Author: Emmanuel

A pack of veterinarians clambered over hefty metal crates on Tuesday morning, loading them one by one onto a fleet of semi-trucks. Among the cargo: tigers, monkeys, jaguars, elephants and lions — all fleeing the latest wave of cartel violence eclipsing the northern Mexican city of Culiacan.For years, exotic pets of cartel members and circus animals have been living in a small animal refuge on the outskirts of Sinaloa’s capital. However, a bloody power struggle erupted last year between rival Sinaloa cartel factions, plunging the region into unprecedented violence and leaving the leaders of the Ostok Sanctuary reeling from armed attacks, constant death threats and a cutoff from essential supplies needed to keep their 700 animals alive.The aid organization is now leaving Culiacan and transporting the animals hours across the state in hopes that they’ll escape the brunt of the violence. But fighting has grown so widespread in the region that many fear it will inevitably catch up.”We’ve never seen violence this extreme,” said Ernesto Zazueta, president of the Ostok Sanctuary. “We’re worried for the animals that come here to have a better future.”Violence in the city exploded eight months ago when two rival Sinaloa Cartel factions began warring for territory after the dramatic kidnapping of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the leader of one of the groups, by a son of notorious capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán who then delivered him to U.S. authorities via a private plane.

Zambada and “El Chapo’s” son Joaquin Guzmán López were arrested when they landed in Texas.Since then, intense fighting between the heavily armed factions has become the new normal for civilians in Culiacan, a city that for years avoided the worst of Mexico’s violence in large part because the Sinaloa Cartel maintained such complete control.”With the escalating war between the two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, they have begun to extort, kidnap and rob cars because they need funds to finance their war,” said security analyst David Saucedo. “And the civilians in Culiacan are the ones that suffer.”

A lioness is carried to a transport cage at the animal refuge Ostok Sanctuary, on the outskirts of Culiacan, Mexico, Monday, May 19, 2025.

Felix Marquez / AP

Animals scared by cartel fightingZazueta, the sanctuary director, said their flight from the city is another sign of just how far the warfare has seeped into daily life.

This week, refuge staff loaded up roaring animals onto a convoy as some trainers attempted to sooth the animals. One murmured in a soft voice as he fed a bag of carrots to an elephant in a shipping container, “I’m going to be right here, no one will do anything to you.”Veterinarians and animals, accompanied by the Mexican National Guard, began traveling along the freeway to seaside Mazatlan, where they planned to release the animals into another wildlife reserve.The relocation came after months of planning and training the animals, a move made by the organization in an act of desperation. They said the sanctuary was caught in the crossfire of the warfare because of its proximity to the town of Jesús María, a stronghold of Los Chapitos, one of the warring factions.During intense periods of violence, staff at the sanctuary can hear gunshots echoing nearby, the roar of cars and helicopters overhead, something they say scares the animals. Cartel fighting regularly blocks staff off from reaching the sanctuary, and some animals have gone days without eating. Many have started to lose fur and at least two animals have died due to the situation, Zazueta said.Complicating matters is the fact that an increasing number of the animals they rescue are former narco pets left abandoned in rural swathes of the state. In one case, a Bengal tiger was discovered chained in a plaza, caught in the center of shootouts. Urban legends circulate in Sinaloa that capos feed their enemies to pet lions. The U.S. Justice Department alleged in an indictment released in 2023 that the sons of “El Chapo” and their cartel associates fed some of their victims “dead or alive to tigers.”Diego García, a refuge staff member, is among those who travel out to rescue those animals. He said he regularly receives anonymous threats, with callers claiming to know his address and how to find him. He worries he’ll be targeted for taking away the former pets of capos. Zazueta said the refuge also receives calls threatening to burn the sanctuary to the ground and kill the animals if payment isn’t made.”There’s no safe place left in this city these days,” said García.

