Now, in news that will surprise no-one, Donald Trump’s press conference is currently running about 20 minutes behind schedule. You can follow it here once it gets under way, and I’ll be bringing you all the key lines.
Kevin Fox thought the spring-like temperatures that had temporarily pushed the cold away from south-eastern Ontario meant a good day on for ice fishing, a popular winter pastime in the region. After shifting location because the wind and ice “didn’t feel right” and the fish weren’t biting close to shore, he and a friend joined nearly two dozen others far out on a sheet of ice in Lake Huron. They followed the familiar routine of anyone who spends a day on the ice: they drilled holes, dropped their lines and waited. Less than four hours after venturing on to the frozen lake, however, disaster struck. Fishers including Fox noticed they were moving – imperceptibly slowly, but enough that it was captured on their electronic devices. Unseasonably warm weather and strong winds had helped detach a large piece of ice from the shores of Georgian Bay, stranding 23 people – including families – and prompting a dramatic rescue. Despite strong winds, Ontario police were able to send two helicopters and one air ambulance to retrieve the stranded anglers in an operation on Sunday that took two hours. Fox wrote on Facebook that the group decided to run toward one side of the bay in an attempt to escape back to land. But they soon realized the ice had already separated from the shore in that spot. At another section, they found the same result: the ice had sheared from the land. As chasms replaced cracks in the ice, fear set in, survivors recalled. “I just started screaming: the ice is opening. The ice is opening,” Alfie How, one of the fishers, told the Sun Times, a local newspaper. Three members of the group tried to run towards shore but the ice around them fractured into smaller pieces, stranding them on open water. “That’s when the reality of the situation really set in. We heard with the [strong] winds at one point they could not send a boat or helicopter. We honestly thought we were doomed,” he wrote. “Some of the guys started making final phone calls to their families. It’s something I will never forget – seeing grown men crying while saying goodbye to the people they love.” While some of the stranded anglers had floatation suits on, they knew the freezing waters would overwhelm them within minutes. Eventually, helicopters arrived, first plucking the trio from a small piece of ice and then ferrying the other stranded people back to shore. Fox says he and others took the necessary precautions to avoid a catastrophic outcome by monitoring the ice, winds and temperatures. But police say that warm weather has notoriously unpredictable effects on ice, especially in large bodies of water. “We’re really encouraging people here in our area to stay off the ice altogether. Stay away from the edges of waterways,” constable Craig Soldan of the Huron county Ontario provincial police told the Canadian Press. “That includes rivers, ponds – any kind of bodies of water where you’ve got ice shelves, they’re breaking away.” Soldan said the detachment has a motte: “No ice is safe ice.”
At around midday, even as airstrikes hit several parts of the capital, large crowds gathered in Tehran’s famous Enghelab Square to chant their allegiance to Iran’s new supreme leader. Carrying banners showing the face of the country’s slain leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, people on Monday held a new portrait – that of his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei. Other similar scenes on state media showed pledges of loyalty from several cities across the country, with people chanting, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”, as security forces looked on. The images stood in stark contrast to those from nine days earlier, when Iranians were seen thronging the streets to celebrate the assassination in joint US-Israeli strike of Ali Khamenei. Many inside the country blame the late cleric for three decades of repression, including the killings of thousands of protesters in bloody state crackdowns on anti-government protests. Just hours before the announcement on Sunday night of the new leader, videos posted on social media appeared to show people in Tehran chanting “Death to Mojtaba”. Although the internet blackout imposed by the regime on the first day of war continues, some Iranians have been sending texts abroad. “People for now are waiting to see if Trump will assassinate him, since he said that if he doesn’t like the next leader, he will kill him,” said Nima, 21, a student based in Khamenei’s home town, Mashhad. Mojtaba, 56, has kept a low profile but has close ties to the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and has been accused of leading the IRGC’s feared volunteer militia, the Basij. A discreet figure who rarely appeared in public, Mojtaba has yet to address the nation. “He is well known for one thing,” said Nima, as “way more of a hardliner than his father was, due to his strong connections to the Basij and the IRGC. These security institutions were and are largely in Mojtaba’s hands.” State media reported that the 28 February strike that killed his father, who ruled for 37 years, also killed several other members of the family, including Mojtaba’s wife and son. There are rumours the new supreme leader was himself wounded. Now, the atmosphere in Iran, said Nima, “will become more repressive and security-driven under him”, adding: “That is, if he survives.” A national crackdown has continued despite the war. The prosecutor general of the country has issued a warning to Iranians outside Iran that anything deemed to be cooperation with the US and Israel could lead to the confiscation of their property and hanging. Another anti-government protester, Farzad, 26, based in west Tehran, said the regime’s forces had been riding across the streets