President Donald Trump is moving to target Latin American drug cartels with the military, US media said Friday, after Washington designated several narcotics trafficking groups as “terrorist” organizations earlier this year.The New York Times reported that Trump has directed the Pentagon to use military force against cartels deemed terrorist organizations.The Wall Street Journal said the president ordered options to be prepared, with the use of special forces and the provision of intelligence support under discussion, and that any action would be coordinated with foreign partners.White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly, while not confirming the reports, said in a statement that Trump’s “top priority is protecting the homeland, which is why he took the bold step to designate several cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.”The United States designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and six other drug trafficking groups with Latin American roots as terror groups in February.The US embassy in Mexico released a statement later Friday, saying both countries would use “every tool at our disposal to protect our peoples” from drug trafficking groups.But the Mexican foreign ministry stressed that Mexico “would not accept the participation of US military forces on our territory.”- ‘No invasion’ -Trump’s administration has since added another Venezuelan gang, the Cartel of the Suns, which has allegedly shipped hundreds of tons of narcotics into the United States over two decades.The United States accuses Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro of leading that cartel — an allegation Caracas has rejected as a “ridiculous smokescreen.”Trump signed an executive order on January 20, his first day back in the White House, creating a process for the designation of the cartels, which he said “constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime.”US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Thursday interview with EWTN that the designations allow “us to now target what they’re operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever — to target these groups.””We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply drug dealing organizations,” Rubio said. “It’s no longer a law enforcement issue. It becomes a national security issue.”Trump vowed in March to “wage war” on Mexico’s drug cartels, which he accused of rape and murder.His Mexican counterpart Claudia Sheinbaum, following the reports of potential US military action against cartels, insisted on Friday that there would be “no invasion” of her country.Sheinbaum has made strenuous efforts to show Trump she is acting against Mexico’s cartels, whom he accuses of flooding the United States with drugs, particularly fentanyl.”We are cooperating, we are collaborating, but there will be no invasion. That is absolutely ruled out,” she said.Sheinbaum has been dubbed the “Trump whisperer” for repeatedly securing reprieves from his threats of stiff tariffs over the smuggling of drugs and migrants across their shared border.

President Donald Trump demanded a massive $1 billion fine from the prestigious University of California system on Friday as the administration pushed its claims of antisemitism in UCLA’s response to 2024 student protests related to Gaza.The figure, which is five times the sum Columbia University agreed to pay to settle similar federal accusations of antisemitism, would “completely devastate” the UC public university system, a senior official said. President James Milliken, who oversees the 10 campuses that make up the University of California system, including Los Angeles-based UCLA, said managers had received the $1 billion demand on Friday and were reviewing it.”As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians,” he said.”Americans across this great nation rely on the vital work of UCLA and the UC system for technologies and medical therapies that save lives, grow the US economy, and protect our national security.”Asked about Trump’s fine during a press conference on Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom — who sits on the UC’s board — said “we’ll sue” and accused the president of trying to silence academic freedom.”He has threatened us through extortion with a billion dollar fine unless we do his bidding,” Newsom said, crediting the UC system as “one of the reasons California is the tentpole of the US economy, one of the reasons we have more scientists, engineers, more Nobel laureates, than any other state in this nation.” Media reports suggest the government wants the money in installments and is demanding the university also pay $172 million to a claims fund to compensate Jewish students and others affected by alleged discrimination.The UC system, with schools that are consistently ranked among the best public universities in the United States, is already grappling with the Trump administration’s more-than half-billion dollar freeze on medical and science grants at UCLA alone.The move appears to follow a similar playbook the White House used to extract concessions from Columbia University, and is also trying to use to get Harvard University to bend.Columbia’s agreement includes a pledge to obey rules barring it from taking race into consideration in admissions or hiring, among other concessions, drawing criticism from Newsom.”We will not be complicit in this kind of attack on academic freedom, or on this extraordinary public institution. We are not like some of those other institutions that have followed a different path,” Newsom said.Pro-Palestinian protests rocked dozens of US campuses in 2024, with police crackdowns and mob violence erupting over student encampments, from Columbia to UCLA, with then-president Joe Biden saying “order must prevail.” Universities have been in Trump’s sights since he returned to the White House in January.His Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement views academia as elite, overly liberal and hostile to the kind of ethno-nationalism popular among Trump supporters.

New York is waging a war on multiple fronts to combat the near ubiquitous rats that plague city streets and the subways, leaving some residents afraid to let their children walk on sidewalks.Faced with an overwhelming and ever-growing problem, officials have moved beyond gassing burrows to suffocate rodents and are now using high-tech mapping tools to try and sterilize the population.Alongside targeted interventions, officials are mounting an effort to educate the public about the need to avoid leaving behind food waste that feeds and sustains the rat population.Caroline Bragdon, director of neighborhood interventions for Pest Control Services within New York City’s Department of Health, told AFP that the lack of food “stresses” rats and other vermin. “Perhaps this forces them to go further in search of food, but perhaps they simply have fewer offspring,” she said. “That’s usually what we’re seeing. Fewer rats over time. Less breeding leads to less rat activity,” Bragdon added.The city is testing out an arsenal of different tools in the Harlem neighborhood, aiming to find new products and methods to tackle the rats. For large, densely populated cities like New York — with its 8.5 million inhabitants — food sources for the rodents are bountiful, whether it’s on sidewalks, in overflowing trash bins, or in parks.”Lately, I haven’t felt that I have to run in between the mounds of trash to run away from rats because they have those new (sealed trash) containers,” said Harlem resident Karen Del Aguila, 50.Rats, which survive on practically the same diet as humans, can flourish even on items discarded as trash — like soda cans thrown into recycling bins, or crumbs given to pigeons, warned Bragdon. A rat needs one ounce (28 grams) of food per day to sustain itself, and it can have up to 12 offspring per litter. During its short life of less than a year, it can have between five and seven litters. The best way to counter the scourge of rats is to “remove their food source… So make it harder for them, then they’re going to have to travel further to try and find something,” said Alexa Albert, a supervisor for the city’s pest control service.- ‘It can be done’ -She swiped her screen to show the street-level data logged on a rat tracker app used by those involved in the crusade against rodent infestation.The city health department’s 70 inspectors use the mobile app to detect, report and monitor rodent activity — as well as plot abatement tactics.Inspectors go door to door asking businesses and residents to clean buildings, stores, and sidewalks.Authorities also now offer training on how to combat rats, taken by thousands of residents and building managers. In October 2022, New York City vaunted a “trash revolution,” aimed at installing sealed containers to allow the removal of black bags of organic waste from sidewalks after rats surged during the coronavirus pandemic.Pre-pandemic, their population had been cut by as much as 90 percent in some areas.”So we know it can be done,” said Bragdon, who added that she hoped 2025 would be a “turnaround year.”Local resident Jessica Sanchez said she had observed much fewer rats in her neighborhood.”Not a long time ago, when you went to put out the trash, five of them came out,” she said.”I was even afraid to put my son on the floor.”The rat warriors are seeking to learn the rodents’ dietary habits throughout the year by using samples of different food types to identify what bait they are most likely to take.In 2024, complaints about rat activity dropped 25 percent compared to the year before, according to official data. But so far, only Manhattan’s Chinatown has managed to bring the rat population under control.