FILE PHOTO: U.S. actor Robert de Niro looks on during a news conference in Marbella, Spain May 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jon Nazca/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The New York Police Department is investigating a suspicious package in Tribeca, CNN reported on Thursday, airing footage of law enforcement in the New York City neighborhood.

NBC's New York affiliate reported that the package was similar to ones sent to prominent Democrats earlier this week and was sent to an address that housed restaurant owned by actor Robert De Niro.

Reuters could not immediately verify the reports. </s> NEW YORK — A New York City police bomb squad has removed a suspicious package from a Manhattan building associated with Robert De Niro.

A law enforcement source tell The Associated Press that the device found Thursday appeared to be linked to the others sent to Democratic figures and CNN's New York City hub. The package looked similar to the others and had a similar device inside, the source said.

The NYPD says the device was taken from 375 Greenwich Street in the Tribeca neighbourhood around 6:30 a.m. Thursday.

A spokesman said police were called for a report of a suspicious package at the location around 5 a.m. </s> (AP) – A New York City police bomb squad has removed a suspicious package from a Manhattan building associated with Robert De Niro.

A law enforcement source tell The Associated Press that the device found Thursday appeared to be linked to the others sent to Democratic figures and CNN’s New York City hub. The package looked similar to the others and had a similar device inside, the source said.

The NYPD says the device was taken from 375 Greenwich Street in the Tribeca neighborhood around 6:30 a.m. Thursday.

A spokesman said police were called for a report of a suspicious package at the location around 5 a.m. </s> Another suspicious package has turned up in New York City, this time in the Tribeca neighborhood. The NYPD recovered a package addressed to Robert De Niro that contained a device similar to those sent to prominent Democratic political figures.

The package was the same color, same stamps and same return address as the others.

Security personnel at De Niro’s production company noticed the package and called police.

The NYPD put the device into a bomb containment truck and drove it to the Bronx for disposal.

 The package is said to be similar to the ones sent to CNN and well-known people with Democratic ties this week, including former Presidents Clinton and Obama.

De Niro is an outspoken critic of President Trump and a major supporter of liberal causes.



 The devices were made of PVC pipe with digital timers and possible detonators attached.

 There was also shrapnel inside the pipes. An image of one of the devices appeared to have a parody of an ISIS flag attached to it.

 None of the packages exploded, so the FBI says it will be easy to get forensic evidence to track down the sender. </s> NEW YORK — A New York City police bomb squad removed a suspicious package from a Manhattan building associated with Robert De Niro Thursday morning, police said.

A law enforcement source told The Associated Press that the device appeared to be linked to the others sent to Democratic figures and CNN's New York City hub. The package looked similar to the others and had a similar device inside, the source said.

The NYPD said the device was taken from 375 Greenwich Street in the Tribeca neighborhood around 6:30 a.m. Thursday. That's the same address as De Niro's Tribeca Grill and the Tribeca Film Center.

A spokesman said police were called for a report of a suspicious package at the location around 5 a.m.

Video showed a bomb squad unit driving in a caravan through the city after leaving the neighborhood.

Authorities said on Wednesday the pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats and CNN's New York office were packed with shards of glass and were intercepted. None of the seven bombs detonated, and nobody was hurt as authorities in New York, Washington, D.C., Florida and California seized the suspicious packages.

One of the explosives was sent to CNN, which prompted the evacuation of the Time Warner Center in Manhattan, where CNN has offices.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> At least six explosive devices have been sent to targets including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and CNN.

A SUSPICIOUS package has been found at a New York restaurant belonging to actor Robert De Niro.

The package is believed to have been addressed to the Hollywood actor and delivered to the Tribeca Grill B on Greenwich Street.

De Niro, 75, is an outspoken critic of US President Donald Trump, and has clashed with him several times - once branding him a “national disaster”.

CNN is reporting the package had similar markings than the pipe bombs that were packed with shards of glass sent yesterday.

The package has reignited fear in New York that yesterday’s bomb scare drama was not an isolated event.

The New York City police bomb squad has removed the package. It is now being taken to a “secure location in the Bronx”, police said.

An employee of TriBeCa Productions, a television and film production company co-founded by the Hollywood actoir, alerted police to the package around 5am local time, AFP reported.

Officers would be joined by colleagues from the FBI and ATF at the restaurant, meaning traffic would be affected for some time while the investigators worked.

It comes after 24 hours of chaos when up to seven suspicious parcels - some containing crudely built pipe bombs - were intercepted before reaching their targets, who included former US President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Obama’s attorney-general Eric Holder.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, prominent Democratic Party donor George Soros and California Congresswoman Maxine Waters, another fierce critic of President Donald Trump, were also targets of packages.

