the aim to collect and treat 90% of Brazil's sewage by 2033. Ella Bicknell reporting.

Still to come... There's a new HIV infection somewhere in the world every 24 seconds. Somebody dies of HIV every minute. But this new drug gives us the prospect of shutting down HIV transmission. And then we could start talking about eliminating HIV. Scientists push for a new AIDS vaccine to be made available across the globe.

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That's BlueNile.com. This is the story of a man who killed so many people, he lost count. But despite his shocking death toll, he only served 12 years in jail. And the families of his victims...

The World Health Organization says it's extremely worried about the threat posed by polio in Gaza.

Traces of the virus were found in sewage samples last week. So far, no cases have been identified, but the WHO warns that the breakdown of water and sanitation services means an outbreak could spread rapidly to disastrous effect. Imogen Folks reports from Geneva. A WHO team is on the way to Gaza to try to get a clear picture of the polio risk. But

But the fact the virus has already been found in sewage makes health officials very worried.

Thousands of people in Gaza are living in makeshift shelters, with just one toilet for hundreds. The advice to wash hands regularly and drink only safe water will be impossible for many. The summer heat and lack of sanitation create perfect conditions for the spread of disease. When traces of the virus were found last week, Israel began vaccinating its troops.

The WHO has told the Israeli government that mass vaccination across Gaza may be necessary, but regular delays for aid workers and supplies and huge security risks moving around mean an effective vaccination campaign will be very challenging. Imogen Fowkes.

Security is always uppermost in the minds of Olympic Games organisers, and this year in Paris more than most. These games are occurring with the continuing war in Gaza.

With memories of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Games in 1972, there's extra security for the Israelis arriving in France. The opening ceremony on Friday will take place in the heart of the French capital, prompting a massive security operation involving French soldiers and police. Andrew Harding has this report. Yeah.

It's a bright morning in Paris and I'm at one of many dozens of checkpoints which have cropped up here in the last few days. Manned by police and gendarmes, causing some bottlenecks, some headaches for people who...

Don't always have the right paperwork. That's the beep of a QR code being scanned. Everyone has to have one on their phone in order to get through one of these checkpoints and further into the heart of Paris. I'm going to a shop.

These unprecedented security precautions are designed to protect Friday night's Olympic opening ceremony, which will happen not in a stadium, but on the River Seine itself. Inevitably, there have been some teething issues.

We're from BBC News and we ask you how you're feeling about all this. It's complicated. I just wanted to make an exchange at a shop and I'm going to need to go really far out of my way, but I still love Paris. I'm from Mexico. So you don't have the code you need? No. That's a shame. Yes. How do you feel about that? Sad.

Well, this is a very strange feeling. I'm standing in the middle of an empty road on an empty street outside half a dozen empty cafes and bistros in the heart of Paris, right outside Notre Dame. It's two in the afternoon and this is the result of the security clampdown here across Paris.

central Paris. My name is Omar Benabdallah. And you're a waiter here? Yeah. And have you ever seen it so empty? No, never. No business, no tourists, yes. Economic is done. On the outskirts of Paris, elite French police rehearse an Olympic hostage operation, storming a bus to rescue actors pretending to be held captive.

It's part of what we're told is the biggest peacetime security operation in French history, with 10,000 French soldiers also taking part. Simon Rionde is the head of the police unit doing the hostage training.

France decided to make this opening ceremony a unique moment, to show Paris, to have the ceremony within the city and being part of it makes us really proud. It's our duty to protect French citizens, but also all the tourists, all the athletes that are coming to the Olympics. So we're extremely proud to be part of such a unique moment. Nous sommes prêts.

And that's French President Emmanuel Macron insisting we're ready. In recent years, France has experienced multiple deadly attacks by Islamist militants. It's also increasingly concerned about Russian cyber attacks and misinformation campaigns.

But as final preparations are being made here along the River Seine this afternoon, the calculation is that any risks and inconveniences are comfortably outweighed by the opportunity on Friday evening to showcase Paris to a watching world. Andrew Harding reporting. Scientists at an international AIDS conference in Munich say a drug likely to be a game changer for HIV prevention could be produced at a fraction of its current cost.

