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On Monday, influential ultraconservative journalist Tucker Carlson apologized for having openly supported U.S. President Donald Trump, a decision he said has left him “tormented.”

Carlson made the remarks during a conversation on his podcast with his brother Buckley Carlson, who also backed Trump and wrote speeches for the Republican leader.

“This will torment us for a long time. It will torment me. I want to apologize for having misled people. It was not intentional,” Carlson said.

The journalist, who for years was one of the star hosts on Fox News and among the media figures who most strongly supported Trump, now maintains a tense relationship with the U.S. president due to the Republican leader’s backing of Israel and the war on Iran.

Snips:

Palantir – named after the obsidian seeing-stones from Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ through which the dark lord Sauron keeps watch on his underlings – is a software firm primarily serving the defense and intelligence sectors. The company was established in 2003 by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale (who worked for Thiel’s Clarium Capital), Stephen Cohen (who interned at Clarium) former Sigmund Freud Research Institute researcher Alex Karp, and Nathan Gettings, a PayPal engineer.

[...]

Palantir is at its core a data aggregation company, but one set apart by its clients, its marketing, and the ideological streak of its executives. The company markets itself not as a faceless seller of data collation and analysis software, but – in its own words – a provider of “an Al-powered kill chain” that enables “decision dominance from space to mud.” Palantir refers to its consultants as “forward-deployed software engineers” and its internal emails as “situational awareness” reports. CEO Alex Karp portrays himself as deeply involved in military decisions that he, at least on paper, shouldn’t be.

Palantir’s mission, he said on an earnings call last year, is “to scare enemies, and on occasion, kill them.” As the public face of the company, Karp has defended the IDF’s use of Palantir software to plan strikes in Gaza, and called for the US to prepare for a three-front war against China, Russia, and Iran.

Korean intelligence collected through satellites from early this month," a senior military official said. "(The restricted sharing of intelligence) is related to information regarding parts of North Korea's technology."

He gave no further details about the restricted information.

The move comes after South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young last month identified the Kusong region as a site hosting a uranium enrichment facility during a parliamentary session.

Despite the restrictions, officials stressed that core intelligence cooperation between the allies remains intact.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/43970

Two U.S. officials who died in Mexico on Sunday worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, two sources told The Intercept. They are among the first known fatalities of President Donald Trump’s expanding drug war in Latin America.

The American personnel died in a vehicular crash in the mountains of the Sierra de Chihuahua following a drug raid, alongside two Mexican officials, including Román Oseguera Cervantes, the director of the Chihuahua State Investigation Agency.

The sources said the Americans died after a raid on a synthetic drug lab.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson announced the deaths of the Americans on Sunday, referring to them in a post on X as “two members of staff from the United States Embassy.”

The State Department refused requests for additional information on the Americans’ activities or the agencies that employed them. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said during a Monday press conference that she was unaware of “any direct work between Chihuahua state and personnel from the U.S. embassy.”

Two U.S. government officials who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity said the CIA has been running covert operations in Mexico, working alongside vetted Mexican state-level police forces and other government agencies. The sources said the Americans died after a raid on a synthetic drug lab.

“You may note that CIA declined to comment,” a CIA spokesperson told The Intercept by email in response to questions about the deaths.

Mexican authorities told the press that the Americans were not involved in the raid after earlier stating they died following the operation against the labs.

Western Hemisphere Front

Trump has turned the Western Hemisphere into a war zone, as part of what he and others have called the “Donroe Doctrine.” This bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine — which Trump has turned into a unilateral license to militarily meddle in the U.S.’s backyard — has led to strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean; an attack on Venezuela and the abduction of its president; and increased military operations elsewhere in Latin America.

Adm. Frank M. Bradley, the chief of U.S. Special Operations Command, recently referenced the “perceived increase of U.S. support to counter-cartel operations in Mexico” in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations. He said his elite troops “remain postured to provide… support to Mexican military and security forces to dismantle narco-terrorist organizations.”

In a little-noticed move in January, U.S. Northern Command – on Trump’s order – established Joint Interagency Task Force – Counter Cartel, or JIATF-CC, to coordinate U.S. government intelligence “to identify, disrupt, and dismantle cartel networks.” Among other things, the task force was established for “developing cartel targets for action by USNORTHCOM’s partners and providing direct support to law enforcement.”

