WASHINGTON: Several members of Donald Trump’s incoming administration have received threats including bomb alerts, the FBI said Wednesday, with one nominee reporting a pipe-bomb scare sent with a pro-Palestinian message.
“The FBI is aware of numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents targeting incoming administration nominees and appointees, and we are working with our law enforcement partners,” the agency said in a statement.
Swatting refers to the practice in which police are summoned urgently to someone’s house under false pretenses. Such hoax calls are common in the United States and have seen numerous senior political figures targeted in recent years.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump’s transition team, earlier said that several appointees and nominees “were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them.”
Elize Stefanik, a Trump loyalist congresswoman tapped to be UN ambassador, said her residence in New York was targeted in a bomb threat.
She said in a statement that she, her husband, and small son were driving home from Washington for the Thanksgiving holiday when they learned of the threat.
Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, said his home was targeted with a pipe bomb threat sent with a “pro-Palestinian themed message.”
The former congressman from New York said he and his family were not home at the time.
Fox News Digital quoted unidentified sources saying that John Ratcliffe, Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary pick, were also targeted.
Ahead of his return to the House in January, Trump has already swiftly assembled a cabinet of loyalists, including several criticized for a severe lack of experience.
The Republican, who appears set to avoid trial on criminal prosecutions related to attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss, was wounded in the ear in July in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally. The shooter was killed in counter-fire.
In September, authorities arrested another man accused of planning to shoot at Trump while he played golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
FBI says bomb threats made against Trump nominees
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FBI says bomb threats made against Trump nominees
- “The FBI is aware of numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents targeting incoming administration nominees and appointees,” the agency said
- Elize Stefanik, a Trump loyalist congresswoman tapped to be UN ambassador, said her residence in New York was targeted in a bomb threat
India plans AI ‘data city’ on staggering scale
- ‘The data city is going to come in one ecosystem ... with a 100 kilometer radius’
NEW DELHI: As India races to narrow the artificial intelligence gap with the United States and China, it is planning a vast new “data city” to power digital growth on a staggering scale, the man spearheading the project says.
“The AI revolution is here, no second thoughts about it,” said Nara Lokesh, information technology minister for Andhra Pradesh state, which is positioning the city of Visakhapatnam as a cornerstone of India’s AI push.
“And as a nation ... we have taken a stand that we’ve got to embrace it,” he said ahead of an international AI summit next week in New Delhi.
Lokesh boasts the state has secured investment agreements of $175 billion involving 760 projects, including a $15 billion investment by Google for its largest AI infrastructure hub outside the United States.
And a joint venture between India’s Reliance Industries, Canada’s Brookfield and US firm Digital Realty is investing $11 billion to develop an AI data center in the same city.
Visakhapatnam — home to around two million people and popularly known as “Vizag” — is better known for its cricket ground that hosts international matches than cutting-edge technology.
But the southeastern port city is now being pitched as a landing point for submarine internet cables linking India to Singapore.
“The data city is going to come in one ecosystem ... with a 100 kilometer radius,” Lokesh said. For comparison, Taiwan is roughly 100 kilometers wide.
Lokesh said the plan goes far beyond data connectivity, adding that his state had “received close to 25 percent of all foreign direct investments” to India in 2025.
“It’s not just about the data centers,” he explained while outlining a sweeping vision of change, with Andhra Pradesh offering land at one US cent per acre for major investors.