and chanting “God is great” for the past 24 hours. “They all look like they’re on steroids because the death of Khamenei and members of his family have really angered them,” he said. “He lost his family and he will definitely consider protesters responsible for this war.” Mojtaba was chosen by the surviving regime to show Donald Trump that “they won’t back down”, said Farzad. “This war will go on for a while … and we don’t intend to protest under these airstrikes and the Basijis on bikes who are obviously high on power.” The younger Khamenei represents continuity to his supporters – a digitally rendered image has been circulating on pro-regime channels of Ali Khamenei handing over a folded national flag to his son, symbolising the handover of the guardianship of the country. And at a pro-regime rally on Monday, university student Zahra Mirbagheri, 21, told Reuters that Mojtaba’s appointment was “a slap in the face to our enemies who thought the system will collapse with the killing of his father”. But critics have pointed out that the regime lends its credibility on being founded by a 1979 revolt against monarchy, which toppled the pro-western shah in 1979. Now its rule is marked by corruption, mismanagement and violence. Another activist in Tehran sarcastically pledged allegiance to the new “crown prince”. “All hail the king,” they said. “Who would have thought the operation ‘Epic Fury’ would turn out to be the operation epic failure where they managed to convince the hardliners to bring back monarchy?” they added. “Kudos to the US president for the success of another mission impossible. It’s ironic, but funny really. We are being taken for a fool and the show has just begun. Wait and watch how disastrous this decision is going to be not only for us, but also for the world, because Khamenei 2.0 is going to be doing exactly what the IRGC wants and not the other way around.” * Some names have been changed
Emmanuel Macron has vowed that Europe will do whatever it takes to stand by Cyprus, the continent’s first state to be directly affected by the Iran war, after coming under what he described as “attack from multiple drones and missiles.” In the strongest show yet of solidarity towards the EU member closest to the Middle East, Macron likened the attacks, which included a drone strike against a British base on the eastern Mediterranean island, to an attack on Europe. “When Cyprus is attacked, it is Europe that is attacked,” the French president said, standing alongside the leaders of Greece and Cyprus at an airbase in Paphos. He added: “The defence of Cyprus is obviously a key issue for your country, for your neighbour, partner and friend, Greece, but also for France and, with it, the European Union.” Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, echoed the sentiment, saying: “We will not accept that the slightest piece of European territory, like Cyprus, be exposed to danger.” The visit came a week after a Shahed drone crashed into a hangar at RAF Akrotiri, leaving a gaping hole in the building where US U-2 reconnaissance planes were reported to be stationed. Hours later, two other Iranian-made combat drones were intercepted off Cyprus by British fighter jets. All three attacks had been launched from Lebanon, 150 miles to the island’s east, the Cypriot foreign minister, Constantinos Kombos, told the Guardian. Macron used the visit to Cyprus to announce that France and its allies were also preparing “a purely defensive, purely support mission” to reopen the strait of Hormuz, where dozens of ships have been stranded since the start of the war. He said the mission would start “as soon as possible after the most intense phase of the conflict is over”. Around 20m barrels of oil – the equivalent of a fifth of the world’s seaborne crude supply – pass through the strait every day, with Greek tankers carrying much of it because of the country’s dominant role in global shipping. Macron said reopening the artery was vital. “It is essential for international trade, but also for the flow of gas and oil, which must be able to leave this region once again,” he said. France was among Europe’s first nations to respond to a Cypriot request for military assistance, deploying air defence systems, a frigate and the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the region. Mitsotakis had earlier ordered the dispatch of four F-16 fighter jets, now stationed in Paphos, and two frigates, including the Kimon, the “pride of the Greek fleet”. Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Britain have also announced they will be sending warships and air assets as part of a coordinated effort to throw a protective cordon around Cyprus. The UK has flown in Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters capable of taking out aerial threats and F-35 fighter jets to bolster protection of military installations on the 99 sq mile area of territory it has retained since Cyprus gained independence in 1960. The deployments, at a time when Europe’s relations with the US have rarely been more strained, have underlined a resolve to defend its frontiers – albeit after Cyprus had been attacked. With the US-led offensive in its 10th day and Cypriot officials expressing little optimism that the war would end anytime soon, analysts said Macron’s visit amounted to much more than symbolic politics. “This is about Europe making her presence felt in the region when there are so many moving parts, so many unknowns,” said Cleopatra Kitti, a senior policy adviser at the Athens-based thinktank, Eliamep. Ahead of holding trilateral talks with his counterparts on Monday, the island’s president, Nikos Christodoulides, told reporters the presence of the two leaders in Paphos highlighted the extent to which the country’s security had become the collective responsibility of the European Union. He said: “It’s the first time we’ve seen such a response and I consider this to be of particular importance.”