Gen. Gregory Guillot, NORTHCOM’s commander, said then that the task force would be operating “via traditional and non-traditional means to deliver accurate, timely, and relevant intelligence to execution elements.” Last week, he told lawmakers that the force would “provide actionable intelligence to the Government of Mexico and federal law enforcement counterparts acting domestically based on leads developed from foreign intelligence operations.”

“Trump has reportedly been pushing for U.S. direct action against drug labs and traffickers in Mexico since his first term,” Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group, told The Intercept. “In his second term, he now has some officials in his administration eager to do a ‘Sicario’ — making Mexico a battlefield in the new GWOT” — global war on terror — “against the narcos.”

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Related

U.S. Military Joins Drug War in Ecuador: “It Wasn’t Going to Be Just Boat Strikes Forever”](https://theintercept.com/2026/03/04/us-military-ecuador-trump/)

Acting Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs Joseph Humire was unable to tell members of the House Armed Services Committee how many land strikes were being conducted across almost 20 Latin American and Caribbean nations. “I don’t have an exact number,” he replied to a question last month. But when asked by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the committee, if the War Department would “be moving to a lot more terrestrial strikes,” Humire replied, “Yes, ranking member.”

Trump mused last year that he might send U.S. commandos into Mexico to battle cartels.

“Could happen,” he said. “Stranger things have happened.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth also threatened military action on Mexican soil.

Over the Precipice

The Americans died at around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning in the town of Morelos after their multi-vehicle convoy departed from the site of the drug raid. The vehicle reportedly drove off the road and over the side of a ravine, exploding upon impact.

The Americans killed in the wreck in Mexico are some of the first known casualties since Trump ramped up military and CIA operations in and around Latin America last year. A number of U.S. military personnel were injured in the U.S. attack on Venezuela in January. In February, Lance Cpl. Chukwuemeka E. Oforah, 21, fell off the USS Iwo Jima while it was conducting operations in the Caribbean and was declared deceased on February 10.

The Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office claimed that the Americans in Mexico were only conducting training on drone operations, according to Mexican press reports. Sheinbaum said at a news conference Monday that she would ask Johnson, Washington’s ambassador, to meet with Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez to discuss the incident. Sheinbaum has repeatedly said that Mexico will not accept U.S. boots on the ground.

“It’s outrageous that U.S. operatives were working to blow up drug labs in Mexico and President Sheinbaum’s security cabinet wasn’t informed of their activities,” said Sanho Tree, the director of the Drug Policy Project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.

Last year, the State Department declared eight Mexican drug cartels — the Sinaloa cartel, CJNG, the Northeast cartel, the Michoacán family, the United Cartels, and the Gulf Cartel — to be foreign terrorist organizations. The Salvadoran MS-13 and the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gangs were also named. The designation activates U.S. sanctions, including restrictions on financial transactions and bans on U.S. citizens from providing support to the groups.

The drug war deaths in Mexico follow the announcement of new joint counter-cartel operations in Ecuador last month. Humire said that the War Department supported “bilateral kinetic actions against cartel targets along the Colombia-Ecuador border” — Pentagon-speak for March 3 strikes on unnamed “Designated Terrorist Organizations” previously reported by The Intercept.

“The joint effort, named ‘Operation Total Extermination,’ is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the U.S.,” he said.

The attacks in Ecuador are also part of, and an expansion of, Operation Southern Spear: the U.S. military’s illegal campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. has conducted 53 attacks on so-called drug boats since September 2025, killing more than 180 civilians. The latest strike, on April 19 in the Caribbean, killed three people.

Gen. Francis Donovan, the chief of U.S. Southern Command, told lawmakers last month that “boat strikes are not the answer,” but teased an even broader campaign.

“What we’re moving for right now might be an extension of Southern Spear, but really a counter-cartel campaign process that puts total systemic friction across this network,” he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I believe these kinetic [boat] strikes are just one small part of that.”

The post U.S. Personnel Who Died in Mexico Were Working For the CIA, Sources Say appeared first on The Intercept.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/43930

Iran’s ability to threaten desalination infrastructure exposes a structural weakness at the heart of Israel’s economy, military endurance, and regional standing.

