Europe has been dancing on the edge of a knife, flirting with notions of war with a battle hardened Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.  As these tensions escalate, questions are being raised about the actual combat readiness and capabilities of countries that have relied on the US for their security for so long.

The primary division between the Trump Administration and NATO countries, the thing that started it all, was the initial refusal of so many of them to pay their fair share for defense.  Currently, most NATO members budget around 2% of their GDP to defense under the NATO treaty.  When asked to budget 5%, European governments became indignant, only agreeing to meet the target in a decade.

In an interesting recent admission from The Telegraph, Tom Tugendhat, a British MP and former security minister, argues that the UK simply lacks the independent military capabilities needed to pull off a rescue operation of one of their own airman similar to the recent US operation in Iran.  He says that if one of their pilots needed to be saved, they would have to ask the US to do it.  

“We do not have the platforms, the satellites, the reach or the mass. Our rescue plan, if the airman were British, would be to call the U.S.”

Tugendhat warned about the situation in Iran in March, saying he had questions as to why Prime Minister Keir Starmer failed to deploy appropriate air defense assets in the region to protect UK citizens and allies from missile and drone strikes.  Starmer is facing mounting criticism for his delay in deploying the HMS Dragon to Cyprus, following an attack on UK base RAF Akrotiri. 

Expressing his dismay at the lack of protection for British personnel, Tugendhat told GB News:

“My take is pretty simple – we may not have agreed with the initial decision to strike, that’s an American and Israeli decision…But I see absolutely no reason why we didn’t have assets in the region, why we didn’t have Type 45 destroyers in the region to protect our citizens and our allies. It’s baffling to me.”

Beyond their heavy reliance on the US and Europe’s lack of military spending, Europe is facing a crisis of public confidence. European military readiness has been exposed in the past few years as severely lacking, and a core problem these governments refuse to address is the fact that most young men simply don’t want to fight for them.  In other words, in a voluntary system the governments and the countries in question need to hold similar values to the men they want to send into battle. 

With far-left progressive elements holding power across Europe, this is simply not the case.  So, their only option is to force a draft. 

Several senior UK officials and MPs have publicly entertained or discussed the possibility of forced conscription (a military draft) as something that the government might implement in the event of a major war.  UK military recruitment is far below requirements with the Army and Royal Navy consistently hitting only 60% of their personnel goals. 

Dr. Mike Martin, a Liberal Democrat MP and former British Army officer, stated in March 2025 that if the UK became involved in a general war with Russia, “we’ll be conscripting the population – there’s no question about that.” He described it as something Britain “must be prepared” for, given the significant risk of wider conflict.  Notions of an incoming draft have been a major topic in the British media for the past couple years. 

The suspicion is that the establishment is acclimating the public to the idea over time, getting them ready to accept it as inevitable.  

Germany is creating the framework for a draft right now.  As of January 1, 2026, German men aged 17 to 45 must obtain “permission” from a Bundeswehr Career Center before traveling abroad for more than three months.  They witnessed what happened in Ukraine at the start of the war with Russia; millions of young men fled the country to avoid conscription.  Germany is establishing loss prevention, clearly planning for a near term clash with the Russians. 

One strange narrative that has been circulating on social media is the argument among Europeans that the US “wasted” millions of dollars in military equipment in their successful mission to rescue “just one” wounded airman.  The operation included special forces landing two MC-130s on a makeshift landing strip right under the nose of the IRGC and securing the area for the extraction of the stranded airman.  The planes became stuck in the sand and had to be destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of the Iranians.  

It’s highly revealing that this sacrifice of equipment for the sake of saving a lost soldier is confusing to many Europeans.  It shows that they can’t comprehend the idea of a government that would actually care enough to save them rather than throw them to the wolves.  In other words, there is no loyalty on either side of the equation and Europe’s weaknesses go well beyond the political.  

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

On both sides of the Franco-German border, the same problem persists: overburdened and reform-averse politicians struggle against a rapidly accelerating debt spiral. Their preferred tool: higher levies.

Last week, France’s Finance Minister Roland Lescure reported a revision of the projected budget deficit for the current year.

Initial estimates for 2026 had suggested a deficit well above five percent. Yet numerous fiscal measures brought last year’s deficit down to 5.1%. For 2026, the Finance Ministry expects it to stabilize at around five percent—provided the ongoing energy crisis and the war in Iran do not cast a lasting shadow over the year, and the economy does not abruptly collapse.

With total public debt at roughly 115% of GDP, France cannot possibly meet the Maastricht criteria under this level of new borrowing.

Do restrictive fiscal rules, such as the increasingly fading Maastricht criteria, even matter anymore in the Eurozone? It’s a rhetorical question: public spending dynamics are no longer controllable. One could also say: EU nations have entered a phase of fiscal fatalism.

After a 4% increase in government spending in 2024, outlays rose again last year, this time by 2.5%. The state apparatus continues to expand, regardless of the dramatic debt levels, pushing the public-sector share of GDP to 57%.

Similar to Germany, this figure does not account for the bureaucratic overhead borne by the private sector on behalf of the increasingly feudal state. Hundreds of thousands of private-sector jobs exist solely to fulfill government reporting and compliance obligations.

Massive Tax Hikes

Meanwhile, the French government remains stuck in its involuntary role as a reform-incapable instrument of the crumbling status quo. Parliament’s majority arithmetic leaves it paralyzed. A reform process to shrink the welfare state, reduce the massive bureaucracy, and achieve sustainable budget management is now completely out of reach for Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s minority government.

Every administration supported by President Emmanuel Macron functions as a placeholder, interchangeable and powerless in a parliamentary arithmetic deadlock. Macron, facing dramatically poor approval ratings as a sort of “president without a people,” knows the fragility of France’s public finances and can at least rely on one thing: a broad political alliance capable of delivering temporary relief through tax hikes.

In Paris, as in much of the EU, policymakers are staunch etatists—staunchly loyal to the state and simultaneously hungry for power—making a large government apparatus serve their interests.

