作者： root

Trump portrays shooting as proof of his presidency’s power

2026-04-26T23:09:04.778Z / Reuters

By Jacob Bogage and Nandita Bose

April 26, 2026 11:09 PM UTC Updated 34 mins ago

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U.S. President Donald Trump salutes during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

• Summary

• Trump uses shooting to promote new White House ballroom and security upgrades
• Incident prompts Trump to compare himself to Lincoln and highlight his administration’s achievements
• Trump claims trade wars and military investments made him a target for assassination attempts

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s tuxedo still looked freshly pressed when he stepped to the White House podium Saturday night, barely an hour after the latest apparent attempt on his life.

“When you’re impactful, ​they go after you,” the U.S. president told some of the highest-powered journalists in Washington.

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Many of them were still dressed in their own formal wear from a celebrated annual event, the White ‌House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which ended abruptly after a man sprinted past security outside the ballroom, armed with multiple weapons.

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“When you’re not impactful,” Trump added, “they leave you alone.”

Trump’s remarks in the aftermath of an incident that caused many of the 2,600 people in attendance to dive to the floor as the Secret Service hustled away the president and other dignitaries underscored his instinct to spin narratives with himself as the undaunted hero — a juggernaut, a survivor — while rarely missing a chance to plug his priorities.

On this occasion, that included a controversial new ​White House ballroom that, he insisted, would be safer than the Washington Hilton, where then-President Ronald Reagan was shot during an assassination attempt in 1981.

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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on social media Sunday ​that the Justice Department would ask a judge to dismiss a pending case that has stalled the ballroom’s construction. Tim Sheehy, a Republican senator from Montana, and Randy Fine, a Republican ⁠U.S. Representative from Florida, both wrote that they planned to introduce legislation in the coming days to grant Trump permission to build the facility — echoing Trump’s own political messaging.

“We need the ballroom. That’s why Secret Service, that’s why ​the military are demanding it,” Trump said Saturday night, without offering evidence that presidential security officials have issued such demands.

‘DANGER INTO POLITICAL ASSET’

Trump, who is mired in the lowest approval ratings of his term after the start of the U.S.-Israeli war ​against Iran that is broadly unpopular with Americans, has experience at the opportunities presented by such moments.

A gunman armed with a high-powered rifle injured Trump, leaving his ear bloodied, at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024. His trademark defiance — with calls of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as agents led him away while he raised his fist in triumph — supplied iconic images that helped power his campaign to return to the White House for a second term.

A second attempt to attack Trump came in September 2024, when a man armed ​with a rifle perched outside a Trump golf course in Florida before drawing fire from officers, who arrested the gunman.

“No one can turn danger into a political asset better than this president,” a White House official, speaking on ​the condition of anonymity to discuss Trump’s state of mind, told Reuters.

At the dinner Saturday, Trump had been preparing to sharply criticize journalists during his speech, he said afterward. The president, who often derides the press as “fake news” and “the enemy of ‌the people,” was ⁠ready to confront them in person, while attending a dinner – called the “nerd prom” in Washington – for the first time as president.

“I was all set to really rip it,” he told reporters in the White House briefing.

That plan was interrupted by a California man who authorities say traveled cross country by train, checked into the Hilton ahead of the dinner, then attempted to dash through security and toward the ballroom, armed with a shotgun, handgun and knives. Authorities exchanged fire with him before tackling him to the ground. He reportedly distributed a “manifesto” making clear his desire to attack Trump and other administration officials.

‘I’VE DONE A LOT’

After the dinner abruptly dispersed, Trump’s initial remarks at the White House were conciliatory.

“In light ​of this evening’s events, I ask that all Americans ​recommit with their hearts and resolve our differences peacefully,” ⁠said the president. In the past he has defended and ultimately pardoned the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, seeking to overturn Trump’s electoral loss to Joe Biden.

On Saturday night, Trump soon returned to talking about himself — and numbering himself among the finest U.S. presidents. He compared himself to Abraham Lincoln. Trump told ​reporters that if he had not imposed significant new taxes on imports and had not invested as heavily in the military, he’d be less of a target.

“We’ve ​changed this country, and there are ⁠a lot of people that are not happy about that,” Trump said.

The White House, he said, needed his $400 million ballroom, for which he unilaterally ordered the destruction of the East Wing of the executive mansion. The facility, Trump has said, will feature a new security bunker, a “drone-proof” roof and bulletproof glass. With a planned space for 650 seated guests, it would not have enough capacity for an event as large as the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Trump continued his arguments Sunday ⁠morning, saying on ​social media, “This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. … Nothing should be ​allowed to interfere with its construction.”

Later, he said he hoped the attack would lead Democrats to drop demands for additional oversight of immigration enforcement and approve new funding for the Department of Homeland Security. He linked the assassination attempt to what he described as successful missions to ​decapitate the leadership of Venezuela and Iran.

Saturday’s attack, he suggested, was proof of his administration’s achievements.

Reporting by Jacob Bogage and Nandita Bose. Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Bo Erickson and Trevor Hunnicutt. Editing by Craig Timberg and Deepa Babington

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

戴庆成：香港推广阅读搞错了方向

2026年4月27日 05:00 / 联合早报

2023年7月10日，游客在香港维多利亚港海滨休憩，他们的背后是标志性的城市天际线景观。 （路透社档案照）

上个星期四（4月23日）是“世界阅读日”，香港和全球其他大城市一样，在此前后举办了大大小小的活动，推动全民阅读文化，成功引起不少市民的关注。

可惜这股风气只是昙花一现，现实是近些年越来越少港人看书。记得20多年前在香港乘搭港铁或者巴士，随处可见读报纸、小说的人。如今车厢里九成以上乘客都是低头看手机，刷览短视频、社交平台，手捧实体书阅读已成为稀有行为。

