Trump administration highlights drug cartels as major national security threat but omits climate change
CNN
The US intelligence community’s annual threat assessment led with the threat from drug cartels for apparently the first time in the report’s nearly 20-year history, according to Senate Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton and a CNN review of previous assessments, highlighting a top agenda item for President Donald Trump.
The US intelligence community’s annual threat assessment led with the threat from drug cartels for apparently the first time in the report’s nearly 20-year history, according to Senate Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton and a CNN review of previous assessments, highlighting a top agenda item for President Donald Trump. The assessment also omitted any reference to the national security implications of climate change, a sharp reversal from previous intelligence assessments, including those under Trump’s first administration. Drug cartels in Mexico and other parts of the Western Hemisphere “endanger the health and safety of millions of Americans and contribute to regional instability,” the intelligence assessment says. Fentanyl and other potent synthetic opioids caused more than 52,000 deaths in the US in the 12 months ending in October 2024, according to the assessment. That’s actually a 33% decrease from the year prior and may be attributed to the increased availability of the overdose-countering medicine naloxone, the document says. The decline in drug deaths doesn’t appear to have made the cartels less potent. “Mexico-based [transnational criminal organizations] are ramping up lethal attacks in Mexico against rivals and Mexican security forces using IEDs, including landmines, mortars, and grenades,” the intelligence assessment says. In the first weeks of Trump’s return to the White House, the US military significantly increased its surveillance of Mexican drug cartels, with sophisticated spy planes flying at least 18 missions over the southwestern US and in international airspace around the Baja peninsula, CNN previously reported.
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
In recent weeks, some of America’s most powerful law firms have faced a defining choice: do a deal with the White House, or prepare to fight severe restrictions President Donald Trump has placed on firms and lawyers he opposes politically.
A close call between a Delta Air Lines Airbus A319 taking off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and a US Air Force T-38 jet, often used by the military for training, sounded alarms in the cockpit of the passenger plane Friday.
Campaign spending has smashed records in Wisconsin’s high-stakes Supreme Court race, as megadonors from both parties are directing millions to the closely watched election that’s set to decide ideological control of the battleground state’s high court. And tech billionaire Elon Musk is flexing his growing political influence after his key supporting role in President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The powerful voice of Tejano music superstar Selena Quintanilla-Pérez is still an indelible staple in Latino households and parties nearly 30 years after her death.
The Trump administration’s major military mission at the southern border focused on reducing immigration and drug flows has already cost taxpayers more than $300 million, according to sources briefed on data from the Defense Department comptroller — even as the administration has vowed to slash the size of government and cut 8 percent from the department’s budget.
As President Donald Trump’s advisers this week took on the unenviable task of informing him a journalist he loathes was inadvertently added to a group chat discussing secret attack plans, one key detail required some further explanation.
The leader of a small group of self-described satanists and three other people were arrested Friday following a scuffle inside the Kansas Statehouse arising from an effort by the group’s leader to start a Black Mass in the rotunda.
Construction of a new naval facility in the coastal city of Manta is designed to support sustained operations and US military personnel, according to a high-level Ecuadorian official: “The expectation is that these will be eventually occupied by US troops.
A PhD student was snatched by masked officers in broad daylight. Then she was flown 1,500 miles away
Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk was walking alone Tuesday night to meet friends at a dinner where they would break their 13-hour fast when six plainclothes officers suddenly encircled her on the street near her apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts, surveillance video shows.
A federal judge late Friday froze parts of President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Jenner & Block, one of two firms linked to the Robert Mueller investigation Trump has sought to punish.
President Donald Trump says he pardoned Trevor Milton, the CEO of now-defunct hydrogen and electric truck firm Nikola, in part because he believed Milton was persecuted for supporting Trump’s political ambitions.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the most senior liberal on the Supreme Court, advocated for a “fearlessly independent” judiciary during remarks Friday, telling an audience in Washington that she is worried about “standards that are being changed.”
A Connecticut woman accused of imprisoning her stepson for nearly two decades and subjecting him to starvation and relentless abuse has plead not guilty to charges including assault, kidnapping and cruelty.