Over the past two years, France has cranked up the tax screws: a minimum rate for top incomes above €250,000, an increase in property wealth taxes, and a rise in corporate taxes for larger firms, yielding up to €6 billion in additional annual revenue.

New levies on higher dividend payouts and large corporate stock buybacks have been introduced. A Tobin-style financial transaction tax is planned to hit wealthy shareholders. Energy and environmental levies have also risen. As with tobacco and alcohol, the message is clear: “We tax luxury and the rich.”

This creates the impression of socially just taxation, while distracting from the fundamental problem: the expanding state, a European disease driving the continent into turbulence.

Where the Journey Leads

France illustrates both the mechanics and potential timeline of the emerging national debt crisis. Through intensive public-relations work and the backing of state-aligned media, politicians cultivate the impression of massive social imbalances. Punchline: societal decay and poverty, up to the misery of public finances, are the undeniable result of capitalist plunder.

The only functioning corrective to this systemic injustice comes from the benevolent, balancing state, stepping in to deliver fiscal transfers and enforce a form of justice.

In the sticky rhetoric of “justice,” the government conceals its complete failure—whether in border policy, over-bureaucratization, or the naive belief in a centrally planned economy. The result is a lifeless economy, which in France fares no better than in Germany. Only in energy has the importance of nuclear power been recognized—a wise choice, securing significant advantages for French industry.

Fiscal policy in Paris and Berlin now moves hand in hand toward the fiscal inferno. Berlin delayed necessary action by two years, but 2026 promises to be a year of major shocks. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is expected to raise both inheritance tax and the top income tax rate.

Options on the tax roulette wheel include a two-percentage-point hike in VAT and the end of spousal income splitting—measures particularly cherished by the political left in its ongoing attack on the remnants of the bourgeois family sphere.

The CDU’s participation in this scheme, leveling itself with other socialist parties in the Bundestag, reveals the intellectual and ethical erosion of a party led to the threshold of socialism by Angela Merkel and now finally pushed over by Friedrich Merz.

From general political-ideological mismanagement emerges a crisis-management strategy. Germany and France offer clues about fiscal trajectories in the coming years.

In short: the state will feed off the shrinking economic substance, masking its failures with higher levies while postponing necessary reforms.

This has immediate consequences for capital markets. If the sell-off of European sovereign bonds continues, the European Central Bank will have to intervene to prevent the public debt Ponzi scheme from collapsing.

This trend is highly inflationary and accelerates the process of social and economic erosion. Those capable of cutting the Gordian knot of Europe’s complex fiscal entanglement remain, for now, on the sidelines.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe is a German graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination

Authored by Charles Davis via The Epoch Times,

On a Tuesday night in a dorm room, a student opens TikTok for a “five-minute break.”

The first clip is a montage of rubble and sirens.

The second is a professor-style explainer, neatly captioned, delivering a single moral conclusion.

The third is a shaky phone video of a confrontation on another campus—shouts, police lights, a crowd surging like weather.

The student doesn’t search for any of it.

They don’t even follow the accounts.

The feed arrives already confident about what matters.

This is the political technology of our moment: the system that decides—thousands of times a day—what you see next.

The Influence Stack

For most of the past century, influence meant broadcasting. You bought a newspaper, aired a radio spot, printed leaflets, argued in the town square. Feedback was slow, indirect, and expensive.

Today, influence runs on a different stack. It is microtargeting—figuring out which slice of the population to target. It is recommender distribution—determining what to place in front of the target group and in what sequence. It is measurement of effects—watch time, rewatches, scroll-hesitation, comments, shares. And it is iteration—rapidly adjusting what works and discarding what doesn’t.

Once those pieces lock together, persuasion stops looking like a party debate. It takes on the appearance of a thermostat: sense the room, nudge the temperature, sense again.

Microtargeting Didn’t Begin With TikTok

Microtargeting is older than the smartphone feed. 

Campaigns have long merged voter files with consumer and demographic data, then tailored appeals to specific segments. What changed, especially by the early 2010s, was tempo: the ability to see what’s working while the moment is still unfolding.

The Obama campaign’s 2012 digital operation offers a useful bridge between the older world and the current one. Their teams watched web behavior in near real time and used it for rapid response. During a presidential debate, when then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said “binders full of women,” the campaign immediately bought search ads keyed to the phrase and linked to a fact sheet; the campaign’s digital lead described an “immediate uptick in both traffic and engagement” from users searching that term.

That isn’t TikTok. It’s still the open web—search, ads, landing pages. But the shift shows a new logic: observe behavior as it happens, then redirect attention before the story cools. Strike while the iron is hot.

Algorithmic platforms industrialize that loop. Microtargeting is not about “who gets which mailer.” It becomes a live system, stitched to distribution and feedback. Different demographics can be shown targeted versions of the same reality, and the system learns—at scale—how each group responds.

And “response” doesn’t require explicit agreement. It can be attention, arousal, and volatility: two extra seconds of watch time, a rewatch, a comment typed in anger and posted, a share to a group chat.

Ranking Systems Don’t Just Reflect Preference. They Shape It.

We don’t have to guess whether ranking changes what people see. Researchers have tested it inside platforms.

A large-scale study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) drew on a “massive-scale randomized experiment” on X, then known as Twitter, that assigned a randomized control group—nearly two million daily active accounts—to a reverse-chronological feed “free of algorithmic personalization,” precisely so the effects of ranking could be measured. The authors reported measurable differences in “algorithmic amplification” across political actors in multiple countries.

That’s the key: ranking is an intervention. When a system orders content, it decides what becomes salient, what feels common to particular groups, what appears urgent, and what fades. Political power can emerge even when nobody writes a manifesto inside the company. The feed trains the user. It is an environment, and environments shape behavior.

This is also why the public debate so often misses the point.

People argue as if the only question is whether a platform “censors” a viewpoint or “pushes propaganda.” Those concerns matter. They just sit on top of a deeper mechanism: the simple act of ranking, repeated billions of times, changes what societies talk about.

