TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – At the stadium and behind the scenes, security officials in Tampa are bracing for a daunting range of potential threats to the Super Bowl this year, from COVID-19 and domestic terror attacks to unruly crowds cheering on their home team.
The National Football League championship, which requires security coordination from some 70 local, state and federal agencies, will be played under unprecedented threat conditions with a national domestic terrorism advisory in place following the U.S. Capitol siege on Jan. 6 and the COVID-19 pandemic raging. It will also be the first Super Bowl matchup featuring a team – the Tampa Bay Buccaneers – on its home turf.
Officials have been planning the event’s security for a year, according to FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge Michael McPherson, but recent political and public health crises and the cancellation of Super Bowl week events have caused the massive operation to adapt to a shifting threat picture.
Super Bowl LV is classified as a SEAR-1 event by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), meaning it receives the highest level of federal resources, including explosive detection canine teams, cyber risk assessments and air security.
The FBI Tampa field office, led by McPherson, will be hosting more than a dozen agencies at an intelligence operation center where agents will collect, analyze and disseminate intelligence related to the Super Bowl and communicate with other units around the country.
Fresh on their minds is an advisory issued by the DHS last week, which warned of the persistent threat of domestic terror attacks in the U.S. by “violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition.”
Like all FBI offices, McPherson’s Tampa office has been charged with chasing leads on subjects who may have been involved in the Jan. 6 attack. The agency may increase its surveillance of any local subjects leading up to the game, even if they do not pose an apparent threat to the Super Bowl, McPherson said.
“We saw what happened in DC and if someone might want to make a political statement… it’s something we would be thinking about,” he said.
Hundreds of law enforcement officials, on horseback, in golf carts, and with canine units, will be posted on the grounds of the Raymond James stadium and the Tampa Riverwalk, where the game and other lead-up events will take place this week, said Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan.
Those officers and their partners behind the scenes will be prepared for potentially violent political demonstrations in the wake of the DHS’ warning.
“We are planning for any type of demonstration, doesn’t matter what their message is,” Dugan said.
HOME TURF
Due to COVID-19, many events leading up to the game have been pared down or made virtual and the stadium will only hold 22,000 attendees, a third of its capacity.
These measures have eased the burden slightly on law enforcement officers, who now have fewer physical venues to secure.
But with fewer planned events, and the enthusiasm of a hometown crowd, officials are expecting they will need to monitor spontaneous, local gatherings that could draw energized masses – especially if the Bucs are victorious.
“When we realized the Buccaneers were going to be in it, we started thinking about how else do we have to adjust our footprint,” McPherson said.
In Dugan’s view, the most prominent security concern “is crowd control”.
With thousands of security officials, athletes and fans congregating comes another underlying, but hardly overlooked threat: the contagious virus that has so far killed more than 430,000 Americans.
“One of my greater concerns about this is making sure we have healthy people to execute the plan,” McPherson said, adding that he was urging his officers to follow health protocols so the virus cannot “hinder operations”.
While the mayor of Tampa has mandated mask-wearing around the stadium during Super Bowl week, Chief Dugan, who recovered from his own bout of COVID-19 last week, said he did not anticipate his officers would enforce COVID-19 measures besides reminding people to social distance.
“We really don’t want to get into being the mask police,” he said. “We’re just going to rely on people being responsible citizens.”
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