Crowds in Tehran greeted the announcement of the country’s new supreme leader by chanting: “God’s hand is still upon us, Khamenei is still our leader.” As the world economy grinds to a halt, Iran is selling the elevation of Mojtaba Khamenei as a sign of reassuring continuity for a country determined to show its defiance of the west. Yet in reality he injects a new unpredictable, even mysterious, element into the Middle East crisis, since just as he is unknown to Washington, so he is a figure of deep obscurity to ordinary Iranians. By contrast, the first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, led Iran to revolution in 1979 and the second, Mojtaba’s father, Ali Khamenei, had been president for eight years before he was chosen by the Assembly of Experts within a day of Khomenei’s death. Before he was catapulted to power following his father’s assassination, Mojtaba had lived the life of a backroom bureaucrat, acting as “the path to access to his father” as a 2007 US diplomatic cable explained. There is only one video of him speaking in public, to a jurisprudence class, and there has been no substantive interview marking out his views. Yet as the consummate insider, acting as deputy chief of staff in the supreme leader’s office for two decades, he has long been the candidate of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the heart of Iran’s military industrial complex. One western diplomat said his selection “shows Iran is doubling down on the security state. The new leader will be even more beholden to the IRGC”. That is because the IRGC had to overcome many obstacles to ensure their candidate took the helm. It fended off a rearguard attempt to delay his appointment so that the choice might be better made in a different political atmosphere – probably at the end of the war. The evidence of the power struggle is fragmentary, but appears to have involved advice from Ali Larijani, the secretary of the supreme national security council, that a new inexperienced leader in the middle of wartime was a risk. Others in the supreme leader’s office, such as Ali Asghar Hejazi, also opposed Mojtaba’s elevation but were killed in Israeli airstrikes. But the IRGC had to overcome other doubts over his health, the hereditary principle, his religious qualifications and the practicality of holding a meeting of the Assembly of Experts with predatory Israeli war planes circling overhead. The primary uncertainty concerned Mojtaba’s physical and emotional health. The bombing of the supreme leader’s compound on 28 February also killed his mother, his wife, and a son. One of his sisters was also killed along with her husband, as well as a niece and nephew. To take on high office in wartime after suffering such a personal loss cannot be easy, and it is said he professed a reluctance to do so, although that may have been performative. Clerics also had to swallow their doubts about his religious knowledge. Until 2022, Mojtaba held the lower rank of Hojjat al-Islam. To fix this “qualification gap”, the 88-strong Assembly of Experts – under intense pressure from the IRGC – fast-tracked his credentials so that some seminary media outlets used the title “Ayatollah”. Something similar happened in 1989 to enable his father to become supreme leader in 1989. The biggest obstacle was that he was the supreme leader’s son. The republic had come into being in contradistinction to the dynastic rule of the shah, and the rule of the Gulf families. Khomeini deemed the monarchy to be “abhorrent to Islam”, and Khamenei himself described the hereditary principle as un-Islamic. Such doubts were widely shared across Iranian society. Complex theological arguments were produced to overrule objections to inherited power. But what still lay in doubt was how the assembly could safely reach consensus. The risk was underlined by bombing of the secretariat offices of the Assembly of Experts in Qom last week, in which several staff members were killed. Debate ensued over whether the rules governing the assembly required the clerics to meet in person to establish a consensus. It was previously held that there had to be an absolute majority with a two-thirds quorum. The centrist former president Hassan Rouhani was one of the figures urging delay and calling for fundamental political overhaul at the war’s end. But the IRGC media, and hardline clerics, emphasised the need to fill the political vacuum, arguing the temporary leadership could not govern