Measurement: The Hidden Power Is the Dashboard

The influence stack is powered by dashboards.

A broadcaster might learn weeks later whether a message landed. A platform learns in minutes whether a clip increased retention among 19-year-olds in a specific place, at a given hour, after a strategically set sequence of prior videos.

This creates a persuasion capability that older institutions weren’t built to match: rapid experimentation on human attention. Content becomes a hypothesis. The audience becomes a living lab. The system keeps what works.

Universities update policy once a semester. Newsrooms adjust framing over days. Legislatures move over months. The feed scope and focus can pivot before lunch.

Why Anger Wins Inside the Loop

A hard truth about the influence stack is that not all emotions travel equally well through it. High-arousal emotions move faster because they prompt action.

In a landmark study of sharing, Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman found that virality is linked to physiological arousal: content that evokes high-arousal emotions, including anger and anxiety, is more likely to spread than content that evokes low-arousal emotions like sadness.

Politics adds another accelerant: moral emotion. A PNAS study analyzing large datasets of social media debate found that moral-emotional language increases diffusion; in their sample, each additional moral-emotional word in a message was associated with a substantial increase in sharing.

And anger has particular advantages in networked environments. A computational analysis of Weibo found anger to be more “contagious” than joy and more able to travel along weaker social ties—meaning it can move beyond a tight-knit group and spill into wider communities.

Put those together and the targeting logic becomes almost mechanical. Anger keeps people watching. It increases the odds they’ll share. It tends to bridge out of local clusters into broader networks. In an engagement-optimized system, anger is not just a feeling. It’s a distribution advantage.

Iteration: How Talking Points Come Back as Optimized Themes

And then there is the old broadcast trick—the repeated phrase, the tagline, the talking point—reappearing in new clothes.

In television news, theming worked because repetition makes ideas feel common. In the influence stack, the system tests variations. It monitors the retention curve, watches share velocity and comment intensity. The phrases that survive are the ones that travel and harden into slogans that feel “everywhere,” because the platform has learned exactly where “everywhere” is.

This is how a moral frame becomes a transport mechanism. A short phrase is easy to caption, easy to hashtag, easy to stitch and remix. It is also easy for the system to recognize and route toward audiences that have historically responded to that emotional key.

The Verification Problem

A second political fact of the influence stack is that outsiders struggle to verify what’s happening in real time.

Platforms point to transparency and researcher access. While those programs are meaningful; sometimes they lag the speed of events. The influence stack’s advantage is velocity in a world of slow oversight. When you can’t see the full system—distribution weights, downranking rules, recommendation pathways, enforcement decisions—you can’t reliably separate organic waves from algorithmically amplified waves, or evaluate whether interventions were neutral or asymmetrical.

What This Series Will Do

Over the next installments, we’ll walk up the stack.

We’ll examine emotion recognition and why even flawed affect inference can be dangerous when institutions treat outputs as truth. We’ll look at China’s operational model—identity resolution plus sensor coverage plus data fusion—and why architecture matters more than any single sensor. We’ll treat TikTok as a distribution layer where iteration is fast and verification is hard. Then we’ll apply the framework to a test case Americans lived through: the surge of campus protest dynamics during the Gaza war, what we can measure, and what we cannot responsibly claim.

The point isn’t to reduce genuine political conviction to “the algorithm did it.” People protest for real reasons. Institutions fail for real reasons. But in a world where attention is programmable, it becomes reckless to pretend the feed is only entertainment.

The influence stack doesn’t replace politics. It changes the temperature at which politics happens.

And once you see it, the question stops being whether a single video “caused” anything.

The question becomes: who controls the thermostat—and who gets to audit it?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Bojan Stojovski via Interesting Engineering,

A new handheld coil gun developed in China is designed for discreet, non-lethal use, including law enforcement operations, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Capable of firing between 1,000 and 2,000 rounds per minute, the weapon can penetrate wooden boards from distances of several dozen yards. Its adjustable power settings allow it to incapacitate rather than kill when set lower.

The compact electromagnetic launcher features a 12-inch barrel and is light enough to be comfortably held and operated with one hand, allowing for greater mobility and ease of use in tight or urban environments where traditional firearms or larger coil guns would be cumbersome.

Equipped with a laser pointer for improved accuracy, the device – also called a Gauss gun – uses electromagnetic coils to accelerate metal projectiles at high speeds, miniaturizing technology previously limited to larger military systems.

Merging stealth and increased destructive power

The latest Chinese handheld coil gun offers a stealthy alternative to traditional firearms, producing no muzzle flash or smoke, minimal noise, and no ejected shell casings. These features make it particularly suited for covert operations, according to Chinese media. 

The showcased model represents an upgrade from last year’s test version, featuring a slightly longer barrel and the ability to fire larger, heavier projectiles. While its rate of fire is somewhat slower, the weapon delivers significantly greater kinetic energy and destructive force, increasing its impact per shot, the South China Morning Post reported.

The weapon is equipped with an electronic display that provides real-time information on battery life, ammunition count, and firing modes. Operators can adjust the electric current to control output power, allowing them to vary projectile speed depending on the target’s distance and situational conditions.

This feature enables the coil gun to deliver precise, controlled force, allowing operators to tailor each shot to the situation. By adjusting power and projectile speed, the weapon can incapacitate or deter targets effectively while significantly reducing the risk of fatal injury, making it suitable for law enforcement, crowd control, or other scenarios where non-lethal force is preferred.

Portable coil gun could supplement traditional firearms 

The coil gun’s design places a detachable magazine behind its centrally positioned grip, allowing the electromagnetic coils to run the full length of the chassis. This layout maximizes projectile acceleration while keeping the weapon compact and easy to handle. 

Currently, the portable device is intended mainly for specialised non-lethal scenarios, limited by battery output. However, as battery technology advances, the weapon could see broader applications, potentially supplementing or even replacing traditional firearms in certain combat situations, offering a new form of precision, low-visibility firepower on the battlefield.

