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BASEL, Switzerland — Fans from around the world have descended upon the 69th Eurovision Song Contest to rally behind performers from their home countries who have been battling it out onstage all week.

In total, there are 26 performances in the grand final: the countries that got through the semifinals, plus the host country (this year, Switzerland) and a group called the Big Five — France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom — which enter the final automatically because their countries make the biggest financial contributions to Eurovision.

As the artists gear up for an extravagant, glitter-dusted pop song contest featuring their wildly over-the-top performances, thousands of spectators gather at Eurovision Village, a convention center that’s been turned into a hub for fans. Some drape national flags on their backs, others paint the flags on their faces. Many find themselves dancing until the early hours at the EuroClub, which plays nothing but Eurovision hits.

The event is what members of the Remember Monday group representing the U.K. called a cultural phenomenon, likening it to the Super Bowl in the U.S.

“Everyone knows what it is,” Holly-Anne Hull said. “And everyone, whether they like it or not, is aware of who’s won it every year.”

Here’s what else to know. 

How to watch and vote

Performers will battle it out during Saturday’s grand final, which airs at 3 p.m. ET on Peacock for viewers in the U.S.

The winner of the contest is decided by a mix of votes from national juries of music professionals and viewers watching at home. People all around the world can vote for the winner using the contest’s app or online.

Who are this year’s favorites?

Gambling on Eurovision is big business, and sports betting firms — who give their two cents on the odds of each contender — have a decent track record of identifying which songs will do well at Saturday’s grand final.

This year, the favorites include Sweden, which has won the contest seven times since the first Eurovision in 1956. The group KAJ, a trio of Swedish-speaking Finns, is entering this year with “Bara Bada Bastu,” an ode to the Nordic tradition of going to the sauna. The song, which features staging re-creating a sauna complete with dancers in towels, is the most-streamed song by far from this year’s contest, according to Spotify.

Another top contender is Austria. Singer JJ, an opera singer, uses extraordinary vocal range to hit high notes throughout his song, “Wasted Love.”

The Dutch entry is also considered a front-runner. Singer Claude’s “C’est La Vie” has a mixture of French and English lyrics, and it’s this year’s third most-streamed song of the nominees on Spotify. 

Other eye-catching numbers to watch for

Eurovision songs cut across genres, and while many wouldn’t be out of place on a Top 40 radio playlist, sometimes they stand out for wild lyrics or eye-popping staging.

In addition to the Swedish sauna song, this year’s entries include Icelandic act Væb. The blond brothers don oversized silver outfits and jewel-encrusted sunglasses and energetically jump around the stage during their song “Róa,” which is about rowing a boat.

Finland’s Erika Vikman singing about a “lust trance” while wearing thigh-high leather boots in “Ich Komme.” The song reaches its climax with Vikman on a giant microphone suspended in the air with sparks flying out of it.

Being weird doesn’t guarantee a spot in the final, though. This year’s Irish entry was a dance anthem imagining a world in which Laika, the Soviet dog who died after being sent to space, not only lived but “has a party in the air” and “is dancing every night among the stars.” It didn’t make it past Thursday’s semifinal.

Have there been any controversies?

As was the case last year, Israel’s participation has drawn protests over the country’s war in the Gaza Strip. This year’s contestant, Yuval Raphael, survived the Hamas-led terror attack on the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) bars lyrics it views as political and last year forced Israel’s entry to change lyrics that referenced the attacks.

Martin Green, director of the Eurovision Song Contest, said in a statement that the EBU, which organizes the contest, “is not immune to global events but, together with our Members, it is our role to ensure the Contest remains — at its heart — a universal event that promotes connections, diversity and inclusion through music.”

“It is not our role to make comparisons between conflicts,” he added, noting that the EBU “remains aligned with other international organizations that have similarly maintained their inclusive stance towards Israeli participants in major competitions at this time.”

The entry from Malta also prompted controversy for its lyrics to Miriana Conte’s song, “Serving.” The original version featured the Maltese word for “singing,” which sounds like a vulgar word in English. That word has been omitted in the reworked version. The singer posted on her Instagram that the EBU had made her change the words.

