Latest news with #Tusi
Miami Herald
3 days ago
- Miami Herald
Miami Beach man coerces 15-year-old neighbor with drugs and money for sex: cops
A 29-year-old Miami Beach man used drugs and money to attract a 15-year-old neighbor and coerce her into sex multiple times, cops say. He was cuffed on Saturday. On May 17, the 15-year-old's parents called Miami Beach police, reporting their daughter had been sexually abused by Christian Gonzalez Lopez, a neighbor, an arrest report read. An interview with the young teen revealed that a few months ago, Gonzalez Lopez approached her while she was walking in the neighborhood and asked for her Instagram, which she gave, the report read. That same day, he sent her pictures of lingerie and asked if she'd take pictures in them for money — she ignored him. Sometime later, she messaged him asking for the drug Tusi, a type of cocaine, the report read. Gonzalez Lopez said he agreed to provide it, but not only for money — sex, too. This exchange happened several times. Police noted the teen had a 'drug dependency' and on some other occasions, he would give her $100 to have sex. In one instance, she told detectives she thought he would record her during the sexual abuse. On Saturday, the teen confirmed Gonzalez Lopez was the man who was giving her money for sex over several months, the report read. He was promptly arrested on an unrelated disturbance call that day. He was charged with human trafficking, seduce a child to commit any illegal act, lewd and lascivious battery on a child, induce a child to perform an act that causes a child to become dependent and illegal delivery of controlled substances to minors. Gonzalez Lopez was taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where he remained as of Wednesday night.
New York Post
29-04-2025
- New York Post
DEA finds deadly drugs peddled by migrant gangs at Colorado nightclub bust
Federal agents found 'pink cocaine' — a deadly drug cocktail favored by migrant gangs — during a raid on a Colorado underground nightclub where more than 100 illegal aliens were busted, they said. The major operation in Colorado Springs involving around 300 agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, other federal agencies and the local sheriff's office also saw a number of weapons and other drugs uncovered. 'As you may suspect, when the cops showed up at the door, most of the drugs hit the floor,' DEA Rocky Mountain Field Division Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Pullen told FOX31. Advertisement According to the DEA, over 100 people in the country illegally have been detained at a underground nightclub in Colorado. X / @DEAROCKYMTNDiv This photo provided by the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor in New York shows a bag of pink cocaine. AP 'We did find cocaine, looks like some pink cocaine,' he added. It is the first time pink cocaine, also known as Tusi, has been found in Colorado, the DEA said. Advertisement The drug usually contains no actual cocaine, but is rather a potentially deadly cocktail usually made up of ketamine, MDMA, methamphetamine, and caffeine — sometimes with deadly fentanyl mixed in. The Venezuelan migrant gang Tren de Aragua has been busted for trafficking the drug in the US, including in New York City migrant shelters.
Express Tribune
16-03-2025
- Science
- Express Tribune
The Observatory of Maragha
The writer is an astrophysics PhD student currently studying at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Torun, Poland. He can be reached at mzainmob@ Listen to article In the chaotic aftermath of Mongol expansion in the mid-13th century which had left the Abbasid capital of Baghdad in ruin, a new centre of learning soon came to the forefront. Ironically it was the very destroyer of Baghdad, Halaku Khan under whose auspices the Maragha Observatory was established in the Ilkhanate in today's North Western Iran. The story goes that the astronomer, philosopher, theologian and mystic Nasiruddin Tusi was able to make a lasting impression on Halaku via his "divination" prowess and his expertise in astronomical computations. In the pre-modern world it was common to attribute worldly happenings to the positions of celestial objects on the sky. Halaku, in pursuit of better political fortunes, saw fit to fund an establishment that could meticulously keep track of the stars and planets. Thus, under the supervision of Tusi, the Maragha Observatory was founded sometime in the 1250s. It served as a multifaceted institute with a wide array of functions. Most central of these was observing and recording the motions of heavenly objects as they trailed across the