In recent months, close to 600 immigrant children have been detained at a family detention center in Texas, experiencing insufficient food, inadequate medical care, and a lack of mental health services. This has occurred as their stay extended beyond the time limits set by court mandates, according to documents submitted to the court on Friday.

Among those detained at the Dilley detention facility were 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, who faced virus outbreaks and prolonged lockdowns during December and January. These conditions have persisted, even as the number of children at the facility has decreased in recent weeks, as detailed in attorney reports and observations from site visits.

Liam Conejo Ramos’s case attracted significant attention, particularly because of his young age and the circumstances under which he was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota, wearing a blue bunny hat. His situation sparked outrage and protests against the Trump administration’s stringent immigration policies, with detainees inside Dilley expressing their dissent by holding signs within the fenced yards.

Despite a decrease in numbers, with approximately 85 children still held at Dilley last week, the troubling conditions remain, according to Mishan Wroe, a directing attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, who visited in mid-March. Earlier, in February, a legal advocate noted the presence of about 280 children.

The recent filings relate to a lawsuit initiated in 1985, which culminated in the 1997 establishment of court-ordered standards, including a 20-day limit on custody. The Trump administration, however, is seeking to terminate the Flores settlement, which underpins these protections.

“For years, the Flores consent decree has been a tool of the left that is antithetical to the law and wastes valuable U.S. taxpayer funded resources,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “Being in detention is a choice.”

Attorneys for detainees highlighted the government’s data showing longer custody times for immigrant children, and also cited worms in food, and poor access to medical care or sufficient legal counsel as reported by families and monitors at federal facilities.

“Dilley remains a hellhole,” said Leecia Welch, the chief legal director at Children’s Rights, who visits Dilley regularly to ensure compliance. “Although the number of children has decreased, the suffering remains the same.”

Dilley is retrofitted for families, who receive basic necessities including adequate food and water while in detention, and the Trump administration is working to quickly deport detainees, the DHS spokesperson added.

A report from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed that about 595 immigrant children were held in custody for more than the 20-day limit in December and January, with some stretching into months, per the filing.

“Approximately 265 of these children were detained for more than 50 days and a shocking 55 children were detained more than 100 days,” the filing stated.

That is up from a previous government disclosure late last year that showed from August to September, 400 children had been held at Dilley beyond the 20-day limit. DHS did not respond to questions seeking comment on the data.

Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California is scheduled to have a hearing on the case later this month.

A few hours following a mysterious boom that shook homes in the Houston area, a woman reported that a suspected meteorite crashed through her roof, leaving behind a sizable hole and a rock the size of a football.

Residents flooded social media with concerns on Saturday afternoon, describing a sound similar to a large explosion echoing across Houston.

The Brenham Fire Department responded to reports of a potential explosion near Highway 50, but upon investigation, their units found no immediate evidence of such an event.

Witnesses recounted seeing a “green flash fall from the sky,” accompanied by black smoke and a loud boom, according to the fire department.

Fire officials also mentioned that some sources suggested the noise might have resulted from a “possible meteor.”

Sherrie James, who contacted affiliate FOX 26 and the Ponderosa Fire Department after the blast, said an “unusual rock” crashed through her roof, leaving a large hole in the ceiling and in her flooring.

Photos provided by James showed a football-sized black rock that appeared to be broken off a larger chunk of material.

Since there was no construction or trees nearby, the fire department told FOX 26 the rock was likely a part of the alleged meteor that was heard around Houston.

The American Meteor Society documented what it is calling a “fireball event” over Texas on Saturday, after receiving more than 100 reports.

Observers reported the event lasted anywhere between 1.5 seconds and 7.5 seconds, though it has not yet been validated by experts.

No other reports of damages were confirmed.

With the looming specter of nuclear war, the grim possibilities following an explosion may invoke greater fear than the initial blast itself.

For many years, dire predictions have warned that nuclear strikes on major cities like New York, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles could claim the lives of tens of millions within moments.

Yet, the aftermath of these nuclear fireballs extends beyond immediate destruction, unleashing long-term effects on the planet and exposing countless individuals to the lethal reach of radioactive fallout.

Scientific studies indicate that a series of nuclear explosions would spell disaster for human health, the environment, and nearly all life, to the point where being vaporized in the initial blast might seem a more merciful end.

Extensive research on nuclear detonations and their fallout reveals that even a localized conflict could devastate the ozone layer, leave corpses to spread disease, and expose millions to Acute Radiation Syndrome, a potentially deadly condition.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based nonprofit that created the infamous Doomsday Clock, warned in January that the world has never been closer to total annihilation.

Recent events have only moved that timeline further along, with the war in Iran threatening to spiral out of control as nuclear-armed Russia has allegedly begun supplying Iran with military intelligence on US forces.

Meanwhile, the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia, called New START, officially ended on February 5, leaving no barriers on either nation’s ability to build and test weapons of mass destruction. 

