[Breitbart] Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have arrested 11 illegal aliens, all convicted of sex crimes including some against children, in the Minneapolis, Minnesota region, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.
“These pedophiles and sex offenders are the sickos our brave ICE law enforcement are putting their lives on the line to arrest and remove from American communities,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Among the 11 illegal aliens arrested by ICE agents between June 6 and June 11 are Pao Angelo Vang and Thong Lao, two illegal aliens from Laos, who have been convicted of second-degree sexual assault of a child.
Likewise, ICE agents arrested Tou Pao Lee and Yee Shae, illegal aliens from Thailand. Lee has been convicted of soliciting a minor and Shae has been convicted of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor.
Seven other illegal aliens from Laos were arrested in the operation:
Va Vang, convicted of first-degree sexual assault
Xiong Pao Vang, convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14
Yia Xiong, convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct
Pok Vue, convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct
Hue Nai Cheng, convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct
Vang Neng Lao, convicted of second-degree criminal sexual conduct
Dao Moua, convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct
“Governor Walz and his fellow sanctuary politicians are fighting to keep these sex offenders and other criminal illegal aliens in our country,” McLaughlin said. “Instead of comparing ICE to the Nazi-Gestapo, Governor Walz should be thanking our law enforcement for removing these pedophiles from Minnesota.”
ICE officials said 70 percent of the agency’s arrests are criminal illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges against them at the time they are arrested. Officials noted that many illegal aliens classified as “non-criminals” may not have rap sheets in the United States, but they often do in their home countries.
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[FoxNews] The accused allegedly used the profits to buy luxury homes and cars
Seven Chinese nationals living in Massachusetts have been charged in connection with a multimillion-dollar drug-trafficking organization that allegedly grew and distributed marijuana across the U.S. Northeast.
"Today, we arrested members of an alleged Chinese-run drug trafficking organization who are accused of running a massive marijuana cultivation and distribution scheme that has raked in millions and contributed widely to the illegal drug trade here in the Northeast," Ted E. Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston Division, said in a statement.
The scheme allegedly involved interconnected grow houses that cultivated and distributed marijuana. Chinese nationals were also allegedly smuggled into the U.S. for the purpose of working in these houses until they paid off their debts related to being smuggled into the country, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Prosecutors say the accused individuals made millions of dollars from the marijuana sales, which they in turn used to buy cars, luxury homes, jewelry and other items, according to the DOJ.
Each of the Chinese nationals were charged with one count of conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana. Some were also indicted on additional charges, including bringing aliens into the country, money laundering and more.
A home in Braintree, Massachusetts, was reportedly the base of the drug-trafficking organization's operations. During a search of the home in October of last year, law enforcement discovered more than $270,000 in cash on the property as well as several Chinese passports. Searches of additional houses resulted in law enforcement finding nearly $200,000 in cash, more than 240 pounds of marijuana and a Rolex watch, according to the DOJ.
Hongbin Wu and Yanrong Zhu were also reportedly stopped by law enforcement in June 2023 after leaving a Massachusetts grow house, at which point nearly $37,000 in cash was seized from them.
"It is further alleged that the enterprise conducted bulk cash transactions with operators located in the Eastern District of New York," as noted in the announcement.
The case is part of the nationwide initiative Operation Take Back America, established by the U.S. DOJ to address illegal immigration and combat transnational criminal organizations.
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Panic-inducing bodycam footage captured the moment Georgia police saved two toddlers from a sweltering car their father allegedly left them in for 40 minutes.
The Cobb County Police Department recently released distressing video of the June 4 incident in the parking lot of the Cumberland Mall in Atlanta.
Deputies rushed to the scene when a concerned shopper said she noticed two sobbing children, aged one and two years old, in the backseat of an unattended car on the day that saw temperatures as high as 87 degrees Fahrenheit.
The windows were slightly open, she told the 911 operator, but it made no difference - as the car's internal temperature had reached 117 degrees.
'I am standing outside the Dick's at Cumberland Mall and there are two children in a car by themselves - small kids crying,' she said. 'The windows are cracked, but I don't think that's right.'
One of the toddlers was heard whimpering in the background of the nerve-wracking phone recording, which was shared by the police department.
Their father, J'Quawn Dixon, had allegedly gone into the mall at 12:24pm, a security guard told police. By the time officers were notified and arrived at the parked car, it was 1:03pm.
