By Jennifer Hansler, CNN

(CNN) — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday vowed to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court and urged other countries to join the effort as the Trump administration significantly escalates its campaign against the global institution.

Rubio accused the ICC of “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles,” but with “the force of so-called international law.”

The administration’s ire against the ICC goes back to President Donald Trump’s first term, when it targeted the ICC for seeking to investigate alleged war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan. The second Trump administration has imposed a slew of sanctions against ICC officials for their attempts to investigate the US and Israel.

However, the State Department-led, “whole-of-government campaign” to dismantle the ICC is a significant escalation, particularly as it seeks to pressure countries around the world to join and threatens potential cuts to US assistance for those who don’t.

“Nations that refuse to reject the ICC’s false authority while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny,” a State Department official said Monday.

“Using all the tools at our government’s disposal, working beside every ally with whom we can make common cause, we will dismantle the ICC—brick by brick, if necessary,” Rubio wrote in a separate piece in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. Those tools include possible travel bans, visa revocations, and increased sanctions, the State Department official said.

The official said that countries “that partner with US law enforcement, host a US military presence, or benefit from the broader US security umbrella are being called upon to reject the ICC’s purported authority to prosecute American officials and servicemen,” the official said.

“We will watch with interest which nations join ranks with us against this threat to Americans who are willing to risk their lives to protect others,” they noted.

Top officials, including the secretary, deputy secretary, and US ambassadors, “are calling countries as part of a campaign to diplomatically isolate the International Criminal Court and ensure it cannot target Americans,” the official said.

The calls are meant to persuade countries who are party to the ICC to withdraw from it “and cut off any financial support to the court,” they said.

CNN has reached out to the ICC for comment.

The administration is also calling on nations that are not parties to the court, like the United States, “to leverage their diplomatic networks to take similar action alongside us.”

In his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Rubio accused the ICC of being “backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S.”

Rubio rejected allegations by outside organizations that the administration’s deportations to El Salvador and its deadly boat strikes on alleged narco-terrorists had violated international law and rebuffed a call by one organization for the ICC to investigate alleged war crimes committed by the US in Iran, but he claimed that such actions

CNN

By Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — US Capitol Police arrested a man at the Capitol’s north barricade who they said had a firearm, which is prohibited on Capitol grounds.

CNN captured video of the man being taken into custody. It shows six officers surrounding an SUV, two of whom have their guns drawn and pointed at a man emerging from the driver’s side with his hands above his head.

The man walks backward away from his car and officers lower their weapons. Then a group approaches the man and cuff his hands behind his back, as more officers arrive on the scene.

The man appears to talk with one officer, who gestures toward the inside of the vehicle. A dog sitting inside the vehicle barks at an officer through an open window.

Capitol Police said the north barricade would be closed while they investigate, and staff and other personnel were advised to avoid the area.

Police did not identify the man who was taken into custody.

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By Deidre McPhillips, CNN

(CNN) — US Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, died on Saturday night from a tear in his artery, according to preliminary findings from a medical examiner.

Aortic dissection is rare, and life-threatening in most cases, experts say. The acute event happens quickly but there are steps you can take to lower your risk.

What is an aortic dissection?

The aorta is the largest blood vessel in body and the first place blood travels through as it’s pumped from the heart to other parts of the body.

An aortic dissection occurs when there is a tear in the aorta, which disrupts the critical source of blood flow.

Dr. Barbara Hamilton, an assistant professor of cardiac surgery with a specialty in aortic surgery at the University of Michigan, says the aorta is like an onion with many layers. A tear can happen on the inner layer of the aorta, which would create a “false passage” for blood, she said — letting it travel between the layers of the blood vessel instead of reaching important organs.

A dissection can also tear through all layers of the aorta at once, which “basically is like your heart exploding,” said ​Dr. John Trahanas, a cardiac surgeon and co-director of the Aortic Center at Vanderbilt.

An acute emergency

An aortic dissection typically happens suddenly, often without warning.

“It’s not something that is slowly progressing over time,” Hamilton said. “There isn’t this insidious, creeping, on-off chest pain that’s been lingering. When it hits, it’s usually a 10 out of 10 pain.”

