[FOX] Eleven people were indicted this week for allegedly participating in a years-long human smuggling operation that left seven illegal migrants dead in May after they were trapped for hours inside an unventilated shipping container in Texas.
Prosecutors say the migrants were loaded into the container near Del Rio before it was transported by train across the state. Six were later found dead inside it in Laredo and a seventh was discovered near railroad tracks at the San Antonio stop, according to authorities.
The victims — four Mexican nationals and three Honduran nationals — had no chance of escape because the container could not be opened from the inside, according to prosecutors.
"The ultimate destination for these aliens who began their journey in Del Rio was likely San Antonio. Once the train got to San Antonio, this alien smuggling organization that facilitated the movement of these individuals opened the train car doors," U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons said at a press conference on Friday.
The 11 defendants — four of them from the U.S. and seven from either Mexico, Honduras or Guatemala — allegedly ran a human smuggling organization from around April 2023 until May 2026, according to the indictment.
The group allegedly used cargo trains to get migrants further into the interior of the U.S. after getting them across the border, per the indictment.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
07/25/2026 06:58 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[107 views]
Top|| File under: Human Trafficking
[FoxNews] Ulises Raigoza-Martinez admitted to entering the US illegally during the Biden administration
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are seeking custody of a Mexican citizen who authorities say entered the United States illegally through Texas in 2021 under the Biden administration and killed a Nashville restaurant owner.
After pleading guilty and being sentenced Tuesday to decades behind bars, ICE lodged an immigration detainer against Ulises Raigoza-Martinez, requesting that Tennessee officials notify the agency before his release, so federal authorities can take him into custody for removal proceedings, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The case stems from a June 19, 2024, encounter in the parking lot of the Nashville restaurant Smokin' Thighs, where investigators claim Raigoza-Martinez stopped to steal tools from owner Matt Carney's pickup truck.
When Carney, 42, walked outside to confront the thief, Raigoza-Martinez sped away, striking the restaurateur with his vehicle, authorities said. Carney landed on the hood before being thrown to the pavement when Raigoza-Martinez turned the vehicle.
Carney suffered critical injuries and died at a Nashville hospital on July 4, 2024.
Police arrested Raigoza-Martinez in South Nashville on July 18, 2024. Two years later, on July 22, 2026, he pleaded guilty to murder, theft over $10,000, tampering with evidence and theft over $2,500, before being sentenced to 20 years in prison.
DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said Raigoza-Martinez "should NEVER have been in our country to commit this heinous murder."
"We will work with our state and local partners in Tennessee to ensure that he is handed over to ICE custody once his sentence is complete, so that we can remove him from our country," Bis said.
"Go see Europe this summer."
[while it's still there]
[Reuters] Tens of thousands of people fled wildfires in southwest France by car and boat on Friday, and Spain declared a national emergency as huge blazes merged outside Madrid and searing heat left tinder-dry conditions across the region.
French authorities ordered the total evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula, a tourism hotspot on its Atlantic Coast. A third fire was on the verge of joining two fires that had merged outside Madrid, government officials said.
Both countries, which have suffered a succession of heatwaves and fires in recent months and years that scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change, sought help from the European Union as the blazes strained emergency services.
French President Emmanuel Macron asked the army to support firefighting efforts, a source close to the president said.
Spain's national emergency — the first it had ever declared over a wildfire — opened up federal funding to tackle the crisis.
"This is the worst wildfire in our region's history," Madrid's regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso said after telling reporters the fires had merged. "It's the perfect storm of very high temperatures and ceaseless winds that aren't letting up."
THE CLOUDS BECAME 'DARKER AND DARKER'
In southwest France, authorities sent boats to help the evacuation, and about 110,000 people, many of them tourists, were told to leave as two major fires threatened homes and campsites, officials said.
"This is a convective fire: It is self-sustaining, changes direction, and is moving mainly eastward, toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area," Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told broadcaster TF1.
The other major fire, which began in the nearby village of Saumos, north of Cap Ferret, is threatening to cut off the only road out of the peninsula and is the largest so far this season in France, Nunez told local television.
It has torn through more than 14,000 hectares of forest and destroyed more than 100 homes and one campsite, officials said.
