Outraged Spaniards lashed out at their socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez for turning the country into a “third-world” hellhole overrun with migrants.
Furious locals booed Sánchez and dubbed him a “son of a b—h” as he arrived Friday in the country’s North African enclave of Ceuta the day after an unprecedented 60,000 migrants flooded in from neighboring Morocco.
“Everybody hates him,” a 21-year-old Spanish-Italian entrepreneur who is studying in upstate New York told The Post.
Undocumented migrants, mostly young men, who entered Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta illegally, begin returning to Morocco after realizing their chances of obtaining legal status in Spain are unlikely on July 31, 2026.Anadolu via Getty Images
“Do you think it’s normal that people have to barbed wire the terrace of their apartments? We’re talking about Spain — now it looks like a third-world country,” he fumed.
The student, who did not want to be identified, added that his grandparents in the mainland city of Malaga think the situation is “an absolute disgrace.”
“They’ve told me Spain has gotten out of control,” he said.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez gives a speechs as he visits the Spanish city of Ceuta in North Africa following an attempted sea crossing by migrants from Morocco on July 31, 2026.Anadolu via Getty Images
“I mean, we’re giving passports and residency to people who are illegally coming in with criminal backgrounds and diseases.”
Santiago Carrera Fernández, 20, who moved to New Jersey from Madrid with his parents before starting high school, told The Post he couldn’t be happier living in the US — especially after seeing the invasion of Ceuta on TV.
“I tell many people that I never feel less safe anywhere in the US than I do in Spain,” Fernández said.
“Any city in the US is safer than Spain.”
The two Spaniards said that crime in their home country has spiraled with unchecked migration under progressive leadership.
The young entrepreneur described how a migrant smashed his car window in an attempt to break into the vehicle when he was back working in Spain at the start of summer — leaving him feeling that the country he is from is no longer a place where he could live.
Local residents in Ceuta vented their anger and frustration at the country’s leadership.x/herqles_es
“It’s very sad that the whole country that I am from is a place that we can’t even consider living in, due to not only it being unsafe but also the squatters’ rights being unacceptable,” he sighed, adding that his grandfather’s car had been stolen three times.
Fernández said he has never felt “insecure” in New York City or the Garden State like he does in his home country, where he is currently visiting with his family.
“In Spain, they’ll steal your phone, your wallet. Spain is way different in that way,” he cautioned.
Meanwhile, local residents in Ceuta vented their anger and frustration at the country’s leadership in interviews with Spanish media.
A migrant runs from Spanish police officers as they cordon off access to the beach for people crossing from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, July 31, 2026.AP Photo/Antonio Sempere
“Sánchez is to blame for all of this, he’s a scoundrel,” one unnamed man told the Antena 3 TV station.
Fernández slammed the Spanish government as “just soft.”
“We feel like we’re just getting played around with by Morocco,” he griped. “They do not control the borders at all.”
“They just play around with Spain,” he said, adding that Ceuta only has a population of around 70,000 — and saw an invasion of 50,000 migrants.
“These people come in here and don’t do anything. There’s news every month about Moroccans raping, stealing, all kinds of stuff,” Fernández said.
Migrants sit on rocks after swimming through the waters close to the border with Morocco to enter Spain’s north Africa’s Ceuta enclave on July 31, 2026.AFP via Getty Images
“It’s not a racist thing, we just see they come just to mess around.”
In another harrowing clip, local resident Rocio Gil wept as she was interviewed while surrounded by jeering migrants.
“We feel totally abandoned, the outlook is catastrophic,” she told an Antena 3 journalist, before slamming the government for not declaring a national emergency and deploying the military sooner.
“We are scared, we cannot allow this to happen,” the desperate local woman added.
“Where are our rights as Spaniards? We are alone, we cannot call the police because they are overrun. We need urgent help, this is outrageous.”
Opposition leaders also blasted Sanchez, with the leader of the right-wing Vox party, Santiago Abascal, calling the prime minister a “traitor and mafioso who behaves like an enemy of Spain.”
“Every future rape or stabbing will have been imported by Pedro Sánchez, and his legacy is the collapse of our housing stock and our health care system,” Abascal seethed.
“Pedro Sánchez is the main culprit for what Spaniards are suffering and will suffer.”
Isabel Diaz Ayuso, the right-wing Popular Party’s president of the Madrid region, accused Sanchez of “allowing the invasion of Spain via Ceuta” to cover up corruption cases that have dogged him, his wife and his party.
