Category: Security

An internal memo recently sent to U.S. Border Patrol agents shows that Mexican cartels are ordering cartel members to attack Border Patrol agents with explosives and kamikaze drones following President Donald Trump’s increased efforts to secure the southern border between the United States and Mexico.

The New York Post reported that an internal memo obtained by the outlet cited various sources, including social media posts, and warned Border Patrol agents to “remain cognizant of their surroundings at all times.”

The internal memo, which was titled “Officer Safety Alert,” said, “On February 1, 2025, the El Paso Sector Intelligence and Operations Center (EPT-IOC) received information advising that Mexican cartel leaders have authorized the deployment of drones equipped with explosives to be used against US Border Patrol agents and US military personal currently working along the border with Mexico.”

In the memo, U.S. Border Patrol officials added, “It is recommended that all US Border Patrol agents and DoD personnel working along the border report any sighting of drones to their respective leadership staff and the EPT-IOC.”

READ MORE: Pics: Manhunt underway for suspect in murder of Border Patrol agent: Report

According to The New York Post, the Border Patrol memo also urged agents to always “carry proper equipment,” such as body armor, first aid kids, and tourniquets. Border Patrol agents were also advised that rifles “should be readily available.”

News Nation reported that in addition to the internal Border Patrol memo, Mexican cartels have encouraged illegal immigrants on various social media platforms, including TikTok, to “spit and urinate” in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents’ food and defecate in agents’ vehicles. According to the outlet, other social media posts have encouraged assassins to target Border Patrol officials.

Additionally, Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, told News Nation that leaked information regarding the federal government’s ICE raids and deportation efforts across the country has forced officials to make changes to operations due to safety concerns for U.S. agents.

“We’ve got many target cities, but I’m not going to share them with you because we got to keep our officers safe,” Homan told News Nation. “Matter of fact, Chicago, that operation was leaked, so we had to reschedule that one. But we need an element of surprise because of officer safety issues. We don’t want the bad guy to know we’re coming.”

Gloucester High School’s Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps Program dates to 1888, but this year it’s undergoing a sea change.

The program is transitioning from a Marine Corps unit to a Navy one under new leadership by Chief Mark Robinson of Gloucester, a Coast Guard veteran who retired last year from the service after 20 years.

The program has 58 cadets in all grade levels at the high school, with four seniors, he said.

Superintendent Ben Lummis, updating the School Committee, said the NJROTC Program recently completed and passed its area manager inspection report.

The program had been reviewed in areas of administration, reporting and records, cadet performance and college and career readiness. Lummis noted that under Robinson the Gloucester NJROTC passed inspection in all categories.

During his presentation, Lummis thanked Robinson, a first-year instructor, as he goes about rebuilding the program. He noted that Robinson has been “an exceptional addition to the Gloucester High School staff.”

Principal James Cook wrote in the NJROTC and NNDCC instructor evaluation, contained in the School Committee’s packet: “Chief Robinson is an exceptional addition to the Gloucester High School faculty. Most importantly, he connects well with cadets and holds them accountable in a way that helps them grow.”

NNDCC stands for Navy National Defense Cadet Corps under which the Gloucester High program falls. Both the NJROTC and NNDCC programs are the same according to their curriculum, but the distinction means the program has a local funding component.

Lummis said the program is building toward becoming a full NJROTC program.

Uniform day

Last Thursday was uniform day for the program, which is the day of the week the cadets wear their uniforms in school.

Robinson wears his from the Coast Guard.

About 1:30 p.m., the cadets, mostly freshmen with some sophomores, juniors and seniors, stood in the high school’s field house undergoing a uniform inspection.

There are certain criteria about what to wear and how to wear it with their name tag, ribbons they’ve earned or the stars for the years they have been in the program displayed on their uniform, Robinson said.

When the cadet leading the inspection, Senior Chief Petty Officer Aiden Spoon, dismissed his fellow cadets after their inspection, and they stepped out of line out of order. Robinson did not like what he saw.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s do that again. Come on, that was awful. We know better.”

They did it again, and Robinson pronounced: “Better.”