The cops said they were greeted by three bystanders gathered around the turned-off car, keeping an eye on the boy and girl while their parent was nowhere to be found, according to the video.
Texas Flood Disaster: 109 Dead, 161 Missing in Kerr County
A deadly flash flood in Kerr County, Texas has left at least 109 people dead—87 of them in Kerr alone, including 30 children—and 161 still missing after intense rainfall caused rivers like the Guadalupe to overflow. pic.twitter.com/BCa1YdFWmB
[The Hill via Town Hall] The Trump administration clinched another win today, with the Supreme Court shredding a restraining order on a rogue lower court’s ruling that prevented the government from reorganizing its workforce. For now, the mass layoffs that were put on hold are back on (via The Hill):
The ruling was 8-1, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. Yet, as Justice Amy Coney Barrett did in the Casa decision, which curtailed lower court’s national injunction power, Jackson got cooked in the opinion, only it was by Sonia Sotomayor—she had to remind Jackson that the Court can only opine on what’s been presented before them, not what they think is being presented before the body.
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[Breitbart] Far-left President of ColombiaGustavo Petro apologized to President Donald Trump in a letter for falsely accusing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others of “plotting” to oust him, Colombian outlets reported on Monday.
According to Colombian outlets, Petro wrote in his apology letter that he thinks “it’s time to turn the page on misunderstandings and look ahead.”
Petro, a proud former member of the Marxist M19 terrorist group and Colombia’s first leftist president ever, caused yet another diplomatic impasse with the Trump administration in June after he publicly claimed, without evidence, that Sec. Rubio was involved with an unnamed Colombian “far-right leader” in a coup plan to oust him from power. Petro’s baseless accusations were immediately supported by his neighbor, socialist dictador Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, who disparaged Rubio.
On Thursday, Sec. Rubio announced that Chargé d’Affaires a.i. John T. McNamara, the top diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Colombia, had been urgently recalled following the “baseless and reprehensible statements from senior Colombian government officials.” Petro reciprocated the announcement by recalling the Colombian ambassador to the United States Daniel García-Peña.
According to several Latin American outlets, the State Department began revoking U.S. visas of all current members of the Colombian government who were at any point involved with the Marxist M19 terrorist organization. In April, Petro claimed that his U.S. visa had been revoked, but asserted that he was not bothered by it because he had “already seen Donald Duck several times.”
Colombian outlets reported on Monday that roughly two weeks before both countries recalled their ambassadors, Petro sent a diplomatic letter to President Trump apologizing for his accusations against Sec. Rubio. Copies of the letter, dated June 23, were published by local outlets.
In the missive, Petro reportedly “clarifies” that any statement he made that “may have been interpreted as a direct accusation of involvement in an alleged coup d’état in Colombia was not intended to single out anyone personally or to question the role of the United States without foundation.”
“My concern has always been to warn about destabilizing dynamics affecting our region, often driven by diverse actors with conflicting interests. In this context, I recognize that some of my words may have been perceived as unnecessarily harsh,” the letter reportedly read. “In the interest of dialogue, I want to say that my intention is not to close doors, but to open paths for honest and respectful conversation between our countries.”
Petro reportedly continued in the letter by expressing concerns over “public insinuations” that “violent rhetoric” from his presidency led to the early June assassination attempt against conservative Senator Miguel Uribe. At the time. Sec. Rubio, in a social media post, condemned the incident and wrote that the assassination attempt was “the result of the violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government.”
Petro reportedly concluded the letter by claiming that he believes it is time to “turn the page on misunderstandings and look ahead,” listing “hemispheric challenges” such as “the climate crisis, inequality, migration, transnational violence” and proposing a joint summit between the U.S. and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a regional bloc presently led by Petro.
“I am convinced that the American people, like the Colombian people, aspire to a relationship based on mutual respect, sovereignty, and justice. Let us celebrate our differences within the framework of understanding, and build on our commonalities to usher in a new era of cooperation,” Petro reportedly wrote.
“This is not a call for confrontation, but for shared responsibility. History is watching us, and the harshest judgment will be that of the future. May we rise to the occasion,” he continued.
Asked by reporters on Monday if President Trump saw Petro’s apology letter and comments on the matter, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that she was not sure that President Trump had seen the letter, but that she could check with him and the National Security Council.
The incident marks the second time Petro caused a diplomatic impasse between the United States and Colombia since the start of President Trump’s second term. A few days after Trump took office, Petro abruptly refused to accept a U.S. deportation flight of Colombians, rejecting it in a late-night social media post on the grounds that the United States treats “Colombian migrants as criminals.”