indefinitely. The insistence of the US president, Donald Trump, that he be personally involved in the process only increased Iran’s determination to be seen to be making sovereign decisions about its leadership. But what Khamenei will do with this leadership and how he will relate with other centres of power inside Iran is now the question. His father turned the supreme leader from a supervisory figure to the engine of government, even if he often tried to avoid taking sides in factional battles, and ensured blame landed elsewhere in the system when matters went wrong. He also gave the IRGC “near-monopoly control of the Iranian economy across all sectors”, allowing the Revolutionary Guards to fund their extraterritorial activities, said Maryam Alemzadeh, an associate professor in history and politics of Iran at St Antony’s College, Oxford. The older Khamenei’s consistent ideological thread was his belief that the US was untrustworthy, morally bankrupt and exploitative. So economic cooperation with the US, of the kind Trump is extracting from Venezuela, is not going to be on offer from his son’s regime. He will continue to look to China and Russia to prevent the regime’s collapse. Above all, he will do all he can to protect the IRGC’s business and political empire – one of his father’s greatest legacies. It is an empire from which he himself has personally financially benefited, and is now under systematic US attack. One of his first tests will be whether he renews his father’s fatwa against the possession of nuclear weapons. Another will be whether he sets realistic preconditions for holding talks either with the US or the Gulf neighbours. But conservatives are delighted. Ezzatollah Zarghami, a former culture minister, who is one of the few who claims to have had weekly one-on-one meetings with Mojtaba, said: “He is a proponent of dialogue and listening to others’ voices. In personal interactions, he is excessively humble. Our young leader without even arriving has rubbed Trump’s nose in the dirt,” he said.
US and Israeli warplanes launched new waves of strikes on targets across Iran on Monday, as large crowds took to the streets in Tehran in a defiant show of support for Mojtaba Khamenei, the country’s newly appointed supreme leader. The conflict, now in its second week, continued to escalate, with fresh Iranian missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, US bases across the Middle East and energy infrastructure in the Gulf. In Lebanon, Israel pressed its offensive against Hezbollah with raids in the south and airstrikes in Beirut, while an Iranian missile was shot down over Turkey. As drone strikes were reported in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said France and its allies were preparing a “defensive” mission to the Gulf protect oil supplies. In Tehran’s Enghelab Square on Monday, thousands gathered to offer allegiance to Iran’s new supreme leader, hours after the appointment was formally announced. Chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel,” and “God is Great,” some waved Iranian flags, others banners bearing the portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the new leader’s father, who was killed after 37 years in power by an Israeli airstrike in the first moments of the war. Armoured vehicles lined nearby roads and security personnel were stationed on the rooftops of surrounding buildings. “The path of the martyred Imam Khamenei will carry on under the name of Khamenei,” said Hosseinali Eshkevari, a member of Iran’s assembly of experts, the body tasked with selecting the supreme leader. Another member, Mohsen Heydari, said the late Ali Khamenei had recommended the selection of the candidate who is “hated by the enemy”. Israel has said it will target Iran’s new supreme leader, while the US president, Donald Trump, who has dismissed the younger Khamenei as a “lightweight”, criticised Mojtaba’s selection. “I think they made a big mistake,” Trump told NBC. “I don’t know if it’s going to last. I think they made a mistake.” The defiant rhetoric in Tehran and the appointment of Khamenei, who is seen by analysts as a hardliner with close ties to the Revolutionary Guards, intensified fears that the conflict could last for weeks or even months and leave deep instability in its wake. Stock markets across the world fell sharply on Monday after oil prices surged. Iran’s attacks in the strait of Hormuz have all but stopped tankers from using the key shipping lane through which