Petty Officer Marisa Todd, 15, a sophomore, said she likes the program, but she’s unsure if she wants to serve in the military.

Spoon, a junior, said he’s interested in the military, and he’s eyeing the Marine Corps, though he notes it’s “kind of rigorous.”

“I like it because I’ve made a lot of friends I would have never made if I never did ROTC,” he said. “There is a lot of people in there that are unlikely to be together in one group, but we are all in one group in ROTC.”

Spoon, 17, said he enjoyed drill team last year, but his schedule is too heavy this year to do that again.

“The class itself is really fun, too, I think,” he said. As part of the program, during Thanksgiving, Spoon and a couple of other cadets helped prepare free meals at The Open Door food pantry on Emerson Avenue.

A lot of what the cadets do is academics, Robinson said.

“The Navy is very big on the knowledge piece, whether that’s history, civil service, military law, military justice, science, naval science, maritime laws, maritime navigation, stuff like that,” he said. Three days are given over to study, the fourth day is uniform day, and the fifth revolves around physical fitness.

Big shoes to fill

All JROTC programs are sponsored by different branches of the military, and when the Marine Corps decided to go to a different school, the Navy took over the Gloucester program, Robinson said.

He noted Gloucester’s program, founded in 1888, was for the longest time part of the Army. Hanging in the school’s front atrium are two large metal William Randolph Hearst trophies for the National R.O.T.C. Rifle Match Eastern Championship for 1930 and 1932.

There was a brief time in the late 1980s when there was no program at the high school before the Marine Corps picked it up in 1996, Robinson said.

“So this is really part of history for this town. A JROTC program has been here longer than some states” have existed, he said.

The program was overseen for 23 years by Marine Corps gunner Richard Muth, who retired from the job in the spring of 2019, according to a story on the Gloucester High news site, The Gillnetter.

“He did a lot of great work. All of these achievements, all of these plaques, all of these medals” Robinson said looking around the JROTC classroom, “are from him during his era here. So, a huge legacy as far as that goes. So, really filling big shoes in that respect.”

Changing over the program from one branch to another has been challenging for some students because they went from one way of doing things to another, Robinson said.

“They have done very well with that respect,” he said. The program is not a recruitment program for the military, he added, rather it’s a citizen development program.

“What we are trying to do is give them an experience they wouldn’t otherwise have.”

___

© 2025 the Gloucester Daily Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, Western nations have accused China of supplying Moscow with microchips and other critical dual-use technologies that are “powering Russia’s brutal war of aggression.”

In response, Washington and Brussels have hit hundreds of Chinese companies and individuals with sanctions in a pressure campaign to stem the technology flow to the Kremlin’s war machine.

But left untouched by these Western sanctions are some two dozen Chinese companies supplying Russia with gallium, germanium, and antimony — key elements found in the drones and missiles that Moscow is using to pummel Ukraine.

An investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, has found that these Chinese companies are feeding these critical minerals to Russia’s military-industrial complex, including the state-owned conglomerate Rostec, which says it provides nearly 80 percent of the weapons the Kremlin is deploying in Ukraine.

According to records obtained by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and reviewed by Schemes, at least a third of these suppliers are partially owned by the Chinese government, which publicly denies having “fanned fire or fueled the flames” of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Among the recipients of these Chinese metals is a Japanese-owned Russian firm that has sold silicon wafers to Russian manufacturers of microelectronics for weapons, customs and tax records reviewed by Schemes show. Japan has coordinated with Washington and Brussels on its own sanctions targeting Russian aggression.

Following Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the United States and the EU imposed restrictions on exports of gallium, germanium, and antimony to Russia. But China is not a party to Western sanctions targeting Moscow, meaning their effectiveness is limited.

“If there is direct cooperation between a Chinese and a Russian company, then the sanctions of Western partners do not directly affect this. They can continue to do what they do among themselves,” Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s sanctions policy commissioner, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, told Schemes.

Vlasiuk added, however, that sanctions nonetheless play an important role in complicating the Russian military’s supply chain.

