CNN: Israel Preparing Possible Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities

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CNN: Israel Preparing Possible Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) The US has obtained new intelligence that suggests Israel is preparing to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, CNN reported on Tuesday.

The report cited officials who said it was unclear if Israeli leaders had made a final decision, and the chances of an attack depend on the results of the negotiations between the Trump administration and Iran.

One source told CNN that the “chance of an Israeli strike on an Iranian nuclear facility has gone up significantly in recent months” and the “prospect of a Trump-negotiated US-Iran deal that doesn’t remove all of Iran’s uranium makes the chance of a strike more likely.”

Iranian officials have made clear that the idea of eliminating Iran’s uranium enrichment program is a non-starter, although US officials continue to make the demand.

The CNN report acknowledged that Israel doesn’t have the capacity to destroy Iran’s nuclear program without support from the US. A senior US official said that the US was stepping up intelligence collection to be prepared to assist in an Israeli attack on Iran, but another source said it was unlikely Trump would support such a move at this time.

An Israeli source said that Israel could launch an attack on its own if the US and Iran were to negotiate what it considers a “bad deal.”

Another source said that it was more likely Israel would launch the strike during the negotiations to sabotage the chances of the agreement. “I think it’s more likely they strike to try and get the deal to fall apart if they think Trump is going to settle for a ‘bad deal,’” the source said. “The Israelis have not been shy about signaling that to us … both publicly and privately.”

President Trump previously declined to back an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, opting instead for diplomacy. But he has conducted the negotiations under the threat that if a deal isn’t reached, the US will bomb Iran.

The president has been threatening to attack Iran over its nuclear program even though US intelligence agencies have recently reaffirmed there’s no evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

Rubio Warns Syria Could Descend Into ‘Full-Scale Civil War’ Within Weeks

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Rubio Warns Syria Could Descend Into ‘Full-Scale Civil War’ Within Weeks

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress on Tuesday that the US assesses the new al-Qaeda-linked Syrian government could collapse within weeks and that the country could descend into “full-scale civil war.”

Rubio made the comments at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, where he explained the administration’s rationale for engaging with Syria’s new de facto leaders, who the US helped put in power, despite their al-Qaeda roots.

Rubio recently met with Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, Syria’s new foreign minister, in Turkey. According to Turkish media reports, Shibani was a founding member of the al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate that eventually rebranded into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that led the offensive against former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and took power in Damascus in December 2024.

“The bad news is that the transitional authority figures, they didn’t pass their background check with the FBI. They’ve got a tough history and one that we understand,” Rubio said.

“If we engage them, it may work out, it may not work out. If we did not engage them, it was guaranteed that it would not work out,” he added. “In fact, it was our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the challenges they’re facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse.”

Rubio said that a collapse would lead to “a full-scale civil war of epic proportions. Basically, the country splitting up.”

Rubio’s testimony came after President Trump announced he planned to lift sanctions on Syria and met with the country’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was previously known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who was the leader of the al-Nusra Front and later HTS.

A civil war does appear to be brewing in Syria as HTS-affiliated jihadists have carried out massacres of Alawite civilians in western Syria and have also been clashing with Druze fighters around Damascus. In recent days, government forces have also launched raids against ISIS.

Syria has also faced heavy airstrikes from Israel since the regime change, and the Israeli military has invaded and seized territory in southern Syria. Sharaa has signaled that he’s willing to normalize relations with Syria to obtain sanctions relief from the US, but Israel appears more interested in continuing its occupation and bombing campaign in the country.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

Former Israeli MK: ‘Every Child, Every Baby in Gaza Is an Enemy’

Headline USA Editor
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Former Israeli MK: ‘Every Child, Every Baby in Gaza Is an Enemy’

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Moshe Feiglin, a former member of the Israeli Knesset, declared in an appearance on Israeli TV on Tuesday that “every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy” of Israel.