China has been advancing larger-scale electromagnetic weaponry as well. In 2023, the PLA Naval University of Engineering reportedly tested what is believed to be the world’s most powerful coil gun, capable of launching a 273-pound projectile at speeds reaching 435 miles per hour. 

Beijing is also advancing railgun technology, a type of electromagnetic weapon that propels projectiles along a pair of parallel rails at extreme speeds, while promising higher velocity and longer range than conventional guns, potentially transforming naval and land-based combat. 

By Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com

The premiums for U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude have soared in the spot market to a record high of between $30 and $40 per barrel above key regional benchmarks as Asia and Europe scramble for supply amid the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

WTI Midland is being offered for July delivery in north Asia at premiums of between $30 and $40 per barrel, depending on the benchmark against which they are marked, trading sources told Reuters on Monday.

“Asian refiners, shut out of Middle Eastern supply, are bidding aggressively for ​every available Atlantic Basin barrel,” said Paola Rodriguez-Masiu, chief oil analyst at Rystad Energy, in a note dated April 3.

With most of the Middle Eastern supply still trapped at Hormuz and all Gulf producers slashing upstream production in response to the closed Strait, competition for barrels from other producers has become fierce and has pushed premiums higher and higher.

WTI Midland is offered to North Asia at a premium of $34 per barrel over the Dubai benchmark, a trader told Reuters. Another trade source said there are also offers of WTI Midland priced $30 per barrel above Dated Brent. There have been offers at nearly $40 a barrel above ICE Brent for August delivery, additional sources told Reuters.

The offers for spot WTI Midland have jumped in recent days from around $20 per barrel premium for cargoes sold at the end of March.

U.S. crude has become prized oil supply in the absence of free flows from the Middle East. As a result, the price of the WTI Crude futures benchmark soared past Brent Crude futures at the end of last week.

WTI Crude rarely trades at a premium to Brent. Brent crude reflects seaborne crude and typically leads during global supply shocks, while WTI crude is usually discounted.

As Julianne Geiger noted, part of the move is technical: WTI’s front-month contract reflects May delivery, while Brent has already rolled to June, skewing the headline spread.

Month-matched spread…

But the deeper driver is extreme prompt pressure – WTI backwardation has surged to record levels – signaling immediate demand for secure, deliverable barrels.

With rising uncertainty around global shipping routes, WTI has effectively gained a “security premium,” narrowing and even reversing its usual discount to Brent.

The current inversion points to a breakdown in normal pricing signals tied to physical flows.

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez and Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts this term have focused on illegal immigrants with criminal histories.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made about 379,000 arrests from Jan. 20, 2025, through Jan. 20, 2026, and the administration has maintained that the majority involved those with criminal arrests or convictions.

Tricia McLaughlin, former assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said last year that 70 percent of ICE arrests were of criminal illegal aliens who had been charged or convicted of a crime in the United States. According to acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, last year’s arrests included more than 7,300 suspected gang members and 1,400 known or suspected terrorists.

In December, DHS launched its Worst of the Worst searchable database of criminal illegal immigrants taken off the streets. The database, which currently lists more than 30,800 entries, allows visitors to search for those arrested across all 50 states with criminal histories that include homicide, assault, rape, drug trafficking, crimes against children, assault, armed robbery, and others.

President Donald Trump signs the Laken Riley Act in the East Room of the White House on Jan. 29, 2025. The Laken Riley Act, which mandates the detention of illegal immigrants charged with theft-related crimes, is named for a 22-year-old student murdered by a Venezuelan national with no legal papers who was wanted for shoplifting. Pedro Ugarte/AFP via Getty Images

Here is a sampling of 10 violent criminal illegal immigrant arrests in 2025 and early 2026.

Indecency With a Child

On Feb. 18, 2025, ICE arrested Guatemalan national Sostenes Pérez-López in Brighton, Massachusetts.

According to a Boston Police report, a mother and her daughter encountered Pérez-López at a laundromat on Nov. 23, 2024.

The young girl was drawing at a table near the laundromat’s entrance when Pérez-López approached her. Later, the mother noticed her daughter with an unknown man and went to her, at which point Pérez-López spoke to her in Spanish.

“Your daughter is very pretty,” he said. “They are going to steal her.”

When asked who was going to steal her daughter, Pérez-López responded, “The dogs,” and left the laundromat.

The girl later told her mother that Pérez-López had inappropriately touched her.

Local human trafficking and sexual assault investigators obtained a photo of the man from the surveillance video inside the laundromat and identified Pérez-López as the suspect on Nov. 27.

Pérez-López went to a police station after he was identified and asked to speak with investigators, according to the police report. He told detectives he was at the laundromat that day and saw a girl he believed to be about 5 years old standing by herself.

He instructed the girl to come to him, then told police that he put his left arm around her waist, “pulled her closer to him,” and said, “Hola.”

Pérez-López told police the girl “just looked up at the brim of his white cowboy hat” without speaking to him. He denied speaking to the girl’s mother.

ICE officers arrest Guatemalan national Sostenes Perez-Lopez during an enforcement operation in Brighton, Mass., on Feb. 18, 2025. Perez-Lopez was charged with two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, according to ICE. Department of Homeland Security

Pérez-López was arrested and charged with two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 on Nov. 28, 2024, according to ICE, which lodged an immigration detainer against him following his arrest.

​The Boston Municipal Court, Brighton Division, arraigned Pérez-López on Nov. 29, 2024, but ignored the ICE detainer and released him on bail on Dec. 12, 2024.

Pérez-López was served with a notice to appear before a Department of Justice immigration judge following his February arrest, and he remains in ICE custody.

20 Sex Crimes

On April 1, 2025, ICE and federal partners operating in Lawrence, Massachusetts, arrested Ecuadoran national Gilberto Avila-Jara, whose criminal history includes more than 20 sex crimes against a minor.