Conventional And Nuclear Weapons

Many countries across the world — including the United States and EU member nations — maintain reserves of gallium, germanium, and antimony due to their importance in microelectronics and military applications.

“These are all elements that are parts of any electronic systems…and even more so in a war zone, in military facilities, in any kind of defense system,” Tetyana Solomakha, a senior avionics lecturer at the Kyiv Aviation Institute, told Schemes.

Among the many military applications of these minerals are nuclear weapons, night-vision goggles, laser-guidance systems, drones, and infrared sensors for warships, aircraft, missiles, and tanks.

“These metals are used in microprocessors. A drone without a flight controller and without this microprocessor simply will not fly,” Anton Pobuta, founder of the Ukrainian company Lab 418, which manufactures drones, told Schemes.

When China, the world’s largest producer of gallium, germanium, and antimony, banned its companies last month from supplying the three minerals to the United States in response to new U.S. export controls targeting Beijing, Chinese officials specifically cited their military applications.

But Beijing has secured a firm hold on the market for these minerals in Russia, where buyers include multiple companies already subjected to U.S. sanctions.

Amid the Western sanctions regime, China became the only foreign supplier of gallium and germanium to Russia in 2023 and remains Russia’s largest supplier of antimony, according to Russian customs data obtained by Schemes.

The Rostec-linked companies through which Chinese rare minerals end up in the Russian defense sector include Germanium JSC, a direct Rostec subsidiary, and a private company called Germanium and Applications, which actively does business with Rostec.

Records reviewed by Schemes show that Germanium and Applications in turn supplies Chinese rare metals to companies that include the Urals Optical and Mechanical Plant, a manufacturer of optical equipment for Russian military jets and helicopters.

The Urals Optical and Mechanical Plant, which is under both U.S. and EU sanctions, describes itself as the “main suppliers of optical systems” for the Russian military.

Other Russian importers of Chinese rare minerals include the U.S.-sanctioned Enkor Grupp, an electronics manufacturer whose plant received a visit from Russian President Vladimir Putin last year, and Cryotrade Engineering, a company that has also been sanctioned by Washington and which works with Rostec and other firms in the Russian military industry.

Public procurement records show that Cryotrade Engineering, an importer of Chinese gallium, does business with multiple Russian research institutes under U.S. sanctions, including the Kurchatov Institute, a nuclear-weapons developer headed by a close associate of Putin. Gallium is used to stabilize the plutonium in atomic bombs.

Both gallium and germanium are used in technology critical for Russian weapons, including laser guidance systems like those used in the Orlan-30 unmanned reconnaissance drone, which Moscow has deployed in Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry boasted in November that the Orlan-30’s laser designator rangefinder “makes it possible to accurately aim a guided munition, whether it is an adjusted aerial bomb or an adjusted artillery shell, at a target.”

Japan’s Supply-Chain Link

Records reviewed by Schemes also show that a Russian subsidiary of the Japanese company Ferrotec, which produces silicon parts for microchips, has both imported antimony from China and sold silicon wafers to Russian manufacturers of microelectronics for the military.

The subsidiary, Moscow-based Ferrotec Nord, has imported antimony over the past four years from companies within VITAL Technology Group, a Chinese conglomerate with around 25-percent ownership by Chinese state entities.

The most recent of these listed shipments in customs records obtained by Schemes came in February 2024, nearly two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

As recently as last year, Ferrotec Nord sold silicon wafers to a plant outside Moscow called Epiel, according to tax records obtained by Schemes.

Epiel is among the main suppliers of microchip components to the Rostec-owned firm Angstrem, which openly states that it works with Russian arms manufacturers.

In Russian civil litigation in November 2023, Angstrem stated that it supplies microchips and semiconductor devices to the Russian Defense Ministry, state space agency Roskosmos, and sanctioned Russian arms manufacturer Uralvagonzavod, among other weapons producers.

The company added that its volume of orders had quadrupled due to Russia’s “special military operation” — the official Kremlin description of its war on Ukraine.

Schemes sought comment from the Japanese holding Ferrotec on its rare-mineral imports from China and work with suppliers to Russia’s military-industrial complex.