That’s the feeling for many in the city of 1 million. When the sun rises, parents check for news of shootouts as if it were the weather, to determine if it’s safe to send their kids to school. Burned houses sit riddled with bullets and occasionally bodies appear hanging from bridges outside the city. By night, Culiacan turns into a ghost town, leaving bars and clubs shuttered and many without work.”My son, my son, I’m here. I’m not going to leave you alone,” screamed one mother, sobbing on the side of the road and cursing officials as they inspected her son’s dead body, splayed out and surrounded by bullet casings late Monday night. “Why do the police do nothing?” she cried out.”What are we doing here?”In February, while driving a refuge vehicle used for animal transport, García said he was forced from the car by an armed, masked man in an SUV. At gunpoint, they stole the truck, animal medicine and tools used by the group for rescues and left him trembling on the side of the road.The breaking point for the Ostok Sanctuary came in March, when one of the two elephants in their care, Bireki, injured her foot. Veterinarians scrambled to find a specialist to treat her in Mexico, the United States and beyond. No one would brave the trip to Culiacan.”We asked ourselves, ‘what are we doing here?'” Zazueta said. “We can’t risk this happening again. If we don’t leave, who will treat them?”

An elephant stands in a transport trailer at the animal refuge Ostok Sanctuary, on the outskirts of Culiacan, Mexico, Monday, May 19, 2025.

Felix Marquez / AP

The concern by many is that Mexico’s crackdown on the cartels will be met with even more violent power moves by criminal organizations, as has happened in the past, said Saucedo, the security analyst. Zazueta blames local government and security forces for not doing more, and said their pleas for help in the past eight months have gone unanswered.

Sinaloa’s governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request comment.The sanctuary made the move without any public announcement, worried that they might face repercussions from local officials or the same cartels forcing them to flee, but they hope the animals will find some relief in Mazatlan after years of conflict.García, the sanctuary staff member, is not so sure. While he hopes for the best, he said he’s also watched cartel violence spread like a cancer across the Latin American country. Mazatlan, too, is also facing bursts of violence, though nothing compared to the Sinaloan capital.”It’s at least more stable,” he said. “Because here, today, it’s just suffocating.”Cartel violence is also frequent in the central state of Guanajuato, Mexico’s most deadly state. This week, gunmen opened fire and killed seven people, including some minors, in a plaza in the city of San Felipe, police said. The violent crime is believed to be linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in Mexico.

20 May 2025176 CommentsAfter every round of Premier League matches this season, BBC football pundit Troy Deeney will give you his team and manager of the week.Here are this week’s choices. Do you agree? Give us your thoughts using the comments form at the bottom of this page.Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa): More in here for his tears after the win over Spurs – was it theatrics? Is this the last time we see him in the Premier League? Really interesting time.Marc Cucurella (Chelsea): He has been really consistent. I wasn’t convinced with him at first but he has been proving himself with his displays and he can step up with a big goal at the big moments.Nikola Milenkovic (Nottingham Forest): The big Serb has arguably been the best centre-half in the Premier League this season. A big shout but he has been really good and scored a big goal in a must-win game for Forest at West Ham. Excellent.Ezri Konsa (Aston Villa): It is not nice for me to talk about Aston Villa players in a really good way, but these guys are performing big at the moment. An excellent performance and he is growing more as a man and as a leader under Unai Emery. I can see him being a real threat for England in the World Cup – and starting.Connor Bradley (Liverpool): A lot of eyes on him. Not only with Trent leaving but what looks like Jeremie Frimpong joining. I think he has been fantastic and showcased how good he can be going forward with a lovely assist at Brighton. A career we will all watch with intrigue. It is up to Mr Frimpong to get him out.Declan Rice (Arsenal): He has stepped up in big, big moments. A lovely finish to beat Newcastle and he is affecting the game all over. He is an infectious personality and now his players are feeding off him. There are a few calls for him to be captain – I don’t think that would be fair on Martin Odegaard. But life isn’t fair – he is becoming the leader without the armband.Yasin Ayari (Brighton): A lovely goal against Liverpool. He is a very young, very exciting player but played with a maturity and level of confidence that was very impressive. He is another one Brighton have picked off the conveyor belt. The energy he brings, he wasn’t scared to put himself about. Excellent.Harvey Elliott (Liverpool): Another youngster who has played with real maturity and confidence. Elliott will have to move on and could play for any of the big teams and be a star.Iliman Ndiaye (Everton): On what was an emotional day for Everton, I think he epitomised the club and Goodison Park. Not the first person you would pick – he has had ups and downs throughout the year but through his form he has shown a level of class.Eddie Nketiah (Crystal Palace): Did we see a glimpse of what Crystal Palace could look like without Jean-Philippe Mateta? Maybe. Nketiah has had a tough season at Palace but great to see him scoring and smiling and, again looking ahead to the World Cup, we need young English strikers who are scoring. Nketiah will be trying his best to get on the England plane.Jamie Vardy (Leicester): The man, the myth, the legend. I don’t want to hear Roy of the Rovers any more. All I want to hear is the Jamie Vardy story. Everything he has done in his career was encapsulated as he scored in the win against Ipswich. There is talk of him doing a screenplay – the scene is set to end on ‘500 games, 200 goals’. Perfect. Can’t say enough about the man.Marco Silva (Fulham): There has been a lot of talk about him leaving but the passion, fight and desire he showed at the side of the pitch in the win at Brentford tells me he still cares. The best part is he made four changes and three of them scored.Do you agree with Troy’s selections? Who would be in your Team of the Week? Have your say using the comments form below:Related topicsFootball

