A man was taken into custody on Wednesday after driving his van into a security barrier outside the White House, authorities said.
The Secret Service said the man crashed into the temporary security barrier just before 6:30 a.m. He was immediately arrested by officers from the Secret Service’s uniformed division, the agency said.
The man, whose identity was not immediately released, was being interviewed by investigators. Criminal charges were pending, the Secret Service said.
A police bomb squad was called to the scene, checked the vehicle and determined it to be safe.
Facing jittery global markets and drooping poll numbers since launching a war on Iran, President Donald Trump has cycled from calls for “unconditional surrender” to sounding amenable to an end state in which Iran trades one hard-line ayatollah for another.
Shifting comments from the Republican president and his top aides are adding to the precariousness of the 12-day-old conflict, which is impacting nearly every corner of the Middle East and causing economic tremors around the globe. With neither side budging, the war is now on an unpredictable path — one in which a credible endgame is still unclear.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday told reporters it’s up to Trump “whether it’s the beginning, the middle or the end” of the war. Trump, during the course of one speech at a House Republican gathering on Monday, went from calling the war a “short-term excursion” that could end soon to proclaiming “we haven’t won enough.”
The vacillation has fueled criticism from those who say Trump lacks a clear goal. “They didn’t have a plan,” Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., told reporters. “They have no timeline. And because of that, they have no exit strategy.”
Italy has bought a rare portrait by baroque painter Caravaggio for 30 million euros (about $35 million), one of the largest state investments ever for a single artwork, the country’s Culture Ministry said Tuesday.
The portrait, painted around 1598 and attributed to Caravaggio in 1963, depicts Maffeo Barberini, a nobleman who later became Pope Urban VIII.
The painting was acquired from a private collection by the Italian state after over a year of negotiations and will now enter Rome’s Palazzo Barberini permanent collection.
“This is a work of exceptional importance,” Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli said in a statement, noting the painting was a turning point in Caravaggio’s modern rediscovery and its purchase has helped strengthen the presence of his works in Italian public collections.
Max Westerlund can be reached at west1201@stthomas.edu.
