Business Standard

Biden, De Niro latest bomb mail targets; Trump hits out at media

- AGENCIES

Suspicious packages were sent to former US vice-president Joe Biden and Oscarwinni­ng actor Robert De Niro, police and media reported on Thursday. The two are the latest in the line of prominent Democrats and critics of President Donald Trump to receive pipe bombs this week.

Trump, on the other hand, accused the media of stirring up “anger”, a far cry from his call for “unity” on Wednesday, when suspicious packages to prominent Democrats, including former president Barack Obama and former presidenti­al candidate Hillary Clinton, and media outlet CNN were intercepte­d.

According to NBC News, a suspicious package addressed to Biden intercepte­d at a postal facility in Delaware on Thursday. These packages, sent to at least 10 Democrats, according to investigat­ors, were pipe bombs.

An alert regarding a similar pipe bomb was raised by an employee of TriBeCa Production­s, a television and film production company co-founded by Hollywood megastar De Niro, a New York police spokesman said. In June, 75-yearold De Niro received a standing ovation at the Tony Awards in New York for using an expletive to condemn Trump. When Trump was campaignin­g for president in 2016, the actor slammed the Republican candidate as “blatantly stupid”, “totally nuts” and an “idiot”.

Even as the US reeled from the series of suspicious packages and pipe bombs, Trump hit out at the media, tweeting: “A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News.

“It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond descriptio­n. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”

 ??  ?? Former US vice-president Joe Biden ( and Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro
Former US vice-president Joe Biden ( and Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro
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left)

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