The Wire - April 21, 2025

//The Wire//2200Z April 21, 2025//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: POPE FRANCIS PASSES AWAY THIS MORNING. CHINA ANNOUNCES LATEST MOVE IN USA/CHINA TRADE WAR.//

 -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----
 
-International Events-

Vatican City: Pope Francis passed away early this morning at the age of 88, following his bout of respiratory illness. The Vatican stated that Pope Francis died at his residence after experiencing a stroke this morning.

Switzerland: Klaus Schwab, the founder of the infamous World Economic Forum abruptly announced his resignation from his position as Chair of the forum, along with his seat on the Board of Trustees.

AC: No comment was provided on the reason for Schwab stepping aside, and the resignation took effect immediately. However, Schwab had taken a reduced role at the Forum anyway, after handing over most of the day-to-day operations of the organization to Børge Brende back in May of last year.

Far East: The trade war between the United States and China continues to expand, with China announcing a new style of retaliatory tariffs. Though the announcement from China's Ministry of Commerce was somewhat vague, the general sentiment is that for any nation that works with the United States regarding their own tariffs, China will impose Chinese tariffs on that nation.

AC: If this is what China intends to do, this is a significant development. Taxing a third-party nation simply because that nation is working favorably with the USA, is purely a "friend of my enemy is an enemy" approach to this trade crisis that highlights just how serious Beijing is regarding this situation. In short, this whole affair may just be more serious than it appears at face value.
 
 -HomeFront-

Florida: This morning Delta Flight 1213 experienced an engine fire before takeoff in Orlando. The fire occurred as the No. 2 engine was started after pushback from the gate, prompting the inflatable slides to be deployed to evacuate passengers to the taxiway.

New Mexico: A local county magistrate judge has resigned following an incident that involved harboring an illegal alien two months ago. Back in February, Cristhian Ortega-Lopez was arrested on a variety of charges at Judge Cano's home, where he had been living.

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Analyst Comments: The resignation of Judge Cano is not particularly surprising as this judge openly confessed to harboring this illegal alien at his residence. In photos posted to his personal (and public) Facebook page, the judge was also seen in video footage that shows the illegal handling weapons. The reason as to why this two-month-old story is worth mentioning now is due to the quiet "retirement" of the judge at nearly the same time that various court docs claim the illegal was a member of Tren de Aragua (TdA), the infamous gang that has been recently designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). While this development largely went unnoticed by the general public, this FTO designation is no joke. This categorization allows a plethora of tools (to include kinetic targeting efforts) to be used to combat the groups designated as FTOs. It's bad enough for a judge to openly harbor an illegal alien for political purposes, but it's a different thing altogether to harbor someone who's part of a terrorist organization.

It is that FTO label that changes the game; it's entirely a different atmosphere to harbor someone with the same designation as Bin Laden. Though this is speculative, this is probably why this judge quietly got shut down and pressured into "retirement". Everyone knows that it's almost impossible to indict a judge for anything at all (even low-level county magistrates), but it's also hard to remain in the public eye after being caught knowingly harboring a federally designated terrorist on US soil, and providing that individual with small arms.

Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://p