In a statement to Sky News, NBC’s British partner, at the time, the EBU said that “if a song is deemed unacceptable for any reason, broadcasters are given the opportunity to modify it, or select a new one, before the deadline as per the rules of the Contest.”

The Italian consumer group Codacons also filed a complaint over offensive stereotypes in Estonian Tommy Cash’s “Espresso Macchiato,” which includes lyrics that reference “sweating like a mafioso” and being “addicted to tobacco.”

A spokesperson for Eurovision did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Estonia’s entry. 

A major surprise appearance could be in store

A question on many people’s minds is whether Céline Dion — yes the Céline Dion — will make an appearance.

The award-winning artist was 20 years old when she won the competition for Switzerland back in 1988. (Although she is Canadian, artists don’t need to be from the country they represent. For example, this year, the Swedish entry is from Finland and the Irish entry is from Norway.)

Dion appeared in a video at Tuesday’s semifinal saying she “would love nothing more” than to appear at the contest. The singer has been public about her stiff-person syndrome diagnosis and gave an emotional performance at the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Paris last year.

Asked via email by NBC News about the possibility of Dion appearing in person at Saturday’s final, Eurovision spokesperson Sibylle Tornay said, “There are currently no changes regarding Céline Dion — we are still in close contact with her, of course her health is the most important thing and comes first.”

NEW YORK — Three-time Tony Award-winner Charles Strouse, Broadway’s industrious, master melody-maker who composed the music for such classic musical theater hits as “Annie,” “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Applause,” died Thursday. He was 96.

Strouse died at his home in New York City, his family said.

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Strouse wrote more than a dozen Broadway musicals, as well as film scores and “Those Were the Days,” the theme song for the sitcom “All in the Family.”

Strouse turned out such popular — and catchy — show tunes as “Tomorrow,” the optimistic anthem from “Annie,” and the equally cheerful “Put on a Happy Face” from “Bye Bye Birdie,” his first Broadway success.

“I work every day. Activity — it’s a life force,” the New York-born composer told The Associated Press during an interview on the eve of his 80th birthday in 2008. “When you enjoy doing what you’re doing, which I do very much, I have something to get up for.”

Deep into his 90s, he visited tours of his shows and met casts. Jenn Thompson, who appeared in the first “Annie” as Pepper and directed a touring version of “Annie” in 2024, recalls Strouse coming to auditions and shedding a tear when a young girl sang “Tomorrow.” She said: “He’s so gorgeously generous and kind. He has always been that way.”

His Broadway career began in 1960 with “Bye Bye Birdie,” which Strouse wrote with lyricist Lee Adams and librettist Michael Stewart. “Birdie,” which starred Dick Van Dyke and Chita Rivera, told the tale of an Elvis Presley-like crooner named Conrad Birdie being drafted into the Army and its effect on one small Ohio town.

Strouse not only wrote the music, but he played piano at auditions while Edward Padula, the show’s neophyte producer, tried to attract financial backers for a production that would eventually cost $185,000.

“We never stopped giving auditions — and people never gave money at all. The idea of using rock ‘n’ roll — everybody was so turned off,” Strouse said.

Finally, Padula found Texas oilman L. Slade Brown. When he heard the score, he said, in a Texas twang, “I like those songs,” pushed Strouse aside and picked out the tune of “Put on a Happy Face” on the piano.

Brown then said, “How much do you fellas need?” and wrote out a check for $75,000 to cover the start of rehearsals. “Suddenly, the world turned Technicolor,” Strouse remembered.

The popularity of “Birdie” spawned a film (with Van Dyke, Janet Leigh and Ann-Margret) in 1963 and a television adaptation with Jason Alexander and Vanessa Williams in 1995.

Strouse and Adams gave several non-musical theater stars, including Sammy Davis Jr. and Lauren Bacall, stage successes for “Golden Boy” and “All About Eve,” respectively.

But it was “Annie” (1977) that proved to be Strouse’s most durable — and long-running — Broadway hit (over 2,300 performances). Chronicling the Depression-era adventures of the celebrated comic strip character Little Orphan Annie, the musical featured lyrics by Martin Charnin and a book by Thomas Meehan.

It starred Andrea McArdle as the red-haired moppet and Dorothy Loudon, who won a Tony for her riotous portrayal of mean Miss Hannigan, who ran the orphanage. The musical contained gems such as “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” and “It’s the Hard Knock Life.”

