The Trump administration is closing in on $1 billion in payments to American veterans, families and civilian employees who were exposed to toxic drinking water at Marine Corps Camp Lejeune in North Carolina between 1953 and 1987.

For many, the payouts would finally rectify a decades-long battle for justice.

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), claimants have received more than $919.7 million since President Donald Trump began his second term in office in January 2025. The administration has paid out about 3,300 people who made claims under the 2022 law. From that year to the beginning of 2025, before Trump retook office, only 459 settlements had been paid, totaling $59.6 million.

Payments under the program range from $100,000 to $550,000, depending on the illness.

«Tonight I’m pleased to announce my administration has delivered $1 billion in cash settlements to these veterans and their families, in addition to 3.1 billion for the VA and ordering the DOJ to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible,» Trump said at a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday night. «We don’t want to give any to the trial lawyers, we want it all to go to the families.»

The claims are due to be paid out under a 2022 law, the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, which includes the Camp Lejeune Justice Act. Under the law, victims who developed cancer or other illnesses from the drinking water on the base are entitled to relief.

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The Trump administration in March announced that it was making settlements a priority, and made a concerted effort to accelerate the pace of the payouts.

Ed Bell is a South Carolina-based attorney who spearheaded the charge to pass the law. He’s been an attorney for 44 years, and for half of that time has been fighting for justice for the Camp Lejeune victims. He’s the lead counsel on the case, helping victims to get the payouts they’re owed.

«A lot of these people have been waiting a long time, and quite frankly, I think a lot of them are relieved,» Bell told Digital. «A lot of them feel like the government has finally said, ‘we’re sorry,’ by helping with the settlements, so I think it’s very positive.»

Bell estimates that about 300,000 claims will eventually be paid out, acknowledging that there’s a long way to go to completely remedy the wrong that was done.

But he was complimentary of the team of people in the Trump administration dedicated to justice.

«I have to say, I’m very bullish on what the Department of Justice has been doing,» he said, noting that he works closely with Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who he says is «working his tail off» on the settlements.

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«[Woodward] is excellent, but you have to remember, this case and any resolution involves hundreds and hundreds of details, and it is a laborious process,» Bell said. «I am pleased to work with [the DOJ], and I think that eventually we’ll get this resolved. I think that’s the intent of the Department of Justice.»

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Bell, who took his first case on the Camp Lejeune drinking water contamination in 2007, explained that each settlement is based on the level of harm caused to the victim. So, he explained, someone diagnosed with stage one cancer would ultimately be paid out less than someone who had stage four cancer.

«It’s a fair system,» Bell said.

Between 1953 and 1987, three of the base’s eight water systems contained contaminated water.

Bell said that even after the government found out the water was toxic, it did nothing, allowing troops to continue drinking the hazardous mix. Pregnant women drank the water, leading to the death of their babies. The contamination was found to cause four incurable diseases, according to Bell.

The Justice Department and the Department of the Navy launched the «Elective Option» settlement program in 2023.

That program is designed as an alternative to litigation and offers quicker payouts to people with qualifying illnesses.

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Saudi Arabia is turning to foreign allies to fend off Houthi missiles and drones, exposing a military vulnerability that could soon become President Donald Trump’s problem.

Britain announced Tuesday it would send Typhoon fighter jets to defend Saudi cities and critical infrastructure. Egypt is already assisting the kingdom and Israel has offered to step in to help.

Riyadh, meanwhile, is asking Washington for more interceptors, and Trump is weighing whether the U.S. should intervene and strike the Iran-backed Houthis directly.

The reinforcements could help shield Saudi cities and critical infrastructure. They do little, however, to eliminate the Houthi launchers and weapons threatening them from Yemen.

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«The theme right now, I think, is defensive or defensive-minded,» Jason Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told Digital.

The question, he said, is whether that evolves into something «more offensive or kinetic.»

The Houthis have already demonstrated their ability to punch through Saudi defenses. Their strikes and attempted strikes on the kingdom more than doubled in a single week this month, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, with airports in Riyadh, Jizan, Najran, Dammam and Abha targeted since Oct. 5.

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The most devastating barrage struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 300.

Other attacks have targeted Saudi energy infrastructure, turning the Houthi campaign into a threat not only to the kingdom’s security but also to the economic stability Riyadh has spent years trying to project.