President Trump responded to Petro’s actions with a barrage of retaliatory measures, including a 25-percent tariff and visa sanctions on Colombian government officials. After initially responding with a long, unhinged Twitter rant, Petro ultimately caved and “agreed to all” of President Trump’s terms.
The new impasse between the United States and Colombia occurs at a time when Petro’s government is facing a new internal crisis after Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia resigned on Thursday — the same day both countries recalled their ambassadors. Sarabia’s departure marks the third foreign minister to depart from the position during Petro’s administration. His first foreign minister, Alvaro Leyva, accused Petro of suffering from drug addiction in two explosive letters published in April and May.
Sarabia, a controversial figure and a member of Petro’s inner circle, took office in late January amid Petro’s deportation flight diplomatic crisis. She reportedly confirmed the existence of Petro’s letter to Trump, stressing that the missive was “preventive in nature” and was sent prior to any decision that could aggravate diplomatic distancing or the recalling of ambassadors.
The now-former foreign minister told the Colombian magazine Cambio on Sunday that her departure is due to differences with the Colombian government over a dispute pertaining to the printing of national passports that started long before Sarabia took office.
Petro’s administration is planning to not extend an existing contract with private firm Thomas Greg & Sons, which has printed Colombian national passports for roughly two decades, and instead have them produced by the state-run National Printing Office with technical advisory from Portugal. The proposal is spearheaded by Colombian Chief of Staff Alfredo Saade.
Sarabia claimed to Cambio that Petro is being “deceived” by Saade and accused the chief of staff of usurping her functions by blocking an extension of the contract with the passport firm and “sabotaging” the national passport appointment system to extend the existing stock long enough to make the switch. Sarabia warned that the actions “will condemn Colombia to being left without passports.”
Colombian outlets reported on Monday that after Sarabia’s statements, desperate citizens flooded the foreign minister’s passport offices hoping to book an appointment after the online appointment system showed no availability throughout July.
According to the Colombian magazine Semana, Sarabia was replaced by acting Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio — described by the magazine as an admirer of Venezuela’s late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez who defended dictator Nicolás Maduro’s fraudulent elections and who “does not speak or write English well.”
[Epoch Times] The recycled metals industry is growing domestically and internationally, in part fueled by the rapid expansion of construction and automotive manufacturing. Now, tariffs may be giving it a boost.
Buyers may be reluctant to pay higher prices on imported metals if recycled materials offer similar quality. "That shift creates a baseline demand for recycled metals that didn’t exist before .... Businesses are treating domestic supply like insurance against future supply chain shocks," Schmied said.
Generally, when scrap metal is sorted and purified by a recycling company, the metal is melted down and recast—made into rolls, ingots, or sheets—depending on the type of metal and its intended purpose. After this process, recycled metals can be sold to manufacturers for use in new products. This can be done with significantly less expense than mining new, unprocessed elements. This is news?
You’re right. Olds it is.
U.S. companies imported $1.31 billion in scrap aluminum in 2024—mostly from Canada and Mexico—according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) with data sourced from public customs records.
The United States is also a major exporter of scrap metals, with $3.98 billion in scrap aluminum exports in 2024—mostly to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and South Korea—according to OEC data. Scrap iron exports amounted to $6.46 billion in the same year. Interesting.
[Breitbart] President Donald Trump said Tuesday he plans to impose a fifty percent tariff on copper imports as part of a new wave of industry-specific trade measures, while suggesting pharmaceutical manufacturers may receive at least a year’s reprieve before facing steep new duties.
“I believe the tariff on copper—we’re going to make it 50 percent,” Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. His remarks sent copper futures soaring, with prices in New York rising as much as 17 percent—the largest intraday jump since at least 1988.
The copper duty is part of a broader initiative under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows tariffs on imports deemed to threaten national security. Trump has launched national security investigations into several sectors, including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and base metals. Most imported steel and aluminum have a 50 percent tariff, although imports of those metals from the U.K. have only a 25 percent tariff.
Pharmaceutical tariffs, however, will not take immediate effect. Trump said he intends to offer drugmakers a grace period to repatriate manufacturing operations before the new duties are enforced.
“We’re going to give people about a year, a year and a half, to come in,” Trump said. “And after that they’re going to be tariffed if they have to bring the pharmaceuticals into the country, the drugs and other things, into the country. They’re going to be tariffed at a very, very high rate—like 200 percent.”