Andoni Iraola says his side needed to be at their “very very best” to beat Manchester City, but after falling to a 3-1 defeat his side now cannot qualify to play in Europe next season.MATCH REPORT: Man City beat Bournemouth to close in on Champions LeagueAvailable to UK users only.

In the 2023 reboot of Frasier, the celebrated psychiatrist returns to Boston to reconnect with son Freddy and teach at Harvard.But while he is living where Cheers was set he has not made it back to the old bar and now frequents university hangout Mahoney’s instead.However, in episode five of the new show, Frasier sent fans wild with a reference to Cheers’ tagline.While discussing his struggles to fit in throughout his life, Frasier says that though he visited the same bar every night he still felt like he didn’t belong.In response his new colleague and old university friend Alan tells him “nobody knew your name”.The reference has left fans wanting more, hopeful of both Cheers and Frasier cameos in the reboot, which sadly so far don’t look likely.

15 hours agoShareSaveMax MatzaBBC NewsShareSaveReutersJoe Biden’s announcement that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer has revived questions about what health issues the former US president was dealing with while he was in the White House.In a statement on Sunday, Biden’s office said the 82-year-old had received the diagnosis on Friday after seeing a doctor for urinary symptoms.Some doctors have expressed surprise that the aggressive form of cancer, which has spread to his bones, was not detected earlier. Others pointed out that cancers can grow fast without the patient displaying symptoms – and that men over 70 are not routinely screened.President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday his predecessor should have been more transparent with the public, seeming to imply that the cancer diagnosis had been covered up – a suggestion rejected by a Biden aide.”I think it is very sad actually. I am surprised that the public wasn’t notified a long time ago,” Trump said at an event at the White House.”It could take years to get to this level of danger. So, look, it’s a very, very sad situation. I feel very badly about it, and I think people should try and find out what happened.”A Biden aide said the former president’s prior medical check for prostate cancer was more than a decade ago.He had a Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test in 2014, the aide told reporters on Tuesday.”Prior to Friday, President Biden had never been diagnosed with prostate cancer,” the aide added.The cancer diagnosis comes amid reports that the Democrat’s aides sought to conceal other deteriorating health conditions from the public ahead of the 2024 election.Republicans argue that Biden, who ran for re-election as the oldest president in history at 81, was mentally and physically unfit for office. He dropped out of the race last summer after a disastrous debate performance against Trump.According to Original Sin, a new book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, Biden was unable to recognise Hollywood actor and Democratic donor George Clooney or to recall the names of key aides in his final year in office.The authors write: “Biden’s physical deterioration – most apparent in his halting walk – had become so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair, but they couldn’t do so until after the election.”The publicity generated by the book has forced senior Democrats to field questions on why they did not do more to respond to Americans’ concerns about Biden’s health as he campaigned for re-election.”It was a mistake for Democrats to not listen to the voters earlier,” Senator Chris Murphy said on Sunday.After the news of Biden’s diagnosis, Vice-President JD Vance wished him well, but asked whether Biden’s doctors or staff members had sought to keep the public from knowing about the true state of his health.”This is not child’s play, and we can pray for good health, but also recognise that if you’re not in good enough health to do the job, you shouldn’t be doing the job,” he added.Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist who worked as a Covid adviser to the Biden White House, was among those claiming that Biden probably had been ill with cancer for some time, without necessarily knowing it.”He did not develop in the last 100, 200 days. He had it while he was president,” he told MSNBC’s Morning Joe show. “He probably had it at the start of his presidency in 2021. Yes, I don’t think there’s any disagreement about that.”US medical guidelines do not recommend routine blood screenings for men over 70 because prostate cancers can be very slow-growing, and the difficulty of testing and treatment may outweigh the risk from the cancer.Biden had previously been diagnosed with benign enlargement of the prostate. In 2019, before he was elected, his campaign released the report from his medical screening, saying he had been treated with medication and surgery, “and has never had prostate cancer”.That’s led to questions about whether Biden was tested at any point during his four-year presidency – and why the diagnosis came so late.”I would assume the former president gets a very thorough physical every year,” Dr Chris George of the Northwestern Health Network told Reuters. “It’s sort of hard for me to believe that he’s had a (blood test) within the past year that was normal.”However, Dr Robert Figlin, interim director of Cedars-Sinai Cancer, told the BBC that the aggressive way Biden’s cancer had presented was not that unusual. And he warned critics against “assuming that somehow something was missed along the way”.Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer for men, according to the Cleveland Clinic.According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), out of every 100 American men, 13 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, and two or three men will die from it.

Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner heaped praise on his squad after beating Wolves 4-2 on Tuesday. The result saw the Eagles achieve their highest ever Premier League points tally, to go alongside winning their first ever major trophy in the FA Cup on Saturday.MATCH REPORT: Nketiah scores twice as Palace beat WolvesAvailable to UK users only.