'THERE WAS A BALL OF FIRE'
In Spain, more than 19,000 people were ordered to evacuate from towns in the mountains west of Madrid, as more than 2,000 personnel and 10 aircraft struggled in vain to prevent the fires converging, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
A third fire in Avila province was on the verge or may have already merged with the two in Madrid, Nicanor Sen, the government representative for the Castile and Leon region, told reporters. Spanish police said they had arrested one person and were investigating another suspected of starting that fire by using heavy machinery in a prohibited area.
The area west of Madrid, where many residents from the capital have second homes, is densely populated. In just one development 43 homes had been destroyed, Diaz Ayuso said.
That played a role in the government decision to declare a national emergency, Grande-Marlaska said.
It is the second consecutive year that Spain has faced a particularly destructive fire season.
More than 29 major fires have broken out in Spain so far this year, damaging a surface area five times greater than at the same stage in 2025, when a record area was destroyed, Environment Minister Sara Aagesen said in a social media post.
HEAT HITS CROPS, NUCLEAR PLANT COOLING
Wildfires have burned more land in Europe already this year than the annual average in the past two decades, data shows as the world's fastest-warming continent has endured three stifling, virtually back-to-back heatwaves so far this year.
Scientists say human-driven climate change is increasing the intensity of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, while also creating conditions for sudden, destructive storms.
Greece was sending two firefighting aircraft to Spain, and Croatia provided a similar plane and staff to aid France while Italy dispatched a firefighting plane to Tunisia which also has wildfires, authorities said.
After a short reprieve over the weekend, average temperatures in France are expected to rise sharply again next week, according to official weather forecaster Meteo France. The high temperatures are expected to warm French rivers that cool nuclear reactors and could lead to reduced power output. The Golfech 2 nuclear reactor in southern France has remained offline since July 7 due to heat-related restrictions, operator EDF's data showed.
Weeks of hot weather are also taking a toll on the condition of the maize crop in France.
French President Emmanuel Macron has already requested help from the European Union as the country's battle against wildfires intensifies.
Images showed scores of residents boarding boats this morning as they evacuated the area while a French television report was interrupted by a fireball blast when a gas canister exploded.
Residents have described the inferno as a 'mega-fire' and 'apocalyptic', with few means of escape from the thin peninsula.
'France has requested the activation of the European Union's civil protection mechanism. We will soon be able to count on reinforcements from two Croatian Canadair aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor planes, as well as two heavy Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia,' wrote Macron on X on Friday.
Sophie Brocas, the prefect for the Nouvelle Aquitaine region, said on Friday that evacuees from the Lege-Cap-Ferret peninsula could leave from piers in four villages in the area between 7am and 10am local time.
All those still present in those villages must leave either on the boats or by the only road linking the area with the mainland, she added.
[FoxNews] DHS has issued 103,000 fines since Trump returned to office, charging $998 per day to those who refuse to self-deport
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued more than 100,000 civil fines totaling roughly $84 billion to illegal immigrants under the Trump administration while collecting more than $1 billion in payments, Fox News Digital has learned.
Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House about 18 months ago, DHS has issued 103,000 civil fines totaling approximately $84 billion, a DHS official told Fox News Digital.
As of July, the agency had collected about $1.2 billion in fine payments.
Shortly after Trump's return to office, the administration announced it would begin fining illegal immigrants subject to final removal orders $998 per day if they failed to voluntarily leave the United States or otherwise comply with their removal orders. Illegal immigrants are required to pay the fines before they are deported, and DHS has said it may seize assets from those who fail to pay.
The Trump administration has unveiled a series of measures designed to encourage illegal immigrants to leave the country, including DHS' announcement that those who refuse to self-deport could face "significant financial penalty."
DHS has argued the program costs significantly less than traditional deportation proceedings and is designed to encourage illegal immigrants to voluntarily leave the United States.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection released a flyer outlining the "benefits" and "consequences" for illegal immigrants who self-deport using the CBP Home app.
"Self-deportation is safe," the flyer stated. "Leave on your own terms by picking your departure flight."
According to DHS, non-criminal illegal immigrants who voluntarily leave the United States may keep money they earned while in the country and preserve eligibility to pursue legal immigration in the future. Some may also qualify for subsidized flights if they cannot afford travel home.
#1
A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe. Destitute people who were unable to pay a court-ordered judgment would be incarcerated in these prisons until they had worked off their debt via labour or secured outside funds to pay the balance. The product of their labour went towards both the costs of their incarceration and their accrued debt.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs over a major outbreak of an 'explosive diarrhea' parasite potentially linked to lettuce from Mexico.
In a press briefing at the White House, the President said: 'I think what we are going to do is put a major tariff on Mexico because of the lettuce.'
