Evening Brief: China Escalates Feud with Japan, Two Dead, Three Wounded in Newark Shooting, Spain Nabs Ecuadorian Drug Lord

Two Killed, Seventeen Shell Casings, One City By early Saturday morning, the scene on Chancellor Avenue in Newark looked like something out of a war zone, not a neighborhood where kids are supposed to ride bikes and argue about homework. On the evening of November 15, around 7 p.m., someone stepped onto that street near Wainwright and opened fire, leaving two people dead and three more wounded. Among the dead are a ten-year-old boy and a twenty-one-year-old woman. That is not a crime statistic. That is a family’s world ripped apart. The three wounded survivors are an eleven-year-old boy, a nineteen-year-old man, and a sixty-year-old man, all reported in stable condition at University Hospital. Stable is a medical term. It does not describe what happens to a mind that has heard that much gunfire at close range and watched people collapse on the pavement. Witnesses talked about the volume of shots, about people diving for cover inside businesses, about a peaceful evening that turned into chaos in seconds. Police marked at least seventeen shell casings at the scene. Every one of those little yellow evidence markers is a physical reminder that someone stood there with a weapon and made deliberate decisions that ended and changed lives. So far, investigators have no suspect in custody and no clear public motive. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka called the shooting senseless and urged the shooter to turn themselves in, words that local residents have heard too often over the years. Governor Phil Murphy offered prayers and support, as leaders must do after each new event like this. They are not wrong to say those things, but people in Newark could be forgiven for wanting more than sympathy and a press release. Newark’s Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery is talking about a multi-front response that includes city government, law enforcement, businesses, faith leaders, and families. That is what it will take, because this is not a single bad night. It is part of a pattern in a city that has been wrestling with gun violence for generations. A child and a young woman died on a street that should have belonged to them. Three others are in hospital beds, trying to claw their way back. Somewhere out there, the person who pulled the trigger is still free. Newark does not need slogans. It needs information from witnesses, honest cooperation with investigators, and the kind of sustained effort that makes it harder for the next gunman to step onto a city block and turn it into a killing ground.   ‘DEPRAVED AND SENSELESS’: A 10-year-old boy and a 21-year-old woman were killed in a Saturday night shooting in Newark, N.J., that also injured three others, including an 11-year-old boy, authorities said. pic.twitter.com/VVBAa607gp — Fox News (@FoxNews) November 16, 2025 Spain Just Bagged One of Ecuador’s Deadliest Ghosts For four years, Wilmer Geovanny Chavarria Barre moved like smoke through the cracks of the global underworld. Known as “Pipo,” he led Los Lobos, the Ecuadorian gang responsible for hundreds of killings, political assassinations, extortion rackets, and a cocaine pipeline that ran straight through the hemisphere. Last week, his luck finally ran out in Malaga, Spain. The arrest was the product of a joint operation between Ecuadorian and Spanish authorities, and it landed like a hammer on one of Latin America’s most violent criminal machines. Pipo should have been dead already. In 2021, he staged his own death during the chaos of the COVID pandemic, slipped into a new identity, and walked out of Ecuador unnoticed. Spain became his sanctuary. From that quiet perch in Malaga, he directed drug shipments into the United States and Europe, ordered murders back home, and kept Los Lobos’ extortion of Ecuador’s gold mining operations running smoothly. His ghost act allowed him to keep his hands on everything that mattered: money, violence, and control. Los Lobos is not some neighborhood crew. The U.S. designated it a foreign terrorist organization in September 2025, an acknowledgment of what Ecuadorians have known for years. With an estimated eight thousand fighters, the gang has terrorized cities, seized chunks of the Pacific coast, and turned ports into battlegrounds. Their partnership with Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel gave them reach, firepower, and access to the cocaine flowing out of Colombia and Peru. The result has been catastrophic for Ecuador, a country that once saw itself as an island of relative peace in a rough neighborhood. President Daniel Noboa called Pipo’s capture a major win, and he is right. It lands at a moment when Ecuador is holding a national referendum on allowing foreign military bases to operate on its soil, a sign of how far the security crisis has pushed the government. The country is bleeding from drug-driven violence, and cutting the head off Los Lobos, even temporarily, gives it space to breathe. This arrest also shows how globalized the fight has become. Pipo used pandemic chaos, migration routes, and identity fraud to stay ahead of police. It took sustained cooperation between Ecuadorian and Spanish authorities to corner him. Taking him off the board will not end the violence overnight. But it removes the architect of a long, bloody campaign, and it sends a message to the networks that shield men like him: even ghosts leave footprints.   MÁXIMO NARCOTRAFICANTE FINGIÓ SU MUERTE PARA ASEGURARSE IMPUNIDAD, PERO EN ESTE GOBIERNO. EL MENSAJE ES DIRECTO Y NO DEJA DUDAS, DONDE SE ESCONDAN, IREMOS POR ELLOS Y LOS VAMOS A ENCONTRAR. Hoy, me encuentro en España con el alto mando policial, desde donde informamos al país… pic.twitter.com/23rfQT0Gol — John Reimberg (@JohnReimberg) November 16, 2025