US phases out security programs for European allies near Russia
Washington plans to wind down programs that trained and equipped east European militaries, U.S. officials told European diplomats. The move involves Section 333 funding, which has supported states on NATO’s eastern flank. A White House official said the step reflects Trump’s directive to review foreign aid and push Europe to shoulder more of its defense costs, according to the Financial Times.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s figures show Europe received $1.6 billion from Section 333 between 2018 and 2022 — nearly a third of global outlays. The program remains funded through the end of fiscal year 2026, according to Defense Security Cooperation Agency budget documents.
According to the Financial Times, ending Section 333 could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in European security assistance being cut, including for European recipients such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
European officials warn that the cuts could weaken NATO’s ability to plan and prepare on its eastern flank.
Lithuanian defense official Vaidotas Urbelis said the Pentagon informed partners that funding would be eliminated for all European states beginning next fiscal year. He noted, however, that no formal written notice has been issued yet, Newsweek reported.
“So far, we do not have any official information about the review of support,” Urbelis told reporters. “We are talking to officials from the Department of Defense, looking at what options are possible, what programs will be continued, which ones may be postponed, and what path we will take.”
According to the Financial Times, one European diplomat said, “It will have big implications” if the U.S. withdraws support abruptly. Another compared the move to earlier U.S. decisions to slash foreign aid….
Communist-Run China Detains Nearly 30 Evangelical Christians, Branding Them As ‘Socially Dangerous’
Nearly 30 Christians in China’s Hubei province are on trial after being accused of organizing and using an “evil cult to undermine law enforcement,” charges rights advocates say are part of ongoing persecution of believers in the Communist-run nation.
The defendants, members of the evangelical Word of Life Church, were indicted in Suizhou city after security forces broke up a prayer meeting earlier this year, Worthy News learned. They stand accused of so-called “xie jiao,” the Chinese term for “cult activities” applied to movements regarded as antigovernment and socially dangerous, including evangelical groups.
Authorities cited activities such as preaching, discipleship training, prayer meetings, Easter celebrations, communion, and testimonies—practices prosecutors labeled “propaganda of cult doctrines,” according to sources familiar with the case.
Defense lawyers insist the charges have no legal basis and “violate China’s constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.” They stressed that widely used discipleship materials, including No Longer the Same, New Life, and The Path of Discipleship, were “wrongly classified as evidence of cult activity.”
Several Christians testified that money, jewelry, and belongings disappeared during their arrests, with no official confiscation records provided, raising suspicions of private appropriation by authorities, said advocacy group ChinaAid…..
Teen Fakes Surrender… Then Crashes Into Cop Car in Wild Chase
12 From Florida, Texas And Tennessee Charged In Massive Human Smuggling, Asylum Fraud Scheme
A sophisticated international criminal organization that allegedly smuggled thousands of people into the United States and laundered millions of dollars has been dismantled, with twelve individuals now facing federal charges in a superseding indictment.
According to court documents, the defendants ran a massive alien smuggling operation that brought Cuban nationals into the U.S. under false pretenses.
The group, operating a sham business called ASESORIA Y SERVICIOS MIGRATORIOS LLC, used social media and encrypted messaging apps to advertise fraudulent visa services and lure unsuspecting clients.
Between January 2021 and June 2025, the organization allegedly funneled over $18 million by charging desperate clients between $1,500 and $40,000 for its services. The defendants are accused of promoting bogus visa applications, including promising U.S. entry through false claims of European citizenship.
“This indictment exposes a criminal organization that smuggled people into the United States on a massive scale, and then fraudulently secured immigration benefits for them,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti.
The scheme involved filing hundreds of fraudulent Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) applications with fake addresses and fabricated documents.
In one video promoting the operation, stacks of passports, airline tickets, and visa approvals were shown to potential clients….
IDF controls 40% of Gaza City; U.S. blames France for failure of talks with Hamas TV7 Israel 05.09
1) Advanced military preparations for the occupation of Gaza city are ongoing as Israel marks the 700th day of the War ‘Swords of Iron’.
2) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledges that Israel will enact a unilateral response to a list of countries intent on recognizing a Palestinian state.