香港出版学会早前针对港人阅读习惯，随机抽样访问了832人。结果显示，过去一年仅有55.7%市民阅读印刷书，比2021年75%的高位下跌近20个百分点，录得近年新低。

在阅读量方面，受访者过去一年平均阅读的印刷书籍或刊物中位数只有五本，与2024年持平，但低于2023年的六本及2022年的八本。另外，30.2%受访者过去一年有“经常”或“偶尔”去公共图书馆的习惯，不过有29.8%“很少”去，甚至有39.9%受访者完全没有去。

日前，香港各界就如何让阅读文化生根发芽提出不同看法。立法会也通过议案，呼吁港府调拨资源支援中小学优化图书馆功能、加强培育青年作家等等。

我是书籍爱好者，平日喜欢逛书店，遇见心仪的书籍便会购买；每天无论多忙碌，总会留出一小时静下心看书。依我来看，港府和社会在推广阅读方面似乎有点搞错方向。

传统书籍是阅读的重要载体，但在新时代已不是唯一载体。电子书的出现打破了纸质书的时空限制，让人们可以随时随地翻阅各类读物。从经典文学到专业典籍，从通俗小说到科普文章，只需要一部手机或阅读器，便能开启阅读之旅。这与纸质书的阅读本质——汲取知识、滋养心灵，并无分别。

近年视频内容兴起，更让阅读进入“视听结合”的新形态。一些优质的知识类短视频、有声书，再加上字幕，本质上是将文字转化为更直观的视听语言，人们通过观看、聆听，同样能够获取知识。

换言之，在网络普及、电子书盛行、视频内容爆发的当下，“阅读”的定义早已跳出传统书籍的边界，不再是墨香纸页间的逐字翻阅，而是一种更广泛、更灵活的信息接收与思维沉淀过程。现代人每天接触大量讯息，阅读的时间和内容肯定比古人多。推广阅读，重点应该是教导普罗大众阅读什么，而不是鼓励阅读。

这种情况有如食盐。盐是人类生存的刚需，古人少盐，需要多吃。但现代人的问题是吸收过量盐分，容易消化不良。同理，过去书籍稀缺，能接触到的书籍多为经典，无需选择，多读便多收获。如今书籍唾手可得，各类讯息鱼龙混杂，挑选好读物的能力更为重要。

英国哲学家培根1573年进入剑桥大学三一学院深造时，大学各学院图书馆的藏书量虽无确切数字，普遍估计各自在数百册到一千余册之间，规模远不及现代。这一时代如果能阅读一本别人不容易看到的书籍，就会脑洞大开，快速增进知识。所以培根才发出“知识就是力量”的名言。

但在现代社会，所有资讯全部在网上公开，谷歌更堪称全球最大藏经阁，人人可以在这里学习顶尖武功。很多人家里的书也远比培根看过的书多。过去需要背诵历史年代、化学方程式、外语单词，现在统统可以通过搜索引擎即时获取，不用为了争夺一本武林秘籍而打得不可开交。

这意味着，在信息爆炸的时代，知识不再等同力量，其价值已让位于快速找到并运用知识的能力。知识的形态已转向应用力。比如一名历史学家的水平，关键不在于他能背多少年代，而在于是否可以利用这些知识分析历史规律。本质上而言，现代社会对知识的要求是不仅要知道，更要懂得理解和应用。

所以推广阅读的第二个重点，应该是教授读者找到有价值的读本后，善用科学阅读方法，从海量和庞杂内容中筛选、吸收对自己有用的资讯，让阅读变得更有价值。

近年科技资讯发达，许多人以为在碎片化时代难以沉心深度阅读，其实不然。科技令人类更容易打破阅读壁垒，例如人工智能（AI）工具可以将厚书提炼出核心框架，帮助读者快速掌握精髓，再结合原文精读，实现高效吸收与深度理解的双重目标。

政府提倡阅读的第三个重点，应该是教授大家合理地运用科技，包括电子批注等功能，便于梳理思路、碰撞观点，深化对书籍的理解。

说到底，时代不断变迁，随着资讯环境与生活节奏大幅转变，阅读方式也必须与时俱进。港府推广阅读，不能再固守以前的观念，只有顺应时代转变，调整阅读的宣传重点，才能让阅读持续发挥价值。

Suspected gunman at White House Correspondents’ Dinner raises questions about event’s security protocol

2026-04-26T21:25:34.567Z / CNN

By Evan Perez, Kristen Holmes

Updated 24 min ago
Updated Apr 26, 2026, 7:38 PM ET
PUBLISHED Apr 26, 2026, 5:25 PM ET

A US marshal walks through the lobby of the Washington Hilton after shots were fired during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25, 2026.

Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images

The suspected gunman who charged past a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday has renewed questions about Secret Service protocols and whether there should be changes to the already tight cordon at the annual star-studded event.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, hailed the response as “a massive security success story.”

He said investigators believe the California man who was arrested, Cole Tomas Allen, intended to attack administration officials at the event, based on his writings that investigators are reviewing.

Blanche later posted on social media a letter the Justice Department filed in a lawsuit that called the Saturday incident an “assassination attempt on President Trump.”

White House officials told CNN that Allen’s family members alerted law enforcement about his possible plans to carry out an attack, but it remains unclear whether the notification happened before or after the incident. His writings, obtained by CNN, included anti-Trump rhetoric.

President Donald Trump’s security detail appears to have responded as trained, immediately covering him, with additional armed agents taking positions overlooking the room to prevent any threats from coming close to the president, according to current and former law enforcement officials experienced in such events.

The incident Saturday follows two previous assassination attempts against Trump — one in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024 and then another two months later at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Securing the dinner

While some critics have raised questions about Vice President JD Vance being removed from the dais before the president, the sequence appears to follow the Secret Service procedures, which includes measures that may not be visible.

Video from the Washington Hilton hotel, where the annual dinner takes place, showed the alleged gunman rushing past a group of Secret Service officers who appeared to in a relaxed posture as the event was already underway one floor below.