Israel’s near-total dependence on seawater desalination to secure almost 80 percent of its drinking water and industrial needs has created a security vulnerability unlike that of the Persian Gulf states.

While Gulf desalination facilities are spread across wide geographic areas, Israel’s production capacity is concentrated along a narrow stretch of coastline. That concentration leaves Israel’s water system vulnerable to paralysis through concentrated missile barrages or suicide drone attacks from multiple fronts – a danger that exceeds the ability of conventional air defenses to fully contain.

The longer the confrontation with Iran drags on, the more these facilities are transformed from civilian infrastructure into strategic targets. Israel’s five main desalination plants have become central nodes in Tehran’s target bank, placing domestic stability and regional water commitments under the threat of broad disruption.

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In a brief statement on Tuesday, the Palestinian health ministry said two Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupiers’ gunfire in the town of al Mughayyir, east of Ramallah, including a child, and that three others were wounded, bringing the total number of those killed since the morning to four.

The ministry identified the two killed in al Mughayyir as Aws Hamdi al Naasan, 14, and Jihad Marzouq Abu Naim, 32.

In Jenin in the northern West Bank, the ministry said Raja Fadel Baitawi, 49, died of wounds sustained from Israeli army gunfire during a previous raid on the city.

In Hebron in the southern West Bank, Mohammed Majdi al Jaabari, 16, was killed after being run over by a vehicle driven by an Israeli occupier, according to the ministry.

Archived

American service members will no longer be required to get a yearly flu shot under a new Defense Department policy described by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as an effort to “restore freedom and strength to our joint force.”

Calling the Covid-19 vaccine mandate part of an “era of betrayal” that was now “over,” Hegseth said the Pentagon was discarding “absurd, overreaching mandates that only weaken our war fighting capabilities,” such as “the universal flu vaccine and the mandate behind it.”

What stage of imperial decline is this?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/21/spain-slovenia-ireland-push-eu-to-debate-israel-pact-suspension

🤔

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/43763

On a February morning in 2024, a little-known agency in Rockland County held a public hearing on a proposed subsidy for the expansion of a JPMorganChase data center in Orangeburg, near the New Jersey border. In return for nearly $77 million in tax breaks, the project promised to create exactly one permanent job. No one showed up. After 20 minutes of silence, an agency official called the…

Source

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https://archive.ph/0ECoE

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/43777

A joint assessment published Monday by the European Union, United Nations, and World Bank found that an estimated $71.4 billion is needed over the next decade for recovery and reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, where 30 months of Israeli genocide has set human development back by an entire lifetime.

The Gaza Strip Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) states that the $71.4 billion figure includes an estimated $26.3 billion required over the next 18 months "to restore essential service, rebuild critical infrastructure, and support economic recovery."

"Physical infrastructure damages are estimated at $35.2 billion, with economic and social losses amounting to $22.7 billion," the report continues. "The hardest-hit sectors include housing, health, education, commerce, and agriculture. Over 371,888 housing units have been destroyed or damaged, more than 50% of hospitals are nonfunctional, nearly all schools destroyed or damaged, and the economy has contracted by 84% in Gaza."

"Catastrophic impact on human development across Gaza... is estimated to have been set back by 77 years," the RDNA states. "Around 1.9 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, and more than 60% of the population has lost their homes."

"Women, children, persons with disabilities, and those with preexisting vulnerabilities bear the greatest burden," the publication adds.

The new analysis follows a November 2025 UN Conference on Trade and Development report that found Israel's assault on Gaza has caused “the most severe economic crisis ever recorded."

The Israeli war has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing; the strip in ruins; and most of its approximately 2 million people forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.

“Over two years of conflict has resulted in more than 71,000 Palestinian fatalities and over 171,000 injured, and many are missing under the rubble," the report notes.

With the vast majority of Gaza's buildings damaged or destroyed, separate UN analyses have estimated that it could take as many as 80 years to rebuild the obliterated coastal exclave.

So far, roughly $17 billion in pledged funding has been announced through the so-called "Board of Peace" launched by US President Donald Trump, whose ideas for rebuilding Gaza have included kicking Palestinians out and turning the strip into what he called the "Riviera of the Middle East."

Only a "tiny fraction" of that already inadequate $17 billion has been received, Reuters reported earlier this month.

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