Trump framed the pharmaceutical tariffs as a measure to encourage domestic production, saying, “We’ll give them a certain period of time to get their act together.”
The proposed tariffs are distinct from the country-specific “reciprocal tariffs” the administration is preparing to implement beginning August 1. Those duties, aimed at trade imbalances with specific nations, would not overlap with the Section 232 tariffs targeting particular industries.
Taken together, the dual efforts reflect a sweeping escalation of the administration’s use of trade tools to bolster American manufacturing and reshape global supply chains, particularly in sectors viewed as critical to national security.
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[USA Today h/t Epoch Times] The Supreme Court on July 8 lifted a federal judge's order pausing the Trump administration's large-scale staffing cuts and agency restructuring, boosting the president's campaign to downsize and reshape the federal government.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, calling it the "wrong decision at the wrong moment, especially given what little this Court knows about what is actually happening on the ground."
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that while she agrees with Jackson that any changes must comply with previous congressional directives, Trump’s executive order instructed agencies to follow the law.
[X]
🚨 OMG: Now a LIBERAL Supreme Court justice is trying to teach Justice Ketanji Jackson how this whole "judicial" thing works...
Jackson is the ONLY dissent. Sotomayor has to remind Jackson, for some reason, that the case before them is NOT about what Jackson thought it was.
[Study Finds] Researchers have developed an AI called Centaur that accurately predicts human behavior across virtually any psychological experiment. It even outperforms the specialized computer models scientists have been using for decades. Trained on data from more than 60,000 people making over 10 million decisions, Centaur captures the underlying patterns of how we think, learn, and make choices.
"The human mind is remarkably general," the researchers write in their paper, published in Nature. "Not only do we routinely make mundane decisions, such as choosing a breakfast cereal or selecting an outfit, but we also tackle complex challenges, such as figuring out how to cure cancer or explore outer space."
An AI that truly understands human cognition could revolutionize marketing, education, mental health treatment, and product design. But it also raises uncomfortable questions about privacy and manipulation when our digital footprints reveal more about us than ever before.
How Scientists Built a Digital Mind Reader AI
The research team started with an ambitious goal: create a single AI model that could predict human behavior in any psychological experiment. Their approach was surprisingly straightforward but required massive scale.
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[FOXNEWS] How second-life EV batteries are fueling the AI energy boom.
Artificial intelligence is expanding quickly, and so is the energy required to run it. Modern AI data centers use much more electricity than traditional cloud servers. In many cases, the existing power grid cannot keep up. One innovative solution is gaining traction: repurposed EV batteries for AI data centers.
HOW REDWOOD ENERGY IS USING REPURPOSED EV BATTERIES FOR AI DATA CENTERS
Redwood Materials, created by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, is addressing the energy needs of AI through a new venture called Redwood Energy. Instead of sending used electric vehicle batteries straight to recycling, the company gives them a second life.
The process begins by collecting and testing old EV battery packs. Many still retain over 50 percent of their original capacity. Once approved, these batteries are rebuilt into modular storage systems that can power AI operations.
One example is a 12-megawatt, 63-megawatt-hour microgrid now supporting a 2,000-GPU data center operated by Crusoe in Nevada. This project is considered the largest active deployment of second-life EV batteries. It already operates more affordably than systems built with new batteries.
WHY REPURPOSED EV BATTERIES FOR AI DATA CENTERS REDUCE EMISSIONS AND COSTS
The environmental and financial benefits are significant. By using repurposed EV batteries for AI data centers, companies avoid sending usable materials to landfills. This also cuts down on mining for new raw materials, which helps reduce carbon emissions.
Second-life battery systems typically cost less than brand-new lithium-ion options. That makes large-scale energy storage more accessible to AI developers and utilities. Since these batteries are already built and tested, they can be installed more quickly than waiting for new infrastructure.
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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.
[USA Today h/t Epoch Times] The Supreme Court on July 8 lifted a federal judge's order pausing the Trump administration's large-scale staffing cuts and agency restructuring, boosting the president's campaign to downsize and reshape the federal government. 
[Study Finds] Researchers have developed an AI called Centaur that accurately predicts human behavior across virtually any psychological experiment. It even outperforms the specialized computer models scientists have been using for decades. Trained on data from more than 60,000 people making over 10 million decisions, Centaur captures the underlying patterns of how we think, learn, and make choices.