He was carrying a shotgun, a handgun and knives, according to law enforcement officials, and managed to move quickly to a lobby one floor above where the president sat in the massive ballroom that can hold 2,600 people.

“I don’t think it was a security failure,” Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent and CNN analyst who has helped preparations for the annual dinner. “There are things you can always learn. We’re not going to get a zero-risk environment.”

Another federal law enforcement official raised some concerns about surveillance video images that appear to show the Secret Service agents relaxed and caught off guard as the man races through an area where magnetometer machines were set up to screen guests before they entered the ballroom.

“That shouldn’t have happened that way; he should have been stopped before he got into the lobby area,” the federal law enforcement official said.

The Secret Service routinely conducts a review after incidents like this, Wackrow said, and additional surveillance footage will show a more complete picture that could lead to changes.

Suspect Cole Tomas Allen lies on the floor after being detained by law enforcement personnel at the Washington Hilton on April 25, 2026, in this screengrab from a video.

Bill Frischling/CQ Roll Call/Handout/Reuters

There have already been discussions within the administration and the Secret Service about how to handle security for these events in the future, multiple sources told CNN, specifically about whether so many high-ranking administration officials should attend large events together.

Notably, some Secret Service officials have been reluctant to have both the vice president and the president attend events together off the White House grounds. It was not immediately clear what conversations were had ahead of both Trump and Vance attending Saturday’s dinner.

One source directly involved in the planning told CNN the vice president was not originally expected to attend the event, but that changed at the end of last week.

Investigators believe Allen fired at least one round from a shotgun, and agents returned fire, which did not appear to strike him, law enforcement officials said. One US Secret Service officer was shot in their protective vest, investigators say.

Agents who saw Allen running by likely had to consider additional factors as they responded, including that other officers were coming toward them to try to stop him, Wackrow said.

“You can’t just arbitrarily fire your gun,” he said. “There was a lot of discipline in the fact people aren’t just firing. He was subdued very quickly,”

Photos taken by journalists and others at the scene appear to show Allen on the ground and detained in a lobby area near restrooms, before a set of stairs that would have taken him down to the ballroom.

After Cabinet officials were cleared out of the event, some high-profile attendees, including Erika Kirk — the widow of late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot last year — were also sought out and escorted out.

Secret Service agents move across the ballroom during a shooting incident at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton on April 25, 2026.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Security preparations for the annual event

When a president or other top government officials plan to attend the annual dinner, security preparations begins weeks before. The hotel was the scene of the 1981 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, who was shot as he exited a speaking engagement.

For this year’s dinner, the Secret Service visibly increased the protective cordon, helping to manage planned protests and given the increased threats amid the war with Iran.

Allen allegedly traveled by train from his home in California to Washington, DC, Blanche said, which helped him carry weapons without additional security scrutiny at the airport.

He was also a guest at the Washington Hilton, allowing him to be inside the security bubble that surrounds the event.

The Secret Service at times requires guests and their luggage to be screened before entering a hotel during high-security events, such as for the UN General Assembly. That isn’t typically done for the correspondents dinner.

The Secret Service checked names of hotel guests against a database of people who have arrest warrants or who may otherwise be wanted by law enforcement. Allen wasn’t known to law enforcement, and had not shown up on any threat databases, a federal law enforcement official told CNN. The firearms he bought in 2023 and 2025 were legal purchases, reflecting his lack of criminal history, the official said.

Allen’s choice of shotgun to fire as he ran in the hotel lobby suggests this wasn’t a mission that he expected to survive, the US law enforcement official said.

“This wasn’t an extended firefight mission it doesn’t seem,” the official said.

Blanche told CNN’s “State of the Union” that he is “overly confident that the Secret Service did their job here, not only in the work last night, but in the days coming up to the event.”

“I think that it’s tragic and it’s sad and we’re going to learn from it, but make no mistake about it, the Secret Service did their jobs last night,” the acting attorney general said.

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to reflect that the suspected gunman was carrying a shotgun, a handgun and knives. It has also been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.

Ben Sasse on the Senate’s “smack-down nonsense” and his wish for America

2026-04-26T19:00:20-0400 / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ben-sasse-cbs-news-60-minutes-town-hall-ai-congress-miracle-drug/

Late last year, former Sen. Ben Sasse was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given three to four months to live. Now, he’s on “extended time” — and he wants to spend some of his remaining time talking about “bigger stuff.”

In an interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley and a town hall hosted by CBS News, the Nebraska Republican said Congress is consumed by “reductionistic tribalism” and isn’t spending enough time on large-scale problems — especially the massive disruptions that he believes will be wrought by artificial intelligence.

Sasse also explained why he believes he owes his extra time on earth to “providence, prayer and a miracle drug.” And he argued more Americans should have access to the types of experimental treatments that he credits with extending his life.

“Congress is not wrestling with big or important questions”

A Nebraska native with a Ph.D. in history from Yale University, Sasse ran for the Senate in 2014. He won reelection after clashing with President Trump, but then, two years later, Sasse resigned from Congress to become president of the University of Florida.

Asked why he left elected office, Sasse called the Senate “very, very unproductive.” He said he was in Washington, D.C., for much of the week, missing time with his wife and three kids in Nebraska, while lawmakers weren’t accomplishing much.

“We didn’t do real things. And it felt like the opportunity cost was really high,” he said.

Right now, Sasse told Pelley that “Congress doesn’t talk about any of those kind of most fundamental issues,” chief among them the way that AI could change the economy and how people work.

“Neither of these parties really have very big or good ideas about 2030 or 2050, at a national security level, at a future of work level, at an institution-building level,” he said. “The Congress is not wrestling with big or important questions right now.”

Much of the blame, Sasse believes, is linked to the fact that politicians have an incentive to appeal to a narrow niche, a problem accentuated by social media.

