Two Sinaloa Cartel leaders were charged with narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and money laundering on Tuesday, after being previously caught by federal authorities -- according to an unsealed indictment that was released on May 13th.

Sen. Thom Tillis is leading the charge to stop President Trump from slashing pharmaceutical drug prices. He is one of many. Big Pharma bought the Congress, and they come cheap. Sen. Rand Paul is also opposed because he sees it as price control. President Trump isn’t looking for price control. He wants to equalize prices. […] The post Congress: Fund the World’s Drugs & Keep COVID Spending to $89 Trillion appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

AOC, the communist leader of the Democrat Party, and Hakeem Jeffries, another communist leader, are openly threatening the administration. The Democrat Party is a joke. Sandy Cortez, as she was known in high school, threatened the administration. It appears she’s ready to bring out their fellow communist antifas and BLMs. If any more lawmakers are […] The post The Leaders of the Dem Party Threaten ICE After Their Lawmakers Attack ICE appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to lift sanctions on Syria, arguing that removing penalties imposed on the former dictatorship would give the new leadership a chance — despite its leader’s terrorist history. Delivering a speech in Saudi Arabia during his high-stakes Middle East tour, Trump said the act would give Syria “a chance at greatness.” “In Syria, which has seen so much misery and death, there is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace,” Trump said. “That’s what we want to see.” The next day, Trump met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whom he described as a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.” The meeting between Trump and Shaara was the first meeting between an American president and a Syrian leader in 25 years. Former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was toppled by al-Shaara and his U.S.-designated terrorist organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), in December. WHO IS SYRIAN REBEL LEADER MOHAMMAD AL-SHARAA? While the move was praised by Middle Eastern leaders, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, experts say the United States must be careful. Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), who traveled to Syria in early April and met with Sharaa, said he supports Trump’s move but has reservations about Sharaa. “I fully support President Trump’s actions to lift the sanctions on Syria,” Stutzman told The Daily Wire. “I applaud his resetting of the table in the Middle East to unlock the full economic potential of the Syrian people. I believe we should engage with President al-Sharaa with reservations, but still give his country the opportunity to change as we have for others in the past.” Diliman Abdulkader, the founder of American Friends of Kurdistan, said lifting of sanctions is a “positive step” that will help minorities in Syria, but the United States “must proceed with caution.” “It will certainly benefit ordinary Syrians and minorities like the Kurds, Christians, Alawites, Druze,” Abdulkader told The Daily Wire. “The Kurds in the northeast can finally use the resources in their territory in the international market to benefit the people. But sanctions relief must remain conditional on Sharaa and his circle.” TRUMP CALLS ON SAUDI ARABIA TO JOIN ABRAHAM ACCORDS: ‘MY FERVENT HOPE’ During his meeting with Sharaa, Trump urged the Syrian leader to join the Abraham Accords, which establish normalized relations between Israel and Arab signatories. “I told [Sharaa], I hope you’re going to join [the Abraham Accords] once you’re straightened out and he said yes,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “But they have a lot of work to do.” While Sharaa has reportedly signaled his openness to joining, Syria has had tense relations with Israel, attacking the regime over concerns it was persecuting its Druze minority. Israel, which has a sizable Druze community with many members who serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, vowed to protect the Syrian Druze from any harm and has shipped humanitarian aid to Druze villages since Sharaa came to power. Abdulkader said that the United States previously had a $10,000,000 bounty on Sharaa “for a reason” and that “pretending he has changed is wishful thinking.” HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TRUMP’S MIDDLE EAST TRIP Sharaa, who was once affiliated with Al-Qaeda and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had an FBI bounty for almost a decade before it was lifted in 2024. Since Sharaa has come to power, minorities in Syria have faced sectarian violence and mass killings, including hundreds of Alawites in March. “Since Jolani has controlled Damascus, Christians, Alawites and Druze have all been slaughtered in a span of a few months,” Abdulkader, who is Kurdish, said. “The Kurds have signed a fragile deal with Damascus backed by the U.S. and the only reason they have not been targeted is because they have their own forces.” Jonathan Schanzer, the Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he thinks the sanctions were lifted too early. “If things go badly, today paved the way for a Muslim Brotherhood-Sunni jihad state in the heart of the Levant,” Schanzer told The Daily Wire. If removing sanctions proves to be a wise decision, Schanzer argues it could help shift Syria away from Turkish influence, which has raised concerns about the safety of Syria’s Kurdish minority — long persecuted by Turkey.