Trump weighed in as cases of cyclosporiasis soared to 11,000 across 41 states, leaving public health officials scrambling to find the cause.
The President also reiterated his threat to put major tariffs on Canada after wildfires left much of the northern US covered in toxic smoke.
Health officials have suggested that cases of the parasite, a disease transmitted by food or water contaminated with human feces, may be linked to shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms that was sent to Taco Bell restaurants in nine states.
Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania are also now suggested to be affected, alongside Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.
Tests on lettuce from Taylor Farms' manufacturing facility in Mexico have returned a false positive, however, a voluntary recall of the products is still in place.
So it wasn’t their fault? Where did it actually start — bathroom doorknobs touched by unwashed hands?
The business temporarily closed its Central Mexico site on Thursday.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr claimed on Tuesday that the outbreak was 'under control.'
That’s comforting.
The FDA said Wednesday it was tracking another outbreak of the parasite that has sickened 72 people, in a separate cluster from the one sickening thousands and potentially linked to lettuce.
The agency revealed the number of cases but gave no further details, including the location of the patients or the potential source of their sickness.
The announcement of a new outbreak of cyclosporiasis suggests that the agency has identified a cluster of cases that are related to a common source.
It does not mean that the cases are unrelated to the main outbreak, but they may have been listed separately as they are believed to have been caused by a separate contaminated item.
Health officials are now recommending people wash their hands and 'any fresh produce' thoroughly before preparing food.
As washing is not guaranteed to remove the parasite, they are also advising cooking food to a temperature of at least 158F (70C) to kill the parasite.
Cyclosporiasis spreads when people eat food or drink water that has been contaminated with human feces.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Ol'ga Kuznetsova
[REGNUM] Typically, liberal journalists and political consultants from the Western Hemisphere prepare for the next presidential elections in one country or another by carefully testing the waters and making cautious suggestions that they might not be held "by the rules of the free world."
But now they've received a gift from Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega. Speaking at the anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, which overthrew the dictatorial Somoza family in 1979, Ortega
…who is also dictator…
made a surprisingly categorical statement, declaring that there would be no more elections in the republic. Not much of a republic without elections, just sayin'
Why not? North Korea is proudly proclaims itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as do or did any number of Communist totalitarian regimes, some even elected before they stopped letting the voters decide anything. As elected Turkish president Recep Tayip Erdogan has proclaimed a number of times, democracy is a streetcar you ride until you reach your station — then you get off. Fake elections really are a waste of energy, only meant to pacify the citizenry and the powerful governments of the world while the totalitarians running the place consolidate control.
The purpose of the repeal is to prevent the opposition, which has been trying to seize power and the government for years, from doing so even theoretically. Ortega also added that the National Assembly will approve all laws to "build a blockade against conspirators and traitors" and that, "no matter how much money the Yankees give," the opponents of the ruling forces will not succeed.
True, he never explained how everything would actually work. Official information about the legal cancellation of the electoral process has never emerged, the promised laws have not been announced, and the alternative process for the transfer of power is shrouded in secrecy.
The latter is somewhat concerning, as Daniel Ortega is already 80 years old, and his co-president wife, Rosario Murillo, is slightly younger. However, his political rivals weren't entirely surprised by this turn of events.
Our Democrats skew old, too...
THAT'S WHAT WE THOUGHT.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has already announced that the administration of President Donald Trump will not remain indifferent to the events in Nicaragua, and declared that Ortega "poses a threat to US national security."
However, even before this, The New York Times quoted one of the 2021 presidential candidates, Félix Maradiaga, who said that Nicaraguan democracy was “buried long ago,” and that what happened was merely a statement demonstrating the final rejection of even a semblance of legality.
Maradiaga himself was excluded from the election race and arrested for conspiracy to undermine national integrity and financing protests, then stripped of his citizenship and extradited in 2023 to the United States, where he now resides.
Representatives of the exiled opposition movement Renacer also agreed with the former politician's statements. Its leaders, also stripped of their citizenship and based in Costa Rica, stated that Ortega had always gravitated toward "the Chinese or Cuban governance model," and had now simply decided to implement it.
However, this is hardly surprising. Since 2023, Ortega has been gradually implementing large-scale government reforms,
…that’s “reforms” in scare quotes, because they certainly didn’t improve anything there…
which have resulted in First Lady Murillo becoming his official co-regent, legalizing the process of depriving one's citizenship, and abolishing the principle of separation of powers, with the government designated as the overseer of other government bodies.
