arotrios

Location: CA, USA

I have some neighbors who regularly have a huge bash lasting all night long - it's happened every Cinco de Mayo for nearly a decade.

This year - nothing.

The whole town is quiet. This used to be one of the noisiest days of the year. Is anyone else noticing this in their community?

Excerpts:

An internationally acclaimed digital news outlet in El Salvador said Monday that the administration of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is preparing to arrest a number of its journalists following the publication of an interview with two former gang leaders who shed new light on a power-sharing agreement with the U.S.-backed leader and self-described "world's coolest dictator."

"A reliable source in El Salvador told El Faro that the Bukele-controlled Attorney General's Office is preparing at least seven arrest warrants for members of El Faro," the outlet reported. "The source reached out following the publication of an interview with two former leaders of the 18th Street Revolucionarios on Bukele's yearslong relationship to gangs."

"If carried out, the warrants are the first time in decades that prosecutors seek to press charges against individual journalists for their journalistic labors," El Faro added.

As El Faro reported:

At the heart of the threat of arrests is irony: El Faro was only able to interview the two Revolucionarios because they escaped El Salvador with the complicity of Bukele.

One, who goes by "Liro Man," recounts that he was taken to Guatemala, through a blind spot in the Salvadoran border, by Bukele gang negotiator Carlos Marroquín; the other, Carlos Cartagena, or "Charli," was arrested on a warrant in April 2022, early in the state of exception, but quickly released after the police received a call at the station and backed off.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Salvadorans were being rounded up without due process, on charges of belonging to gangs.

The video interview explains the dichotomy: For years, Salvadoran gang leaders cut covert deals with the entourage of Nayib Bukele. In their interview with El Faro, the two Revolucionarios say the FMLN party, to which the now-president belonged a decade ago, paid a quarter of a million dollars to the gangs during the 2014 campaign in exchange for vote coercion in gang-controlled communities, on behalf of Bukele for San Salvador mayor and Salvador Sánchez Cerén as president.

"This support, the sources say, was key to Bukele's ascent to power," El Faro noted. "You're going to tell your mom and your wife's family that they have to vote for Nayib. If you don't do it, we'll kill them," Liro Man says the gang members told their communities in that election. Of Bukele, he added, 'he knew he had to get to the gangs in order to get to where he is.'"

Part of the deal was a tacit "no body, no crime" policy under which gang leaders agreed to hide their victims' corpses as Bukele boasted of a historic reduction in homicides in a country once known as the world's murder capital.

Summary:

Hackers have targeted GlobalX Air, one of the main airlines the Trump administration is using as part of its deportation efforts, and stolen what they say are flight records and passenger manifests of all of its flights, including those for deportation, 404 Media has learned.

The data, which the hackers contacted 404 Media and other journalists about unprompted, could provide granular insight into who exactly has been deported on GlobalX flights, when, and to where, with GlobalX being the charter company that facilitated the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador.

“Anonymous has decided to enforce the Judge's order since you and your sycophant staff ignore lawful orders that go against your fascist plans,” a defacement message posted to GlobalX’s website reads. Anonymous, well-known for its use of the Guy Fawkes mask, is an umbrella some hackers operate under when performing what they see as hacktivism.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/25551602 because I find your lack of faith disturbing...

Summary courtesy of CantStopPoppin:

On February 1, 2025, a disturbing campaign of surveillance began targeting a Spokane family. According to firsthand accounts, ICE agents started shadowing the family nearly two months before the dramatic incident. In a calculated move, one of the agents even pretended to hit the family’s parked car. This staged accident was designed to give them a pretext to detain the husband on the spot while investigators “looked him up” as part of their covert operation.

Then, on April 30, 2025, the situation escalated dramatically. ICE agents arrived at the Diaz home without a warrant and refused to properly identify themselves. In the ensuing chaos, Martin R. Diaz—a devoted business owner, long-time U.S. resident of over 33 years with no connection to any gangs—was brutally tackled and restrained right outside his home. Witnesses report that this aggressive intervention was the culmination of a meticulously planned operation that had been in motion for weeks.

After the violent confrontation, Diaz was swiftly transported to a high-security facility in Northern Idaho, a detention center known for hosting individuals with links to extremist groups, including members of the Proud Boys. The combination of prolonged stalking, deceptive tactics, and forceful detention has raised significant questions about ICE's methods and the apparent disregard for due process.

A TikTok video capturing parts of these unsettling events has gained widespread attention for showing the shocking tactics employed by the agents. You can view the TikTok coverage here.

For a detailed report and further analysis of this case, including interviews with community members and legal experts, please read the in-depth coverage by KREM here.

https://www.tiktok.com/@kendall.diaz6/video/7499238185369734430

This incident has ignited fierce debate among civil rights advocates, community leaders, and legal experts, as many call for a thorough investigation into ICE's practices. As the community seeks answers and accountability, this case serves as a stark reminder of the potential consequences when law enforcement agencies overstep established legal boundaries.