It can seem a bit like a heart attack or stroke, experts say. Most often, there is chest pain that radiates to the back. It sometimes presents as leg pain or leg numbness, if the tear is preventing blood from traveling throughout the body more broadly.

About half of the people who have an aortic dissection will die before they’re able to receive any emergency care because it is such a sudden and severe event.

But for others, receiving care quickly is critical.

Emergency surgery to repair the artery needs to happen within the first couple of hours, Trahanas said. The vast majority of people who are able to have surgery — about 80% — will survive, he said. But the risk of dying increases about 2% for every hour that surgery is delayed.

High blood pressure is a key risk factor

Aortic dissection is rare, but it is more common among men and risk can increase with age. It may also be triggered by a particularly stressful situation among people who have high blood pressure at baseline. According to the medical examiner, Graham’s aortic dissection was “due to Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease.” Atherosclerosis — a condition where fats and cholesterol build up on the artery walls — is also a risk factor.

Hours before his death, Graham had returned from Kyiv, one of many he visits he had made since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“One might imagine that (Sen. Graham) had a stressful meeting in Ukraine,” Trahanas said, noting that he does not know the specifics of Graham’s case. If his blood pressure was up, it could have caused a tear, “which is a very, very sudden event that unfortunately can be f

CNN

By Eric Bradner, Kevin Liptak, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump said Monday he recommended to South Carolina’s governor that Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, be appointed to serve in the late lawmaker’s seat after he suddenly died over the weekend.

“I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!”

Under state law, McMaster can appoint a temporary replacement to fill Graham’s vacant seat. But because Graham was up for reelection this year, his death will kick off a sprint primary election to replace him on the November ballot.

McMaster has scheduled a 4 p.m. ET press conference to announce his pick. Ahead of the press conference, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN’s Dana Bash that he spoke Sunday with both Nordone and McMaster.

“I’ll let the governor make an announcement about that, but that certainly in my view makes a lot of sense,” Thune said. “In many respects, it would be a way of extending Lindsey’s legacy here and certainly something that, if that’s what they decide to end up doing, I think there’d be a lot of support for it.”

The governor and Trump are longtime allies. Trump said on the 2024 campaign trail that he nominated South Carolina’s former governor, Nikki Haley, as his US ambassador to the United Nations in his first term to elevate McMaster, who was then the lieutenant governor.

Who is Darline Graham Nordone?

Graham and his sister were close their entire lives, his sister told CNN’s Dana Bash in a 2015 interview after her brother launched his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

“Even when my parents were alive, they worked really long, hard hours running a small business. So even then, he was a caregiver to me,” she said.

The same year, the unmarried Graham was asked by the Daily Mail Online who would be his first lady.

“Well, I’ve got a sister. She could play that role if necessary,” he said.

The two grew up in a single room behind the Sanitary Cafe — a bar, pool hall and liquor store their parents ran in Central, South Carolina.

After their parents died within 15 months of each other, Darline became orphaned at age 13 in 1976. Graham — the first in his family to attend college, and a member of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps — became Darline’s legal guardian. That enabled Darline to access her brother’s military benefits, she told CNN in 2015.

She said being adopted by her brother “was a little odd” at first, but she came to understand “it makes perfect sense.”

“I knew he was doing what he could to

By Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — US Capitol Police arrested a man at the Capitol’s north barricade who they said had a firearm, which is prohibited on Capitol grounds.

CNN captured video of the man being taken into custody. It shows six officers surrounding an SUV, two of whom have their guns drawn and pointed at a man emerging from the driver’s side with his hands above his head.

The man walks backward away from his car and officers lower their weapons. Then a group approaches the man and cuff his hands behind his back, as more officers arrive on the scene.

The man appears to talk with one officer, who gestures toward the inside of the vehicle. A dog sitting inside the vehicle barks at an officer through an open window.

Capitol Police said the north barricade would be closed while they investigate, and staff and other personnel were advised to avoid the area.

Police did not identify the man who was taken into custody.

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The post Capitol Police arrest man with a firearm at north barricade of the US Capitol appeared first on News Channel 3-12.