a fifth of the world’s oil is carried. Speaking during a visit to Cyprus to discuss regional security, Macron said a new naval mission would be aimed at escorting container ships and tankers in order to gradually reopen the strait of Hormuz after the end of “the hottest phase of the conflict”. France has already sent about a dozen naval vessels, including its aircraft carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the strait of Hormuz as part of defensive support to allies threatened by the conflict in the Middle East. Iran’s security chief, Ali Larijani, said in a post on X on Monday that safe passage through the strait of Hormuz would not be restored “amid the fires ignited by the United States and Israel in the region”. Analysts have said Iran is hoping that restricting the flow of oil to global markets and attacking energy infrastructure in the region will threaten sufficient damage to the global economy to force Trump to end the US offensive, and bring an end to the war on Tehran’s terms. Neither the US, Israel nor the Gulf states that have born the brunt of the Iranian attacks currently appear ready to consider concessions, however. On Monday, Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, described Iran’s strikes on the kingdom as “a brutal attack by a neighbouring Muslim country, which we consider a friend, even though we have not permitted the use of our land, airspace, or coasts for any military action against it.” Saudi Arabia said Tehran would be the “biggest loser” if it continues to attack Arab states. In the United Arab Emirates, authorities said two people were wounded by shrapnel from the interception of Iranian missiles over the capital, Abu Dhabi. By mid-afternoon, the Emirati defence ministry said 15 ballistic missiles and 18 drones were fired on the country on Monday. A total of 253 missiles and 1,440 drones have been launched at the UAE since the war began. Four foreign nationals have been killed in the UAE and 117 wounded, authorities said. Iran also attacked Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, where it hit a residential area, wounding 32 people, including several children, according to authorities. Another attack appeared to have started a fire at Bahrain’s only oil refinery, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air. Bahrain has also accused Iran of damaging one of its desalination plants, though its electricity and water authority said supplies remained online. Desalination plants supply water to millions of residents in the region, raising new fears of catastrophic risks in parched desert nations. Iran continues to target Israel with drones and ballistic missiles. A man was killed in central Israel in a missile strike, the first such death in Israel in a week, in which a woman was also wounded. The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials. Israel reported its first military deaths on Sunday, saying two combat engineers were killed in southern Lebanon, where it is fighting Hezbollah. An Israeli military spokesperson accused Iran of targeting Israel’s cities with cluster bombs. “We are seeing on a daily basis [that] Iran is deliberately targeting densely populated civilian areas,” the spokesperson said. The official said that Israel was attacking “terrorist infrastructure” in Lebanon, which has been pulled deep into the war in the Middle East since Hezbollah opened fire to avenge the killing of Khamenei, triggering an Israeli offensive, which has so far killed more than 400 people there, according to Lebanese authorities. The Israeli military has ordered inhabitants to leave the southern suburbs of Beirut, much of south Lebanon and parts of the eastern Bekaa valley region – all areas that have served as political and security strongholds of Hezbollah. “Mass displacement across Lebanon has forced nearly 700,000 people – including around 200,000 children – from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations,” Edouard Beigbeder, Unicef regional director, said. “Children are being killed and injured at a horrifying rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear, and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold and overcrowded shelters,” he said. In Turkey, Nato air defences intercepted a ballistic missile that entered the country’s airspace – the second such attack since the war started. President Tayyip Erdoğan said that Turkey’s main goal is to keep the country out of the “blaze” of the conflict.