15 hours agoShareSaveBrandon Livesay and Sakshi VenkatramanBBC NewsReporting fromNew York courtShareSaveJane Rosenberg /ReutersAn exotic dancer called The Punisher discovered his client’s identity when he turned on a hotel television before an encounter and the screen said, “Welcome Sean Combs”.Sharay Hayes testified at the hip-hop mogul’s sex-trafficking trial that he was hired to create “sexy, erotic scenes” with Combs’ then-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura while a naked man watched from the corner.But he did not realise at first that the man was Mr Combs. That changed when Mr Hayes was waiting for his clients in a luxury hotel suite and saw his name on the television’s welcome screen. Mr Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.Warning: Readers may find some details distressingMr Hayes testified in a New York courtroom on Tuesday about his first meeting with the couple. He was “specifically told to not acknowledge” the man in the room and he said Combs wore a veil over his face.At a hotel room in Trump Tower on Central Park West, Ms Ventura greeted him at the door wearing a bath robe, Mr Hayes said.Inside the room, the furniture was covered in sheets and there were “little bowls” on the floor with bottles of baby oil.He described eight to 12 encounters he allegedly had with Ms Ventura while Combs watched and gave directions. The directions included adjusting candles and instructing the two to have sex, Mr Hayes said. Sometimes, Ms Ventura would “wince or sigh” at the mogul’s suggestions, he said. Other times, she would look to Mr Combs for “consent” for certain activities, he added.Mr Hayes’ testimony comes after testimony last week from Daniel Phillip, who also claimed he was paid to have sex with Ms Ventura while Mr Combs watched.Cassie’s mother took photographs of daughter’s injuriesAlso on Tuesday, the court heard from Regina Ventura, the mother of R&B singer Cassie.An email from Ms Ventura to her mother dated 23 December, 2011 was shown as evidence. In it, she wrote that Mr Combs had made threats towards her, and that he would “release 2 explicit sex tapes of me”.The email also said Mr Combs had told Ms Ventura he would be “having someone hurt me” and “he made a point that it wouldn’t be by his hands, he actually said he’d be out of the country when it happened”.After the email was shown in court, Ms Ventura’s mother identified several images of her daughter taken in her family home in Connecticut around the same time.They show bruises across Ms Ventura’s upper and lower back, and her leg.Ms Ventura’s mother alleged the bruises were from her being “beaten by Sean Combs”. US Federal CourtShe also testified that Mr Combs allegedly demanded $20,000, because “he was angry that he had spent money” on Ms Ventura.Ms Ventura’s mother testified that she took out a loan with her husband and sent the money to an account as directed by Mr Combs’ “bookkeeper”.”I was scared for my daughter’s safety,” Ms Ventura told the court, adding that she felt she had to pay “because he demanded it”.The money then reappeared in their account about four days later, Ms Ventura alleged. There was no communication about its return. Earlier on Tuesday, the defence vigourously cross-examined a former personal assistant of Mr Combs and pointed out some inconsistencies in the versions of events he had previously told the government.The trial is expected to last several weeks and Mr Combs could face a life sentence if found guilty.Automatic rifles with enhancements seized from Miami mansionThe last witness of the day was Homeland Security special agent Gerard Gannon, who led the raid of Mr Combs’ Miami mansion in March 2024. He presented to the jury some of the things he found on the 20,000-square-foot (1,860 sq meters) property, including semiautomatic AR15 rifles, magazines loaded with bullets, lingerie, baby oil and platform high heels. The rifles, designed to fire at a high rate, were enhanced with things like “red dot optics”, used for