Avila-Jara allegedly illegally entered the United States near San Ysidro, California, on Feb. 10, 1996, and was arrested on March 2, 1996, at Los Angeles International Airport, according to ICE.

ICE officers arrest Ecuadoran national Gilberto Avila-Jara in Lawrence, Mass., on April 1, 2025. Avila-Jara faces more than 20 sex crime charges involving a minor. Department of Homeland Security

​​Avila-Jara was removed from the country in July 1996, but later illegally reentered on an unknown date.

​On Dec. 18, 2020, Avila-Jara was arraigned in Lawrence District Court for more than 20 offenses, including indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, rape of a child with force, and aggravated statutory rape of a child, according to ICE.

* * * Sale ends Friday

​On that same day in December, ICE Boston lodged an immigration detainer against Avila-Jara with the Lawrence Police Department. However, the court refused to honor the detainer and released Avila-Jara on bail on March 17, 2021.

On April 22, 2021, the Essex County Superior Court arraigned Avila-Jara for six counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, eight counts of rape of a child with force, and eight counts of aggravated statutory rape of a child.​

Murder and Assault

ICE arrested René Pop-Chub, a Guatemalan national who had pending charges for murder, second-degree assault, and reckless endangerment, in Hyattsville, Maryland, on April 12, 2025.

Pop-Chub was captured and subsequently removed by Border Patrol twice—once on June 13, 2013, in Falfurrias, Texas, and again on Dec. 11, 2017, in Cowlic, Arizona.

After illegally entering the United States for a third time, he was arrested on Aug. 19, 2024, by police in Maryland and charged with first-degree assault.

ICE officers arrest Guatemalan national Rene Pop-Chub in Hyattsville, Md., on April 12, 2025. Pop-Chub has pending charges for murder, second-degree assault, and reckless endangerment. Department of Homeland Security

ICE lodged a detainer with the Prince George’s County Department of Corrections on Oct. 9, 2024, but it was ignored, DHS said.

On Oct. 31 of that year, the District Court for Prince George’s County forwarded the case to the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County for the currently pending charges.

However, the district court refused to honor ICE’s immigration detainer and released Pop-Chub on April 8, 2025. He was arrested by ICE four days later.

Sex Offender Drags Officer

Mexican national Roberto Carlos Muñoz-Guatemala had a history of run-ins with the law dating back to 2010 before ICE agents caught up with him in Bloomington, Minnesota, during a traffic stop.

Muñoz-Guatemala had multiple driving offenses on his record and was previously convicted of domestic assault and a felony sex crime against an underage teenager, according to DHS.

Mexican national Roberto Carlos Munoz-Guatemala. Department of Homeland Security

In October 2022, Muñoz-Guatemala’s 16-year-old stepdaughter accused him of sexually abusing her for several months after her mother left to live with her new boyfriend, according to Minnesota court records.

The teen got proof of the abuse by propping her cell phone up on some schoolbooks and recording an incident, state court records show.

At the time of his 2022 arrest for sexual abuse, ICE issued a detainer, which was not honored by local authorities, and Muñoz-Guatemala was released from custody.

He was convicted of a felony sex crime and sentenced to 18 months in prison in October 2023, but was later released on supervised probation, according to state court records.

Three years later, when he was stopped by ICE, he refused to get out of the vehicle and allegedly tried to flee, dragging one of the officers some 50 yards.

Muñoz-Guatemala called Bloomington Police after fleeing, “claiming he was just assaulted” by ICE, court records read.

The officer recovered but was later involved in the Renee Good shooting. Good was protesting ICE and drove her vehicle toward the officer, striking him as he opened fire.

Federal immigration agents stand guard after one of their vehicles was involved in a crash while making an apprehension in St. Paul, Minn., on Jan. 31, 2026. Scott Olson/Getty Images

ICE first lodged a detainer on Muñoz-Guatemala in 2013.

Tren de Aragua Attack

Gabriel ​Hurtado-Cariaco, identified as a member of Venezuelan terrorist gang Tren de Aragua, first crossed the U.S. southern border illegally in 2023 and was removed. He tried again in 2024 and was released into the country under the Biden administration.

An ICE officer and FBI agent caught up with Hurtado-Cariaco outside an apartment complex in Bellevue, Nebraska, after authorities issued an arrest warrant for the man, who claims he was a first sergeant in the Venezuelan military from 2013 to 2018 before deserting.

Initially, Hurtado-Cariaco “signaled non-verbally” to the agents that he would comply as they approached to take him into custody. But the officers realized too late that it was a ruse.

With no warning, the alleged Venezuelan gang member crashed into one of the ICE officers, sending her flying. The pair hit the ground, and the ICE officer smacked her head and injured her elbow. She would later tell investigators that Hurtado Cariaco lured her in with his relaxed body language.

Federal officers arrest Gabriel Hurtado-Cariaco, an alleged member of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, in Nebraska on June 18, 2025. Hurtado-Cariaco was charged with attempted murder of a federal officer and assault on a federal officer. Department of Homeland Security

The alleged gang member then ripped off the officer’s body armor and continued the assault, according to DHS. He managed to get her in a chokehold and began to squeeze her neck.

The FBI officer was able to get Hurtado-Caiaco in a chokehold and applied “deadly force” to get him to release his grip on the officer. He turned the fight on the FBI agent but eventually fled.

The ICE officer and FBI agent gave chase, called for backup, and eventually made the arrest.

The ICE officer was hospitalized and treated for serious injuries to her head and arm. Hurtado-Cariaco was charged with attempted murder of a federal officer and assault of a federal officer.

10 Arrests, 19 charges

A Salvadorian national with a long rap sheet who was repeatedly released into local communities was taken off the streets by ICE in Fairfax County, Virginia, on Oct. 24, 2025.

Salvadoran national Jorge Armando Melendez-Gonzalez in Fairfax County, Va., on Oct. 24, 2025. Department of Homeland Security

Border Patrol arrested Jorge Armando Meléndez-González after he illegally entered the country on June 22, 2015, and refused to comply with a judicial removal order in October 2016, according to ICE.