“The enemy is not Hamas, nor is it the military wing of Hamas, as our military commander tells us, that we are forbidden to harm a Hamasnik unless he is part of the military wing,” Feiglin said, according to the Israeli newspaper Maariv.

“Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to occupy Gaza and settle it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there. There is no other victory,” he added.

Feiglin was in the Knesset from 2013 to 2015 as a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and as a representative of Zehut, a party he founded that considers itself “libertarian.”

Feiglin’s genocidal comments came on the same day that Yair Golan, leader of Israel’s Democrats Party, said that Israel was killing babies in Gaza as a “hobby,” which sparked a strong backlash from Netanyahu and his allies.

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.

 

ICE Busts Armenian Crime Syndicate Operating in California, Florida

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ICE Busts Armenian Crime Syndicate Operating in California, Florida

(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square)  A multi-agency investigation led to the arrest of 13 alleged members of Armenian organized crime syndicates operating in California and Florida.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and law enforcement officers in California and Florida arrested 13 alleged members and associates of Armenian organized crime syndicates on Tuesday, also seizing firearms, approximately $100,000 in cash and three armored vehicles.

They were charged in five federal complaints for allegedly committing attempted murder, kidnapping, illegal firearm possession and over $80 million worth of theft from Amazon and its retailers.

“This transnational criminal organization operated with the structure and brutality of an international cartel, inflicting significant harm on public safety and causing substantial damage to legitimate commerce and supply chains,” ICE Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles acting Deputy Special Agent in Charge Dwayne Angebrandt said.

Since 2022, two local Armenian crime leaders have allegedly been involved in a power struggle for control of their U.S. territory, resulting in multiple murder attempts and a kidnapping, according to the complaint.

Ara Artuni, 41, living in Porter Ranch, Calif., was charged with attempted murder in aid of racketeering. His rival, Robert Amiryan, 46, living in Hollywood, was charged with kidnapping. Their scheduled court appearances are in Los Angeles.

Armenian Vahan Harutyunyan, 50, living in Hollywood, Florida, was also arrested. He made his initial court appearance on Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale. A judge ordered him to be detained.

Two other Armenians living in Nevada and California, Levon Arakelyan, 45, and Ivan Bojorquez, 33, respectively, are currently in state custody, ICE said.

The transnational criminal organization, Armenian Organized Crime, is affiliated with the Russian mafia and has made Los Angeles County a center of U.S. operations, according to affidavits filed with the criminal complaints.

In 2023, Artuni allegedly ordered the attempted murder of Amiryan, authorities said. In retaliation, Amiryan allegedly conspired to kidnap and torture one of Artuni’s associates, authorities said.

Since at least 2021, Artuni and his criminal enterprise have committed bank fraud, wire fraud, and “cargo theft” targeting online retailers like Amazon.com Inc., the complaint alleges. To defraud Amazon, he and his associates enrolled as Amazon carriers, contracted for trucking routes, and stole all or part of the shipments they were supposed to deliver. They allegedly stole more than $83 million worth of goods from Amazon, according to the complaint.

The operation also ran a “credit card bust-out” scheme, according to the complaint, charging various credit cards to a sham business, then draining the business account before credit card companies could collect disputed funds.

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the bust was “a warning to criminals: Our communities are not your playground to engage in violence and thuggery.”

Working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Burbank Police investigators “spent hundreds of hours investigating these heinous violent crimes,” Burbank Police Chief Rafael Quintero said.

If convicted of the charges, the Armenians face statutory maximum sentences of 10 years in federal prison to life imprisonment.

Multiple federal agencies were involved in the investigation, including Homeland Security Investigations; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General; IRS Criminal Investigation; and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Investigators with the Los Angeles Police Department Major Crimes Division – Transnational Organized Crime Section and Burbank Police Department were also heavily involved.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is prosecuting the case.

New Orleans Secretly Deployed Network of Facial Recognition Cameras

Jose Nino
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New Orleans Secretly Deployed Network of Facial Recognition Cameras

(José Niño, Headline USA) A secret surveillance network in New Orleans has sparked a national debate over privacy and police power.  