precision shooting – not a common feature in the rifles. Firearm serial numbers, used to track the weapon from the manufacturer to the owner, allegedly were cut out of two of the weapons. Mr Gannon also mentioned that one of Mr Combs’ 30-bullet magazine only had 19 bullets inside when it was found. Testimony on Wednesday will pick up with Gannon. The court is expected to hear Wednesday or Thursday from the rapper Scott Mescudi, known as Kid Cudi, who dated Cassie in 2011. Mescudi’s name has surfaced repeatedly during the trial, which began earlier this month, mainly in reference to accusations that Combs allegedly blew up his car out of jealousy.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a 2026 candidate for California governor, criticized former Vice President Kamala Harris and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra on Tuesday as complicit in covering up former President Biden’s cognitive decline while in office.Villaraigosa said those actions, in part, led to President Trump winning the November election. Becerra, who previously served as California‘s attorney general, is also in the running for governor, and Harris is considering jumping into the race. All three are Democrats.“At the highest levels of our government, those in power were intentionally complicit or told outright lies in a systematic cover up to keep Joe Biden’s mental decline from the public,” Villaraigosa said in a statement. “Now, we have come to learn this cover up includes two prominent California politicians who served as California Attorney General — one who is running for Governor and another who is thinking about running for Governor. Voters deserve to know the truth, what did Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra know, when did they know it, and most importantly, why didn’t either of them speak out?” Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, from left, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and former Vice President Kamala Harris. (Godofredo A. Vásquez, Nathan Ellgren, Susan Walsh / Associated Press) Villaraigosa based his remarks on excerpts from “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” written by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson and publicly released Tuesday. The book, largely relying on anonymous sources, argues that Biden’s confidants and inner circle kept his deteriorating state from the American people, resulting in the Republican victory in the 2024 presidential election.The book portrays Biden as in decline for as long as a decade, and argues that a circle of political advisors and his family hid his condition from voters. “Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra took an oath of office and were entrusted to protect the American people, but instead Kamala Harris repeatedly said there was nothing wrong with Biden and Becerra turned a blind eye,” Villaraigosa said. “Original Sin” was published shortly after the former president disclosed on Sunday that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.One example of Biden’s cognitive decline cited by the authors was that he confused Becerra with homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, according to the New York Times.Asked to respond to Villaraigosa’s attack, Becerra did not address this incident but expressed well wishes for the former president and his family as Biden begins treatment. He also defended his dealings with the former president when he was the nation’s health chief.“I met with President Biden when needed to make important decisions and to execute with my team at HHS,” Becerra said in a statement. “It’s clear the President was getting older, but he made the mission clear: run the largest health agency in the world, expand care to millions more Americans than ever before, negotiate down the cost of prescription drugs, and pull us out of a world-wide pandemic. And we delivered.”Attempts to reach a representative for Harris were unsuccessful Tuesday afternoon. More to Read