Saudi Arabia has spent decades building one of the region’s most sophisticated militaries. Riyadh spent an estimated $83.2 billion on defense last year, making it the eighth-largest military spender in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Its arsenal includes U.S.-made F-15 fighter jets, Patriot missile defenses and advanced radar systems.

Yet the Houthis are exploiting a mismatch between the defenses Saudi Arabia and its partners spent years building and the weapons now coming at them.

Campbell said the U.S. and its regional partners had been comparatively well-prepared to confront the higher end of Iran’s arsenal, including ballistic missiles and other advanced weapons.

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«What the region was decidedly less prepared for was an array of lower end of the spectrum … threats posed by Iran and now the Houthis,» Campbell said.

The volume is part of the problem. Campbell said Saudi Arabia and other U.S. partners have burned through significant numbers of high-end interceptors against ballistic missiles and other threats, while lower-flying weapons can also challenge radar and early-warning systems that were not necessarily designed or calibrated to detect them.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that Riyadh is competing with allies around the world — and the U.S. military itself — for a limited supply of the interceptors needed to defend against missile attacks.

«I also talked to Saudi Arabia today; they’d like interceptors. Israel would like interceptors. We would like interceptors. Every country in the world would like interceptors,» Rubio said, calling them «probably the most in-demand product right now in the defense field.»

The U.S. cannot meet every request, Rubio acknowledged. American forces must maintain minimum air-defense requirements at bases around the world, while the sophisticated interceptors are expensive and take time to manufacture even as production increases.

«We have our own needs too,» Rubio said.

Saudi Arabia’s sheer size compounds the challenge. The kingdom stretches across more than 800,000 square miles, leaving cities, airports, oil facilities and military installations spread across a vast territory.

«Saudi Arabia is a huge geography to protect, and this speaks to a larger threat we’re facing globally: a relatively small nonstate actor can pose a serious challenge to even a sophisticated and extremely expensive military,» Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow at Chatham House, told Digital. «The Houthis can impose enormous costs without having to spend very much themselves.»

That imbalance helps explain why Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking beyond its own military for protection. But outside assistance may have limits.

«Many years later, everyone is realizing that the Houthis are not just Saudi Arabia’s problem, but everyone’s problem — whether that’s Turkey, Egypt, France, the UK or others,» Al-Muslimi said. «But I don’t think this outside support will make a significant military difference unless the U.S. is directly involved.»

That leaves Trump facing a potentially consequential decision: whether to continue helping Saudi Arabia defend against incoming attacks or go further and target the Houthis directly.

Trump has kept direct U.S. military action on the table. Asked earlier this month whether the U.S. could join Saudi strikes against the Houthis, he said, «We may. We’re gonna look at it.»

«We’ll make a decision,» Trump said. «We move very quickly.»

But direct U.S. intervention would not be without precedent — or questions about what another bombing campaign could accomplish.

Operation Rough Rider targeted Houthi positions across Yemen for roughly two months in 2025 before Trump halted the operation after Oman brokered an agreement with the group.

«We’ve already seen the U.S. conduct a 60-day bombing campaign of Houthi strongholds in Yemen with limited, if any, real strategic benefits,» Campbell said.

A new campaign would also compete for U.S. military resources amid the war with Iran. Campbell said taking on the Houthis would require clearer objectives and likely contributions from a broader coalition.

Israel has also offered to help defend Saudi Arabia, an offer Trump has publicly encouraged Riyadh to accept. But bringing Israel openly into the fight could create a different problem for the kingdom.

«If I were Saudi, I would never accept help like that,» Al-Muslimi said. «The optics are enormously difficult. Saudi Arabia is the custodian of the two holiest mosques in Islam, and appearing alongside Netanyahu to fight another Yemeni group would be a nonstarter for much of Saudi society.»

For now, the U.S. continues to provide intelligence and targeting support to Saudi Arabia as its allies focus on defending the kingdom.

«The collective effort seems to be at stemming the threat to the Saudi kingdom itself,» Campbell said.

But as Al-Muslimi cautioned, even a stronger defensive coalition may not eliminate the danger.

«It can make Saudi Arabia safer, but it doesn’t solve the larger problem of dismantling the Houthi threat.»