The 1982 film version, which featured Carol Burnett in Loudon’s role, was not nearly as popular or well-received. A stage sequel called “Annie Warbucks” ran off-Broadway in 1993. The show was revived on Broadway in 2012 and made into a film starring Quvenzhané Wallis in 2014. NBC put a version on network TV in 2021 called “Annie Live!”

Strouse and Charnin, who both won Grammy Awards for the “Annie” cast album, found shards of their work included in Jay-Z’s 1998 Grammy-winning album “Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life.”

“Tomorrow” has been heard on soundtracks from “Shrek 2” to “Dave” to “You’ve Got Mail.” In 2016, Lukas Graham used parts of the chorus from “Annie” for his “Mama Said” hit.

Strouse had his share of flops, too, including two shows — “A Broadway Musical” (1978) and “Dance a Little Closer,” a 1983 musical written with Alan Jay Lerner, that closed after one performance. Among his other less-than-successful musicals were “All-American” (1962), starring Ray Bolger, “It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman” (1966), directed by Harold Prince, and “Bring Back Birdie” (1981), a sequel to “Bye Bye Birdie.”

Among Strouse’s film scores were the music for “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) and “The Night They Raided Minsky’s” (1968).

Theater beckoned when he and Adams got a chance in the early 1950s to write songs for weekly revues at an Adirondacks summer camp called Green Mansions. Such camps were the training ground for dozens of performers and writers.

“I would write a song and I would orchestrate it and copy the parts,” he said in the AP interview. “And rehearsal was the next day at nine, so at four in the morning, I am crossing the lake with the parts still wet. I just loved it. I never was happier.”

His wife, Barbara, died in 2023. He is survived by four children, Ben, Nick, Victoria and William.

Possible tornadoes ripped down trees and power lines in three states Thursday, and severe weather soaked a Beyoncé concert in Chicago and sent the crowd in cowboy hats seeking cover, officials said.

There were no reports of deaths of serious injures in the severe weather, which swept across Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan on Thursday.

The Beyoncé concert at the open-air Soldier Field was delayed because of the weather. Videos from people in the crowd posted to social media showed a ferocious downpour, and the National Weather Service warned of possible 80 mph winds in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park.

Almost 400,000 homes and businesses were without power in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan late Thursday, according to tracking website poweroutage.us, and around 181,000 of those customers left in the dark were in Michigan.

There were 12 reports of tornadoes in the region, mostly in Wisconsin, according to the National Weather Service. Storm survey teams typically later confirm whether they were tornadoes.

Hail the size of hen eggs, or around 2 inches in diameter, was reported in the Madison, Wisconsin, area.

Another round of thunderstorms is possible Friday afternoon for from the Upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes region, to Mid-Mississippi Valley and Ohio Valley and Tennessee Valley regions, the weather service said.

Thunderstorms, large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes are possible, the agency said.

Bruce Springsteen delivered stinging criticism of the Trump administration at the opening show of his British tour, accusing its officials of authoritarianism, rolling back civil rights and illegal deportations.

Springsteen, 75, a prominent liberal who has long supported Democratic presidential candidates including former Vice President Kamala Harris, made the remarks at a concert in Manchester, England, on Wednesday that was the first in his “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour.

“The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of  rock ’n’ roll in dangerous times,” he said to roars from the crowd.

“In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”

Springsteen then asked supporters of democracy to “raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!” before beginning the show.

Later in the performance, he described what he saw happening in the United States under President Donald Trump.

“They are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent,” Springsteen said in his remarks, a transcript and video of which were later posted on his website and YouTube channel.

He also accused the Trump administration of “abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death” and “taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers.”

“They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just and plural society,” Springsteen said. “They’re abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom.”

“They’re defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands. They’re removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons.”

Springsteen also said most elected representatives had failed to protect Americans “from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government.”

Still, he said, “The America that I’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real, and regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people.”

“So we’ll survive this moment,” he added.

The White House said in a statement that “the 77 million Americans that elected President Trump disagree with elitist and out-of-touch celebrities like Bruce Springsteen. Bruce is welcome to stay overseas while hardworking Americans enjoy a secure border and cooling inflation thanks to President Trump.”

