The United States (U.S.) has opened another military front in Ecuador amid the ongoing Iran war.

According to the U.S. military’s Southern Command, the U.S. and Ecuadorian forces launched joint military operations against “designated terrorist organisations.”

The military did not provide further details; however, it hinted that the operations were part of President Donald Trump’s intensified campaign against drug trafficking in South America.

The Commander of the U.S. Southern Command praised the Ecuadorian residents for their support and unwavering commitment.

Marine General Francis L. Donovan said, “The men and women of Ecuadorian armed forces have demonstrated remarkable courage and resolve through continued actions against narco-terrorists in their country.”

Since returning to the Oval Office for his second term, President Trump has intensified campaign against what the U.S. administration describes as drug trafficking.

The U.S. has carried out around 45 strikes on suspected smuggling vessels killing around 150 people in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean.

Ecuador has been in a state of emergency regarding narco-terrorism since 2024 after gangs stormed a TV station during a live broadcast and took the staff hostage.

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa sought help from the U.S. against drug-trafficking gangs. 

On a visit to the South American country in September last year, the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to “blow up” gangs if needed and reaffirmed U.S. support in Ecuadorian government’s campaign against narco-terrorists. 

Hilarie Burton Morgan, known for playing Peyton on “One Tree Hill,” talks about her docuseries, “True Crime Story: It Couldn’t Happen Here,” which is in its third season. She explains how each episode highlights a case in a small town in the U.S., how the series empowers the audience and recent developments in a cold case.

Apple on Wednesday unveiled the MacBook Neo, a lower-priced addition to its laptop lineup starting at $599, as it looks to broaden its reach in a price-sensitive PC market while rivals face tighter supply of memory chips.

A lower-priced laptop marks one of Apple’s most aggressive entry points into the PC market in years. The new MacBook will be powered by the A18 Pro chip, the same processor that debuted in the company’s iPhone 16 Pro models in 2024.

At $599, it is far cheaper in both nominal and inflation-adjusted terms than Apple’s previous non-Pro, non-Air MacBook, which debuted in May 2006 at $1,099 — roughly $1,750 in today’s dollars.

The new MacBook is not Apple’s first foray into the price point. The company made a special $699 MacBook Air specially for Walmart using its M1 chip, which originally debuted in 2020, after retiring other models with that chip.

The new MacBook aims squarely at users of Google-powered Chromebooks and lower-end Windows devices, where Microsoft’s own efforts to shift to more battery-life-friendly chips made with technology from Arm have failed to ignite a sales boom.

Its foray into the mid-range PC segment could help Apple broaden its reach among students and first-time buyers.

In the midst of a global memory chip crunch, the new MacBook also comes with only 8 gigabytes of unified memory, half of the 16 gigabytes in the M4-based MacBook and less than the 12 gigabytes in the iPhone 17 Pro.

Global PC and smartphone markets remain highly price sensitive after several quarters of uneven demand, and hardware makers continue to navigate fluctuating component costs, particularly for memory chips.

Apple this week launched its $599 iPhone 17e with higher base storage and refreshed its MacBook Air and Pro lineup with new M5 chips and standard configurations with larger memory, as it looks to defend market share in competitive smartphone and softening PC markets, strained by rising memory costs.