The personal secretary and an adviser to Mexico City’s mayor were killed by gunmen on a motorcycle in a central neighborhood of the capital Tuesday, authorities said.Mayor Clara Brugada holds the second most powerful political post in the country to President Claudia Sheinbaum, and they are allies in the Morena party.Brugada said in a statement that her secretary Ximena Guzmán and adviser José Muñoz were killed in the Moderna neighborhood. Brugada called the killings a “direct attack.” Authorities were investigating the motive and checking surveillance camera footage to identify the attackers, Brugada said. Forensic experts were seen gathering evidence at the scene of the crime on a busy avenue, as police officers stood guard. A body covered in a white sheet lay on the ground near the victims’ car, whose windows were shattered.

Police officers stand guard near the crime scene of the killing of Jose Munoz and Ximena Guzman in Mexico city on May 20, 2025. 

VALENTINA ALPIDE/AFP via Getty Images

“There will be no impunity. Those responsible will be arrested and must face justice,” Brugada said in her statement.

Sheinbaum lamented the killings and said during her morning press briefing that there would not be impunity. Sheinbaum served as Mexico City’s mayor prior to winning the presidency last year.”It’s a deplorable incident,” Sheinbaum said, pledging her full support to Brugada and her team.  In 2020, gunmen from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel attempted to kill Sheinbaum’s then police chief, Omar Garcia Harfuch,  in a spectacular ambush on a central boulevard. He was wounded and three people were killed.Garcia Harfuch, who is now Sheinbaum’s national security minister, said his office was helping search for the perpetrators of Tuesday’s attack.

“We will not let this cowardly act go unpunished,” he wrote on social media.

Claudia Sheinbaum (left), president of Mexico, and Clara Brugada (right), mayor of Mexico City, attend the reopening of the modernization of the stations on Line 1 of the Cuauhtemoc-Chapultepec Metro Collective Transportation System in Mexico City, Mexico, on April 23, 2025.

Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Tuesday’s shooting unfolded just hours after gunmen opened fire and killed seven people, including some minors, in Guanajuato, Mexico.While Mexican politicians and their aides, particularly at the local level, often get caught up in gang-related crime, such murders on the streets of the capital are relatively rare.But politicians are frequently targeted elsewhere in Mexico.Just last week, a mayoral candidate and three of her supporters were shot dead at a campaign event in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz. That attack came two days after Cecilia Ruvalcaba, a councilmember in Mexico’s western state of Jalisco, was gunned down in a hospital. In April, Jose Luis Pereira, a senior member of the Teocaltiche city government, was shot and killed while dining at a restaurant in Jalisco.In December 2024, a Mexican congressman who was a member of the ruling coalition was shot dead in Veracruz.

About two months before that, a mayor was murdered and decapitated in the southern state of Guerrero. A former prosecutor and local police official was later arrested in connection with the killing.In June 2024, a mayor was killed in southern Mexico, less than a week after another politician was assassinated in the same region.That same month, a local councilwoman was gunned down as she was leaving her home in Guerrero. Her murder came a few days after the mayor of a town in western Mexico and her bodyguard were killed outside of a gym, just hours after Sheinbaum was elected president.Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.