Between March 19, 2018, and July 18, 2025, Meléndez-González was arrested 10 times and charged with 19 different crimes, including felony malicious wounding, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, assault and battery, grand larceny, trespassing, possessing a false identification, and public intoxication.

Just before 2 a.m. on Aug. 26, 2023, Fairfax County Police officers were called to a Merrifield, Virginia, parking lot, where they found two men suffering from gunshot wounds. One was shot in the arm and the other in the abdomen, according to a Fairfax County press release. Both were treated at a local hospital.

Almost two hours later, police received a 911 call from the hospital that a man had walked in with a gunshot wound to the arm.

As it turned out, Meléndez-González, who was living in Falls Church, Virginia, had approached a group of men who were standing in front of a business that night. One of the men assaulted Meléndez-González , who then opened fire into the crowd and fled, according to police.

​ICE in the District of Columbia said it lodged two immigration detainers against Meléndez-González with the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. One was issued on Aug. 28, 2023, and another on July 18, 2025.

Fairfax County officials refused to honor the detainers and released him, according to ICE.

Manager Protects Sex Offender​

A Minneapolis apartment manager tried to protect a 57-year-old Somali sex offender from arrest by blocking federal enforcement agents from entering the building on Jan. 7, 2026, according to ICE.

Mahad Abdulkadir Yusuf was eventually arrested at his Lake Street apartment after ICE launched a targeted enforcement operation to apprehend the longtime Minneapolis resident.

ICE officers conduct a targeted enforcement operation to arrest Somali national Mahad Abdulkadir Yusuf, a convicted sex offender, in Minneapolis on Dec. 31, 2025. Department of Homeland Security

Minnesota District Court records show that in June 2020, the Richfield Police Department was called to a long-term care facility in Hennepin County, where a 69-year-old woman accused Yusef of forcing her to perform sexual acts.

She told police that he had entered her room that night several times and had tried to force her to perform sexual acts in the past.

He was arrested on felony criminal sexual conduct charges but was convicted of misdemeanor nonconsensual sexual contact in 2023.

Yusuf was also arrested in 2016 for assault in the first degree and has an active warrant from 2024 for obstructing police.

He originally entered the United States in 1996 and was a lawful permanent resident, but “threw away his shot at the American dream by repaying our country’s generosity with these vicious crimes,” according to ICE.

​Stabbed in the Back

Honduran national Rafael Aguilar, who was charged with attempted murder and convicted of second-degree assault after stabbing a victim in the back on April 19, 2025, was picked up by ICE agents in Baltimore on Jan. 13, 2026.

Prince George’s County failed to honor an immigration detainer and instead released Aguilar back into the community on Jan. 6, according to ICE.

​He was initially charged with attempted second-degree murder. The county court system reduced the charge and sentenced him to 10 years in prison, but he served only 141 days before being released on probation.

Tren de Aragua Homicide

On Jan. 7, 2026, ICE officers in Dallas arrested Venezuelan national Alberth José Simancas-García, an alleged member of Tren de Aragua who was wanted in Peru.

In August last year, an immigration judge with the Dallas Executive Office for Immigration Review issued a final order of removal for Simancas-García. ​

In December, a Homeland Security Investigations task force in Dallas received information from its Houston office that Simancas-García was wanted in Peru for questioning relating to a homicide. Peruvian officials alleged he had committed additional violent crimes, including armed robbery, assault, and firearms violations.

(Left) ICE officers arrested Venezuelan national and alleged gang member Alberth Jose Simancas-Garcia in Dallas on Jan. 7, 2026. (Center) ICE agents in Baltimore arrested Honduran national Rafael Aguilar on Jan. 13, 2026. (Right) ICE arrested Guatemalan national Oscar Vasquez Lopez in Savannah, Ga., on Feb. 16, 2026. Department of Homeland Security

Deadly U-Turn

ICE attempted to arrest Oscar Vásquez López, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, under a final order of removal issued by a federal judge in 2024. ​During a Feb. 16, 2026, operation in Savannah, Georgia, officers saw López enter a vehicle and tried to detain him.

He initially stopped, but then allegedly fled the scene. He made an illegal U-turn, running a red light and colliding with a vehicle, killing the special education teacher driving. She was pronounced dead at the scene, ICE said.

López, who suffered only minor injuries, was charged by the Chatham County Police Department with vehicular homicide, according to ICE.

​“This vehicular homicide is an absolute tragedy and deadly consequence of politicians and the media constantly demonizing ICE officers and encouraging those here illegally to resist arrest—a felony,” McLaughlin said. “Now, an innocent bystander has lost their life.”

When the Ukraine war began over four years ago, North Korea only deepened its relations and defense cooperation with Moscow. Later into the conflict, it even sent thousands of troops to assist Russian military and security forces – and an undisclosed number of DPRK troops died or suffered wounds while fighting Ukraine.

When it comes to Iran, many pundits assumed Pyongyang might also do something similar in defense of Tehran, give the Middle East nation and fellow ‘rogue’ ally is under US and Israeli bombs; however, there are signs North Korea is actually distancing itself in this case.

Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) sees no evidence that North Korea has sent weapons or supplies to Tehran since since Trump’s Operation Epic Fury began, and is even remaining far away from such a move.

Lawmaker Park Sun-won, who attended a closed-door briefing held by the NIS, described Sunday that North Korea is not at all rushing to the Islamic Republic’s aid.

This is also consistent with the Kim Jong Un government’s public statements on the crisis, which have by and large been mute:

While Iran’s other allies China and Russia have frequently issued statements on the US-Israel war on Iran, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has only issued two toned-down statements so far, said the NIS.

While Pyongyang did condemn the US and Israeli attacks on Iran as illegal, it did not issue public condolences after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death or send a congratulatory message when Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeded him.

The spy agency said Pyongyang is likely adopting this cautious approach to position it for a new diplomatic chapter with the US once the Middle East conflict subsides, said Park.

