Number 4. The Economic Times. Jugging on the rise: The new form of robbery.
In what is described as “a disturbing trend,” a new form of personal assault is taking hold in U.S. states. Jugging rhymes with mugging, and is just as personal but more mobile than the sidewalk confrontation.
Perpetrators stake out banks and public ATMs, watching for their prey. When someone exits the bank or is seen taking cash from the machine, the miscreants allow him or her to get into their car and leave the premises.
The juggers follow. At the target’s next stop, they move in.
Victims have been aggressively attacked at gas stations and convenience stores. The innocent driver pulls to a stop, opens his door, and a car suddenly screeches to a stop beside him. Assaulters emerge and demand the fresh cash.
In at least one case, cash was left in the locked car while the victim entered a convenience store. Without hesitation, his car window was smashed and the money removed. Perpetrators sped away.
So it’s like mugging — the sudden appearance of a tough guy in your face demanding a wallet, maybe with a pistol-whipping for gentle persuasion — except jugging is more premeditated. If you find yourself the victim, it means you have been under surveillance for several minutes before the attack.
The article suggests making your cash withdrawal your last stop before home. Maybe that advice works, but it seems to have been written by someone whose only experience of arriving at home means a garage door remotely controlled from inside the vehicle. Good luck with parking in the driveway.
Only a handful of jugging incidents have been reported so far. They range from Texas to South Carolina. But the sudden onset of this new type of personal assault has appeared out of nowhere. One would expect the easy distribution of gas station security camera footage would provide tips and training for a new generation of malcontents.
Number 3. NK News. North Korea scrubs Navy commander from photos.
Astute readers of the ANR will recall the May 30, 2025 issue where we highlighted the unfortunate attempted launch of North Korea’s new warship. During launch, witnessed by an eager Kim Jong Un, a mechanical failure caused the new state-of-the-art destroyer to slide aft end first down the slip and roll over into the water.
The new ship sank in the most public of humiliations.
Because this was North Korea, it will be somebody’s fault. The somebodies — four high ranking government officials — were identified within minutes and arrested on the spot.
Now, in a page from Soviet Russia, the mothership of global communism, we find that at least two of the four are disappearing.
The two are identified in the article as a “top Navy commander” and the manager of the shipyard. See before-and-after photos of a small knot of men clustered around Kim Jong Un.
Now you see them, now you don’t.
There may be more detail about their identities in the NK News article, but the balance of the text is behind the paywall. I hate paywalls.
(You are welcome to support the ANR with a subscription fee, which is welcome and which helps keep us producing this fine report. But you can also get it for free. Not exactly a brilliant marketing plan, but that’s how we roll.)
The photo, however, reminded me that Joseph Stalin had engaged in similar erasures. You might find the doctored photos interesting.
In one, Stalin is shown at the Moscow Canal accompanied by three other men, one of whom was Nikolai Yezhov, chief of the NKVD (secret police). Somehow, things did not work out for Nikky, and the follow-on photo shows canal water instead of the head policeman.
Play the game: Can you spot the difference between these two pictures?
An earlier pair of photos shows Vladimir Lenin (in the middle behind the table) surrounded by close confidants in 1897. This included one Alexander Malchenko, who in 1930 was executed for spying. Comrade Al was replaced by a white spot on the wall.
Now I think I have nearly exhausted the SubStack allowance for digital data in a single article. Suffice to say, Communism, for all its bluster and manly strength, seems to be such a delicate flower when it comes to criticism.
Number 2. The Mirror. Alligator Alcatraz branded “cruel and inhumane”
It is good to know that Trump’s Washington people, and DeSantis’ Florida people, follow The Alligator News Roundup. That is no doubt where they came up with the idea of Alligator Alcatraz, the new swampland detention camp where illegal immigrants are staged prior to deportment.
Reading the ANR makes all of you mainstream movers and shakers.
The predictable angst from the left is that merely being in an environment such as the Florida swamp is prima facie evidence of cruelty. Much of the noise around this comes from outlets such as MSNBC, where one commentator opined that it’s simply not fair that escapees have to face alligators, panthers and pythons.
That gives me pause. Here I thought the idea of incarceration was that those held were not supposed to attempt escape. Silly me, I thought that’s why they had steel gates and high fences. I didn’t realize the detainees were to be given an even chance to make a run for it.
(I think that issue came up on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this week but, alas, I did not immediately bookmark the article… and I do not feel like spending my morning chasing the reference.)
To the extent that Alligator Alcatraz strikes either fear or fury, or both, maybe that’s part of the plan. Please try to remember that virtually everything Donald Trump does or says is about gaining leverage.
It seems that President Trump fully intends to see that everyone residing in the USA is here legally. Promoting the idea of a detention center surrounded by alligators is probably part of the effort to persuade those who are here illegally to self-deport and avoid the reptiles.
Not that they would encounter alligators anyway if they don’t attempt escape.
The trend toward self-deportation is not pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. The New York Post and the Washington Post have both documented the fact that more than 1 million illegal immigrants have chosen to voluntarily leave the U.S. since the January inauguration.
Number 1. NBC News. Rep. Don Bacon is done with Congress — but open to a presidential bid.
It’s tough serving in Congress as a U.S. representative. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska), after surviving 5 elections in the last 10 years, is ready to hang it up.
“This job requires a 14-hour day during the week, Saturdays, parades and a variety of things, and Sunday sometimes,” reports the retired Air Force Brigadier General. “And do I want to do this for two more years? I just didn’t have the hunger to want to work at that intensity level.”
So he is thinking of running for President instead. Which I find sort of perplexing. I figured it would be harder to be President, not easier. (But I may be projecting only from the perspective of one who desires to serve. Forgive the Pollyanna viewpoint.)
Rep. Bacon has been an opponent of Donald Trump on many issues, but he has been styled as a war hawk.
Bacon is a mixed bag. He is very strong on Ukraine defense and thinks Vice President J. D. Vance is soft on Russia. He likes Marco Rubio, but he opposed Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill because of some Medicaid reductions. He has publicly stated he is not a die-hard Republican: He will not “follow the party off the cliff.”
Good luck with that "being President will be easier than being a Congressman” thing. Merely reading of Donald Trump’s schedule wears me out.
And, given the current president’s increasing popularity — and polarization — in this decade, I would not be hopeful that any Republican who opposed Trump on any issue at any time will find an easy path to the presidency.
The last Representative to move from the House of Representatives to the White House was James Garfield in 1880. While it would be a nice bookend to Trump’s non-consecutive second term — following the pattern of Grover Cleveland in 1892 — the General might find it a bridge too far.
Maybe a full Air Force career and a decade of further service to the people of Nebraska’s 2nd District is enough.
And thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, July 11, 2025. Take some time this summer to go through your old photo albums. Find those group pics of people you would sooner forget, and see if you can erase them. Surely there is an AI-powered app for that. Better yet, make a before-and-after collage for your office wall, proving to yourself that you have truly moved on.
Moving on… we can shed the people that caused our difficulties, but it is not so easy to shed the difficulties we have caused ourselves. That takes more purging than Photoshop can offer. For that, I’d recommend a thorough reading of Romans, particularly chapters 5-7.
“…As ye have yielded your members servants … to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” Romans 6:19
Romans can be a tough slog. Understanding what’s in it might make a 14 hour day in the U.S. House look like a cakewalk.
Have a good weekend.
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