For two years, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) secretly deployed a sweeping facial recognition surveillance program, scanning city streets with more than 200 cameras in search of suspects, according to a Monday report in the Washington Post.

Civil liberties advocacy organizations like the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) argue that this move violates local law and represents a major escalation in American policing that could negatively impact individual liberties. 

Unlike standard police use of facial recognition, which typically involves the analysis of still images from crime scenes to identify unknown suspects, New Orleans police teamed up with Project NOLA, a private nonprofit, to access a live network of facial recognition-enabled cameras. 

These cameras, which were largely concentrated in high-traffic and crime-ridden areas such as the French Quarter, continuously scanned individuals walking in the area. The camera would automatically alert officers via a mobile application when a potential match to a secretive watchlist was detected.

This real-time tracking system operated without the public and city council being aware of this, circumventing a 2022 ordinance that strictly limited police use of facial recognition. 

The law only allowed the technology for specific, violent crime investigations and required each use to be documented and reported for oversight. Instead, officers relied on Project NOLA’s alerts for dozens of arrests—including some for non-violent offenses—without disclosing their use of facial recognition in police reports or making mandatory filings to the city council. 

Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, described it as a “facial recognition technology nightmare scenario.” He also warned that such unchecked surveillance gives the government the power to track anyone, anywhere, at any time.

The partnership with Project NOLA raises serious concerns. The nonprofit, run by a former police officer, maintains its own database of tens of thousands of faces—largely scraped from police mugshots—without public transparency or due process. 

The system allows for retroactive searches of stored video, allowing law enforcement  to retrace a person’s movements across the city for up to 30 days.

Despite the scale of surveillance, the NOPD did not retain records of the alerts it received, and officers rarely documented their use of facial recognition in investigative reports. 

After the Washington Post began investigating the matter, Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick paused the program in April, pending a review to determine whether it was in violation of city law. That said, Project NOLA staff reportedly continue to monitor alerts and notify police by phone, text, or email.

The ACLU of Louisiana issued a warning about the dangers of this program, “By adopting this system—in secret, without safeguards, and at tremendous threat to our privacy and security—the City of New Orleans has crossed a thick red line. This is the stuff of authoritarian surveillance states, and has no place in American policing.”

Until stronger safeguards are implemented, the risks of wrongful arrests and privacy violations will continue to shadow American cities. 

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino

Obama’s Name Surfaces in Explosive Diddy Sex, Drug Case

Luis Cornelio
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Obama’s Name Surfaces in Explosive Diddy Sex, Drug Case

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Former President Barack Obama’s name was invoked Tuesday during the sex-trafficking trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. 

Combs’s former personal assistant, David James, testified that some of the drugs Combs kept and used were molded in the likeness of Obama’s head. 

“There were various pills but one was in the form of a former president’s face,” James said, as quoted by the New York Post.  

When federal prosecutor Christy Slavik asked, “Which former president?” James replied, “President Obama.” 

James added that Combs stored between 25 and 30 pills, including Percocet, ecstasy, Viagra and even sperm-related supplements 

“Some were Advil, Tylenol,” James continued. “He had water pills to help him lose weight. He had Viagra in there. Some pills to help increase his sperm count. He had ecstasy and Percocet in there as well.” 

James testified for the prosecution in the federal trial of Combs, whom prosecutors said ran a racketeering conspiracy involving sex trafficking and transporting women for prostitution. 

Prosecutors contend that between 2008 and present, Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others” as part of a “racketeering conspiracy” implicated in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice. 

Combs is a well-known Democrat. He campaigned for Obama in 2008, going as far as organizing the “Last Chance For Change Rally” in Florida to boost black voter turnout. He again backed Obama in 2012. 

In 2020, Combs invited then-Sen. Kamala Harris for a digital COVID-19 town hall, where Harris offered opening remarks. 

“Sean, I want to thank you because you always have a way of convening and bringing folks together,” Harris said. 