This is not the first time Springsteen has publicly criticized Trump, calling him “a flagrant toxic narcissist” before his election in 2016.

Springsteen is known for albums that celebrate and critically examine American ideals, most notably his 1984 album “Born in the U.S.A.,” in which he criticized the Vietnam War and the subsequent treatment of American veterans.

He is set to debut 83 previously unreleased songs in late June, 74 of which have never been heard before by the public.

Members of the railroad engineers union for New Jersey Transit went on strike right after midnight Friday morning, crippling a system that around 350,000 people rely on, officials said.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen said that its around 450 members in New Jersey Transit were walking off the job at 12:01 a.m., in a dispute over pay.

Around an hour before that deadline, Gov. Phil Murphy and New Jersey Transit President & CEO Kris Kolluri told reporters that they wanted a fair deal for the union.

But they also said that they could not agree to a preferential deal that would cause the other unions in the transit system to demand the same, which Murphy said would cause costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

New Jersey Transit “is facing a sobering fiscal reality,” Murphy said.

The union cited low pay as a top issue.

It said that its members at New Jersey Transit are the lowest-paid locomotive engineers of any major passenger railroads in the country.

“They have gone without a raise for six years and have been seeking a new contract since October 2019,” the union said.

New Jersey Transit said that the strike could affect 350,000 people per day, and MetLife Stadium this week warned that there would be no New Jersey Transit bus or rail service for Shakira concerts Thursday and Friday.

The union said that picket lines were set to begin at 4 a.m. Friday, including at Penn Station in Manhattan.

The union said that the transit agency has millions to spend on a new headquarters in Newark and gave up millions in a fare holiday last year.

“They have money for penthouse views and pet projects, just not for their front-line workers,” BLET National President Mark Wallace said in a statement. “Enough is enough. We will stay out until our members receive the fair pay that they deserve.”

Murphy and Kolluri said they are open to continue negotiations at any time. They urged people able to work from home Friday to do so, and said there would be extra bus service and additional park-and-ride areas.

Amtrak and PATH trains, and buses are still running.

The last time there was a strike at New Jersey Transit was in 1983, more than 40 years ago.

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he told Apple CEO Tim Cook that he doesn’t want the tech giant to build its products in India, taking shots at the company’s moves to diversify production away from China and urging him to pivot stateside.

“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump said. “I said to him, ‘Tim, you’re my friend, I’ve treated you very good. You’re coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you’re building all over India. I don’t want you building in India.’”

Trump was referencing Apple’s commitment of a $500 billion investment in the U.S. which was announced in February.

Apple has been ramping up production in India with the aim of making around 25% of global iPhones in the country in the next few years, as it looks to reduce reliance on China, where around 90% of its flagship smartphone is currently assembled.

“I said to Tim, I said, ‘Tim, look, we’ve treated you really good, we’ve put up with all the plants that you built in China for years, now you’ve got to build us. We’re not interested in you building in India, India can take care of themselves … we want you to build here,’” Trump said.

The U.S. president added that Apple is going to be “upping” its production in the United States, without disclosing further details.

CNBC has reached out to Apple for comment.

Trump made the comments about the U.S. tech giant while discussing Washington’s broader trade relations with India.

Trump said India is “one of the highest tariff nations in the world,” adding the country has offered a deal to the U.S. where “they’re willing to literally charge us no tariff.”

Under the White House’s trade protectionist policies revealed in April, Trump has imposed a so-called reciprocal tariff of 26% on Indian goods, which has been temporarily lowered until July.

Apple’s main assembly partner in India, Foxconn, received approval from the Indian government on Monday to build a semiconductor plant in the country in a joint venture with HCL Group.

Apple has spent decades building up its supply chain in China, but has looked to other countries like Vietnam and India to expand its production capacity.

Experts generally agree that moving production of the iPhone to the U.S. would be highly unlikely because of the final price of the end product. Varying estimates put the cost of an iPhone between $1,500 to $3,500, if it were made in the U.S.

Apple currently makes very few products in the U.S. The Cupertino, California, giant produces the Mac Pro in the U.S. In February, it announced it would launch a manufacturing facility in Texas to produce servers for Apple Intelligence, its artificial intelligence system.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — An American basketball player for the Indonesian league was arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle illegal drugs to the country, police said Thursday.