A 19-year-old man was arrested on Tuesday and charged with planning a mass shooting at a U.S. military base in Warren, Michigan, “on behalf of ISIS.” According to the DOJ, Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said told two undercover law enforcement agents that he formulated a plan to attack the U.S. Army’s Tank-Automotive & Armaments Command (TACOM) facility in Warren. The suspect was arrested after the two undercover agents indicated that they were ready to carry out Said’s plan and scheduled the attack for May 13. Said was detained after launching his drone near the base. The suspect is accused of providing “material assistance to the attack plan, including providing armor-piercing ammunition and magazines for the attack, flying his drone over TACOM to conduct operational reconnaissance, training the undercover employees on firearms and the construction of Molotov cocktails for use during the attack, and planning numerous details of the attack including how to enter TACOM and which building to target.” TACOM is part of the Detroit Arsenal, which is home to 144 active-duty Army soldiers and 8,000 Department of Defense civilian employees or contractors. Said of Melvindale, Michigan, joined the Michigan Army National Guard in September 2022 and trained at Fort Moore in Georgia, according to the criminal complaint. After being sent to the Michigan Army National Guard Taylor Armory, he was discharged in December of 2024, but the complaint did not say why, ABC News reported. He began planning the mass shooting at the TACOM facility in November of 2024, according to the complaint. “The arrest of this former soldier is a sobering reminder of the importance of our counterintelligence efforts to identify and disrupt those who would seek to harm our nation,” said Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, the commanding general of Army Counterintelligence Command. Said faces charges of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and distributing information related to a destructive device, according to the DOJ. He made his first court appearance on Wednesday in the Eastern District of Michigan and faces 20 years in prison for each count if he is convicted. “ISIS is a brutal terrorist organization which seeks to kill Americans. Helping ISIS or any other terrorist organization prepare or carry out acts of violence is not only a reprehensible crime – it is a threat to our entire nation and way of life,” said U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. for the Eastern District of Michigan. “Our office will not tolerate such crimes or threats, and we will use the full weight of the law against anyone who engages in terrorism.”

Two years after a major rebrand, the streaming service “Max” will revert back to being called “HBO Max,” reflecting what many customers were still calling it informally. This announcement comes less than two months after Max debuted a logo tweak with a black and white design similar to the classic HBO logo with that same color scheme, per Variety. Parent company Warner Bros. Discovery announced the name change in a press release, the outlet noted, saying they are “returning the HBO brand into HBO Max will further drive the service forward and amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect from the offering. It is also a testament to WBD’s willingness to keep boldly iterating its strategy and approach — leaning heavily on consumer data and insights — to best position itself for success.” “The powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming,” WBD president and CEO David Zaslav told ad execs during a presentation on Wednesday. “Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead.” The outlet noted that the Max/HBO branding was originally changed in an effort to reflect the large variety of content, which was meant to make the service comparable to Netflix. Another speaker assured the crowd that the diversity of options would remain even though the name is changing back. “We will continue to focus on what makes us unique — not everything for everyone in a household, but something distinct and great for adults and families. It’s really not subjective, not even controversial — our programming just hits different,” said JB Perrette, president and CEO of streaming. The Max social media account changed its X bio to say, “These rebrands are trying to murder me.” The person in charge of social media also posted multiple memes about the switch, including the classic image of multiple identical Superman characters encountering one another. V2 approved by legal. pic.twitter.com/uUhH3RU4T6 — Max (@StreamOnMax) May 14, 2025   There was also a papal conclave joke showing an image of a chimney spewing white smoke. “BREAKING: White smoke was seen coming from the Warner Bros. water tower. A new brand has been chosen,” the caption said.  BREAKING: White smoke was seen coming from the Warner Bros. water tower. A new brand has been chosen. pic.twitter.com/DOC8LIWR4x — Max (@StreamOnMax) May 14, 2025 One user summed up what most everyone was saying, posting a comment that said, “Seriously, just make up your mind. We still call it HBO no matter what.”

The South Carolina Supreme Court rejected an effort from Planned Parenthood to water down the state’s pro-life heartbeat law, ruling on Wednesday that the state could enforce its protections for unborn babies at around six weeks of development. In its decision, the court ruled against Planned Parenthood’s claim that the law could only protect babies at around nine weeks of development, claiming that was when a baby’s heartbeat can first be detected. The court said that the legislature had intended to protect unborn babies at around six weeks, when heart activity can first be detected, ruling against the abortion giant. “While we do not frame our holding today in the shorthand terms of a number of weeks, the biologically identifiable moment in time we hold is the ‘fetal heartbeat’ under the 2023 Act occurs in most instances at approximately six weeks of pregnancy,” the majority wrote. The question the justices were addressing was: “at what point in a woman’s pregnancy does a ‘fetal heartbeat’ occur” as defined by South Carolina’s 2023 Fetal Heartbeat and Protection From Abortion Act. The court defined this as when a “medical professional may objectively determine to have occurred by the existence of the ‘cardiac activity’ of electrical impulses detectable as a ‘sound’ with diagnostic medical technology such as a transvaginal ultrasound device.” Top South Carolina officials celebrated the decision. “Time and time again, we have defended the right to life in South Carolina, and time and time again, we have prevailed,” said South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster. “Today’s ruling is another clear and decisive victory that will ensure the lives of countless unborn children remain protected and that South Carolina continues to lead the charge in defending the sanctity of life.” “This ruling is a resounding win for the rule of law and protecting the unborn in South Carolina,” said Attorney General Alan Wilson. “Today’s decision reaffirms that our elected legislators, not out-of-state interest groups, hold the power to shape South Carolina’s policies in accordance with the values of its people.” The Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization also praised the decision from the court. “Planned Parenthood has failed in attempting to rewrite the science of human development to further their agenda for more abortions and more profit,” said SBA Pro-Life America Political Director Caitlin Connors. “The level of science denial from this abortion giant that receives $800 million in taxpayer funding annually should astound South Carolinians who overwhelmingly re-elected Gov. Henry McMaster and state Republicans after they enacted the heartbeat law.”