night sky. A specific project undertaken at the observatory was the tracking of planetary motions. The distinction between planets and stars prior to the invention of the telescope was made on the basis of their respective motions. Planets move around, while stars do not. The word planet itself is derived from Greek planetes, which means wanderer. The planets were thought to go around the Earth, in perfectly circular orbits. This so-called Geocentric model was the construction of famous Greek mathematician, astronomer Ptolemy. The model, though invaluable in helping to predict the positions of the stars and planets, had over time accumulated substantial errors. A certain motion of the Earth known as precession slightly offsets the positions of objects on the night sky. Due to this, Tusi felt it was pertinent to make extensive and careful measurements of the stars and planets so that the Ptolemaic model could be salvaged for his particular time. His extensive observations were compiled and recorded in a text which came to be known as the Ilkhani Tables and became the basis of the work done by subsequent astronomers at Maragha. The Observatory itself is thought by historians to have hosted a wide variety of intellectual activities in its vast and multi-floored complex. Students would be trained to operate instruments and record their findings. Compilations of the positions of celestial objects, known as zijs, would be kept in a library housing a plethora of manuscripts. Perhaps the largest observatory library of its time, it also served as a breeding ground for international collaborations. Scholars from other areas of the Mongol realms would travel to Maragha. Records indicate the presence of astronomers from as far as China in a time which is stereotypically thought of as insular. Careful continuous observations of the planets were made over the course of a few decades. This of course was incumbent, given the longer times it takes the outer planets to revolve around the Sun. Saturn for instance takes 21 years to complete a full revolution, and the astronomers at Maragha observed its full course patiently. This may sound trivial given how accustomed we are to receiving daily alerts about planetary whereabouts. However such an undertaking by the Maragha astronomers was nothing short of spectacular. With their carefully crafted instruments, including quadrants, celestial spheres and astrolabes, they were able to measure the positions of these planets incredibly accurately. Up to a few minutes of arc. For reference, the Moon and the Sun span an angle of 30 minutes of arc on the sky. Tusi, the head astronomer, in addition to his observational pursuits, had also made strides in theoretical astronomy that made intellectual waves in the following centuries. For instance, he devised a theoretical construct, now known as Tusi Couple, to construct better models for planetary orbits. This device very simply consists of a small circle, contained within a larger circle. The smaller circle rotates inside of its larger counterpart. Curiously, the Tusi Couple shows up in the work of esteemed Prussian astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. In his book, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Copernicus introduces his Heliocentric model for the Universe which upended more than a millennia of Geocentric hegemony. In this work Copernicus has drawn a full-scale model of the Tusi Couple, labeled in a fashion eerily similar to the way Tusi himself had drawn it centuries prior in his memoir on astronomy titled Tadhkira. How this transfer came across is a mystery but it is thought that the transmission route of this knowledge to Renaissance Europe must have gone through Maragha. This connection has led some scholars to view Copernicus as a follower of the Maragha school of astronomy. In the East the Maragha Observatory despite its fairly short lifetime (till the early 1300s) had a lasting effect for centuries to come. It served as a model to emulate as demonstrated by the Istanbul Observatory established by Ottoman Sultan Murad III and the Samarqand observatory constructed by Ulugh Beg, grandson of the infamous Tamerlane. Ulugh Beg being a notable astronomer himself had visited Maragha in his youth. In today's fast paced world it is all too easy to be dismissive of pre-modern attempts at learning. The Maragha Observatory is but one example of such a feat, where the brilliance of medieval astronomers is on display and still a source of fascination for modern day astronomers and historians.
New York Times
16-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
What Is Tren de Aragua?