The company did not respond in time for publication.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

Rivals in the South China Sea developing artificial islands to back up their claims have destroyed nearly 28.3 square kilometers of coral reefs, a U.S.-based think tank said, with China responsible for the most damage followed by Vietnam.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, analyzed island building activities of rival claimants, including China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines, using commercial satellite imagery.

Dredging and landfill had caused “irreparable damage” to the marine habitat, as well as long-term changes to the overall structure and health of reefs in the South China Sea, said the group, which is affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“China has caused the most reef destruction, having buried roughly 4,648 acres (18.8 square km) of reef since 2013,” AMTI said in a report, adding that Vietnam came second with approximately 2,362 acres (9.5 square km) of reef, mostly in 2024.

Government agencies in the two countries were not available for comment during the Lunar New Year holiday.

The total area of damage increased by 800 acres (3.2 square km) from 6,200 acres (25 square km) at the end of 2023. China and Vietnam are responsible for 65% and 33% of reef destruction, respectively, AMTI said.

In a December 2023 report, the group said that besides island building, giant clam harvesting by Chinese fishermen also damaged another 16,353 acres (66.1 square km) of coral reef.

According to AMTI, Manila planned to initiate a second legal challenge against Beijing over environmental destruction in what it calls the West Philippine Sea, or part of the South China Sea within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, where it has jurisdiction over natural resources in the water and the seabed.

The Marcos administration, however, has yet to decide on a venue for the lawsuit.

Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines accounted for less than 3% of the damage, AMTI said.

Pre-emptive counter strike

In 2016, the Philippines won an arbitration case against China under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, but Beijing refused to acknowledge the ruling.

AMTI’s director, Greg Poling, suggested that Manila could file with the U.N. General Assembly a resolution demanding compliance with the 2016 arbitration, and another resolution seeking an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on issues such as whether China’s behavior violates international treaties.

As with the first case, the Philippines would have to rely mostly on its own efforts as the ASEAN grouping’s non-interference principle would prevent other countries in the region from intervening, said Philippine maritime legal expert Jay Batongbacal.

For its part, China seemed to have been “trying to counter the Philippines’ complaints against their environmentally damaging activities since last year,” the expert told Radio Free Asia.

Researcher Dinh Kim Phuc said that despite the environmental damage, Vietnam’s actions “must happen” and are necessary for “strategic defense.”

“We cannot place protection of the marine environment alone,” he told RFA. “We must place it with overall regional security. As long as China does not give up its intention to occupy the entire South China Sea, the sea environment will continue to be destroyed to serve many different purposes.”

China’s coast guard held a special maritime law enforcement briefing on Sunday, during which it accused other claimant countries of damaging the ecosystems in the South China Sea while praising its own efforts to protect the environment.

Such public briefings could serve as a pre-emptive counter strike against Manila’s plan, Batongbacal said.

China Coast Guard spokesperson Liu Dejun said in an interview with the Global Times newspaper that in 2024 Chinese law enforcement cracked down on illegal fishing, illegal waste disposal and hunting of precious and endangered wildlife, detaining more than 500 foreign vessels for various violations and confiscating 15 of them.

A foreign fishing vessel was caught poaching coral, with more than 1,200 live coral specimens and large quantities of giant clam shells seized, Liu said without identifying the country that the ship came from.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

A Tibetan writer and former elementary school teacher, imprisoned for having contact with Tibetans living abroad and making a prayer offering to the Dalai Lama, has been placed under strict surveillance following his release from jail in November 2024.

Palgon, 32, and who goes by only one name, was arrested at his home in Pema county in the Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai province in August 2022, and served more than two years in jail.

Since his release, he has been prohibited from contacting others, the sources told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

“Details about where he was detained over the past two years as well as his current health condition remain unknown, due to tight restrictions imposed by authorities,” the first source told RFA.

The Chinese government frequently arrests Tibetans for praying for the Dalai Lama and for possessing photos of him, limiting religious freedom in Tibet and controlling all aspects of Tibetan Buddhism.

The government also restricts Tibetans inside Tibet from communicating with those living abroad, saying it undermines national unity.