Every year, just under 1.5 million people are infected with HIV. 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses last year. The potentially revolutionary drug is called Lenacapavir. It's made by pharmaceutical giant Gilead and it currently costs over $40,000 per patient per year.

But that could and should change, according to Dr Andrew Hill, a researcher at the University of Liverpool, who's just presented his findings in Munich. So this is an injection people can take once every six months.

and they get, according to the current evidence, 100% protection from HIV infection. We've never had this before. This is as close to an HIV vaccine as we've ever been. People don't need to remember to take pills. They don't need to buy them. They don't need to collect them. It's also a lot more discreet. So women might go to a clinic where they're having family planning advice or they're being vaccinated for other diseases, and they can get this protection at the same time. So nobody knows. The problem at the moment is the cost.

So the US drug company Gilead is charging over $40,000 for a year of this drug. And we've calculated that it could be mass produced for only $40. So a thousandth of the price being charged by the US drug company. But the drug company that owns it at the moment would have to be involved and presumably their goodwill would be involved in issuing generic licences.

Yes, so any drug company can give permission for their drugs to be made to be given in poor countries and that's what we have for HIV treatment. So you'll have 25 million people, mainly in Africa, given copies of drug companies' drugs for a fraction of the price. And that system has worked very well for the last 20 years. We're just asking this company to do it again for this new treatment to prevent HIV infection.

And what are the prospects of this working out? The problem this time is they seem to be dragging their feet. They haven't gone to the drug companies in India and China and started making the arrangements. And when they've done this in the past, they've missed out North Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, Central Asia. Those are the regions where HIV is growing the most quickly. We

We need an agreement that covers all low- and middle-income countries, and that's where 95 percent of HIV infections are seen. The United Nations is already involved in these negotiations. There was a speech by an under secretary general of the United Nations at the conference last night saying, "Gilead, do the right thing. Include all the low- and middle-income countries. Make sure this happens." There are people in the U.S. government involved in this. Everybody wants this to happen. It's up to Gilead now.

to do the right thing and get this drug at a very affordable price to everybody who needs it. There's a new HIV infection somewhere in the world every 24 seconds. Somebody dies of HIV every minute somewhere in the world. But this new drug gives us the prospect of shutting down HIV transmission. And then we could start talking about eliminating HIV. Dr. Andrew Hill talking to Paul Henley.

Let's end in Romania, where the government has voted in favour of a bear cull following the fatal attack of a 19-year-old woman at the start of the month. Our correspondent Nick Thorpe has been out to see the animals in their natural habitat and sent this report.

It's 6.30 in the evening near the town of Tushnad in the forests of Transylvania. About 10 metres from where I'm lying, two female bears and three bear cubs are munching through the corn scattered by a forest ranger a short time ago. If you listen carefully, you can hear them eating the corn. Oh, my God.

The new law overturns a moratorium on hunting bears which came into force in 2016. It was introduced in response to the killing by a bear of a 19-year-old woman hiking with her boyfriend in the Bucheji Mountains on 9 July.

The law will allow what's called the preventative shooting of 426 bears till the end of 2025, and the shooting of another 55 bears identified as threatening humans, raiding bins around towns and villages. The government and hunters' organisations say the measure is needed because bears have come to see humans as a source of food.

Wildlife groups, including the Worldwide Fund for Nature, argue that the new law will not solve bear-human conflicts, as the wrong bears, those that cause no problems for humans deep in the mountains, will be shot unnecessarily, often by trophy hunters. Nick Thorpe reporting.

And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and the producer was Alison Davies. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Bernadette Keogh. Until next time, goodbye.

This is the story of a man who killed so many people, he lost count. But despite his shocking death toll, he only served 12 years in jail. And the families of his victims...

That justice system ultimately ignored all of those bodies and all of the families. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, Season 3, The Apartheid Killer. Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.