Trump actually mentioned North Korea several times in Monday remarks from the White House on the Iran situation. He charged that a certain past president failed to act properly to prevent Pyongyang from going nuclear – and that the last several presided did as well.

He concluded that Kim Jong Un would not have nuclear weapons if that job was done right. The said that they are afraid to take “strong action”.

Trump:

If a certain president did his job, North Korea would not have nuclear weapons right now. pic.twitter.com/Ib7jVqw9pt

— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 6, 2026

It could be that Pyongyang is staying on the sidelines, and not offering direct support to its ally the Islamic Republic, given the obvious mismatch in military strength as the Iranians get pummeled by superior US aerial firepower.

In the case of Russa-Ukraine it is the opposite – where North Korea is on the side of the militarily stronger power and so perhaps feels more at east supporting its ally Moscow in such a context.

Authored by Ann Bauer via Brownstone Institute,

I have loved many addicts in my life.

I have been exasperated, impoverished, and terrified by them. But also amused, warmed, enraptured, elevated…That’s the thing about addicts. They contain multitudes, all drama and extremes. They’re charismatic until they’re repugnant, joyful until they’re suicidal. Everything is in vivid, dangerous color. It’s part of the ride and the reason they exert such a pull on cautious, ascetic people like me.

Some of my addicts are gone. My closest friend and “Damn Good Food” co-author, Mitch Omer, died at 61. Others have found God and turned their lives around (they’re now exciting and dramatic people of faith). I love people who are addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, and food. Many surf between the four.

Recently, another category of people formed: the ones injecting themselves with GLP-1s, mostly to lose weight but also to control other impulses. It’s clearly great for the handful whose life and health were being destroyed by obesity. But for the others? I’m dubious.

Ozempic and its cousins (Mounjaro, Wegovy, Zepbound, et al.) modify the pleasure centers of the brain, making everything people crave—food, sex, smoking, alcohol, shopping, gambling, cocaine—less appealing. It doesn’t address the underlying problems of addiction, such as depression or dishonesty. It just eliminates the part of the person that enjoys and revels, the colorful, joyous side.

It’s a version of the drug in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, that the doctor ginned up to divide himself, creating a respectable man bound by reserve and a separate murderous, pleasure-seeking monster.

From Dr. Jekyll’s own account:

Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly toward the mystic and the transcendental, re-acted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.

Of course, the doctor’s desire to split off his hedonistic self will have devastating consequences. The lesson of Jekyll and Hyde is that decoupling morality from desire is unnatural. It disrupts the natural order. My question for RLS, were he still with us to answer: Do GLP-1s pose similarly catastrophic risks?

I think they may. One reason is my Uncle Joe.

Joe was a quiet, careful religious man. He and his wife, Darla, had desperately wanted children but it just never happened. They raised boxer dogs that they treated like babies. Joe worked as a photographer in North Minneapolis in this little tufted studio from the 1930s that smelled like rose cologne and dust.

Some time in the late 1970s, Joe started shaking uncontrollably. Terrible thing for a photographer. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and put on a whopping dose of Levodopa, which flooded his brain with dopamine. This got the tremors under control. He and Darla were hugely grateful. They needed Joe’s income and now he could go back to work.

But over the next half-decade, my uncle changed. He became furtive and untrustworthy. Around the time Darla discovered she had cancer, she also discovered that her husband had nearly bankrupted them. This tidy man had developed a rabid gambling habit—cards, horses, sports—and he was a terrible bettor. I was just a kid, but I remember my father talking about what a dumb bastard Joe was, how he lied to his wife and spent the money she needed for her treatments.

Darla died a few years later, and Joe kept right on gambling. He sold his business and used the money for trips to Las Vegas. By this time, the Levodopa was having diminishing returns and his Parkinsonian shaking was back. Joe’s doctors kept ratcheting up the dose, believing they were doing so with impunity. But the drug only made him step up his gambling. And spending. And drinking. And God knows what else.

Shortly after Joe died, penniless, news started to eke out that Levodopa was causing previously straight-laced people to do all sorts of out-of-character things. They were visiting prostitutes and buying fancy clothes, snorting blow and placing bets. Joe was part of the first wave of Parkinson’s patients that were treated with this new ‘miracle’ drug and went off the rails. He died alone, having borrowed money from everyone he knew and burned all the bridges he’d spent a lifetime building.

What does this have to do with Robert Louis Stevenson’s story about chemical medicine? Not a lot—directly. In Jekyll and Hyde, the main character sets out to create a potion that will free him from his rutting, profane, dissolute self (and vice versa). In the case of my uncle, chemists were simply trying to control the symptoms of his disease, and it had the awful, unintended consequence of turning a once-refined man into – basically – Mr. Hyde.

But Joe’s story is information about what happens when you mess with brain chemicals and try to spark or dampen certain behaviors. He wasn’t an addict they were trying to control. In fact, he was the kind of orderly person who shined his shoes and set them out every night. Levodopa MADE people like my Uncle Joe into addicts. Collaterally. And scientists missed it for years.

GLP-1 drugs center around the very same brain chemical: Dopamine. Instead of raising patients’ levels as neurologists did with Parkinson’s patients, Ozempic and the rest ‘modulate’ (which simply means adjust) Dopamine levels, suppressing them [typically] to a point where the pleasure-seeking cravings for food, alcohol, nicotine, and on and on are weak enough for people to overcome.

The Free Press ran an article recently on a little-talked-about downstream effect of GLP-1s: apathy. “They Went on Ozempic—and Gave Up on Life” by Evan Gardner reports on people who lost weight on the injectable, along with their libido, ambition, and desire to participate in the world. One woman finally had the boyfriend of her dreams, thanks (in her mind) to her slender new body, but no desire to have sex.

This is the opposite of what happened to Parkinson’s patients in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. The danger is that doctors are oblivious to (or ignoring) what’s happening because GLP-1s are easy, people want them, and they’re having the desired effect.

