Extra context added because this headline is wildly misleading.
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'Another Trump-Authorized Murder': 1 Dead, 2 Survivors Reported After Latest US Boat Bombing
(www.commondreams.org)
The US military said Tuesday that one person was killed and two others survived the latest attack on a boat that the Trump administration claimed—again without providing concrete evidence—was involved in smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
"On June 16, at the direction of the commander of US Southern Command Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations," SOUTHCOM said in a statement.
"Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations," the statement continued. "One male narco-terrorist was killed during this action, and there were two male survivors."
SOUTHCOM added that it "immediately notified [the] US Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors."
It is not known whether the survivors were saved.
The attack—in which no US forces were harmed—was one of more than 60 that have occurred in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since US President Donald Trump launched the campaign early last September. More than 200 people have been killed.
Relatives of people killed in some of the boat strikes, as well as officials in Venezuela and Colombia, say that at least some of the victims were fishers who were not part of the illicit drug trade.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has accused the US of “murder." Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was abducted during a US invasion in January and imprisoned in the United States on dubious narco-terrorism charges.
In January, relatives of two Trinidadian fishers killed in the strikes filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit in Massachusetts.
Experts argue that the strikes are illegal. Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America previously said that even in cases of vessels that were involved in drug trafficking, the bombings were illegal and “the equivalent of straight-up massacring 16-year-old drug dealers on US street corners.”
Just Security editor-in-chief and New York University School of Law professor Ryan Goodman said last month that the “overwhelming consensus of experts, myself included, assess these to be murder because no armed conflict” is occurring, adding that they would be a “war crime if it were armed conflict"—and possibly even a "crime against humanity."
Responding to Tuesday's strike, former Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth lamented what he called "another Trump-authorized murder" and act of "blatant criminality."
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“Racist violence and rhetoric hasn’t really been effectively shut down, and in fact is often valorized and legitimized by the media and other parts of the political establishment.”
Dr. Edward Anderson, professor at Northumbria University and senior fellow at SOAS, University of London, tells BT Live’s Rania Khalek and Zoe Alexandra the anti-immigrant mob violence that rocked Belfast on June 8 and Southampton a week prior “is part of a much longer picture of appeasement of far-right politics and a real shift in political discourse in this country.”
“Keir Starmer went about essentially establishing the Labour Party as being the antithesis of everything Corbyn stood for and that extended to immigration. He’s really tried to appease the far right.”
Watch full episodes of BT Live, join breakthroughnews.org as a member today!
Rania Khalek , June 17, 2026
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Palestine Action co-founder vows to overturn proscription ban either in courts or “on the streets”
(www.thecanary.co)
On Monday, a Court of Appeal overturned the High Court’s previous judgement on the proscription of Palestine Action, deciding that a terrorism ban on the direct-action group was indeed lawful — according to the five appeal judges, anyway.
Undeterred and unafraid, co-founder of Palestine Action Huda Ammori expressed her disappointment to the Guardian but defiantly stated:
I‘m certain that legally we are correct that this ban is disproportionate to free speech and the right to protest. I think that’s really clear.
We just need to get to the right court that’s going to recognise that and we’ll take it all the way up to the European court of human rights [ECHR], if needs be.
Nevertheless, with Reform UK and a growing chorus of right-wing politicians seeking to undermine the ECHR’s authority, Ammori will need to act swiftly if she hopes to obtain justice before those very protections are weakened.
“The way that we respond to this is by fighting even harder, that every struggle has its setbacks. But we are going to win in the end. We can’t give in. We can’t be deterred”
My interview with the Guardian on the Court of Appeal ruling on Palestine Actionhttps://t.co/KsIug2BLXO
— Huda Ammori (@HudaAmmori) June 16, 2026
Principled defiance continues unafraid of repression
The proscription of Palestine Action (PA) triggered outrage across Britain, marking the first time a direct-action group had been branded a terrorist organisation. Since the Starmer government imposed the ban, police have now arrested more than 3,000 people in a rapidly expanding campaign of civil disobedience.
Month after month, the British public has watched officers arrest pensioners and peaceful protesters simply for holding placards in support of PA. Images of mothers, fathers and grandparents being carried away by police have become pretty emblematic of this Orwellian crackdown on our civil liberties. Moreover, there have also been a considerable number of quite aggressive arrests which have undoubtedly caused injury.
This is what terrorism now looks like in the UK.
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal accepted the Government's appeal and ruled that the Home Secretary's proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was lawful.