Furthermore, the presidential elections, which were scheduled for late 2026, have been postponed until 2027—and now it is completely unclear what process is proposed to replace them.
Death by old age, clearly. Sequentially, as the next in line takes over, each increasingly more Biden-like, feeble and feeble-minded.
But an equally important question in this context is: do the Ortega-Murillo couple have other options in light of the real situation in the Western Hemisphere?
LIKE IN WAR
Over the past few years, Nicaraguan authorities have waged a near-constant battle against agents of Western influence. These include not only Washington but also the Roman Catholic Church, whose proselytizing activities have left Managua underwhelmed.
Back in 2023, Nicaragua suspended all diplomatic relations with the Vatican, accusing the Catholic leadership of spreading disinformation against the ruling party and inciting radical sentiment.
The Vatican itself, as well as Western media, have pompously labeled these actions "new persecutions of Christians," but official Managua remains largely unmoved. Local officials, not without reason, view the Vatican as a real power broker, not as peacekeepers with angelic wings.
After all, the Holy See has repeatedly managed to intervene in various negotiation processes, be it with Ukraine, Cuba, or Venezuela, and subsequently deploy a large-scale network of NGOs in countries of interest. The current activities of the Greek Catholic structures overseen by the Vatican in Ukraine have long been no secret to Russian readers. Furthermore, it is widely known that Catholic NGO activists have mastered the art of espionage.
In Latin America, the Vatican's involvement in high-stakes politics was far more overt throughout the 20th century than anywhere else. Warring political forces actively recruited clerics to their side, stored weapons in churches, and hid supporters.
In Nicaragua, even before the Sandinista Revolution, all parties to the internal conflict fought for the support of the Catholic bishops. The Sandinistas won, winning not only the Church but also popular support.
Ortega himself, who came to power for the second time in 2007, again tried to secure the support of Vatican representatives. He failed. And so, instead of targeting troublemakers, ordinary priests also came under attack.
Elderly clergy were stripped of their pensions, and Ortega's wife took over anti-Church propaganda. Some experts believe the choice was unfortunate, and the rhetoric was too marginalized. As a result, Murillo even began to be called a "witch," and Ortega's unpopular statements and reforms have since been attributed to her "malign influence on the average man."
It's worth acknowledging that this struggle didn't begin overnight, and Ortega's tightening of his political course is linked to one specific incident: a year before the 2021 elections, unknown individuals leaked a plan to overthrow the Nicaraguan government online.
THE SAME AND USAID
In August 2020, an excerpt from a 93-page document, containing terms of reference for creating "an environment conducive to Nicaragua's transition to democracy," surfaced online. One of the parties identified was the now-disbanded United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The primary objective was also clearly stated: Ortega needed to be removed from power.
Moreover, the commissioners assumed that, due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus or other factors (such as a major natural disaster or sudden military conflict), the elections might not take place at all, "the regime would fall into a deep crisis," and power would transfer to a transitional government. The undemocratic absence of an electoral process somehow didn't bother anyone at the time.
One of the scenarios being explored envisioned an opposition victory in the elections and the dissolution of all security forces. However, it was acknowledged that the Nicaraguan leader was a tough nut to crack and would be far from easy to defeat.
In this case, it was proposed to rely on “civil society institutions”: NGOs, non-profit organizations, and independent media, which would prepare the population for the coming “democracy.”
At the same time, Archbishop Leopoldo Brenes of Managua began giving interviews to Western media and spreading the idea that the Ortega government was involved in terrorist attacks against the Catholic Church and was deliberately setting fire to churches across the country.
Furthermore, the US State Department allocated an additional $750,000 to non-governmental organizations in Nicaragua, which were supposed to use the media to inform the public about the dangers of COVID-19. In reality, however, the media outlets they controlled began to denigrate the quarantine measures.
This seemed especially ironic given similar actions in Washington-friendly countries. Furthermore, Nicaragua's healthcare system coped with the large number of cases much better than its neighbors—Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
A couple of years later, in 2022, US Ambassador to Nicaragua candidate Hugo Rodriguez, during his Senate hearings, stated that he would support all economic and diplomatic tools to change Managua's course, and would be assisted in this by a "strong and manageable USAID contingent" that would cooperate with all allies both in Nicaragua and abroad.
Following protests from Managua over these statements, Rodriguez's candidacy was never confirmed. And Ortega now has even more reasons to distrust Washington.