There are new reports Friday of more US troop pullback initiatives in the wake of the last couple weeks of US-Iran fighting, and Iranian ballistic missile and drone strikes which have targeted American bases with increased regularity, especially in Jordan and Kuwait.
One regional media publication freshly reports, "The United States military has started to draw down its last remaining forces from Iraq stationed in the vicinity of Erbil's airport in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, well-placed sources with close knowledge of the process confirmed to Al-Monitor."
Significant US anti-air defenses are also being pulled back, given they and their radar systems have increasingly been targeted.
"Patriot mobile air-to-surface air-defense systems that detect and shoot down incoming missiles, drones and other airborne enemy equipment have already been removed from the military compound, the sources said, without providing further details," Al Monitor continues.
The pullback from the Iraqi Kurdistan region reportedly began last week and is still in progress, given all the heavy equipment has to be pulled out.
The missile batteries are expected to be 'redeployed' - but this could be further away from within the vicinity of Iran and the Persian Gulf, such as in Israel. Al Monitor notes:
Regional officials described the pullout as routine and in line with the US commitment to withdraw all its forces from Iraq by a Sept. 30 deadline that was agreed with Baghdad.
However, coming amid sustained attacks by Iran and its Shiite proxy militias, and on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in particular, the withdrawal has left the Kurds feeling badly exposed.
It's not just Iran which has targeted US personnel and assets in Iraq, but Iraqi Shia paramilitary units have at times targeted Erbil facilities going back years:
While the Patriot systems were deployed to protect US forces, the Kurds have benefited immensely from the security umbrella as well. Erbil's airport has come under constant attack from Iran and Iran-backed militias since the start of the Iran conflict in February, including this week. US interceptors successfully deterred at least 95% of those attacks, the sources said.
The bulk of Iranian and militia attacks have targeted armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region. However, the Erbil compound has also been targeted multiple times. The Patriots have an operational range of between 60 to 100 miles (100-160 kilometers).
Iran's strategy seems to focused on permanently pushing US forces back in the region, while expanding the scope of the war, in what some analysts have called 'horizontal escalation'.
In contrast to the previous hot phase of the war, in which Iran targeted bases across the entire theater simultaneously, this wave started with the targets close to Iranian shores, and has progressed steadily to the Israeli border. After destroying much of the radar network protecting regional US Axis bases in the previous hot phase of the war, Iranian planners have prioritized targeting fuel storage, drone hangers, refueling tankers, and barracks. The American response has been to pull assets back ever further from Iran, to bases in Israel and Jordan. We’ll call this process debasification. Iran’s debasification strategy takes advantage of the inherent asymmetry between the vastly different force structure and capabilities of Iranian rocket forces and US Axis air forces.
Iraq's north has long been a place where US forces can feal more at ease with 'friendly' Kurdish groups, rather than the dwindling presence in the rest of the country. But the Kurds have also come under immense pressure within the Iraq war, especially given headlines alleging they were ready to support an Iranian Kurdish uprising inside the Islamic Republic.
US regulators announced Friday that Novartis' Pluvicto (lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan) has been approved for patients with PSMA-positive, metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC), significantly expanding the number of patients eligible for the radioligand therapy.
The approval extends Pluvicto's use beyond metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. "The treatment landscape for mHSPC is evolving, and this approval reflects a growing recognition that earlier treatment intensification matters," said Michael Morris, a principal investigator of the pivotalPSMAddition study in the US.
In the trial, Pluvicto combined with standard of care – an androgen receptor pathway inhibitor (ARPI) plus androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) – reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 28% versus standard therapy alone at the primary analysis. Updated findings showed the benefit widening to a 33% reduction, according to Novartis, with overall survival (OS) trending in Pluvicto's favour with a 0.80 hazard ratio, though data remain immature.
Safety results were consistent with those from theVISION andPSMAfore studies, which supported Pluvicto's approvals in2022 and2025 in castration-resistant prostate cancer. At primary analysis, grade ≥3 adverse events (AEs) were reported in 50.7% of patients who received Pluvicto plus standard care compared to 43% for standard care alone.
Doubling eligible patient pool
The company estimates more than 186,000 men are diagnosed globally with mHSPC each year, and roughly half progress to castration-resistant disease within 20 months despite ARPI-ADT doublet therapy.