The US, Israel, Iran, and Russia have all warned that a catastrophic global war could be nearing as the crisis in the Middle East escalates (Stock Image)

The ‘Ivy Mike’ nuclear test on November 1, 1952 (Pictured) was one of the largest surface detonations ever, completely destroying Elugelab Island in the Marshall Islands

Diseases ravage the planet 

Following a nuclear war, diseases such as salmonella, dysentery, typhoid, malaria, dengue fever and encephalitis would spread widely among the survivors, according to a 1981 report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Not only would survivors not have clean water, but insects would multiply rapidly, feeding on the corpses littering the streets.

Along with untreated sewage carrying more diseases, the rise of trillions of radiation-resistant insects would allow these pathogens to be carried from dead humans and animals to those who still living around the globe.

Medical equipment running on electricity may also be useless without generators in areas struck by blackouts. 

A 1986 report entitled The Medical Implications of Nuclear War warned: ‘Many familiar barriers to the spread of communicable disease… will be seriously compromised in the post-attack environment In their absence.’

‘A host of enteric diseases not yet encountered by most Americans may be expected to spread widely,’ the report continued.

According to the National Library of Medicine, these illnesses would include hepatitis, a viral liver infection that can cause inflammation and jaundice, and E. coli, a potentially fatal bacterial gut infection often leading to severe diarrhea, cramps and dehydration.

The idea of ‘nuclear winter’ first came to the world’s attention in an article by scientist Carl Sagan in 1983 (Stock Image)

Russia’s Sarmat-2 intercontinental nuclear missile, in a successful test launch on April 20, 2022

The ‘ultraviolet spring’ 

Nuclear war could strip away the ozone layer, leaving survivors to be blasted by cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation from the unfiltered sun. The sun’s intense rays could also kill off much of the remaining food supply.

Researchers first realized in 1970s that nuclear fireballs would produce nitrogen oxides, which would be carried high into the stratosphere and chemically destroy ozone molecules.

A 1975 study by the National Academy of Sciences, nuclear explosions could reduce the ozone layer by up to 70 percent in an all-out nuclear war where 10,000 megatons of weapons detonated.

However, that amount of damage is far beyond what the combined nuclear arsenals on Earth currently possess.

John W. Birks of the University of Colorado wrote: ‘Once most of the smoke and dust was removed from the atmosphere and sunlight began to break through, the biosphere would not receive normal sunlight but, rather, sunlight highly enriched in ultraviolet radiation.’

The resulting increase in UV-B radiation would cause more skin cancers among surviving humans, and also have devastating effects on crops and wildlife.

Recent research suggested that the effects of even a ‘small’ nuclear war between, such as a hypothetical conflict between India and Pakistan, could potentially destroy up to 40 percent of the ozone layer.

Michael Mills, chief study author from CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics said: ‘We would see a dramatic drop in ozone levels that would persist for many years.’ 

‘At mid-latitudes the ozone decrease would be up to 40 percent, which could have huge effects on human health and on terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems.’

Tests of early US nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project in World War II

The ‘black rain’ 

In Hiroshima, Japan, fires created by the first atomic bomb dropped in World War II carried ash and radioactive material into the clouds. The result was ‘black rain,’ which falls with an oily consistency almost like tar.

The rain fell on the city in the hours after the bomb exploded, leading to severe radiation burns in some cases.

The effects of the weather on radiation can be unpredictable, with the 1953 Nevada bomb tests leading to ‘hot spots’ where large amounts of radiation lurked.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that lethal amounts of fallout could spread hundreds of miles from the site of an explosion.

Fallout is the radioactive dust and particles that fall back to Earth after a nuclear explosion. Carried by wind, it can mix with dirt or debris from the blast site and contaminate everything it touches.

Researchers writing in The Medical Implications of Nuclear War suggested that up to seven percent of the US could be covered in enough fallout to deliver a dose of radiation large enough to kill within two days.

Black rain fell on the victims of the US atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945

Global starvation 

Up to five billion are projected to die of hunger after a full-scale nuclear war.

Soot from burning cities would soar high into the air, encircling the planet. The vast cloud of smoke would rapidly cool the planet, reflecting sunlight back into space.

This would cause crops to wither and make it impossible to plant those same foods at least for the next year, according to a 2022 Nature study.

Firestorms would kill people even in bomb shelters

Doomsday preppers and other survival experts have long noted that the safest place to be during a nuclear attack is in a well-shielded fallout shelter or some type of underground basement.

However, scientists have argued that those in shelters could actually be killed by the fires started in the explosions.

Collapsing buildings and ruptured fuel tanks or gas lines could combine to ignite what researchers called a ‘firestorm.’ This type of ‘fire wind’ would rapidly rise to gale force, blowing inwards from all directions.

The research in the Journal of Public Health Policy suggested that even in bomb shelters and basements, temperatures would rapidly rise to fatal levels during the firestorm on the surface.

The fire would completely consume available oxygen, the researchers added, meaning that those who were not burnt to death would suffocate.