NO SOFTNESS
Despite all of the above, Daniel Ortega managed to successfully conduct the 2021 elections. However, a softening of the current course was clearly not to be expected since then.
Ortega's inauguration in January 2022 was attended not only by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but also by Iranian Vice President Mohsen Rezai, who at the time had a "red card" from Interpol after being accused of involvement in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires. From 1981 to 1997, Rezai led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The rapprochement with Washington's enemy, as some experts write, occurred under China's protection, while similar processes took place almost simultaneously in Venezuela. Shortly before his inauguration, Ortega severed all relations with Taiwan, confiscated the former embassy and diplomatic offices, and proclaimed support for the one-China policy.
After this, the pressure of American sanctions increased, but they did not hit Managua as hard as Caracas or Havana.
Thanks to a sound agricultural policy, the Ortega government was able to provide itself with food, managed to purge the information space of Western NGOs in a timely manner, and its geographical location allowed it to control the security situation much better. Today, Managua is one of the safest capitals in the region, and organized crime is nowhere to be found.
However, the situation in Latin America is growing increasingly tense by the day. First, the Americans kidnapped Maduro, one of Ortega's closest allies. Now, every two weeks, they issue threats against Cuba and strengthen the blockade. At the same time, the number of governments loyal to Washington is growing.
In this situation, the actions of the Nicaraguan co-president seem at least understandable. It's worth remembering that he is a classic charismatic Latin American leader with significant support among his electorate, so his comments about canceling the elections may not provoke a widespread public outcry within the country.
It is expected that if any problems arise, Rosario Murillo will assume the leadership role, and then some discontent may arise and calls for elections may be heard.
Something will have to be done to address this scenario, and it will require legal means—all possible forceful measures have already been taken in Managua. Ortega's supporters can only hope that the government is developing a plan for such a contingency.
#3
Dude was in politics in the 70s. He’s just getting around to seizing all political power in a Central American country. Pretty disappointing as a communist.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/25/2026 8:37 Comments ||
Top||
[JTN} U.S. intelligence agencies believe the targeting and acquisition of voter registration files is an act of election interference. “Election interference is a subset of election influence targeted at the technical aspects of the election, including voter registration, casting and counting of ballots and reporting of results," an October 2020 National intelligence Council report on election interference explains.
In other words, the compromising of election voter registration data, is, by the definition of intelligence agencies, an act of election interference.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] An 'extremely significant' bomb has been intercepted in a vehicle in transit near the Irish border in an operation targeting dissident republicans, police said today.
So not War on Terror, just old-fashioned terrorism from people who can’t let go of the excitement
In an intelligence-led swoop, the Garda's Special Detective Unit stopped the vehicle on Wednesday afternoon on the N2 south of Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan.
Gardaí then requested the assistance of the Irish Defence Forces EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) team, which completed an examination of the vehicle.
It is understood the device found contained suspected military grade explosives. Garda sources have described the bomb as 'highly sophisticated' and 'advanced'.
The vehicle's female driver, a trainee solicitor aged in her 20s, was arrested at the scene and remained in Garda custody today.
Another suspect, a man aged in his 40s, has since been arrested and is being held at a Garda station in the Dublin area.
Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly confirmed details of the operation as he spoke to media at a Garda graduation event in Co Tipperary today.
'To be clear, what we found was an extremely significant seizure,' he said. 'So this was an explosive device.'
Commissioner Kelly added: 'Any seizure of this nature is really concerning.
'However, we certainly know that there are a small minority of dissident republicans who did not agree with the Good Friday Agreement, they did not put weapons and explosives (out of use), they didn't, you know, go through with the proper process in relation to decommissioning. So that is something that we continue to deal with.
'There's a small minority of these individuals, I would describe them as radicalised republicans, and this is a threat that we're going to continue to face for some time in An Garda Síochána.
'We work very closely with our colleagues in PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) and the intelligence services in the UK to deal with this threat. But I want to commend the members of An Garda Síochána who are involved in this operation.'
Mr Kelly also indicated that the bomb was already constructed when it was seized.
'Unfortunately for operational reasons, I can't go into the exact detail of the device,' he said. 'But what I will say certainly it was a significant explosive device. So certainly not just the seizure of components or pieces.
'This was an explosive device and it would have or could have potentially caused significant damage.'
The commissioner confirmed the operation relied on intelligence. 'Obviously, this was not a random stop,' he said.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