Washington — President Trump on Tuesday announced his administration has selected the architectural design for a “Golden Dome” missile defense system to protect the United States from foreign threats.The president also said the budget package Republicans are currently ironing out on Capitol Hill will include an initial $25 billion to begin construction on the missile defense system. Mr. Trump said the project’s total cost will be about $175 billion, although it could be much more. Congress hasn’t yet funded any of the project, although Mr. Trump told reporters he thinks it’ll be easy to fund on Capitol Hill. “Today, I’m pleased to announce that we have officially selected an architecture for this state-of-the-art system that will deploy next-generation technologies across the land, sea and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors,” the president announced in the Oval Office alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

President Trump speaks alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in the Oval Office at the White House on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Mr. Trump announced his plans for the Golden Dome, a national ballistic and cruise missile defense system.

Getty Images

Mr. Trump said the project should be “fully operational before the end of my term,” which would be before January 2029. The president said the system will be built in states including Alaska, Florida, Georgia and Indiana, and involve multiple, yet-to-be-selected American defense and technology companies. Canada wants to be involved in the project, the president said, adding that the U.S. wants to help Canada as it can. “Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space,” he said. “And we will have the best system ever built.” 

The president told reporters that he suggested a comprehensive new missile defense system to U.S. military leaders, and they agreed, not the other way around. “I suggested it and they all said, ‘We love the idea, sir.’ That’s the way it’s gotta be, right? But they want it. And they wanted it badly once it was suggested.” The president has for months expressed a desire for a defense system like Israel’s. In his March joint address to Congress, the president requested funding for the system. “I’m asking Congress to fund a state-of-the-art Golden Dome shield to protect our homeland,” the president said in his address to Congress. “All made in the USA. Ronald Reagan wanted to do it long ago, but the technology wasn’t there, not even close. But now we have the technology. It’s incredible, actually. And other places have it. Israel has it, other places have it, and the United States should have it too.”

A new, unclassified assessment from the Pentagon’s intelligence agency shows what threats the U.S. needs to defend itself from in the next decade. The Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, expects that missile threats to the U.S. will expand both in scale and sophistication, as the U.S. faces threats from foreign actors in the shape of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, two types of hypersonic weapons, land attack cruise missiles, and fractional orbital bombardment systems.Mr. Trump wants a “Golden Dome” in the vein of Israel’s Iron Dome, the country’s mobile all-weather air defense system that has intercepted projectiles since its installation in 2011. However, Israel’s Iron Dome largely defends against shorter-range threats, like rockets, while it has two other air defense systems to defend against missiles, which are increasingly being used in conflict. “Missile threats to the U.S. homeland will expand in scale and sophistication in the coming decade,” the assessment says. “China and Russia are developing an array of novel delivery systems to exploit gaps in the current U.S. ballistic missile defenses, but traditional ballistic missiles — which are guided during powered flight and unguided during free flight — will remain the primary threat to the homeland. North Korea has successfully tested ballistic missiles with sufficient range to reach the entire homeland, and Iran has space launch vehicles it could use to develop a military-viable ICBM by 2035, should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.” The assessment warns that China, Iran and North Korea will have significantly more intercontinental ballistic missiles by 2035, and “there is no part of the homeland which cannot be struck by existing ICBMs.” Although Iran doesn’t currently have known ICBMs, the DIA assessment suggests it will have 60 by 2035. Keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear power has been a key goal of the U.S. and its allies. The assessment also warns that China’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles will increase in number by 2035, and “there is no part of the homeland which cannot be struck by existing adversary SLBMs.” Russia, too, has submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Further, the assessment warns that both China and Russia will increase their boosted hypersonic weapons multiple times over by 2035. The report says that Russia and China can reach parts of the U.S. with these systems. The report also says China and Russia’s land attack cruise missile capacity will significantly increase by 2035, and both countries have the potential to reach parts of the U.S. 

Finally, the report says both Russia and China are expected to have what’s known as fractional orbital bombardment systems by 2035. These will be able to orbit the globe, traveling over the South Pole to avoid early detection.