“It doesn’t encourage a lot of humility. It doesn’t encourage someone saying, ‘You know what, I used to believe this, but I listened to somebody else, and I realized I was wrong, and I’ve learned this new thing,’ he said. “There’s no audience for that.”

Sasse believes the House should be much, much larger — 2,000 lawmakers instead of 435, which would mean individual members would represent fewer people. And he thinks the Senate should be more productive and more focused on addressing major questions, rather than day-to-day theatrics.

“The Senate needs to be less like Instagram. The Senate needs to be more deliberative. And that means less smack-down nonsense,” he said.

He suggested the U.S. is nearing an inflection point: “In 2040, or 2050, or 2060 does the republic survive? I suspect yes, and I would bet yes. But it’s not a 90/10 bet.”

“A republic actually requires people who do deliberative, long-form discourse, learning, humility and community building,” he said. “We’re not doing that right now.”

Sasse told Pelley he’s “optimistic and pessimistic about the complexities of human nature.”

“But I am optimistic about what a free people and a republic can build if they start with the ‘little platoons’ of their family, their extended kin network, their neighborhood, their workplace, and their place of worship,” he said.

AI is “glorious and horrific at the same time”

Asked what big issues Congress is missing, Sasse immediately offered up the AI revolution, which he called “both glorious and horrific at the same time.”

“What the digital revolution does is it accelerates almost everything about the human experience,” Sasse predicted. “Anything that can be reduced to a series of steps, which is most economic activity, is going to be routinized and become really, really cheap, really fast, and really ubiquitous.”

On one level, Sasse believes, AI could launch an era of “ubiquitous abundance,” with no shortages of cheap, high-quality goods. “I don’t know if it’s three years from now or 13 years from now, but we’re all going to have a robot that builds robots for us.”

But it will create upheaval and uncertainty as many jobs are replaced by technology.

“It’s pretty scary to not know what you’re going to do to add value for your neighbor 10 or 25 years from now,” Sasse said. “We’ve never lived in a world where 22-year-olds couldn’t assume that the work they did they would be able to do until death or retirement. And we’re never going to have that world again.”

Sasse on “right to try” rules

Sasse is grappling with stage-four pancreatic cancer that has metastasized, he said, leaving him with lung cancer, vascular cancer, liver cancer and lymphoma.

He has been taking an experimental oral medication for pancreatic cancer called daraxonrasib, which works by inhibiting a protein that can cause cells to grow excessively, leading to tumors.

The maker of daraxonrasib, Revolution Medicines, reported strong results from the drug’s phase three trial earlier this month. Patients who took daraxonrasib survived by a median of 13.2 months, compared to 6.7 months with chemotherapy.

During CBS News’ town hall, Sasse heard from another person with cancer who has credited his early-stage medical treatment for giving him more time with his family.

Mike Hugo, 37, said he was diagnosed four years ago with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer that can lead to death within months rather than years. Hugo said he participated in a clinical trial for a medical device called Optune.

Hugo’s daughters were 5 and 7 years old when he was first diagnosed, and are now 9 and 11. His treatment has allowed him to go to “two daddy-daughter dances that no one said I would ever make,” he said.

Hugo asked Sasse about why relatively few people can access those types of treatments, despite a 2018 federal “right to try” law — cosponsored by Sasse — designed to make it easier for patients with life-threatening illnesses to take not-yet-approved drugs in some circumstances. (Critics argue that “right to try” rules could weaken patient protections, and programs are already in place to help terminally ill patients access investigational drugs.)

Sasse said that law was amended in Congress to make it stricter than initially planned. He said he’d like to “decentralize a lot more of those decisions to individuals, patients and their care providers, rather than one-size-fits-all rules at the FDA.”

He noted that tens of thousands of Americans are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer annually, and it has a “tiny” survival rate.

“The best way to make a dent in that is more experiments,” he said. “And so I would love a world where on the question of how much risk are you willing to endure to get access to a new trial or to allow our greatest scientific minds and researchers to experiment, I’d like to open up the dial quite a bit and let a lot more people get access to these drugs.”

“Providence, prayer and a miracle drug”

Sasse publicly revealed his diagnosis in late December of last year, writing in a jarring social media post that he’s “gonna die.”

In the weeks leading up to his diagnosis, Sasse told CBS News, he dealt with serious pain. He described showering at night with the water turned up as hot as possible, “trying to scald my back to try to make the throbbing of what turned out to be tumors pushing on my spine cease.”

He said he’s now in a lot less pain, in part due to morphine, and he credits the drug daraxonrasib with shrinking his tumor volume by 76% over the last four months.

At the time of his diagnosis, he was told his life expectancy was three to four months — a timeframe he has narrowly surpassed.

“So maybe I’m going to crank and live a year instead of a handful of months, and I’d feel incredibly blessed,” said Sasse.

Asked what changed, he attributed it to “providence, prayer and a miracle drug.”

Sasse, who is deeply committed to his Christian faith, said he has prayed for a miracle, but it’s “not my biggest prayer.”

“We’re all mortal. We’re all on the clock. We’re all going to be pushing up daisies eventually, and I think wisdom requires us to grapple with our death and our finitude early,” he said.

He also suggested that his diagnosis has made him more cognizant of his own finiteness.

“Death is wicked. Death is evil. Death is not how it’s supposed to be,” he said. “But it’s a touch of grace because it forces me to tell the truth.”

He continued: “And the lie I want to tell myself is that I’m the center of everything. And I’m going to be around forever. And I can work harder, and store up enough, that I can atone for my own brokenness. I can’t.”

Sasse on leaving behind his family

Sasse and his wife Melissa have been married for 31 years. He said they will “be apart for a time,” but “she’s tough and gritty and theologically rooted, and she’s going to be fine.”

They have two adult daughters, ages 24 and 22, along with their “providential surprise,” a 14-year-old son. Asked how he is processing leaving his family behind, Sasse described some of the milestones in his children’s lives that he will likely miss.

