Bolivia: Regime Arrests “MAGA’s Man in LatAm” for Attempted Assassination

Source: Common Dreams

“Fernando Cerimedo, an Argentine political operative who has worked on right-wing campaigns across Latin America, was arrested in Bolivia this week in connection with the attempted murder of a woman with whom he reportedly had a romantic relationship. Cerimedo was arrested Tuesday morning at Viru Viru Airport after an attack on Bolivian lawyer and activist Nadia Beller. Video footage circulating online shows two people dressed as delivery workers approaching Beller outside of a hotel in Santa Cruz de la Sierra and shooting her at close range. The 33-year-old was taken to a hospital and survived. Cerimedo has connections to Argentina’s President Javier Milei, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz. As Drop Site News pointed out, he is business partners with President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale, and The Economist has called him ‘MAGA’s man in LatAm’ for ‘forging close ties’ to the US leader’s right-wing movement.” (08/19/26)

https://www.commondreams.org/news/fernando-cerimedo

Steve Trinward

Proponents of Solitary Confinement Attempt to Stifle Reform

Source: The American Prospect
by Katie Rose Quandt

“When Jerome Wright hears from people incarcerated in New York prisons, they describe a system in crisis. ‘I can tell you, unequivocally, from people in maximum, medium, every type of security they have in there, that the system has devolved into basically a lockdown,’ said Wright, co-director of the HALT Solitary Campaign, who spent more than seven years in solitary confinement in New York prisons. ‘It’s almost like the entire system is in solitary confinement … People are losing their minds, literally. Some people are committing suicide.’ … This should not be the case in New York, where lawmakers in 2021 passed the HALT Act, designed to limit which infractions can be punished with solitary confinement, cap stints in solitary to 15 days (after which people can be moved to special, non-isolation units), and ban certain vulnerable populations from solitary altogether.” (08/19/26)

https://prospect.org/2026/08/19/proponents-of-solitary-confinement-attempt-to-stifle-reform/

Steve Trinward

Amazon to expand drone service to nearly 500 cities after targeting 1 million deliveries this year

Source: CNBC

“Amazon said Wednesday it plans to offer drone deliveries in nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of the year, a sign of momentum for a project that’s been slow to develop since founder Jeff Bezos first laid out his vision for the service almost 13 years ago. The planned expansion for Prime Air would represent a sixfold increase from its current footprint, the company said in a blog post. Amazon’s latest update comes five months after David Carbon, vice president of Prime Air, spoke confidently about the program and laid out ambitious growth plans in an internal all-hands meeting, according to a recording obtained by CNBC. Carbon projected at the time that Prime Air will make 1 million deliveries this year, and said Amazon has the “’ighest demand drone delivery service in the industry.'” (08/19/26)

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/amazon-plans-drone-expansion-as-top-exec-projects-1-million-deliveries.html

Thomas L. Knapp

Professors are being squeezed on all sides. The GUARD Act can protect them.

Source: Expression
by Michael Hurley

“From 2000 through 2024, FIRE recorded 102 cases of politicians trying to silence faculty. That’s four cases a year on average. Then, in 2025 alone, we recorded 114. That extraordinary spike comes as federal efforts to reform higher education have too often crossed constitutional lines. At the same time, the old threat of censorship by school administrators never faded. This year, South Florida State College fired professor Vinita Prabhakar after its president called a celebrated short story she assigned about an alcoholic teacher ‘political.’ Now Prabhakar, represented by FIRE and FIRE Legal Network member Gary Edinger, is suing the school.” (08/19/26)

https://expression.fire.org/p/professors-are-being-squeezed-on

Thomas L. Knapp

North Korea shrugs off Trump’s scaled-back drills with South Korea, saying it changes nothing

Source: SFGate

“North Korea said Wednesday that a U.S. decision to scale back military exercises with South Korea does not change what it sees as the provocative nature of the drills, dampening hopes for an early resumption of diplomacy between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump. The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made the comments Wednesday night in her country’s first reaction to Trump’s moves to drastically cut back the annual U.S.-South Korean military drills. ‘We think it’s not worth making comments on that and we have no interest in it at all,’ Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media. ‘The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.'” (08/19/26)

https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/south-korea-says-the-south-korean-and-us-22393947.php

Steve Trinward