Tibetans, in turn, have decried surveillance by Beijing, saying Chinese authorities are violating their human rights and trying to eradicate their religious, linguistic and cultural identity.

Sources also said Palgon — a graduate of the prominent vocational Tibetan private school Gangjong Sherig Norling, which was shut down by the Chinese government in July 2024 — wrote many literary pieces on various social media platforms and audio chat groups before his arrest.

However, his writings and posts have since been deleted and remain inaccessible online, and his social media accounts have been blocked, they said.

Human Rights Watch noted in its “World Report 2025″ that authorities arbitrarily arrested Tibetans in Tibet in 2024 for posting unapproved content online or having online contact with Tibetans outside the region.

RFA reported in early September 2024 that Chinese authorities arrested four Tibetans from Ngaba county in Sichuan province accusing one monk from Kirti Monastery of making dedication prayer offerings outside Tibet and two laypersons for maintaining contact with Tibetans outside the region.

Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk exposed the “dirty little secret” about the federal government’s spending after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) discovered that officials at the U.S. Department of the Treasury were “instructed always to approve payments,” even if the payments were made to “fraudulent or terrorist groups.”

In a Saturday post on X, formerly Twitter, Musk wrote, “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once.”

Musk also shared a post by Robby Starbuck, who tweeted, “The highest ranking Treasury official, David A Lebryk, is resigning rather than complying with a request by @DOGE for access to audit where they’ve spent trillions of dollars a year. Why would career bureaucrats fear an audit by @elonmusk and @doge to see where we can save money?”

Musk’s bombshell accusation against the U.S. Treasury came just prior to a report by The New York Times that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had granted DOGE access to the department’s payment system. According to Fox News, the Treasury issues approximately $6 trillion in payments for various federal agencies each year.

READ MORE: $151 billion spent on illegal immigration in 2023: Report

Asked about Musk’s effort to expose the federal government’s wasteful spending during an interview with Fox News, Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary said, “I’m okay with it, and I think the American people are okay with it. Everybody knows the dirty little secret about government. It drips with fat.”

O’Leary told Fox News that no one has ever attempted to review the government’s spending in the same way that Musk and DOGE are currently reviewing it.

“No one’s ever done an exercise like this. I thought he’d get a lot more pushback from Congress, and he’s not,” O’Leary said. “He’s going in there with a spatula, and he’s scraping out billions of dollars, and people are okay with it. After all, it’s taxpayers’ money. Why not do this? If you sit around your kitchen table, you got to have a budget every year. Why can’t we apply the same kind of philosophy to government?”

O’Leary explained that despite the “controversial” nature of Musk, the billionaire and top Trump ally has been permitted a “lot of slack” to investigate the federal government’s wasteful spending because no one else has the “executional skills” that he has.

“There’s nobody like him,” O’Leary added. “Let him do his thing.”

This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.

For months now, thousands of North Korean soldiers have been storming trenches, dodging artillery fire, fighting alongside Russian troops trying to dislodge Ukrainian forces from Russian territory.

When they first appeared last fall, the North Korean deployment worried Western officials, who feared they would pummel Ukrainian troops, already-beleaguered elsewhere the 1,100-kilometer front line, and force a retreat.

That didn’t happen. And now, North Korean troops are reportedly being pulled back from the front lines. The reason, according to a New York Times report on January 31, appears to be high casualties.

Ukraine authorities had mixed assessments of the Times report: One military intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Current Time that North Korean troops indeed had been rotated out, due to “big losses” but characterized their movement as “standard operations.”

Ukraine’s special operation command, however, told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that North Korean troops had not been observed in areas where special forces were fighting for approximately three weeks: “Likely having suffered significant losses, they were forced to retreat.”

If a North Korean withdrawal, or even a major retreat, is confirmed, it would be a potentially embarrassing setback for Russian commanders — not to mention a blow to the notion that the North Korean troops would be able to make a decisive battlefield difference.

Here’s what we know so far.

