Evening Brief: U.S. Troop On Alert, Syria Ceasefire, Gaza Plan

Federal authorities have placed active-duty Army units on standby amid escalating immigration protests in Minneapolis, as court rulings tighten ICE crowd-control limits, fringe pro-ICE activism collapses locally, regional tensions shift in Syria with a Kurdish withdrawal east of the Euphrates, and President Trump moves to assert U.S. control over postwar Gaza through a new international “Board of Peace.”

Book Review: Five Years to Freedom by Colonel James N. Rowe

Five Years to Freedom is a compact, must-read POW memoir that shows how Nick Rowe endured five years of Viet Cong captivity through discipline and mental control, influenced the modern SERE program, and belongs alongside Frankl and Solzhenitsyn as a study of inner freedom under coercion.

American Mercenaries Linked to UAE Assassination Program in Yemen

The UAE’s reported use of former U.S. special operations contractors to run a targeted assassination campaign in southern Yemen shows how a partner’s “counterterror” fight can slide into deniable contract killing, with shaky oversight and almost no accountability.