Amnesty International is deeply disappointed by this… pic.twitter.com/BOOil6ADWh
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) June 16, 2026
On Monday, for instance, Met Police arrested another 117 people outside the Court of Appeal. Since then, footage shared across social media has only sharpened criticism of the ban, as the government’s actions have turned the very meaning of “terrorism” on its head.
Some have pointed out how, despite even the Judge referring to the Suffragettes, Palestine Action have been significantly more peaceful than the then-hated but now widely praised women’s rights movement at the turn of the 20th century:
This is absolutely insane.
The suffragettes used far more extreme tactics than Palestine Action.
They planted bombs, burned down private homes and smashed up art galleries.
They killed five people!
Her outrageous judgement is based on absurd historical ignorance. https://t.co/RvWslkZ4PF
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) June 15, 2026
Palestine Action — People are being arrested, in their thousands, for saying just four words
Needless to say, of course, this proscription has turned common-sense on its head. According to international law, citizens and leaders have a legal responsibility to take action to stop a genocide.
Last week, the state branded four PA activists as terrorists and secured their sentencing, even though terrorism was never discussed during the jury trial. This dangerous precedent strikes at the heart of civil liberties. Juries are meant to restrain abuses of power and protect the right to a fair trial; when their role is diminished, those protections begin to unravel
However, if judges — acting under obvious and undue political pressure — can unilaterally apply terrorism charges, Britain moves ever closer to an era defined by political prisoners.
Testimony from the PA activists underscores how they took action for one reason only: to stop the production and transfer of bombs and military supplies to Zionist Israel. Therefore, it is clear their actions were driven by the urgent need to stop what human rights organisations, the International Court of Justice and most Holocaust scholars recognise as a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
However, due to the lucrative donations and lobbying efforts by pro-Zionist groups, it is now illegal to even state verbal support for PA — as Owen Jones highlighted on Jeremy Vine yesterday:
"You can't now say I support Palestine Action, thats an illegal offence. You can't now say I support Palestine Action with all my heart.. I'm saying its illegal to say I support Palestine Action.."@owenjonesjourno on #JeremyVine pic.twitter.com/gfVzcSFiHW
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 16, 2026
Palestine Action — Corrupted politicians show lack of moral conscience
Nonetheless, whilst people have stepped forward in solidarity for the suffering and mass-murder of Palestinians — and now Lebanese — by the settler-colonialist state, the powerful have done precious little but choose to repress the freedoms and rights of British citizens instead.
It isn’t hard to evidence our government’s complicity in Israel’s expansionist and bloodthirsty campaigns in the Middle East. David Lammy, then foreign secretary, awarded 90% of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s entire annual budget to a propaganda report which sought to justify the genocide by ‘finding’ that Hamas used sexual violence as a weapon of war on October 7th, 2023.
Many have disputed — and disproved — this sinister claim and pointed to the stark reality that the military force which has in fact used rape and sexual abuse to dehumanise, demoralise and destroy a population of innocent people is the IOF and Israeli government officials.
Despite this lack of principled leadership and increasingly draconian political moves to silence law-abiding citizens, Ammori insists the authoritarianism must be resisted, telling the Guardian:
This case is completely political, and the way we are going to win this is on the streets.
Everyone who sacrificed and stood up against this, all of that is bringing us closer and closer to the day when we are victorious.
Repression will breed resistance — not compliance
In addition, Ammori spoke about how she feels the terrorism charges levelled against the PA activists were a deliberate ploy to force through the proscription of PA. This signals a serious abuse of our democracy in the UK:
It feels like that this whole thing has been orchestrated to ensure convictions and show people can be sentenced as terrorists to then justify the ban on Palestine Action.
Nevertheless, solidarity and defence of the sovereign right of Palestinians to their own homeland continues, as Ammori insists we must remember why we continue to take to the streets:
Remember, who we are acting in solidarity with, which is the Palestinian people, who, despite all of the setbacks and challenges they face, including being labelled as terrorists, are continuing to resist for their freedom.
And [remember] that we are acting in solidarity with them and we can take strength from the Palestinian people and that whenever there is repression, there is more resistance.
Featured image via the Canary
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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune.
Berenice Garcia
The Texas Tribune
McALLEN, Tex. — Conservation groups are trying to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from exchanging hundreds of acres of land with SpaceX.
This month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife allowed a land swap deal with SpaceX to move forward that would give SpaceX 715 acres of land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in exchange for 683 acres of private land that is adjacent to another refuge, the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge.