From Pyongyang To Kursk

After weeks of Ukrainian warnings, bolstered by satellite images and other open-source intelligence, North Korean troops started appearing in Russian regions bordering Ukraine in mid-October. More than 11,000 in all, officials said at the time.

At the time, it wasn’t fully clear why Russian officials had turned to Pyongyang for help; some experts suggested President Vladimir Putin was trying to avoid calling a new mobilization, or sending conscripts into battle — something that would spark opposition inside Russia.

Western officials portrayed it as a sign of desperation. Western estimates put Russia’s casualties since the start of the all-out invasion in February 2022 at more than 700,000 killed or wounded.

“This is an indication that he may be in even more trouble than most people realize,” then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in October, referring to Putin. “He went tin-cupping early on to get additional weapons and materials from” North Korea.

Ukrainian officials predicted they would end up in Kursk, a border region where Ukraine had surprised Russia with an invasion two months prior.

Have They Made A Difference On The Battlefield?

When Ukraine punched across the border in August 2024, its forces — some of which included Kyiv’s most experienced, battle-hardened units — quickly seized a sizable amount of territory in Kursk: about 1,300 square kilometers at its maximum.

It was the biggest invasion of Russian territory by a foreign military since World War II.

Russia’s defense was initially shambolic, and disorganized– which prompted surprise and outrage, particularly among local residents. But commanders redeployed units, slowly pushing Ukrainian troops back. North Korean soldiers deployed in October; Ukrainian officials reported first clashes with them in early November.

Russia and North Korea’s combined forces to date have retaken a little more than half the territory Ukrainian forces had seized in Kursk.

Days after the New Year, Ukrainian commanders ordered a new offensive in the Kursk region, to roll back North Korean gains.

The reasoning again was unclear, though some experts said it might have been to gain territory and jockey for position ahead of possible peace negotiations that U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing for.

It was during that effort that Ukrainian troops appeared to have captured several North Koreans.

“They operate according to Soviet tactics, they operate in platoons, companies. They take advantage of their mass presence,” Ukraine’s top military officer, General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said in an interview last month. “They are quite brave; of course, this is a problem.”

So How Bad Are North Korean Casualties?

Ukrainian officials claim to have inflicted substantial casualties on North Korean troops; President Volodymyr Zelenskiy put the number at more than 3,000 in late December.

Military intelligence has released images of items captured from North Korea troops — books, pamphlets, even cell phones — though little of their contents has been shared publicly.

In his interview, Syrskiy estimated about half of the 11,000-12,000 deployed troops had been killed or wounded.

But Ukrainian estimates have been impossible to verify.

Days before Zelenskiy gave his estimate, South Korea’s main intelligence service said around 1,100 North Koreans had been killed or wounded. The White House gave a comparable estimate on December 27: “more than 1,000 killed or wounded in this particular fighting in just the past week.”

South Korean intelligence gave an updated tally on January 13: 200 North Koreans killed; 2,700 wounded.

Pulling North Korean troops back from front-line fighting could be a sign of how effective Ukrainian attacks have been, particularly if they’re prioritizing targeting Pyongyang’s soldiers.

But troop rotations are also normal in any battlefield: Exhausted soldiers need rest; units with high casualties need to be replenished or reorganized; ammunition and shells need to be stockpiled.

The United States Coast Guard has confirmed that it intercepted a boat carrying 16 illegal immigrants off the coast of California’s Mission Bay on Sunday morning.

In a Sunday press release, the United States Coast Guard said it had “interdicted a vessel with 16 aliens aboard approximately 15 miles off the coast of Mission Bay, Sunday morning.”

According to the press release, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Active notified the Joint Harbor Operations Center at roughly 12 a.m. that a “25-foot panga-style” vessel with between 15 and 20 people on board was spotted roughly one mile south of the Coast Guard cutter’s position.

Following the notification of the panga boat spotting, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Active and a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations crew launched boarding teams to assess the situation, according to the press release. The Coast Guard confirmed that the boarding team found “16 aliens” on the panga vessel.

READ MORE: Pic: Trump admin fires top Coast Guard leader

According to Coast Guard officials, initial interviews of the illegal immigrants indicated that all of the individuals on the boat were originally from Mexico. The Coast also announced that the illegal immigrants were transferred into the custody of U.S. Border Patrol officials.