All of the targets are frequently criticised by right-wing activists.

De Niro has clashed with Mr Trump several times in the past, both during the presidential campaign and afterwards.

Before the 2016 election the actor slammed Mr Trump as “blatantly stupid,” “totally nuts” and an “idiot.”

Meanwhile Mr Trump has blamed the media for provoking anger in Americans.

A law enforcement source told The Associated Press that the device found Thursday appeared to be linked to the others sent to Democratic figures and CNN’s New York City hub.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo yesterday a device had been sent to his office in Manhattan, but it was unrelated to the mail bombs.

“We would not be at all surprised if more devices show up,” said Mr Cuomo, a Democrat, at a media briefing on Wednesday afternoon local time. “There is a pattern.”

More to come. </s> Another suspicious package has turned up in New York City, this time in the Tribeca neighborhood.

 There are reports the package was addressed to actor Robert DeNiro. The NYPD is on the scene.

 The package is said to be similar to the ones sent to CNN and well-known people with Democratic ties this week, including former Presidents Clinton and Obama.

DeNiro is an outspoken critic of President Trump and a major supporter of liberal causes. </s> US actor Robert De Niro has had a suspicious package sent to his New York restaurant.

US actor Robert De Niro has had a suspicious package sent to his New York restaurant.

ROBERT De Niro and former US vice president Joe Biden are the latest in a series of targets to be sent suspicious packages thought to contain pipe bombs.

The package sent to De Niro was addressed to the Hollywood actor and delivered to his New York restaurant, the Tribeca Grill B in Manhattan.

The bombs were each about six inches long with a small battery and packed with powder and broken glass, said a law enforcement official who viewed X-ray images. The official said the devices were made from PVC pipe and covered with black tape.

CNN reported the package had similar markings to the pipe bomb sent to the network yesterday.

A law enforcement source said a similar package addressed to Mr Biden was intercepted at a Delaware mail facility, reigniting fear yesterday's bomb scare drama was not an isolated event.

The former Delaware senator is a Democrat who served as vice president in the Obama administration.

De Niro has clashed with Donald Trump several times - once branding him a "national disaster".

Mr Trump on Thursday morning blamed the media for provoking anger in Americans - but did not directly reference the bombs. "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," he tweeted.

Former CIA director John Brennan, to whom the CNN bomb was addressed, hit back at Mr Trump's comments, telling him to "stop blaming others" and that his "inflammatory rhetoric, insults, lies, encouragement of physical violence are disgraceful."

It comes after 24 hours of chaos with up to nine suspicious parcels - some containing crudely built pipe bombs - intercepted before reaching targets including former US President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Mr Obama's attorney-general Eric Holder.

All of the targets are frequently criticised by right-wing activists.

The US President has been criticised for failing to denounce the mail bombs as domestic terror, with Democrats claiming he has stoked anger against left-wing people and organisations.

The hashtag #MAGAbomber has begun trending on Twitter, infuriating Republicans who claimed Democrats were exploiting the news "to try to manipulate the public into thinking patriotic Americans are SOMEHOW responsible."

Another pointed out the device sent to CNN was wrapped in an Islamic State flag, although it was identified as a parody version of the distinctive design.

The President on Wednesday condemned the person or persons sending the packages, saying: "Acts or threats of political violence have no place in the United States.

He took a softer tone than usual at a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday night. "Let's get along," he said. "By the way, do you see how nice I'm behaving tonight? Have you ever seen this?"

The New York City police bomb squad has removed the package sent to De Niro. It is now being taken to a "secure location in the Bronx", police said.

An employee of TriBeCa Productions, a television and film production company co-founded by the Hollywood actor, alerted police to the package sent to De Niro around 5am local time, AFP reported.

Police said officers would be joined by colleagues from the FBI and ATF at the restaurant, so traffic would be affected for some time while the investigators worked.

The first crude bomb discovered was delivered on Monday to the suburban New York compound of George Soros, a liberal billionaire and major contributor to Democratic causes.

The FBI said an additional package intended for former attorney general Eric Holder ended up at a Florida office of Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose return address was on it.

Two similar-looking packages addressed to California Congresswoman Maxine Waters - another fierce Trump critic - were also intercepted, the bureau said.

De Niro has clashed with Mr Trump several times in the past, both during the presidential campaign and afterwards. Before the 2016 election the actor slammed Mr Trump as "blatantly stupid," "totally nuts" and an "idiot."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo yesterday said a device had been sent to his office in Manhattan, but it was unrelated to the mail bombs.