The conservation groups suing include the Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, and the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. They are joined by the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, a nonprofit indigenous group that considers the land that SpaceX is now occupying and seeks to develop as sacred. However, the tribe is not officially recognized by the federal government.
The groups said they hope to preserve the land to protect the diverse wildlife there, including the endangered ocelot. They argue SpaceX’s presence in the area has also begun degrading the land, particularly through rocket test launches that send debris onto refuge lands.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to questions about the land exchange.
“Our protected public lands are being gifted for the benefit of the world’s richest man, who could trash them while playing with his exploding rockets,” said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge was built by decades of conservation work and funded by millions of taxpayer dollars to protect our vulnerable wildlife like ocelots and piping plovers.”
Jordahl added: “We’re not letting Trump and his political cronies lock the American people out of Texas’ cherished public lands just to give Elon Musk another payday.”
In the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, the groups argued that the land swap is inconsistent with the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act, a law that lays out the mission and management of refuge lands, and that by approving the exchange, the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the National Historic Preservation Act, a statute enacted to protect historical sites from development.
They also argued that the environmental analysis of the land exchange did not meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, and accused the agency of working with SpaceX to come up with “unfounded” scores to rate the land they would be giving up against the land the agency would be obtaining.
As part of an environmental assessment published in May, the agency evaluated habitat quality using “Biological Importance Scores.” A score was assigned to each parcel of land based on three equally weighted criteria: habitat quality, refuge connectivity, and critical habitat. The refuge land proposed to be given to SpaceX scored lower than the land the Fish and Wildlife Service would obtain.
Additionally, the conservation groups argued that the agency’s analysis of the swap didn’t meet the requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act, alleging that they did not consider reasonable alternatives and did not take a hard look at the impacts the deal would have due to SpaceX’s expansion.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, declined to comment on active or pending litigation.
Environmental assessment
In June, the Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the land exchange would not have significant adverse effects on public health or safety, historic or cultural resources, tribal sacred sites for federally recognized Tribes, ecologically critical areas, wetlands or floodplains, or on designated wilderness or research and natural areas.
The agency began holding talks with SpaceX over a potential land exchange in 2023. The goal, the agency said in their May environmental assessment, was to reduce the fragmented ownership of the land and consolidate them.
The assessment looked at whether the land exchange furthered the purpose of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, whether it fulfills the conservation mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System, and whether it provides a net conservation benefit to the refuge.
Most of the land being offered up by the agency was acquired in the 1990s through condemnation for the protection of natural resources located on them, including endangered species habitat, coastal wetlands and barrier islands.
Industrial development
Since then, the surrounding area has experienced significant industrialization and development, especially because of SpaceX’s presence and expansion there. The industrial activity and the fragmented pattern of private land ownership led to increased disturbance from noise and lights and elevated levels of habitat fragmentation. The agency said those factors diminished the value of the land for purposes of conservation.
“The resulting changes in land use and landscape context have impacted the ability of these parcels to function as effective components of the regional conservation network,” the agency said.
Those parcels of land are also fragmented by private land owned by SpaceX, including the SpaceX Massey Test Site used for tests of space launch vehicles and land being developed by SpaceX for residential, commercial and possibly other uses.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it expects SpaceX will use the acquired land for residential, commercial, or institutional development in addition to infrastructure or other manufacturing activities.
The parcels that SpaceX would be giving the agency in return are adjacent to the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge.
One set of land parcels is known informally as “Las Palomas” and is surrounded by land belonging to the Lower Rio Grande Valley refuge. Another set of parcels lies between the communities of Laguna Heights and Laguna Vista. That set of land is contiguous with a portion of the Laguna Atascosa refuge.
The conservation groups pointed out that the refuge land that would be handed over to SpaceX include portions of the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark, the site of the last Civil War battle, and warned that SpaceX could choose not to preserve its historic values.
However, the Fish and Wildlife Service said it signed a contract, known as a programmatic agreement, with SpaceX, the Texas Historic Commission and the National Park Service on May 11. A programmatic agreement allows federal agencies to continue managing historic properties.
In 2024, SpaceX was in talks with Texas Parks and Wildlife on a different land swap deal that would have given SpaceX 43 acres from Boca Chica State Park.
In exchange, SpaceX would have transferred 477 acres near the Laguna Atascosa refuge. The conservation groups sued to stop that land deal as well before SpaceX pulled out of the deal.
Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
The post Conservation groups sue to stop SpaceX land deal appeared first on ICT.