“I want to walk my daughters down the aisle when they get married,” he said. “That’s not likely to be. That’s not the math on my time card.”

He said his teenage son is also “going to be fine,” and will have “other wise men and women to put a hand on his shoulder.”

“But I’m super bummed to not be there at 16 and 18 and 20 years old in his life,” he said. “I want to give him more advice than he wants, and I want to put my arm on his shoulder, that arm on his shoulders to get taller.”

Sasse’s parting wish for the U.S.

Pelley asked Sasse whether he has a “parting wish” for the country.

“I think we need to have more deliberation about our mortality and our finitude to therefore get back to wisdom about what living a life of gratitude looks like,” he said.

He added: “I’d like a lot more dinner tables to turn off the devices, put them out of the room, pour a big glass of wine, break bread together, and wrestle with some really grand questions about what you’re building for your family and your next generation.”

一张入境卡引发命名困局 韩国在海峡两岸间左右为难

2026年4月27日 05:01 / 联合早报 姜贵瑛 首尔通讯员

韩国电子入境系统将台湾标注为“中国（台湾）”引起台方抗议后，韩国删除了出现“中国（台湾）”选项的栏目。图为韩国仁川国际机场，摄于3月31日。 （路透社）

韩国因为入境卡上“中国（台湾）”标注的去留问题，被推入一场典型的命名政治困局：一边是必须谨慎对待的北京“一中原则”，另一边是愈发高调强调主体性的台北诉求。

一个原本属于行政流程设计的技术细节，迅速外溢为牵动韩中关系，甚至影响高层外交节奏的敏感变量。

争议始于制度更新。去年2月，韩国法务部全面引入电子入境申报系统。设计上虽允许旅客在“国家／地区”栏选择“台湾”，但在“出发地”和“下一目的地”栏目中却标注为“中国（台湾）”。

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“60 Minutes” to interview President Trump after White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting

April 26, 2026 / 2:19 PM EDT / CBS News

Sunday on “60 Minutes,” President Trump talks to CBS News’ senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which was abruptly evacuated Saturday after a gunman charged a security checkpoint.

O’Donnell spoke with Mr. Trump earlier Sunday about the experience, which she witnessed firsthand as an attendee of the annual gala to celebrat he First Amendment. It was Mr. Trump’s first time attending the event as president — he has historically declined the invitation.

Secret Service agents quickly escorted Mr. Trump and other administration officials from the ballroom Saturday after shots rang out. Authorities say 31-year-old Cole Allen charged the Washington Hilton Hotel, armed with a shotgun, a handgun and knives, before being apprehended by police. A Secret Service agent was shot, but was wearing a bulletproof vest and is expected to be OK.

Sources told CBS News that Allen had written a “manifesto” and sent it to members of his family, one of whom contacted police. In excerpts reviewed by CBS News, Allen wrote that he planned to target administration officials, “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,” and authorities “only if necessary.” He said hotel employees and guests weren’t his intended targets but that he would still attack them to get to the administration, adding: “I really hope it doesn’t come to that.”

In a news conference Saturday night, Mr. Trump praised law enforcement, and said the suspect “hadn’t come anywhere close to breach the doors of the room.”

Asked if he was concerned about the threats to his life, Mr. Trump said, “It’s a dangerous profession.”

Mr. Trump said he “fought like hell” to resume the event after the shooting, but said law enforcement insisted otherwise. He said he wanted the dinner to be rescheduled within the next 30 days.

Watch the interview Sunday night at 7p ET/PT on CBS and Paramount+.

At least 16 dead in strikes across Ukraine and Russia on Chernobyl anniversary

April 26, 2026 / 2:48 PM EDT / AP / CBS News

Strikes across Ukraine, Russian-occupied territory and Russia killed at least 16 people, authorities said, as the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster prompted fresh warnings about the risks posed by attacks near the plant during Russia’s more than four-year invasion of its neighbor.

The death toll from Russian drone and missile strikes on the city of Dnipro rose to nine, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said Sunday.

One man was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on the port city of Sevastopol, in Russian-occupied Crimea, Moscow-installed authorities said Sunday. Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world considered illegal, and has used it as a staging and supply point during the war.

Leonid Pasechnik, the Russia-installed governor in Ukraine’s Luhansk region — of which Russia earlier this month said it had taken full control, a claim denied by Ukraine — said three people were killed in an overnight Ukrainian drone strike on a village, after reporting two people were killed in the early hours of Saturday.

Ukraine did not comment on either attack, which could not be independently verified by The Associated Press.

A man looks at a memorial dedicated to firefighters and workers who died after the 1986 Chornobyl (Chernobyl) nuclear disaster, ahead of its 40th anniversary in Slavutych, Ukraine, Saturday, April 25, 2026. Chornobyl is the Ukrainian name for the city. Dan Bashakov / AP

The latest strikes came after a woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Belgorod border region, according to local authorities.

Ukrainian forces also struck an oil refinery in Yaroslavl, deep inside Russian territory, Ukraine’s General Staff said Sunday. The strikes sparked fires at the facility, which processes 15 million tons of oil a year and produces gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for the Russian military. Russia did not immediately comment.

Ukraine has developed its own long-range drones, which can reach targets some 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) inside Russia. It has used them recently against Russian oil facilities as Moscow looks to boost its exports after the Trump administration gave it a temporary waiver from sanctions to ease supply constraints. Kyiv officials complain that Russia will use the additional revenue on new weapons to hit Ukraine harder.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to warn that Russian attacks risk repeating history.

“Through its war, Russia is once again bringing the world to the brink of a man-made disaster — Russian-Iranian Shaheds regularly fly over the plant, and one of them struck the confinement last year,” he wrote on Facebook.

“The world must not allow this nuclear terrorism to continue, and the best way is to force Russia to stop its reckless attacks,” he said.