Comedian Tim Dillon Ridicules CNN’s Notion that Podcasters are the ‘New Establishment’

Luis Cornelio
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Comedian Tim Dillon Ridicules CNN’s Notion that Podcasters are the ‘New Establishment’

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Comedian and podcaster Tim Dillon pushed back against CNN’s claims that new media sources—including his own show and The Joe Rogan Experience—form a “new establishment” that influenced the 2024 election in favor of President Donald Trump. 

Leading up to last November’s election, Dillon, Rogan and other prominent podcasters had Trump and JD Vance on their shows. Speaking with CNN’s Elle Reeve on Tuesday, Dillon rejected the premise that those shows swung the election, calling it “crazy” to blame a handful of podcasters for former Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat.  

Instead, Dillon said Harris’s loss can be attributed to both her unpopularity and her late entry to the election after Joe Biden decided to exit the race. 

“To hang this defeat on a few podcasts and to say that they were the problem—I don’t buy, I just don’t buy the narrative,” Dillon added.

He reiterated that neither he nor fellow podcasters wield institutional power to be called “establishment,” later stating:  

“If you weigh … a few comedians with podcasts versus all of the people that supported Kamala Harris, Democrat donors, billionaires, big people, it’s the idea—is it?—me and a few comedians have more power than multi-billionaires, huge media institutions or a whole political party apparatus. I just don’t think most people are going to buy that.” 

Dillon added that blaming the election on podcasts “seems like a great way to excuse running an unpopular candidate on a platform that American people weren’t sold on.” 

Reeve doubled down on her claims, saying that there is “power” in a “massive audience.” 

Her claims echo leftist rhetoric affirming, without evidence, that Trump’s 2024 victory was fueled by his appearances on popular podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience, Theo Von’s This Past Weekend and Adin Ross’s Adin Live. 

Dillon swiftly pushed back again: 

“The idea that, like, the power that Theo Von has would be equal to like the intelligence agencies or these massive legacy media institutions seems crazy.” 

When Reeve insisted podcasts still held influence, Dillon clarified: 

“You used the word ‘establishment,’ I didn’t say we didn’t have the power or that audiences weren’t powerful. But the term ‘establishment,’ that, that’s more than just having an audience, that’s having an institutional component that I don’t think we have. But I think legacy media does. I think the government and the intelligence communities do. I think Hollywood certainly does.”

The full interview can be found here:

Democrat Rep. Gerry Connolly Dies in Office

Ken Silva
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Democrat Rep. Gerry Connolly Dies in Office

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, who most recently held a prominent position as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, died on Wednesday at the age of 75.

He died at home in the company of family members, his family said in a statement. His death leaves House Republicans with a 220-212 majority.

Connolly announced last month that he’d retire at the end of his term, after revealing late last year that he had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and would undergo chemotherapy and immunotherapy. He said that after “grueling treatments,” he learned that the cancer has returned.

Concerns about Connolly’s health were a factor late last year as he ran for the top ranking position on Oversight, one of the most prominent committees in Congress.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., ran against Connolly for the job but was defeated as the majority of Democrats opted to stick with the seniority system. Connolly has served on the Oversight Committee for more than 16 years.

He is the latest high-profile Democrat to die in office.

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., passed away last month—making him the second Democrat to die in office in as many weeks. Grijalva died of complications from cancer treatment, his office said in a statement. The treatments had sidelined him from Congress in recent months.

He stepped down as the top Democrat on the Natural Resources committee earlier this year, after announcing that he planned to retire rather than run for reelection in 2026.

Another Democratic House member, Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas, died a week before Grijalva from health issues.

Turner, in turn, had replaced U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died last July after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

FDA No Longer Recommends COVID Vaccine for Healthy Babies

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FDA No Longer Recommends COVID Vaccine for Healthy Babies

(Headline USA) The U.S. government no longer recommends the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy babies thanks to new guidelines from the Trump administration, which said Tuesday it will limit approval for seasonal COVID-19 shots to seniors and others at high risk pending more data on everyone else.

