A man was arrested early Friday in the alleged assault of former U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, who says she was molested as she jogged along the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Council Bluffs police said in a statement that the 25-year-old suspect from Papillion, Nebraska, was spotted by officers in Omaha, Nebraska, at 3:23 a.m. and arrested. Police said the man will be extradited back to Council Bluffs.
"You picked the wrong target," McSally wrote of the attacker in a Facebook post. She earlier described the Wednesday morning attack in a video she posted online.
“A man came up behind me and he engulfed me in a bear hug and he molested and fondled me until I fought him off,” she said. “I then chased him down. I said a lot of swear words in this moment. I was in a fight, flight or freeze. And I chose to fight.”
After McSally chased the man into the brush at Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park, she called police. She lost sight of the man and he got away, but police said video surveillance and other investigative work led them to the suspect.
The former senator who failed to win reelection in 2020 said she was in the area to deliver a speech about courage in Omaha on Wednesday night. Omaha and Council Bluffs are just 5 miles (8 kilometers) apart.
The first woman to fly a fighter plane in combat said in the video that she was OK, but that the assault “tapped into a nerve of other sexual abuse and assault that I’ve been through in the past.”
McSally disclosed during a 2019 Senate hearing on sexual assault in the military that she had been raped by a superior officer in the Air Force. She didn’t report that assault at the time because she didn’t trust the system, but she said Wednesday: “I took my power back. He tried to take power from me, but I turned it on him and he was running from me instead of the other way around.”
McSally served in the Air Force from 1988 until 2010 and rose to the rank of colonel before entering politics. She served two terms in the House before narrowly losing a bid to represent Arizona in the Senate against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.
In 2018 she was appointed to replace longtime GOP Sen. John McCain after his death.
Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama says his new Cabinet will include an artificial intelligence “minister” in charge of fighting corruption. The AI, named Diella, will oversee public funding projects and combat corruption in public tenders. Diella was launched earlier this year as a virtual assistant on the government's public service platform. Corruption has been a persistent issue in Albania since 1990. Rama's Socialist Party won a fourth consecutive term in May. It aims to deliver EU membership for Albania in five years, but the opposition Democratic Party remains skeptical.
The Trump administration has asked an appeals court to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors by Monday, before the central bank’s next vote on interest rates. Trump sought to fire Cook Aug. 25, but a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her to the Fed’s board.
President Donald Trump's administration is appealing a ruling blocking him from immediately firing Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook as he seeks more control over the traditionally independent board. The notice of appeal was filed Wednesday, hours after U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb handed down the ruling. The White House insists the Republican president had the right to fire Cook over mortgage fraud allegations involving properties in Michigan and Georgia from before she joined the Fed. Cook's lawsuit denies the allegations and says the firing was unlawful. The case could soon reach the Supreme Court, which has allowed Trump to fire members of other independent agencies but suggested that power has limitations at the Fed.
Chief Justice John Roberts has let President Donald Trump remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, the latest in a string of high-profile firings allowed for now by the Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