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, echoed those concerns during a visit to Kyiv, saying repairs to the plant’s damaged outer protective shell must begin immediately. IAEA assessments show the damage sustained after a strike last year has already compromised a key safety function of the structure, he said, warning that years of inaction could heighten danger to the original sarcophagus beneath it. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said repairs would require at least 500 million euros ($586 million).

Ukrainian officials say a Russian drone struck the outer shell of the plant’s New Safe Confinement structure — a $2.1 billion archlike enclosure completed in 2019 over the remains of Reactor No. 4 — in February 2025. Moscow denied targeting the plant, alleging Kyiv staged the attack.

Russia’s Defense Minister Andrei Belousov visited North Korea on Sunday for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un about future military cooperation between the countries.

Belousov said the countries agreed to “transition military cooperation to a sustainable, long-term basis,” according to Russia state news agency Ria Novosti.

During the visit, he presented the Russian Order of Courage to Korean service members who served in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a surprise incursion in August 2024.

Kim has sent thousands of troops and large weapons shipments to support Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Transcript: Sam Vinograd and AT Smith on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” April 26, 2026

2026-04-26T12:09:00-0400 / CBS News

Updated on: April 26, 2026 / 1:46 PM EDT / CBS News

The following is the transcript of the interview with CBS News national security contributor Sam Vinograd and CBS News law enforcement analyst AT Smith that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on April 26, 2026.

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MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to Samantha Vinograd. She was a top homeland security official in the Biden administration. Is now a national security contributor here at CBS and AT Smith is a former deputy director of the secret service and now a CBS law enforcement analyst and joins us from Greenville, South Carolina. Good to have you both here. Sam, you were in the room with us, sheltering with some of our colleagues, as I understand it, you were close to the perimeter and able to detect some of what was happening. I was struck, national guard was there, secret service was there, private security was there, national guard was there. The perimeter of the security went out pretty darn far. There were protests surrounding the building. There weren’t just protests about Trump. There were protests around Jeffrey Epstein. There were protests about the corporation that owns this news network. There were protests about the Iran war. How did you assess the security situation last night?

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD: Well, Margaret, I think a lot of us are waking up this morning and asking the basic question of, is anywhere safe? And the reality is that in this country, we are facing the most complex threat environment in our nation’s history, in particular, from lone actors, individuals who radicalized to violence, often online. In this scenario, two things can be true. It can be true that law enforcement and intelligence professionals prepared exhaustively for last night, weeks of planning, intelligence gathering, physical security barriers, officers on site. But it can also be true that in this moment in this security environment, the paradigms of the past may not be sufficient to meet the moment, and with that in mind, security professionals as well as private citizens need to rethink what it is going to take to actually secure these mass gatherings where there are so many protectees, and what it’s going to take to secure communities.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s frightening. I mean, AT – we were in a room with the most heavily guarded man in the world, and yet this happened. The acting attorney general said the system worked. In your view, did the system work?

AT SMITH: The system did work in terms of what the secret service trains to do every day when it comes to covering and evacuating a protectee, and as you saw the security plan, there – had the scenario where the president and the vice president exited different ways. They exited in different ways than the normal folks had come into the gathering, having said that the secret service, as I’ve said many times, no one is more critical of themselves than the secret service. So they’re going to have to look at this very diligently, in terms of this individual, how he was able to run that magnetometer as he did, and get as close as he did with two firearms. That is not acceptable, and they will have to try to figure that part out. And, you know, see what – what the intelligence and the investigation is going to bring, in terms of what this individual’s history was, and then, as you said earlier, Margaret try to figure out exactly how he got those guns into the hotel. Did he avoid, as you said, you know, taking an airplane to get there? And by using a train and so forth, was able to secrete them in some way and get him there. So, it’s a it’s a tough thing. The secret service was very successful in how they did that. And as Sam said, the perimeter around the hotel was exhaustive. But again, anytime you have a breach like this, you’ve just got to address it and be your worst, you know, critic.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, AT, I was speaking with some of our producers before the program. Many of us have traveled with the president in the past, and past presidents and other high level officials. When the president goes overseas or the vice president, they typically take over an entire hotel. secret service really locks the place down. That didn’t happen last night here on US soil. Is that the kind of thing we’re going to start seeing, that it’ll be more sort of like an Israeli model?

AT SMITH: You may have to, particularly, you know, it’s difficult because you have, obviously a hotel that’s open to the public. They have other guests that are unassociated with the event last night, and they are going to have to take a hard look at how you maybe screen those guests coming in. It’s very hard to necessarily know everything about everybody that’s there, but probably one safety scenario would be what you just said to more or less lock down the hotel. We don’t normally do that in the United States. And usually the secret service is very successful at coordinating and sort of corralling that area, like the ballroom that’s, you know, going to be used for the event, and making it secure. But again, they’ll have to take a look at that. And I said also that, you know, this was not a national special security event, but the planning, preparation, the weeks of work, really align it to that kind of a security plan. So I’m sure, in terms of perimeters, that was all done.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Sam, I think you make such a great point, which is, essentially, you can’t protect against the unexpected, right? Can’t protect against everything. We’ve talked about this though. I mean as parents, as human beings, and being in that room, so many of those lawmakers, so many of those journalists, are dehumanized. They are attacked online. They are attacking each other. You have a high level of animosity in the public space, people were united in the president said he wasn’t wrong in using that word, because they were all scared of what was going to happen next. I don’t know how we solve for that as a society, because it seems to have really seeped in to our politics and to our conversations. I mean, it is just the new normal.