The latest fighting is another chapter in a war that has torn through Yemen for more than a decade. The Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, prompting Saudi Arabia to lead a military intervention the following year against the Iran-backed group and in support of Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

Years of Saudi airstrikes failed to dislodge the Houthis, while the group steadily expanded its missile and drone capabilities with support from Tehran. The conflict eventually settled into an uneasy truce before erupting again this year, with Saudi-backed forces fighting Houthi advances on the ground and the Houthis increasingly taking the war across the border into Saudi Arabia.

Yemeni civilians are again bearing much of the cost. More than 250,000 people have fled the renewed fighting, according to the United Nations. WHO recorded at least 674 deaths and nearly 3,000 injuries in just six weeks of fighting between August and September, while millions were already facing severe hunger and displacement after more than a decade of war.

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La División Antiextorsión y Asociaciones Terroristas (DAET) rechazó que sus agentes enfrenten detenciones o requerimientos fiscales tras el operativo realizado en San Pedro Sula, Cortés, donde el Ministerio Público reportó el hallazgo de presuntas drogas, municiones y otros objetos vinculados con una investigación.

La postura de la institución policial contrasta con la información divulgada por el ente acusador sobre los indicios localizados durante un allanamiento en Villas del Merendón.

En declaraciones, una portavoz de la DAET sostuvo que ningún funcionario permanece detenido por este caso y pidió que las evidencias sean investigadas para establecer su procedencia y posible relación con actividades ilícitas.

La controversia se centra, entre otros elementos, en varios parches e insignias policiales que aparecieron entre los objetos relacionados con el operativo. La vocera afirmó que esos artículos pertenecían a una bodega de la división y que habrían sido sustraídos por otras personas.

Durante la entrevista, la portavoz aseguró que los parches encontrados estaban almacenados en una bodega de la institución. Según su versión, personas ajenas a la división habrían sustraído los artículos, aunque no detalló quiénes serían los responsables ni cuándo ocurrió la supuesta sustracción.

La funcionaria también sostuvo que la presencia de insignias policiales entre las evidencias no demuestra, por sí sola, que agentes de la DAET hayan participado en actividades delictivas.

En ese sentido, señaló que corresponde a los organismos de investigación determinar cómo llegaron esos objetos al inmueble intervenido y si existe alguna conexión entre su procedencia y los hechos investigados.

El pronunciamiento se produce después de que el Ministerio Público difundiera información sobre los indicios que sus investigadores habrían encontrado en la propiedad.

Las diferencias entre ambas versiones mantienen bajo escrutinio el origen de los artículos y las posibles responsabilidades que puedan establecerse durante las diligencias.

La investigación deberá precisar si los parches fueron sustraídos de la bodega policial, quiénes tuvieron acceso a ellos y si su presencia en el inmueble tiene alguna relación con las actividades que son objeto de investigación.

La funcionaria manifestó que desconoce dónde se encuentran actualmente esas sustancias y remitió las consultas al Ministerio Público, institución que divulgó imágenes de las presuntas evidencias.

De acuerdo con la información compartida por el ente acusador, entre los objetos localizados en el inmueble figuran presunta droga, 181 municiones, cargadores, un silenciador, prendas tácticas y documentos.

Para determinar si hubo participación de agentes policiales u otros individuos, las autoridades deberán sustentar sus conclusiones mediante las diligencias correspondientes.

Además de referirse al operativo en Villas del Merendón, la portavoz informó que una agencia internacional de inteligencia advirtió sobre un posible atentado contra varias instalaciones de la DAET, incluida la sede regional ubicada en San Pedro Sula.

Según explicó, la institución recibió la alerta aproximadamente a la 1:27 de la tarde del martes. Tras conocer la información, los agentes reforzaron la vigilancia en las instalaciones señaladas, como medida preventiva ante una eventual amenaza.

La vocera relacionó la advertencia con la captura de un hombre conocido con el alias de “Zombie”, detenido el sábado anterior en Choloma, Cortés.

Según su versión, los informes de inteligencia apuntan a posibles amenazas contra el detenido para impedir que revele información sobre la estructura criminal Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).

Sin embargo, los detalles sobre la naturaleza de la amenaza, sus posibles responsables y el alcance de la alerta no fueron precisados en la información proporcionada por la portavoz.

La negativa de la DAET sobre las supuestas detenciones y la explicación ofrecida acerca de los parches policiales deberán contrastarse con la información que maneja el Ministerio Público y los organismos encargados de las diligencias.

corresponsal:Desde Tegucigalpa, Honduras