ICE arrested Tufts graduate Rumeysa Ozturk a year after she co-authored a pro-Palestinian op-ed and was flagged for anti-Israel activism.

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Ron Unz | We may be witnessing the ongoing destruction of one of the greatest pillars of postwar American global influence and hegemony. Late last week an astonishing event occurred in American society, and video clips of that incident quickly went viral across the Internet. ■ A 30-year-old Tufts doctoral student and Fulbright Scholar from Turkey was walking across her Boston-area neighborhood on the way to a holiday dinner at a friend’s house when she was suddenly seized and abducted in the early evening by six masked federal agents of the Department of Homeland Security. The terrified young woman was handcuffed and taken to a waiting car, secretly detained for the next 24 hours without access to friends, family, or lawyers, then shipped off to a holding cell in Louisiana and scheduled for immediate deportation, although a federal judge has now temporarily stayed the proceedings. ■ Just one of the Tweets showing a short clip of that incident has been viewed more than 4.5 million times, with a much longer YouTube video accumulating another couple of hundred thousand views.

In an internal memo, Hegseth called China the 'sole pacing threat' | Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth distributed a memo in mid-March ordering the Pentagon to put its focus on preparing for a war with China, a nuclear-armed power, by “assuming risk” in Europe and other parts of the world, The Washington Post reported on Saturday. ● The Post didn’t publish the full memo, known as the Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance, but said it “outlines, in broad and sometimes partisan detail, the execution of President Donald Trump’s vision to prepare for and win a potential war against Beijing and defend the United States from threats in the ‘near abroad,’ including Greenland and the Panama Canal.”

"[T]he convicted candidate participates in the presidential elections, this will pose a risk to democracy." | Marine Le Pen, the leader of the parliamentary faction of the National Unification Party (RN), was convicted. One of the country's most popular politicians will not be able to participate in the next presidential election. However, it's too early for opponents of French eurosceptics to rejoice. The consequences of the Paris court's decision are described in the RIA Novosti article. ● Le Pen appeared at the meeting 20 minutes before the start, refusing to comment to the press. The judge began pronouncing the verdict almost immediately. The politician and her eight associates were found guilty of embezzling funds from the European Parliament (EP) and creating fictitious jobs for deputies' assistants. ● The other 12 members of the RN were also convicted. None of them, including Le Pen, will be able to be elected to any government in the next five years. However, the party leader will retain his parliamentary mandate until the expiration of his term of office. In addition, Marine Le Pen received four years of restriction of freedom. Of these, two are conditional, and two more are at home with an electronic bracelet. The court estimated the total damage from fraud at 2.9 million euros. Le Pen was personally fined one hundred thousand instead of the 300 requested by the prosecution. RN has to pay out a million.

■ FACTBOX: What is known about Marine Le Pen’s sentence (TASS)
■ Marine Le Pen rebukes ban on running for French presidency (Al Mayadeen)
■ Le Pen conviction ‘a very big deal’ – Trump (RT)
■ The Guillotine of Globalism Rothschild Falls on Marine Le Pen (03/31/25)
✅ Le Pen and the Guillotine of Democracy (Constantin von Hoffmeister)
✅ Marine Le Pen devant le précipice (Jules Pecnard)

"Everything is gone, everything is being taken out": After a strike on the former Musk factory in Kharkov, people are fleeing, shops are closing | After a powerful Russian strike on a factory in Kharkov – previously the production complex belonged to the Tesla company of American billionaire Elon Musk – people are fleeing in fear, shops and catering establishments are closing. "Those who left the city are shouting that everything is gone, that everything is being taken away," a local video blogger confides. Meanwhile, the partisans found out that the Leopard tanks were being converted at a site near the tractor plant. ● It was loud in Kharkov the night before. At least six successful Russian missile hits were reported. The ubiquitous underground workers said that the fire crews did not immediately start extinguishing, because they themselves were afraid of being hit by another blow.

■ Kiev loses almost 22,000 troops, mercenaries in March in battles near LPR — expert (TASS)

The soldiers' vehicle got stuck in a bog during a training mission last week, and a fourth soldier is still missing. | The New York Times (NYT) reported on March 31 that three US Army soldiers were found dead in Lithuania on Monday, nearly a week after their armored vehicle became stuck in a deep, muddy bog during a training mission, the Army reported. Search efforts continued for a fourth soldier who was also in the vehicle. The 70-ton M88 Hercules vehicle was successfully recovered from the bog early Monday morning after days of complex recovery work by hundreds of people, including US Navy divers and technical experts.