SAMANTHA VINOGRAD: Every time an incident like this happens, the optimist in me thinks, perhaps this will be a turning point. Perhaps this will be a turning point where each and every person in this country thinks about what they say and how they act. Words do matter, certainly. At the same time, whenever an incident like this happens, and I say this Margaret as a mother and as a security professional, I hope that it is also a wake up call to law enforcement professionals to rethink whether additional steps are needed, like perhaps screening guests coming into a public venue at a mass gathering with a lot of protectees. But that it is also a wake up call to every person in this country to understand that they have a role to play in our homeland security while law enforcement looks at whether additional protocols are needed at various sites, every viewer, every person in this country, needs to say something when they see something, an individual in their circle, at their workplace, in their family, is demonstrating signs that they could be going down a pathway to violence. They need to ask for help from a law enforcement professional or other trained official, and we need to really devote all the resources that we can to ensuring that the integration between state and local and federal officials is not just where it was before, but tighter than ever, so that we can try to prevent these incidents from happening in the future.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Sam, I’m glad you’re safe. I’m glad you’re with us. AT, thank you, very much for your insights. We’ll be right back.

Weijia Jiang: I was on stage last night with the president. This is what I saw.

2026-04-26T12:12:00-0400 / CBS News

By

Weijia Jiang Senior White House Correspondent
Weijia Jiang is the senior White House correspondent for CBS News based in Washington, D.C. Jiang has covered the White House beat since 2018, including the transitions between presidential administrations. In 2023, Jiang won an Emmy Award for her contributions to “CBS Mornings.”

Read Full Bio

Updated on: April 26, 2026 / 12:54 PM EDT / CBS News

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President Trump and CBS News’ Weijia Jiang react as sounds of gunfire were heard at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, April 25, 2026. Reuters

The night was going exactly as planned.

For eight months, as president of the White House Correspondents Association, I’d been working on this dinner party. Above all, I had hoped it would restore some normalcy between the Trump administration and the press. Maybe I was naïve, but I wanted it to be a room we don’t see enough of in Washington: a bipartisan one. And it was.

There were more than 2,500 journalists and guests dressed to the nines. CEOs, celebrities, ambassadors and members of the cabinet including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Todd Blanche, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin — many just feet from the president in the ballroom.

Most important was Donald Trump himself: after 15 years of boycotting the dinner, he finally decided to come. It was the first time he had attended as president.

Trump was in a great mood. The Marine Corps Band had just played The Star-Spangled Banner, and the president was on the dais. We were chatting about the last time he attended, when Barack Obama was president.

“You know, everyone thinks I was upset by all those jokes Obama made. But I really wasn’t,” I remember him telling me as Oz Pearlman — the mentalist I had booked for the night — asked if he could interrupt. He was doing a trick on the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, and he wanted the president and me to watch.

Leavitt is due to give birth in a matter of days, and she’d told me earlier that Pearlman claimed he’d figure out the name of her unborn baby. “There’s no way he would ever be able to do that,” she said. “Very few people know it. It’s impossible.”

We all watched. Melania Trump, seated to Leavitt’s left, was quite engaged. Oz prepared to turn over a piece of paper with a name scribbled on it with a Sharpie.

Oz revealed a name to the first lady and Leavitt, and I watched her reaction. The look on her face—shock and delight—is an image now frozen in my mind, because it’s the last thing I saw before chaos unfolded.

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The Free Press: The American Way Is Under Fire

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At that very moment, we heard commotion. I looked out in the audience and thought there might have been a heckler. But I didn’t see one.

Before I could make sense of what was unfolding, armed agents rushed toward the dais. They multiplied quickly, sprinting from the other side of the stage to surround us. I heard shouts of “down, down, down, get down.”

I got out of my chair and was following Trump when he hit the ground. I got on my hands and knees too. Only later did I see a big bruise on my left knee. I was crawling, and we were ushered behind the stage.

President Trump is rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner after shots were fired outside the ballroom at the Washington Hilton. Bo Erickson / REUTERS

I crawled to the holding area, where the show producers were watching the video feeds of the live images from inside the ballroom.

Inside weren’t just my fellow journalists but also the most important people in my life. Moments before the chaos unfolded, I locked eyes with my 82-year-old father who waved to me. He looked happy. He and my mom both struggle with mobility. “Where are their wheelchairs?” I wanted to know. Who’s going to push them out of danger? My husband and my 7-year-old daughter were there too. Was she scared? Was she crying? I wanted to hold her.

I scanned the feeds looking for them, shaking. I asked anyone who could hear me: What happened? What’s wrong? Did anyone get hurt?

I have covered many shootings and murders in my career, including Sandy Hook in 2012. But this was the first time I found myself on the other side. No one can prepare you for it.

There was a rush of advance guys and Secret Service guys. “Blue, blue!” one said, rushing toward the room where Trump was being held.

There were several unverified news reports and tweets. Clearly, there was a situation with a shooter and a gun, but the information I had was just that the president wants the show to go on. He did not want to be deterred.

At some point, I went back on stage and assured everyone that the show would go on. People were glad to hear that. We waited and waited. Then one of the advance guys told me the president wanted to talk to me. I was led into a room by the president’s closest aides.

The first lady was standing and offered me a smile. “Are you OK?” she asked. Vice President Vance entered and asked the same.Secretary Rubio was next to me. I just kept hearing, “We’re going to the White House. We’re going to the White House.”

But the president did not want to go. He told me that he wanted to get back on stage. But also that his speech — a “shtick,” he called it — would now be “totally inappropriate.”

They decided on a press conference at the White House in 30 minutes, which I announced to the ballroom. The room laughed. I assured them it wasn’t a joke.

Then, to the room of reporters, I added: “I said earlier tonight that journalism is a public service, because when there is an emergency, we run to the crisis, not away from it. And on a night when we are thinking about the freedoms in the First Amendment, we must also think about how fragile they are.”

I got a ride with the presidential motorcade, which had waited for me. Other reporters ran to the White House in their heels.

CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang speaks on the phone as she awaits the start of President Trump’s press conference after the shooting. Nathan Howard / Getty Images

He looked solemn as he walked to the podium. After he gave an update about the suspect, he called on me to ask the first question. I wanted to know what he was thinking when he realized what was going on.