The Pentagon has identified the seventh US service member killed in the war with Iran as 26-year-old army Sgt Benjamin N Pennington, who is a resident of Glendale, Kentucky. In a statement on Monday the department said Pennington died on Sunday from injuries sustained during an Iranian strike on the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia on 1 March. The incident is under investigation, the statement said. Pennington was assigned to first space battalion, first space brigade, Fort Carson, Colorado, the Pentagon said. The brigade is part of the army space and missile defense command. US Central Command announced the death on Sunday, but did not identify the service member. In its statement, US Central Command said that the service member had been “seriously wounded” when the Saudi military base was struck on 1 March and had “passed away from injuries”. “The US Army Space and Missile Defense Command is deeply saddened by the loss of Sgt Pennington,” Lt Gen Sean A Gainey, USASMDC commanding general, said. “He gave the ultimate sacrifice for the country he loved. That makes him nothing less than a hero, and he will always be remembered that way. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.” Col Michael F Dyer, first space brigade commander, described Pennington as a “dedicated and experienced noncommissioned officer who led with strength, professionalism and sense of duty”. “Our deepest sympathies are with his family, friends and fellow Soldiers” Dyer said. “We remain dedicated to providing comfort and support at this time and will forever honor his legacy and ultimate sacrifice for our nation.” The US army space and missile defense command said that Pennington enlisted in the US army as a unit supply specialist in 2017. He was assigned to the first space battalion, first space brigade, USASMDC, on 10 June 2025. His awards include the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, among others. He was promotable, and will be posthumously promoted to staff sergeant, the statement added. On Monday, speaking to the International Association of Fire Fighters in Washington DC, JD Vance addressed the deaths of the US service members. “I just want to say that if you are the praying type, and I certainly am, I hope you’ll spare a prayer for the six souls that we lost, for the seventh soul who will be coming home tonight, and for all of their families,” the vice-president said. This is the seventh US service member killed in action since last Saturday, when the US and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran and began carrying out large-scale strikes across Iran. Iran has responded with retaliatory strikes, and has launched missiles aimed at Israel and US military facilities in the region, including in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The six other US service members who have been killed during the war were identified last week as: Capt Cody A Khork, 35; Sgt first class Nicole M Amor, 39; Sgt Declan J Coady, 20; Sgt first class Noah L Tietjens, 42; Maj Jeffrey R O’Brien, 45; and Chief warrant officer 3 Robert M Marzan, 54. They had all been assigned to the 103rd sustainment command in Des Moines, Iowa, and were killed on 1 March during an “unmanned aircraft system attack” in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, according to the military. The incident remains under investigation.
Claudia Sheinbaum has responded to Donald Trump’s description of Mexico as the “epicenter of violence,” by calling on the US government to step up efforts to combat gun trafficking. “There is something that the US can help us a lot with: stop the trafficking of illegal weapons from the US to Mexico,” the president of Mexico said. “If they stopped the entry of illegal weapons from the United States into Mexico, then these groups wouldn’t have access to this type of high-powered weaponry to carry out their criminal activities.” Sheinbaum noted that 75% of guns used by cartels come from the United States. Mexico has repeatedly called on the US government to halt arms trafficking and in 2021 sued several American gunmakers, accusing them of “negligent marketing, distribution and sales”, though the suit was tossed out by the US supreme court last year. Sheinbaum’s comments responded to a speech made by Trump during a gathering of Latin American leaders at his Miami-area golf club on Saturday to establish what he called a “counter-cartel coalition”. “The epicenter of cartel violence is Mexico,” Trump said during his Shield of Americas summit with Latin American leaders on Saturday. “The Mexican cartels are fueling and orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere and the United States government will do whatever is necessary to defend our national security.” Trump also called Sheinbaum a “beautiful woman” with a “beautiful voice” and said he had asked her to let him “eradicate the cartels” to which, according to Trump, Sheinbaum responded “No, no, no, please, president.” Trump has regularly threatened to invade Mexico in order to tackle drug trafficking groups, threats that Sheinbaum has repeatedly rebuffed. “It’s good that President Trump publicly says that when he has proposed that the United States military enter Mexico, we have said no,” she said on Monday. “Because it’s the truth.” Viri Ríos, a Mexican political analyst, called Trump’s comments “sexist” and urged Mexicans to reject the US president’s assertion that Mexico was the source of cartel conflict. “The epicenter of cartel violence is not Mexico, it’s the United States,” she said during an interview with W Radio. “The cartels are fueled by the United States’ demand for drugs and armed with US weapons, and thanks to the United States, they are able to orchestrate enormous bloodshed and chaos throughout Latin America.”