Novartis US president Victor Bultó said the expanded label "nearly [doubles] the number of patients who may benefit from this targeted approach."
Still, despite the strength of the radiographic progression-free survival (rPFS) signal, key opinion leaders (KOLs) who spoke to FirstWord expressed caution about broad first-line adoption, citing concerns over long-term marrow toxicity, uncertainty around OS durability in a crossover-heavy trial, and high incremental cost .
The approval comes as Novartis continues to expand its radioligand manufacturing network, withfive US production sites operational or under construction to support anticipated demand.
IRGC-affiliated Fars News on Friday listed major energy facilities in the Persian Gulf region and Israel as possible targets for Iranian retaliation, warning that the sites are within range of Tehran’s missiles amid rising tensions with the United States.
The report named Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar oil field, Abqaiq and Khurais facilities, the UAE’s Ruwais refinery and Zakum oil field, Qatar’s North Field and Ras Laffan LNG facilities, Kuwait’s Burgan oil field, Bahrain’s Sitra refinery and Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar gas fields.
The IRGC-affiliated outlet also referred to previous attacks during the conflict, adding that after Iran’s South Pars gas facilities were targeted, Tehran responded by striking Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas facilities.
Yemen’s Houthi-run maritime coordination body on Friday denied reports that it planned to impose fees on ships transiting the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, saying passage through the key waterway remains free.
A journalist's review of Committee of 100 (C100) records has renewed scrutiny of sponsor-paid trips that brought senior figures from major U.S. news organizations to Chinaand recorded changes in their views and professional plans.
In response to questions from The Epoch Times, C100 confirmed that it covered travel costs, selected the participants, set their itineraries, and chose whom they met.
The organization rejected journalist and media host Natalie Winters's description of the trips as "pay-for-play," saying no coverage was exchanged for the travel and participants retained editorial independence.
Winters published her review on Substack on July 28, characterizing the multiyear journalist delegation program as a "propaganda pipeline." Her report drew attention to documents posted on C100's website.
A 2012 trip report on the website marked "Internal Use" placed the cost of a nine-day delegation for five journalists at approximately $60,000.
The report said the program sought to improve perceptions of China and encourage participants to share their experiences with professional peers.
The five journalists represented The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and WNYC. A page about the delegation on the C100 website says they traveled through Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou from Nov. 25 through Dec. 3, 2012.
The trip report described lodging, meals, transportation, sightseeing, corporate and cultural visits, and about 20 arranged meetings with Chinese officials, academics, media representatives, students, and business executives.
C100 Recorded Changes in Views
Winnie O'Kelley, then-deputy business editor at The New York Times, said she would return from the trip with several story ideas and "shape my staff across Asia in some different ways," according to the report.
Gary Silverman, then-U.S. news editor and deputy managing editor at the Financial Times, said he would not again "think or write about China" without reflecting on what he had learned.
WNYC host Brian Lehrer was described as saying his perception of China had changed "in 100 ways."
Jonathan Tepperman, then-managing editor of Foreign Affairs, said the trip had given him a "much deeper, more subtle and more nuanced" sense of China and elite opinion in the country.
He said he had made contacts he intended to continue consulting and called it the best press trip he had attended.
Clive Crook, then-senior editor at The Atlantic, said the visit reinforced his view of China as a "huge and fascinating story" and told organizers to "keep it up."
C100's report highlighted two articles Crook published after the trip: "Why China and the U.S. Can Be Capitalist Comrades" and "China's Ghost Towns Won't Have a Hard Landing."
C100's delegation page links to those articles, another Crook article, three Lehrer broadcasts, and a Silverman column. The page says the visit gave participants information and perspectives for their later reporting.
Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai who met the delegation, responded to the participants' assessments with a remark recorded in the trip report.
"You made the change!" Shen said.
Participants From Major Newsrooms
C100 began its journalist-delegation program in 2007 and told The Epoch Times that it continued through 2014.
Over that period, C100 records identify participants from The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, Politico, Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, WNYC, The New Yorker, USA Today, and other outlets.
A C100 account of a gathering of 2011 and 2012 delegates described the program as an opportunity for American thought leaders to witness China's development and challenges and meet officials, experts, journalists, businesspeople, artists, and students.
The 2012 trip report said the program sought to improve perceptions of China and expected participants to share their experiences with professional peers.