"We would not be at all surprised if more devices show up," said Mr Cuomo, a Democrat, at a media briefing on Wednesday afternoon local time. "There is a pattern."

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement yesterday his agency would lead a Joint Terrorism Task Force of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to "continue to work to identity and arrest whosoever is responsible for sending these packages". </s> Investigators looking at a series of pipe bombs zeroed in on a Florida postal facility as the number of explosive devices mailed to opponents and critics of U.S. President Donald Trump reached 12.

Three devices – two addressed to former vice-president Joe Biden in Delaware and one to actor Robert De Niro’s Manhattan restaurant – were recovered on Thursday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that all of the packages resembled the seven previously intercepted since Monday, which had been mailed to former president Barack Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and left-wing billionaire George Soros, among others.

By Friday morning, two further suspicious packages had been found, one in Florida addressed to New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker and one at a New York City post office. The New York City package was addressed to James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, CNN reported.

The FBI focused on a mail-sorting facility in Opa-locka, near Miami, which is believed to have processed at least some of the packages. Miami-Dade police said on Thursday evening they had also dispatched a bomb squad and K-9 unit as a “precautionary measure.” The FBI has repeatedly warned of the possibility more bombs are still in circulation.

U.S. bomb scares: What we know so far about attempted attacks on Clinton, Obama, CNN and others

All of the parcels listed Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s Miami-area office as the return address.

None of the bombs exploded. The ones addressed to Mr. Obama, Ms. Clinton, Mr. Biden and Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters were intercepted before delivery. Those sent to Mr. Soros, Mr. De Niro and former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan – care of CNN’s Manhattan headquarters – reached their destinations but were flagged by the recipients, who called authorities. One mailed to former attorney-general Eric Holder was sent to Ms. Wasserman-Schultz’s office.

Mr. De Niro has long been critical of Mr. Trump. During the presidential election, he recorded a video in which he said Mr. Trump was “a fool” and “a bozo” and said he would like to punch him in the face. Mr. De Niro also used profane language to disparage Mr. Trump at the Tony Awards this past June.

Mr. Booker is often touted as a potential 2020 presidential candidate. Mr. Clapper, who oversaw the U.S. intelligence community under Mr. Obama, has been critical of Mr. Trump. Both he and Mr. Brennan are the frequent target of conspiracy theorists – often encouraged by the President – who claim that a secretive “deep state” of intelligence agents spied on Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and has tried to thwart his administration.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump had called for unity and said he was “upset” by the attacks. But by Thursday, he was pinning blame for the country’s increasingly fraught political divide on the media – even as a cable-news outlet was one of the targets.

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

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, accused CNN of blaming Mr. Trump for the bombing campaign and indicated he would not be dialling back his rhetorical attacks on political opponents.

“Ninety per cent of the media attention around this President is negative,” she told reporters at the White House. “The very first thing your network did is come out and accuse the President of being responsible for [the bombs.]”

Mr. Trump last week cheered a Republican congressman convicted of body-slamming a newspaper reporter and has in the past tweeted a video of himself beating up a man with a CNN logo superimposed over his head taken from a 2007 WWE broadcast.

CNN’s parent company, AT&T, on Thursday announced a US$250,000 donation to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Threats to journalists are, at the very core, threats to freedom and liberty,” AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson said in a statement.

Lara Schwartz, a political-communications expert at American University in Washington, said the response to the attempted bombings was more divided than at other such moments in the country’s history. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for instance, Ms. Clinton and then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani – who had nearly squared off against each other for a Senate seat – were seen side-by-side at the site of the World Trade Center. And Al Gore, who had narrowly lost the previous year’s presidential election to George W. Bush, declared his former rival “my commander-in-chief” and urged fellow Democrats to rally behind him.

“If ever there was a moment for people who are engaged in battle to model unity, it would be when someone is targeting people like this,” Prof. Schwartz said in an interview. “It seems we are not there now. We should all be noting how huge that is.”

Prof. Schwartz contended Mr. Trump is reflecting a broader cultural and political shift: As congressional districts have been gerrymandered into safe seats and politicians have turned to increasing ideological purity to motivate their bases, the incentive to battle the other side rather than work with it has grown. And media is similarly fragmented, with different outlets telling different stories and a substantial chunk of the President’s base believing it would be a good idea to shut down outlets they do not agree with.

“A whole lot of people are ready to believe that the media is the enemy,” she said.
The New York City Police Department recovers a package similar to those found earlier this week at the office of TriBeCa Productions, which is used by actor Robert De Niro.