Top officials for the Food and Drug Administration laid out new standards for updated COVID shots, saying they’d continue to use a streamlined approach to make them available to adults 65 and older as well as children and younger adults with at least one high-risk health problem.

But the FDA framework, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, urges companies to conduct large, lengthy studies before tweaked vaccines can be approved for healthier people. Previously, federal policy recommended an annual COVID shot for all Americans six months and older. In the paper and a subsequent online webcast, the FDA’s top vaccine official said more than 100 million Americans still should qualify for what he termed a booster under the new guidance.

Dr. Vinay Prasad described the new approach as a “reasonable compromise” that will allow vaccinations in high-risk groups to continue while generating new data about whether they still benefit healthier people.

“For many Americans we simply do not know the answer as to whether or not they should be getting the seventh or eighth or ninth or tenth COVID-19 booster,” said Prasad, who joined the FDA earlier this month. He previously spent more than a decade in academia, frequently criticizing the FDA’s handling of drug and vaccine approvals.

It’s unclear what the upcoming changes mean for people who may still want a fall COVID-19 shot but don’t clearly fit into one of the categories.

Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows more than 47,000 Americans died from COVID-related causes last year. The virus was the underlying cause for two-thirds of those and it was a contributing factor for the rest.

Health experts say there are legitimate questions about how much everyone still benefits from yearly COVID vaccination or whether they should be recommended only for people at increased risk.

In June, an influential panel of advisers to the CDC is set to debate which vaccines should be recommended to which groups.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Nancy Mace Teases Nude Photo in Attack on Ex-Fiancé

Luis Cornelio
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Nancy Mace Teases Nude Photo in Attack on Ex-Fiancé

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on Tuesday displayed a printed nude photo of herself—allegedly taken without her consent by her ex-fiancé—while pressing South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson to prosecute him and other men for sexual misconduct.  

Mace introduced the photo, which was mounted on cardboard, to illustrate her proposed bills protecting victims of potential predatory behavior. The photo appears to be a still from a security camera inside a living room and shows the silhouette of a woman, whom Mace identified as herself.

Earlier Tuesday, Mace said she was going to show her naked body on the House floor, which prompted allegations that she was simply doing a publicity stunt, as well as jokes about her attention-seeking behavior. The jokes didn’t stop when Mace’s photo turned out to be not as graphic as what many were expecting.

The South Carolina congresswoman said the photo was secretly recorded by her former fiancé, Patrick Bryant. Bryant—engaged to Mace from May 2022 until 2023—is under investigation by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, according to Live 5 News. 

“This is sick, this is perverted,” Mace said, holding up several images of other alleged victims. “This is criminal, and these men walk free today in South Carolina. I can’t unsee the sexual assault and the rape of this young woman in the tape that I accidentally uncovered.” 

She continued: “These men should be behind bars. These weren’t accidents. These were premeditated. They were planned. They were filmed. They were stored, meticulously organized, categorized, cataloged private [in a] hidden folder.” 

Bryant fired back in remarks to Politico, accusing Mace of making the allegations only on the House floor, where she is “purportedly shielded by legal immunity.” 

As quoted by Politico, Bryant continued, “If she believed them to be true and there was evidence to support her accusations, she would say them outside the chamber — away from her public role and protections and pursue them through proper legal channels. She has not done so, because she cannot.” 

Mace first leveled her accusations in a February floor speech, naming Bryant and three others as alleged perpetrators of sex crimes, including trafficking and nonconsensual recording. 

“I am living proof that even as a member of Congress, I found myself face-to-face with the darkest corners of humanity,” Mace stated.

She added: “In November of 2023, I accidentally uncovered some of the most heinous crimes against women imaginable. We are talking about rape, nonconsensual photos, nonconsensual videos of women and underage girls, and the premeditated, calculated exploitation of women and girls in my district.” 

The DOJ is currently representing Mace in a defamation lawsuit filed by one of the men named by Mace. 

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