In a December 2012 message, then-C100 Executive Director Angie Tang wrote that the journalist and civic-leader delegations were "shaping the U.S.-China dialogue on the frontlines."
The 2012 delegation met Cui Tiankai, then-Chinese vice foreign minister; CCTV executive producer Cheng Yue; Sinopec Chairman Fu Chengyu; Shanghai financial official Fang Xinghai; and academics, corporate leaders, students, and local journalists.
C100 also held discussions with Chinese officials during the same period.
Its account of those meetings says C100 leaders met Chinese Culture Minister Cai Wu, Hong Kong Chief Executive-Elect Leung Chun-ying, and C.H. Tung, chairman of the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong organization established in 2008.
C100 leaders also discussed possible collaboration on the organization's teacher and journalist delegations to China with He Yafei, then-deputy director of the State Council's Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.
C100 Defends the Program
"Committee of 100's journalist delegation program was an open professional exchange that last ran in 2014, during a period when the two economies were rapidly integrating [and] expanded U.S.-China engagement was the stated policy of both American political parties," C100 said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
The organization said the program was intended to give American editors direct exposure to a country often covered from a distance.
"The program's purpose, described openly for years, was understanding through direct experience," the statement said. "Participants disclosed their trips and retained full editorial independence. Nothing in the record shows anyone wrote or edited a story at anyone's direction."
C100 also confirmed that it independently selected the participants, set their itineraries, chose whom they met, and covered travel costs.
The organization did not respond to follow-up questions asking whether the claimed disclosures were made to employers, audiences, or both; requesting examples of those disclosures; and asking whether participants and their employers received advance materials describing the program's aim of improving perceptions of China.
Newsrooms Asked About Approval, Disclosure
The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and WNYC were asked by The Epoch Times whether they approved the 2012 travel, whether they paid or reimbursed any expenses, and what sponsored-travel and disclosure policies applied at the time.
They were also asked whether C100's sponsorship was disclosed to readers or listeners in work connected to the trip.
O'Kelley, Silverman, Lehrer, Tepperman, and Crook were separately asked to verify the statements attributed to them and explain whether the trip affected any reporting, editing, staffing, sourcing, or broadcasting decision.
None of the participants or news organizations responded by publication time.
Arranged Access, Restricted Reporting
C100's program emerged during an era when engagement with Beijing was mainstream U.S. policy. Chinese authorities, however, had long treated exchanges, hospitality, and managed access as tools for shaping foreign perceptions - a practice that continues even as U.S. policy toward Beijing has hardened.
On July 27, 19 media workers from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and Bangladesh began a six-day visit to Baoshan in Yunnan Province under the guidance of the CCP's Baoshan Municipal Propaganda Department, according to a Xinhua report.
The itinerary directed participants toward coffee production, historic towns, traditional crafts, cultural heritage, agriculture, tourism, and local-development projects.
Five days earlier, a Baoshan government account said authorities in Tengchong had trained more than 300 elementary school guides and university volunteers as local narrators tasked with carrying CCP theories and approved local accounts into communities and households.
Foreign correspondents trying to report outside official programs described a different experience in the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China's (FCCC's) 2025 media-freedom report, titled "The New Abnormal."
The survey found that 94 percent of respondents said reporting conditions in China did not usually, or almost never, meet international standards. Some 64 percent reported interference, harassment, or obstruction while reporting, while 77 percent said sources had declined or canceled interviews or required permission before speaking to foreign media.
Most respondents to the FCCC survey declined to be identified because they feared retaliation against themselves or their news organizations.
One unnamed European journalist said a Chinese Embassy invited the reporter on a government-organized trip to Xinjiang. After returning, the journalist was summoned by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and warned that subsequent reporting would be monitored to ensure it was "unbiased."
Another unnamed European journalist said police surrounded a reporting team investigating detention sites and prisons in Xinjiang, examined its cameras and phones, copied footage, and deleted material.
The FCCC said government-organized tours were occasionally offered in Tibet, but journalists who joined them reported having no opportunity to work independently. No surveyed correspondent received permission to enter the Tibet Autonomous Region independently in 2025.
The survey also found that 40 percent of respondents said their Chinese colleagues had faced pressure, harassment, or intimidation from officials or while assisting with field reporting.
C100 said the journalists on its delegations disclosed their trips, but it did not provide examples or specify whether readers and listeners were told who financed the travel.