He said, “It was always shocking when something like this happens, happened to me, a little bit, and that never changes the fact we’re sitting right next to each other, first lady on my right, and I heard a noise, and sort of thought it was a tray.”

I was struck when Trump acknowledged how the shooting shaped his view of his relationship with the press. He said, “This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press, and in a certain way, it did, because the fact that they just unified. I saw a room that was just totally unified.”

Unity isn’t a word we hear much these days. But that’s how I felt, too.

Trump insists we are having the dinner again in 30 days. Let’s see.

As for the name of Leavitt’s baby girl: I saw it. But I haven’t had a chance to confirm it.

Transcript: Sir Christian Turner, U.K. ambassador to the U.S., on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” April 26, 2026

2026-04-26T12:12:00-0400 / CBS News

The following is the transcript of the interview with Sir Christian Turner, U.K. ambassador to the U.S., that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on April 26, 2026.

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MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the British Ambassador to the United States. His Excellency, Sir Christian Turner. Good to have you here.

AMB. CHRISTIAN TURNER: Good to be here. Margaret, thank you.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You too, were in that ballroom last night. You got a lot of security training for unstable countries where you have been posted as a professional diplomat over the course of your career. Did you ever imagine in one of the most heavily guarded rooms in DC, you’d have to put that to use?

AMB. TURNER: Well the training I’ve had in some of those places I’ve been actually kicks in last night, you basically do what you’re told and let the professional security folk do what they do. And I think it was one of my big takeaways last night. I think it was a- I’m with the people who say it was a success story. The Secret Service absolutely did what they needed to, not only that, but seeing actually all the journalists in the room and their training kicking in in a weekend that is all about the freedom of the press. I’m full of admiration for the way people responded last night.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well you- me too, but you have a week ahead of you, because King Charles and Queen Camilla are expected to arrive tomorrow. This is a going to be a big event regardless of what happened last night. But just to be clear, you haven’t changed your security assessment. You believe it is still safe for them to come and speak to Congress and be at the White House?

AMB. TURNER: So we respond to that professional advice. I’m currently planning to be welcoming their Majesties tomorrow. But of course, our team has been in touch way through the night, and we’ll be through the day to see whether the events of last night have any change in our operational planning. And I’m very confident that their Majesties will have the very best security throughout the visit.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, there is another big ballroom gathering planned, right? For the King.

AMB. TURNER: it’s going to be an extraordinary three or four days for us. Margaret. We’ve been planning this visit for years. Really, it’s the 250th between our two countries. I mean a somber background after last night for all of us. But I still hope we’ll be able to showcase this moment to make it the celebration that it deserves to be.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, a celebration, but to be clear, it’s also a bit of repair work right to the special relationship. The president had been quite upset with your Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who didn’t initially support the offensive operations by the U.S. and Israel against Iran, and the president was very clear he was not happy with him. He mocked him. He said he’s no Winston Churchill. He said it was too late for the UK to even offer help. And then there was other tension about the UK. As a NATO ally, how much repair work is this visit actually about?

AMB. TURNER: Well, the extraordinary thing in the British Constitution, of course, is the king is above politics. I have to remind people, he’s never given–

MARGARET BRENNAN: He’s a definite political asset, let’s be clear.

AMB. TURNER: But he’s never given an interview, which I have to remind people because, of course, he’s the head of state, but he’s not the head of government. So actually, that’s why we can make this a moment to step up and step back. And I think, I mean, just to take it back to last night. I mean, the other takeaway is that strong sentiment you were just discussing with your last guest, the president, calling for us to resolve our differences peacefully, that there is, there is no place for political violence in any of our democracies. You know, these are, these are enduring messages. They’re baked into our political makeup, into your political makeup, that ability for us to look back we had a small difference of opinion in 1776. 1776 we’ve been through that. We’ve- we’ve come a very long way, and that, in a way, for me, is what is so enduring about this relationship. It’s that we’ve had differences. Thatcher to Reagan. Roosevelt with Churchill actually over how to handle Stalin. These are moments in the relationship but actually it endures because it is so deep on security, yes, NATO on our investment. We are the largest investor in 21 states, $430 billion of trade. I mean, the statistics come out, but it’s actually about the people that we want this to focus. So I am, I’m very confident that’s where we will want to focus our time this week. And I should add, the prime minister spoke to the president this morning after the incident, the king sent a personal message to the president and first lady. So actually, in diplomacy, it’s as much personal as it is political.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, on the diplomatic front, the UK has been convening European countries to try to figure out what to do with the Strait of Hormuz after combat ends. You know the Iran file quite well. You were previously a negotiator here. What’s your assessment on who is running Iran right now and whether we see an end to this conflict anytime soon?

AMB. TURNER: So, it’s difficult in in Tehran, there are clearly some divisions. You pointed to that initial disagreement before the war, but since then, Margaret, actually, the UK, has been doing a lot. We were using our bases for defensive strikes. We’ve flown something like 2000 sorties with aircraft in the Middle East shooting down drones and missiles to protect our allies every night, in very close coordination with the US. And, of course, our intelligence base, we don’t talk about it much, but it’s the absolute foundation of of so much that is that is going on. We share the same intent, the same policy as the US. We want to constrain this regime and its threat. We want the straits open again. So this coalition you refer to that President Macron has worked with, with my Prime Minister, Keir Starmer on, what we want, that to do something like 50 countries coming together to work out —

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Hegseth called it silly. He said it was just a bunch of meetings.

AMB. TURNER: Well, it is —

MARGARET BRENNAN: What are you going to plan to do–

AMB. TURNER: Yeah, it is planning, once the straits are open, to ensure that the navigation we need has got the assurance of a whole package of boats, of drones, of intelligence to be able to make sure that shipping goes through. Because that’s what American citizens need. That’s what British citizens need. The people of Asia need. The global economy is suffering, and we want to see that resolved.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It is indeed. Thank you, ambassador, good luck this week. We’ll be right back.