“The Coast Guard remains committed to protecting lives at sea while working alongside our federal partners to combat illicit maritime activities,” the press release stated. “These operations highlight the coordinated efforts between agencies to secure our maritime borders.”

A picture of the panga boat and the illegal immigrants was shared Sunday on X, formerly Twitter, by the U.S. Coast Guard of Northern California. In a caption to the picture, the U.S. Coast Guard of Northern Carolina tweeted, “Early this morning, crews from the Coast Guard Cutter Active interdicted a panga with 16 aliens aboard off the coast of Mission Bay.”

According to NBC 7, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have confirmed that the agency has worked in coordination with other agencies to respond to over 200 smuggling attempts by water over the past three months. The outlet noted that the smuggling attempts have included individuals trying to illegally enter the United States by using personal watercraft, recreational boats, flotation devices, and panga boats.

The rise of bird flu across farms in California has raised questions about the virus and and its potential threat to humans. While the threat to humans is currently small, here is what you need to know about the state of bird flu.

On Dec. 18, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency as the H5N1 bird flu virus continues to infect dairy herds across the country — including more than 600 in California, according to state’s Department of Food and Agriculture.

Since April, there have been 61 human cases of avian flu nationwide, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

And in California, there have been 36 confirmed cases of the illness since Friday, Dec. 20, according to the state Department of Public Health.

Though risk of infection remains low for the general public, according to the CDC, California officials declared the emergency to ensure a swift and coordinated statewide response to the outbreak.

What’s the risk, and how is it spread?

Wild water birds, according to the CDC, are carriers of avian influenza A viruses. Birds infected with the disease can spread it amongst themselves and to other animals through mucous, saliva, and feces.

The outbreak poses little risk to the general public, according to the CDC. Those most likely to get infected are people working directly with infected birds and animals without personal protective equipment.

In California, people infected with the virus have experienced symptoms similar to mild cases of the flu, according to Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, Regional Chief of Infectious Diseases at Kaiser Permanente Southern California.

“For most people in the U.S who have gotten this, their symptoms have been relatively mild — cough, sore throat, fever,” Hudson said. “However, there’s a very impressive conjunctivitis or pink eye that we have seen with this, a little bit different than what we would see with seasonal flu.”

Serious symptoms of bird flu, according to the CDC, can include high fever, shortness of breath, altered consciousness, and seizures.

Though previous strains of the virus — first seen in humans in 1997 — have been deadly, this particular outbreak has been mild in comparison.

The virus has primarily affected individuals in contact with dairy cows and commercial poultry, meaning that people who do not deal with these animals are at a low risk.

No human-to-human spread of bird flu has been reported in the United States. Limited person-to-person spread — wherein the virus spreads to one or two other people, but stops there — has been reported in other countries in the past, according to the CDC.

However, a study published by scientists at Scripps Research Institute say the virus isn’t very far away from human-to-human transmission. According to the Dr. Jim Paulson, a co-senior author of the study, a single mutation of the hemagglutinin protein, represented by the “H” in H5N1, could turn the virus into a pathogen targeting human cells.

“It’s a very rare event for these mutations to be accepted into the virus population,” Dr. Paulson said. “But you only need it to happen once.”

Will cases increase?

It’s difficult to tell whether cases will continue to increase across the country and in California, according to Dr. Jim Paulson with Scripps Research Institute.

“If these inflections continue to occur, and they happen to occur in a human that’s already been infected by a human influenza virus, then a new hybrid virus could appear more easily,” Dr. Paulson. “A new influenza virus more easily adapted to human can become a pandemic.”

Though there is no approved vaccine to prevent infection, Dr. Paulson said that Tamiflu, prescribed to treat the regular flu, can also be effective in cases of bird flu and may have some preventative protection.

Why did California declare a state of emergency?

Newsom said in a statement that the declaration was made “to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak.”

The governor also said that the risk to the public remains low, but noted that the government would need to take preventative measures to help stop the spread.