The Southeast Asian country has extremely strict drug laws, and convicted smugglers are sometimes executed by firing squad.

Jarred Dwayne Shaw, 34, from Dallas, Texas, was arrested May 7, after police raided his apartment in Tangerang regency, just outside the capital, Jakarta, and seized 132 pieces of cannabis candies, said Ronald Sipayung, the Soekarno-Hatta Airport police chief.

The arrest followed a tip from the airport’s customs that reported Shaw had received a suspicious airway package from Thailand, Sipayung said. Cannabis has been decriminalized in Thailand since 2022. Under Indonesia’s anti-drug laws, Shaw faces up to life in prison or the death penalty if found guilty, Sipayung said.

A video circulating on social media purportedly showed Shaw, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts, resisting as he was being pushed away by police and shouting “Help … help!” when he was about to be arrested.

Shaw has played for several clubs in the Indonesian Basketball League since 2022, and signed a contract with Tangerang Hawk last year. He told police during interrogation that he wanted to share the cannabis candy with fellow basketball players, according to Sipayung.

He said the candy contained a total gross weight of 869 grams (30.6 ounces) of illegal cannabinoid inside a package.

“We are still running the investigation to uncover the international drugs network behind this case and to stop its distribution,” Sipayung said.

Shaw did not make any statement when he was presented by the authorities at a news conference Wednesday wearing a detainee orange T-shirt and a mask with his hands tied.

The Tangerang Hawks’ manager, Tikky Suwantikno, told reporters on Thursday that they regretted what had been done by Shaw and that the club had immediately fired him because he had breached his contract.

The Indonesian Basketball League banned Shaw from playing for life, said its chair, Budisatrio Djiwandono.

“We don’t tolerate players, administrators or anyone in the field involved in drugs. There is no room for drug users in the basketball world,” Djiwandono said.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug-smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.

About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including 96 foreigners, according to data from the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections. Indonesia’s last executions, of an Indonesian and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.

It had the makings of a significant news event — the first public appearance of a former U.S. attorney who resigned in protest after defying the Trump administration. But the panel featuring Danielle Sassoon proved most notable for how careful she and a famed former New York prosecutor were in avoiding any direct remarks about the president or his Justice Department.

The New York City Bar Association event underscored the unease, public silence and caution hovering over much of the legal community four months into Donald Trump’s second term as president. A former federal prosecutor who now works at a large law firm summed up the dynamic in one word: “Fear.”

“People are keeping their heads down,” said the lawyer, who asked not to be named due to fear of retaliation from Trump. “Scared of being audited. Scared of being investigated. The federal government is very powerful.”

Sassoon was the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan until February, when she resigned rather than carry out orders from Trump appointees in the Justice Department to drop federal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. A half dozen other federal prosecutors in New York and Washington subsequently refused to drop the charges and resigned in one of the highest-profile public rebukes of a president since Watergate.

On Tuesday, a dozen reporters and a smattering of camera crews descended on the New York City Bar Association’s majestic, six-story neoclassical headquarters. A routine continuing legal education event focused on female lawyers specializing in white-collar crime drew attention for one reason: Sassoon.

In a blue carpeted meeting room lined with mahogany walls and portraits of Supreme Court justices, Sassoon was scheduled to conduct a 45-minute “fireside chat” with Mary Jo White, the first woman to serve as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Known as an aggressive prosecutor with an independent streak, White oversaw the prosecutions of organized crime leader John Gotti and the leaders of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Jenna Dabbs, herself a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan, introduced Sassoon and White and thanked Sassoon for attending the session weeks after giving birth to her third child. Sassoon, dressed in black pants and a black vest, thanked her.

Dabbs then came the closest of any speaker to directly addressing the unprecedented events occurring in the Justice Department under the second Trump administration. She praised Sassoon’s brief tenure as the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, which handles cases in Manhattan, the Bronx and part of Westchester County, as “principled, courageous and brave.”

In a protest letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Sassoon had said that Adams’ lawyer had proposed what amounted to a “quid pro quo.” Federal prosecutors would drop graft charges against Adams in exchange for Adams’ cooperation in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. After Bondi declined to meet with her, Sassoon resigned.