But what if the sum of becoming apathetic isn’t just laziness or low sex drive? What if it leads to something more sinister, such as a lack of empathy, the need for ever-more disruptive or violent entertainment, errors in high-risk high-stakes jobs, a dearth of parental love for a child….The list of potential ills goes on and on.

I ran this theory by a friend who works in the sober community, for a 12-step program, and he told me there are some professionals working in recovery who won’t accept people on GLP-1s into their programs. “A lot of us believe it’s an addiction if you’re relying on a drug that removes the need for spiritual work,” he said.

Robert Louis Stevenson warned about this very thing back in 1886. His story is about a drug made of phosphorus and salt and “some volatile ether” that allowed the addict, the rogue and criminal, to split off and wander free.

Today, we have a drug made of “salt forms of a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist,” being pushed by physicians and television campaigns and sports heroes and celebrities nationwide that allows people to silence the addict within—the self that once “laid aside restraint and plunged in shame”—stuff them in a crawl space, slam the door shut, and trap them there.

Don’t tell me that a Hyde-like creature isn’t going to get out eventually. There will be consequences.

“Prepare for a dreadful shipwreck,” I imagine Stevenson would say.

The tech bros are only now waking up to what we pointed out 1 year and 8 months ago: the early stages of public backlash against AI data center expansion. Since then, this resistance has spread nationwide as working-class people grow increasingly angry about hyperscalers erecting massive AI data centers in their backyards, with one of the most immediate consequences being surging power bills.

“If tech leaders don’t organize and get America on their side, the situation on the ground – as seen in the three charts below – will get worse before it gets better,” Chamath Palihapitiya, founder of Social Capital and co-host of the All-In Podcast, wrote on X.

Palihapitiya warned, “That, in turn, will tank the US economy since AI is responsible for much of our incremental GDP. Someone needs to step up.” 

Palihapitiya posted what appears to be several slides from a Social Capital deck showing alarming trends in public sentiment toward AI data centers, clearly moving deeply negative. 

Charts

AI has a perception problem – and it’s getting a lot more political:

• The first chart shows net favorability of AI is negative (-20), worse than ICE (-18) and close to politically toxic categories.

• That’s a big signal: AI is no longer viewed as neutral “innovation” – it’s drifting into polarized, politically charged territory.

• Translation: regulatory risk is rising, not falling.

Surging power bills are the core at public backlash against AI 

• Power prices were relatively stable from 2014-19, then erupted post-2020.

• The narrative forming (rightly or wrongly): AI plus data centers = massive energy demand = higher bills

• Whether AI is the main driver doesn’t matter – perception is locking in causality.

Local backlash is now measurable – and accelerating

• Data center projects facing opposition are soaring fast

• Roughly 40% of contested data centers get canceled

• That’s a real constraint on future supply growth

The warnings about public backlash against data centers were well known by our readership for nearly two years. We noted this again last year.

Something we warned about a year ago… https://t.co/xECu4mNEGj pic.twitter.com/dcpcO7Uc78

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 6, 2026

Even with AI at their fingertips, the tech crowd’s messaging on data centers remains awful.

The same tech bros who spent years backing Democrats and supporting de-growth climate policies, before suddenly pivoting to Trump, are now running into a disaster of their own making. The public is already angry, and the political damage will be far from easy to unwind. Next time, they might want to fund politicians who prioritize grid security over a fake climate crisis. 

Authored by Georgina Jedikovska via Interesting Engineering,

The U.S. has carried out a successful launch of a hypersonic missile made to travel at speeds exceeding Mach 5, meaning over five times the speed of sound, which allows it to cover vas distances in a matter of minutes.

The launch of the common hypersonic missile, which is capable of covering more than 3,836 miles per hour (mph), was conducted as part of a joint test by the US Army and Navy.

According to the U.S. Department of War, the event took place at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the state of Florida. The push is part of the U.S.’ ongoing efforts to develop advanced strike capabilities.

“The U.S. Army’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive Fires, in partnership with the US Navy’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive Strategic Systems Programs, conducted a successful launch of a common hypersonic missile from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on March 26, 2026,” the U.S. Department of War stated.

A joint military test

Designed to travel faster than Mach 5, hypersonic weapons are considered a key part of future warfare and a military technology breakthrough. Their high speed makes them difficult to detect and intercept with existing defense systems.

The latest test by the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy marks another step toward deploying a shared hypersonic missile system. It is developed for both land- and sea-based platforms, and aims to help accelerate deployment and reduce costs.

Officials noted that the missile is being designed to strike time-sensitive, heavily defended, and high-value targets with minimal warning. What’s more, its extreme speed significantly reduces enemy reaction time.

“The Army and Navy partnership to field a common hypersonic missile across land- and sea-based platforms supports the National Defense Strategy by accelerating timelines, reducing costs, and delivering a highly survivable capability to defeat time-sensitive, heavily defended, and high-value targets at speeds exceeding Mach 5,” the U.S. Department of War continued in a statement shared on April 2.

Hypersonic push continues

According to reports, the test is part of a larger Pentagon plan to quickly roll out advanced technologies for combat use. On November 17, the US Department of War said that hypersonic weapons are one of six Critical Technology Areas (CTAs) seen as essential for battlefield advantage.

“Our adversaries are moving fast, but we will move faster,” Emil Michael, under secretary of war for research and engineering, revealed in a press release. “The warfighter is not asking for results tomorrow; they need them today.”

The six areas include Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI), biomanufacturing (BIO), Contested Logistics Technologies (LOG), Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance (Q-BID), Scaled Directed Energy (SCADE), and Scaled Hypersonics (SHY). All are aimed at strengthening battlefield performance.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said at the time that the nation’s military has long been at the forefront of military power. “Under Secretary Emil Michael’s six Critical Technology Areas will ensure that our warriors never enter a fair fight and have the best systems in their hands for maximum lethality.”

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, turning innovation into battlefield advantage will secure future dominance. “The War Department is committed to remaining the most deadly fighting force on planet Earth,” Hegseth concluded.