President Trump's executive order on Saturday invoking the Alien Enemies Act targeted Venezuelan citizens 14 years and older with ties to the transnational gang Tren de Aragua, saying they 'are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.' Mr. Trump's order was quickly challenged in court, but the gang has been a growing source of concern for U.S. officials over the last year. The Biden administration labeled Tren de Aragua a transnational criminal organization in 2024, the New York Police Department has highlighted its activity on the East Coast, and the Trump White House began the process of designating it a foreign terrorist organization in January. Here is what we know about the gang: A rising force out of Venezuela Tren de Aragua (Train of Aragua, or Aragua Train) has roots in Tocorón prison in Venezuela's northern Aragua state, which the group's leaders had transformed into a mini-city with a pool, restaurants and a zoo. They reportedly recorded executions and torture there to maintain control over other prisoners. As Venezuela's economy collapsed and its government under President Nicolás Maduro became more repressive, the group began exploiting vulnerable migrants. Tren de Aragua's influence soon stretched into other parts of Latin America, and it developed into one of the region's most violent and notorious criminal organizations, focusing on sex trafficking, human smuggling and drugs. Colombian officials in 2022 accused the gang of at least 23 murders after the police began to find body parts in bags. Alleged members have also been apprehended in Chile and in Brazil, where the gang aligned itself with Primeiro Comando da Capital, one of that country's biggest organized crime rings. A recent entry to the United States Despite the many unknowns about its true size or sophistication in the United States, Tren de Aragua has emerged as a real source of concern for law enforcement in the last couple of years. In New York City, according to the police the gang has focused on stealing cellphones; retail thefts, especially high-end merchandise in department stores and thefts while riding scooters; and dealing a pink, powdery synthetic drug, known as Tusi, that is often laced with ketamine, MDMA or fentanyl. The police have also said that the gang is believed to recruit members from inside the city's migrant shelters, and has variously had conflicts or made alliances with other gangs. In other parts of the country, people accused of affiliations with Tren de Aragua have been charged with crimes such as shootings and human trafficking, mostly targeting members of the Venezuelan community. In May 2024, federal officials uncovered a sex-trafficking ring in which they said the gang was forcing Venezuelan women into sex to repay debts to smugglers who assisted with border crossings. The ring stretched across Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Florida and New Jersey, according to a complaint filed in federal court. The group's presence in the United States was a flashpoint of the 2024 election, as Mr. Trump accused the Biden administration of letting criminals into the country. During a presidential debate, he falsely suggested that the gang had taken over Aurora, Colo. A source of stigma for migrants The Trump administration has repeatedly described Tren de Aragua as a focus of its deportation efforts. Venezuelan migrants seeking asylum say the gang's presence and the discourse around it in the United States have created hurtful stigma and discrimination against them. 'Any of us who have tattoos, they think that we are Tren de Aragua,' said Evelyn Velasquez, 33-year-old Venezuelan woman, told The New York Times in September. 'I'll go apply for a job and when they hear that we are Venezuelan, they turn us down.' In February, the White House press secretary said that 10 men detained and housed in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba were members of Tren de Aragua. The sister of one of the men detained said that he was not a gang member. In late February, the Trump administration abruptly emptied two detention sites the government had used to hold 177 Venezuelans flown in from the United States, including a military prison building formerly used to hold terrorism detainees. Federal officials moved out a second group of migrants this month.
South China Morning Post
11-02-2025
- South China Morning Post
Malaysian man caught trying to smuggling ‘pink cocaine' into Australia
Published: 10:30am, 11 Feb 2025 Police in Australia have charged a 35-year-old Malaysian man over an attempt to import more than half a tonne of illegal drugs into the country. The Malaysian national was arrested in Coffs Harbour, some 500km (310 miles) north of Sydney, on Monday, the Australian Federal Police said on Tuesday. He is accused of being part of a plot to import 120kg (265lbs) of an illicit substance suspected to be 'pink cocaine', 421kg (928lbs) of MDMA pills and 80kg (176lbs) of methamphetamine in a shipment sent from Italy . The MDMA pills had an estimated street value of about A$26 million (US$16.3 million), while the methamphetamine had an estimated street value close to A$74 million, the Australian Federal Police said. 02:05 Australia bans recreational vaping to prevent young generation from becoming nicotine addicts Australia bans recreational vaping to prevent young generation from becoming nicotine addicts Officers said that the Australian market for the drug cocktail known as pink cocaine, or Tusi, was 'not well established', but they estimated that it could be worth up to A$16.8 million.