Dabbs said Sassoon had “upheld the oath” she had taken to defend the Constitution. “She acquitted herself in a manner reflective of the finest traditions of that office, regrettably at some personal cost,” Dabbs said.

After a warm round of applause, Sassoon asked White about the role mentors had played in her career. White responded that Sassoon herself was now a role model. “You’re that right now,” White said. “You’re an extraordinary lawyer and you’re the epitome of integrity and strength.”

White then thanked Sassoon for her conduct in the Adams case without naming Adams, Bondi or Trump. “You didn’t choose to deal with what you had to deal with,” White said. “But how you handled that was exceptional, and I thank you.”

Sassoon asked White if she came under political pressure during her tenure in 1990s.

“There’s obviously a spotlight right now on the relationship between the White House, the DOJ, SDNY, after what happened in the SDNY when I was there — the relationship between politics and prosecution,” Sassoon said. “How is it different from when you were U.S. attorney?”

White responded carefully and again did not name Trump, Bondi or Adams. “It’s always been an issue,” she said. Speaking in broad strokes, she said the independence of the Southern District, which earned the moniker the “Sovereign District,” had “served the public interest very well.”

Asked by Sassoon whether she had any advice for people who serve as U.S. attorneys, White was blunt but vague. “You should be prepared to resign two or three times,” she said, prompting laughter from the crowd. But White declined to say exactly why she had threatened to resign.

In response to a question from Sassoon about what kind of investigations white-collar defense lawyers could expect, White expressed concern about the DOJ “Weaponization Working Group” established by Bondi, which critics say is an effort by Trump to take revenge on his perceived enemies.

Again speaking in general terms, White invoked a famed 1940 speech by Attorney General Robert Jackson where he warned federal prosecutors never to abuse their “immense power” by targeting individuals for political or personal reasons. “If you ever turn to focusing on a person and trying to find a crime, you’ve lost your way,” said White.

When Sassoon asked the audience for questions, it quickly became clear that White, not Sassoon, would respond. White answered several questions in general terms and again shied away from mentioning Trump by name.

Asked by a reporter if she had any comment on Bondi’s tenure as attorney general, White replied, “I do not.” With that, the event ended.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service are investigating a social media post by former FBI Director James Comey that several U.S. officials interpreted as calling for the assassination of President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday.

In a now-deleted post on Instagram, Comey shared a photo of what he described as a “shell formation” on a beach that formed the numbers “8647.” The post was swiftly condemned by administration officials, Republican lawmakers and Trump allies who said it blatantly targeted Trump, the 47th president of the United States.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “eighty-six” can informally mean “to get rid of.”

“Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump,” Noem wrote on X. “DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”

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A spokesperson for the Secret Service, which is part of DHS, said the agency “vigorously investigates anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees.”

“We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI director and we take rhetoric like this very seriously. Beyond that, we do not comment on protective intelligence matters,” Anthony Guglielmi, the agency’s chief of communications said in a statement.

Taylor Budowich, a White House deputy chief of staff, accused Comey of putting out “what can clearly be interpreted as a hit on the sitting president of the United States.”

“This is deeply concerning to all of us and is being taken seriously,” Budowich wrote on X.

The president’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr. accused Comey of “causally calling for my dad to be murdered.”

Comey denied that his post was meant as a threat, saying in a statement that he was unaware people linked the specific numeric arrangement with violence.

“I didn’t realize some folks associate it with violence. That didn’t occur to me when I saw it but I am opposed to violence in all circumstances so I took it down,” he said.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., called for Comey to be arrested, while Chris LaCivita, Trump’s former campaign manager, said he would have had Comey’s home raided over the post.

FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau is prepared to “provide all necessary support” to the Secret Service, which holds primary jurisdiction over the investigation.

Comey was only four years into a 10-year term when Trump fired him in May 2017.

Under Comey, the FBI opened an investigation into allegations that members of Trump’s 2016 campaign had contact with Russian entities. Trump fired Comey months after that investigation was made public and hinted that the probe was among the factors that led to Comey’s termination.

The primary motive for his dismissal, the White House said at the time, was a conclusion by senior Justice Department officials that Comey bungled an investigation into 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.

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