Original post by SoRedditHasAnAppNow:

Last night and video was posted on terrifyingasfuck about a woman who was sedated for a c-section and the physician put his penis in her mouth while she was under. He was recorded because the nursing staff put hidden cameras in as they were concerned about what he might be doing.

I tried to report it to reddit, but there wasn't a category that 100% matched. Regardless, I reported it as "non-consentual intimate content."

This morning I woke up to learn that reddit had reviewed the post and determined that it did not break reddit's site wide rules.

So that's it. Reddit condones rape videos. I knew this site had problems, but I never expected this.

Summary:

Close allies of President Trump are asking a judge to give the White House control over much of the federal court system.

In a little-noticed lawsuit filed last week, the America First Legal Foundation sued Chief Justice John Roberts and the head of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts.

The case ostensibly proceeds as a FOIA lawsuit, with the Trump-aligned group seeking access to judiciary records. But, in doing so, it asks the courts to cede massive power to the White House: the bodies that make court policy and manage the judiciary’s day-to-day operations should be considered independent agencies of the executive branch, the suit argues, giving the President, under the conservative legal movement’s theories, the power to appoint and dismiss people in key roles.

Multiple legal scholars and attorneys TPM spoke with reacted to the suit with a mixture of dismay, disdain and laughter. Though the core legal claim is invalid, they said, the suit seems to be a part of the fight that the administration launched and has continued to escalate against the courts over the past several months: ignoring a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of a wrongly removed Salvadoran man, providing minimal notice to people subject to the Alien Enemies Act, flaunting an aggressive criminal case against a state court judge.

The executive branch has tried to encroach on the power of the judiciary in other ways too, prompting a degree of consternation and alarm unusual for the normally-staid Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. As TPM has documented, DOGE has already caused disorder at the courts and sent out mass emails to judges and other judiciary employees demanding a list of their recent accomplishments. Per one recent report in the New York Times, federal judges have expressed concern that Trump could direct the U.S. Marshals Service — an executive branch agency tasked with protecting judges and carrying out court orders — to withdraw protection.

These are all facets of an escalating campaign to erode the independence of the judiciary, experts told TPM. The lawsuit demonstrates another prong of it: close allies of the president are effectively asking the courts to rule that they should be managed by the White House.

“It’s like using an invalid legal claim to taunt the judiciary,” Anne Joseph O’Connell, a professor at Stanford University Law School, told TPM.

“To the extent this lawsuit has any value other than clickbait, maybe the underlying message is, we will let our imaginations run wild,” Peter M. Shane, a constitutional law scholar at NYU Law School, told TPM. “The Trump administration and the MAGA community will let our imaginations run wild in our attempts to figure out ways to make the life of the judiciary miserable, to the extent you push back against Trump.”

The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan has been recused from Luigi Mangione's case.

"The Government also writes to inform the Court that United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, is recused from this matter," attorneys from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said in a letter to Judge Margaret Garnett on Wednesday.

Newsweek has contacted the district for comment via email. Mangione's attorneys have also been contacted for comment via email. Luigi Mangione in court

Mangione, 26, is facing federal and state charges in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel in December.

He pleaded not guilty to a federal murder charge last Friday. Federal prosecutors have declared their intent to seek the death penalty. Mangione pleaded not guilty to state murder and terrorism charges in December.

The letter did not explain why Clayton recused from the case, but said that Perry Carbone, the district's criminal division chief, will serve as the attorney for the United States in the case.

"Mr. Carbone has conveyed the same to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, which confirmed that it will in turn notify the Attorney General," the letter said.

President Donald Trump announced in April that Clayton, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, would serve as interim U.S. attorney for Southern District of New York while the administration pursues Senate confirmation for him to serve in the role full-time.

Wednesday's letter also amended an earlier letter to Garnett that described the handling of a recorded jail call between Mangione and his attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo.

The earlier letter has said that a paralegal at the New York County District Attorney's Office (DANY) had "immediately stopped listening" to the call after recognizing it as an attorney call.

"In fact, the paralegal listened to the entire call, then subsequently informed DANY prosecutors about the identities of the people with whom the defendant spoke," Wednesday's letter said.

"DANY thereafter handled the matter as described in our previous letter. Moreover, DANY notified defense counsel of these facts in an email, dated April 22, 2025, thus, counsel was aware of this information prior to arraignment."

Mangione is next due in federal court on December 5. His next appearance in the state case is set for June 26.

No trial date has been set in either case, but his defense team have said they want the federal case to take precedent because it involves the death penalty.