3) President Isaac Herzog meeting Pope Lio XIV, during which he urged him to support efforts to retrieve the hostages from Hamas captivity.
Trump sends 10 stealth fighter planes to Puerto Rico amid war on Caribbean drug cartels
Donald Trump is sending 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico to bolster US military operations against drug cartels in the Caribbean region, it was reported on Friday.
If follows a deadly US missile strike on Tuesday on a boat in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration insisted was carrying 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers, and comments by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Wednesday that such attacks “will happen again”.
In another development on Thursday, the US accused Venezuela of the “highly provocative move” of buzzing one of its warships in international waters.
The deployment of strike aircraft to Puerto Rico, first reported by Reuters, citing two sources briefed on the matter, is a sharp escalation of the US president’s crackdown on what he sees as a Venezuelan-led drug-trafficking menace in the region.
The planes will arrive in the US territory next week and will be part of a sustained military campaign in the Latin American region that began with Tuesday’s airstrike, the news agency said.
The F-35 is a highly advanced stealth fighter and would be very effective in combat against Venezuela’s air force, which includes F-16 aircraft.
Trump has already sent at least eight warships and other military assets to the area in recent weeks, and Rubio, speaking in Mexico City on Wednesday, warned of more operations to come.
“The US has long, for many, many years, established intelligence that allowed us to interdict and stop drug boats. And we did that. And it doesn’t work. Interdiction doesn’t work,” he told a press conference after meeting with Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to discuss stronger security ties.
“What will stop them is when you blow them up. Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up. And it’ll happen again. Maybe it’s happening right now.”
Meanwhile, two Venezuelan military planes flew close to a US warship in international waters, the Pentagon said on Thursday in a social media post, an act it called “a highly provocative move … designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations”.
The statement by the Department of Defense “strongly advised” the Venezuelan regime of embattled president Nicolás Maduro not to “obstruct, deter or interfere” with US operations….
Zizians group member to be arraigned on murder charge in Vermont border agent’s death
A member of the cultlike Zizians group accused of killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent is set to make her first court appearance since prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty against her.
Teresa Youngblut, 21, of Seattle, is among a group of radical computer scientists focused on veganism, gender identity and artificial intelligence who have been linked to six killings in three states.
She’s accused of fatally shooting agent David Maland in Vermont on Jan. 20, the same day President Donald Trump was inaugurated and signed a sweeping executive order lifting the moratorium on federal executions.
Youngblut initially was charged with using a deadly weapon against law enforcement and discharging a firearm during an assault with a deadly weapon, crimes that were not punishable by the death penalty.
But the Trump administration signaled early on that more serious charges were coming as part of its push for more federal executions, and a new indictment released last month charged her with murder of a federal law enforcement agent, assaulting other agents with a deadly weapon and related firearms offenses.
Youngblut is scheduled to be arraigned on the new charges Friday afternoon.
At the time of the shooting, authorities had been watching Youngblut and her companion, Felix Bauckholt, for several days after a Vermont hotel employee reported seeing them carrying guns and wearing black tactical gear.
She’s accused of opening fire on border agents who pulled the car over on Interstate 91. An agent fired back, killing Bauckholt and wounding Youngblut….
Jeanine Pirro: 2 teens arrested for the murder of DC congressional intern
Illegal migrant arrested for sex trafficking 14-year-old girl
An illegal immigrant was arrested after deputies said he forced himself on a 14-year-old girl and even paid her for sex multiple times.
The Pasco Sheriff’s Office said Eduardo Rivera-Villarreal, 53, was arrested on multiple charges, including human trafficking.
He is believed to have met the 14-year-old girl in August when he pulled over at a Pasco County bus stop where she was sitting.
‘Unlawful aliens…’: 450 arrested in ICE raid at Hyundai plant in Georgia | US immigration crackdown
US immigration authorities raided Hyundai’s vast electric vehicle manufacturing site in southeast Georgia on Thursday, halting construction of an adjacent battery plant and arresting more than 450 people.
The 3,000-acre site west of Savannah, touted as the largest economic development project in Georgia’s history — employs about 1,200 people and began producing EVs a year ago.
Federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed a search warrant “as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and other serious federal crimes,” the Department of Homeland Security said.
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