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Rather than win the debate regarding raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 from the current 10 years old, unionist parties have abused a veto power to stymie a bill’s progression at Stormont.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) and Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) used Stormont’s Petition of Concern (PoC) mechanism during a debate on the Justice Bill on Monday, 15 June.
The SDLP’s Matthew O’Toole reacted furiously to the legislation’s debate being sabotaged, saying:
It is an utter farce and a travesty of democracy. Once again, these institutions are being dragged into disrepute by parties that cannot accept democracy and the fact that we are allowed to debate issues here.
Challenging the use of a measure intended for use on issues that are of particular significance to nationalist or unionist communities, O’Toole said:
To be clear, [the MACR amendment] does not contain anything that relates to the vital interests of one community or another. I am not aware that it mentions unionists, nationalists or core constitutional issues at all. It does not threaten core issues of identity.
Non-aligned parties frozen out by Stormont veto abuse
Alliance Justice Minister Naomi Long accused the unionists of being:
…a minority abusing a petition that is there to protect minority rights and using it to impose their will on the majority.
She said the move perpetuated the public’s perception of Stormont being “farcical”. Long rightly complained of feeling “disenfranchised”. The votes of non-aligned MLAs such as those of Alliance, People Before Profit and independents effectively carry less weight once a PoC has been triggered.
The Good Friday Agreement introduced PoCs as a means of minority rights protection. Once triggered, it means the legislation in question needs cross-community support to pass. That is, 60% of all MLAs, including at least 40% of each unionist and nationalist bloc.
On Tuesday, UUP leader Jon Burrows defended his decision to use the Stormont veto, saying:
I used a legitimate tool to protect the most vulnerable in our society.
In Monday’s debate, Burrows entertained himself for 90 minutes with the sound of his own voice, referencing victims and the vulnerable without ever entirely rebutting opposition arguments on how they are currently failed.
His strongest point was perhaps that the north of Ireland’s approach to youth offenders does place an emphasis on methods like restorative justice, rather than custodial sentences. Observers abroad have praised the approach. That kind of method, in the words of restorative justice facilitator Northern Ireland Alternatives:
…addresses the problems of low-level crime and anti-social behaviour by attempting to fix the broken relationships between the victim, the offender and the community.
Essentially, Burrows was saying that it’s ok to continue treating 10 year olds as criminals, so long as the police and prosecution service continue to be flexible in how they deal with offenders.
Criminalising children for being poor
Sian Mulholland of Alliance had given the more convincing counter-argument earlier in the day. Mulholland was arguing in favour of her party’s proposal to raise MACR age to 14. She showed that, for the young people who are placed in custody, 49.5% reoffend.
Hardly a good way to serve the victims Burrows claimed to be so concerned about. By taking the criminalisation option off the table for all those under 14, it would enable greater use of options integrating health and social services. They would be more inclined to look at what led a child to offend in the first place. Mulholland said methods of this kind show far lower reoffending rates.
Referring to the recent Belfast pogroms, Mulholland said:
I want to know why a 12-year-old is out on the street burning down a house. If adults are grooming, threatening, coercing or using children to commit offences, the answer is not to punish those children more quickly so that adults will not take advantage of them. The answer is to identify exploitation. The answer is to protect the child and disrupt the adults…
Mulholland cited the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, which followed “4,300 young people”. The North Antrim MLA said it showed that:
…serious offending is linked to wider vulnerabilities and social adversity; that early police contact and formal processing can predict later persistent offending;
So criminalising kids is essentially punishing them for being poor. Doing so traumatises them, and inclines them towards seeing themselves as a criminal, potentially leading to further offending.
10 year olds know right from wrong? It’s more complicated
As for the argument of Burrows and various DUP MPs that a 10 year old “knows the difference between right and wrong”, Mulholland led with the science that shows this is a simplistic assessment. She said:
Developmental research is clear that the parts of the brain that are responsible for judgement, impulse control, risk assessment and self-regulation are still developing right through adolescence and into early adulthood.
A major review commissioned by the Scottish Sentencing Council found that the brain does not fully mature until at least the mid-20s, with systems linked to self-regulation developing much later.
We don’t let 10 year olds vote, because we don’t think their brains have the capacity yet for sound decision making. Following this logic, they also shouldn’t be locked up for errors of judgement.
Ultimately, Burrows and co showed they don’t care greatly about logic, or the knowledge produced from hours of sincere debate. In the end, they were happy to anti-democratically override all that through their cynical abuse of veto powers.
Featured image via the Canary
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‘Eulogy for globalist hypocrisy’: Netizens react to Canada PM’s speech on end of ‘rules-based order’
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