The state emergency declaration allows agencies across California to coordinate testing and virus surveillance efforts, as opposed to a decentralized, regional strategy to combat the spread of bird flu.

How will this impact the agriculture industry?

While the virus is generally not fatal in cows, it causes decreased milk supply — and is always fatal in poultry.

“The impacts are primarily production and financial losses to farmers and ranchers, as the production of milk and eggs declines, and in the case of poultry, complete re-establishment of flocks is required,” Steve Lyle, a California Department of Food and Agriculture spokesman, said.

Higher prices for dairy and poultry products in stores is a direct result of the outbreak, which started in the fall, Lyle said.

The spike in infected flocks coincided with the holiday season — when demand at the grocery stores is already higher than the rest of the year.

“While most eggs consumed in California are imported from other states, about 40% are produced here, and two-thirds of egg-laying hens in California have been lost in the recent outbreak,” Lyle said. “We anticipate that supply will remain tight for at least the next several weeks.”

Dangers of consuming raw milk

There is no risk associated with consuming cooked meat or pasteurized dairy, Dr. Paulson said, but a recent recall has raised concerns about the dangers of raw milk. Raw milk and cream produced by Raw Farm, LLC in California and several products from Valley Milk Simply Bottled of Stanislaus County were recalled after the virus was detected.

Consumption of raw milk has caused severe illness and death in various mammals, especially cats, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced. Five indoor cats from a single Los Angeles household died after consuming recalled raw milk products.

The department also warned against feeding animals raw pet foods. A cat from a different household in Los Angeles contracted the virus after eating two different brands of pet food containing raw poultry and beef.

How can I protect myself?

Those in contact with dairy cows, commercial poultry or backyard birds should use respiratory protections, such as masks, eye protection and gloves whenever interacting with these animals in order to lower the risk of infection. Sick animals or dead birds, whether or not confirmed to be infected, should not be handled.

People who are not regularly in contact with these animals should take precautions typically used to avoid the flu, such as hand-washing, cleaning commonly used surfaces and keeping your distance from other people experiencing symptoms.

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President Donald Trump shared a video on Monday of U.S. military precision airstrikes against an ISIS “Attack Planner” and other terrorists in Somalia.

The video Trump shared Monday on X, formerly Twitter, shows unclassified footage of U.S. airstrikes that were conducted on Saturday against “ISIS targets” in Somalia.

In a Saturday post on social media, Trump tweeted, “This morning I ordered precision Military air strikes on the Senior ISIS Attack Planner and other terrorists he recruited and led in Somalia. These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies.”

Trump explained that the precision airstrikes “killed many terrorists” and “destroyed the caves they live in” without harming any civilians.

“Our Military has targeted this ISIS Attack Planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!” Trump added. “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’”

READ MORE: 1 killed, 2 injured as US coalition strikes ISIS terrorists in Iraq

Following Saturday’s airstrikes, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth released a statement confirming that the Pentagon had authorized U.S. Africa Command to execute “coordinated airstrikes” against “ISIS-Somalia operatives” located in the Golis mountains at the president’s direction and in coordination with Somalia’s government.

“Our initial assessment is that multiple operatives were killed in the airstrikes and no civilians were harmed,” Hegseth said. “This action further degrades ISIS’s ability to plot and conduct terrorist attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians and sends a clear signal that the United States always stands ready to find and eliminate terrorists who threaten the United States and our allies, even as we conduct robust border-protection and many other operations under President Trump’s leadership.”

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud also released a statement on X following the airstrikes. In his statement, Mohamud thanked the United States for its “unwavering support” in the “shared fight against terrorism.” Somali’s president noted that Trump’s “bold and decisive leadership” in counterterrorism is “highly valued and welcomed in Somalia.”

Mohamud added, “Terrorism will neither find friends, nor any place to call home, in Puntland state and entire Somalia.”

Fox News reported that Saturday’s airstrikes against ISIS and other terrorists in Somalia came just a month after an ISIS-inspired terrorist killed 14 individuals and injured dozens of other victims after crashing a truck into a crowd of people in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve.