• Classified briefings: Democratic and Republican senators said that top Trump administration officials laid out a detailed plan about US plans for Venezuela's oil, but there was a partisan split on whether it'll work. • Spotlight on Greenland: Emboldened by his claimed control of Venezuela, President Donald Trump did not rule out military means to acquire Greenland. Rubio said he will be meeting with leaders of Denmark next week. Crackdowns on the Venezuelan population would not be consistent with the Trump administration's priorities, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday. Asked about reports that leadership in Venezuela is cracking down on public support for the ouster of Nicolas Maduro, Leavitt said, “It would not be consistent. and I'll let the president's national security team speak further on that. CNN has reported there's been widespread apprehension in the streets of Caracas and other cities, with the people of Venezuela uncertain and government security forces on edge. Leavitt declined to say whether the administration believes the country's leadership should release political dissidents and return Americans detained in Venezuela, saying she'd let President Donald Trump “answer that question.” “I don't want to make new policy at this podium today,” Leavitt added. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that President Donald Trump is “not afraid” to continue seizing sanctioned oil tankers despite concerns that it could ratchet up tensions with Russia and China. “He's going to enforce our policy that's best for the United States of America,” she said told reporters during a press briefing. Leavitt's remarks came after hours the US military took control of two tankers, including a Russian-flagged ship it had been pursuing for more than two weeks. She downplayed the risk that it would spark a flare-up between the US and Russia, arguing that Trump maintains a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I believe those personal relationships are going to continue,” she said, adding that Trump has made clear that seizing sanctioned tankers is “the policy of this administration, and he's not afraid to implement it. Multiple GOP senators are publicly urging the Trump administration to cease any further threats of military action in Greenland, as Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday broke with the White House in suggesting that such an option is not on the table. And you know, I don't use the word hate very often, but I think that it is very, very unsettling,” Murkowski told reporters after a closed-door briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and others. Greenland was not a central point in the administration's briefing on Wednesday, which focused on the White House's operation in Venezuela and its future steps, according to multiple senators who attended. But the concern by Murkowski and other Republicans suggest it remains a major concern within the party that will require further explanation from Trump and his team. GOP Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford told reporters that “we need to not threaten a peaceful nation that's an ally where we have a military base already.” And Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said, “Military invasion of Greenland would be a terrible idea, and really shouldn't be seriously considered.” I don't think anybody's seriously considered that,” he said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that significant private sector interest is emerging around Venezuela's oil industry as the United States works on a potential deal with the country's interim government. “There's a lot of private sector engagement that's happening right now,” Leavitt said, noting that Energy Secretary Chris Wright is leading the effort. “As you know, Secretary Wright, our energy secretary, who's heading up this big project, is in Florida today, meeting with some of these oil executives, and as we confirmed earlier, they will also be at the White House later this week.” CNN previously reported that President Donald Trump is expected to meet with oil executives at the White House on Friday, according to a senior White House official. The Trump administration is “actively” discussing the potential purchase of Greenland, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, saying that President Donald Trump is prioritizing a diplomatic solution but is “(keeping) his options open.” An acquisition of Greenland, Leavitt told reporters, is “something that's currently being actively discussed by the president and his national security team,” describing Greenland as “advantageous for America's national security.” Trump, she added, “views it in the best interest of the United States to deter Russian and Chinese aggression in the Arctic region, and so that's why his team is currently talking about what a potential purchase would look like.” Leavitt was pressed on why Trump has not ruled out military action to take over Greenland, a possibility that has prompted significant pushback from Denmark and other NATO allies. GOP Senate Armed Services Committee member Kevin Cramer said the briefing was a like a good “movie script” and the operational details they heard were very interesting. “I'm fine with it,” he said about not being briefed. He said they should try to declassify information for the public but said there are a lot of specific details about weapons systems and more, which will make that hard. Democratic and Republican senators agreed that top Trump administration officials laid out a detailed plan about what comes next for the US plans to control oil in Venezuela in a classified briefing, but there was a partisan split on whether that plan will work. GOP Sen. Roger Marshall: “I think the big leverage we have is the quarantine we have around them and if you follow the flow of oil, the flow of money, that they will have to respond and listen to what we're telling them to do.” GOP Sen. Josh Hawley: Secretary of State Marco Rubio “talked about some of the forward looking plans happening in phases” but said he would not reveal what those were. Democratic Sen. Peter Welch described the plan laid out by the Trump administration as “aspirational”: “Good riddance to Maduro but everything that he created is still in tact. They have a plan that they can impose their will by the blockade on oil, but regimes as we've all seen are willing to inflict incredible punishment on their own citizens. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he will be meeting with Danish officials next week, following renewed US interest in taking over Greenland. His remarks come after Greenland's foreign minister and the Danish foreign minister requested a meeting with the top US diplomat. Rubio — echoing the White House statement earlier this week — did not count out the possibility of a US military intervention to acquire Greenland if Trump deems it necessary for America's national security, though he spoke in broad terms. But Rubio said Trump's intention has always been to buy Greenland, noting that he had clearly articulated that goal during his first term. “This is not new; he talked about it in his first term. And he's not the first US president that has examined or looked at how could we acquire Greenland,” Rubio said, adding that President Harry Truman had also considered the idea. Rubio said that diplomats always “prefer to settle it in different ways.” He then made the direct connection to Venezuela saying that the Trump administration attempted in that case to settle the problem through diplomacy. “We tried repeatedly to reach an outcome here that did not involve having to go in and grab an indicted drug trafficker. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there will be “more deals to follow” with the interim Venezuelan government and said the Trump administration is planning three phases for Venezuela: stabilization, recovery and transition. Speaking after an all-senators briefing today, Rubio said they are starting with stabilization because “we don't want it descending into chaos.” He reiterated that the administration believes it has significant leverage on the interim Venezuelan government led by Delcy Rodriguez. “We're already seeing progress with this new deal that's been announced, and more deals to follow,” he said, without providing details on the additional deals. The “recovery” phase, Rubio said, “is ensuring that American, Western, and other companies have access to the Venezuelan market a way that's fair.” “They understand that the only way they can move oil and generate revenue and not have economic collapse is if they cooperate and work with the United States,” Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill. “We are going to take between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil. That money will then be handled in such a way that we will control how it is dispersed in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people, not corruption, not the regime,” he said. “We have a leverage to move on the stabilization front,” he added. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer railed against the Trump administration after an all-senators classified briefing on Venezuela, saying he was dissatisfied by some of their responses. “I am totally dissatisfied about their answers of going into other countries, totally dissatisfied of what, what they might be doing in Greenland, as well as in Colombia, Mexico and other countries,” Schumer told reporters, adding, “And we're also totally dissatisfied about succession. He said the Trump administration must address questions in public hearings. But not let the American people know what they're doing when it's the American people who have always paid the price when we try to do this regime change in blood and treasure,” he said. Some House Republicans are defending President Donald Trump's recent threats to takeover Greenland, though many also downplayed the possibility that he'll launch a military operation to do so. US forces had attempted to interdict the sanctioned ship near Venezuela last month but did not board it after it turned around and fled. As we've been reporting, two vessels linked to Venezuela were seized by the US this morning, according to US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Details on their seizure have now begun to be released. CNN's Nic Robertson, Natasha Bertrand, Kaanita Iyer, Darya Tarasova, Issy Ronald and Nick Paton Walsh contributed to this reporting. One of the seized oil tankers linked to Venezuela is carrying approximately 2 million barrels of crude oil, according to Emmanuel Belostrino, senior manager of crude oil market data at analytics firm Kpler. “M Sophia is laden with around 2 million barrels of Merey crude oil, loaded from Jose Oil Terminal (JOT) around December 26-29, as confirmed by satellite imagery and port reports seen by Kpler,” Belostrino said. “The VLCC's (very large crude carrier) previous voyage was also from Venezuela, when it similarly loaded around 2 million barrels of Merey crude in early August 2025 before heading to offshore Malaysia (EOPL). The sanctioned cargo was likely transferred to another vessel via dark ship-to-ship transfer, but Kpler has not determined the partner vessel,” he added. “I think Russia's playing games with the shadow fleet and so I'm not opposed to seizing that ship and making it difficult for Russia to get the oil that they've been actually taking at below market rates,” Shaheen told CNN. “Today our UK Armed Forces showed skill and professionalism in support of a successful US interception of the vessel Bella 1 while on its way to Russia. This action formed part of global efforts to crack down on sanctions busting,” the country's Defense Secretary John Healey said. The depth of our defense relationship with the US is an essential part of our security, and today's seamlessly executed operation shows just how well this works in practice,” he added. President Donald Trump touted America's might in NATO while questioning whether the alliance would come to the US' defense if needed. “Russia and China have zero fear of NATO without the United States, and I doubt NATO would be there for us if we really needed them,” Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday morning. “Remember, for all of those big NATO fans, they were at 2% GDP, and most weren't paying their bills, UNTIL I CAME ALONG.” Trump's latest comments on NATO come as the administration has renewed its interest in Greenland, with the White House saying on Tuesday that it's discussing a “range of options” to acquire the Arctic island, which is a territory of Denmark, a fellow member of NATO. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday that Trump's desires should be “taken seriously,” warning that a US military attack on Greenland could effectively end NATO. Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum said today that her country is becoming an “important supplier” of oil to Cuba amid the current tension between Venezuela and the United States. During her morning news conference, Sheinbaum denied that Mexico is sending more oil to Cuba “than has historically been sent; there is no special shipment. For many years, oil has been sent to Cuba.” Despite this regularity in shipments — which are made based on contracts or for humanitarian aid, Sheinbaum said — she also emphasized that now this oil is more important for the island. Key context: Cuba depends on Venezuela's assistance to meet even half of its energy needs. Due to Cuba's outdated infrastructure and lack of maintenance, the island desperately needs the nearly 30,000 barrels of oil per day that Venezuela sent on average during 2025, according to Reuters. Jorge Piñón, director of the Latin America and Caribbean Energy Program at the University of Texas, told CNN that Mexico, up until the first months of 2025, was sending Venezuela about 20,000 barrels per day of “light, good quality” oil — but in recent months, the average dropped to about 7,000. Read more about Cuba's ties to Venezuela and follow our live coverage in Spanish here. “All of this is being done according to their notorious ‘rules' in direct violation of international law,” he said in a Telegram post.

“Instead of the oil being blockaded, as it is right now, we're gonna let the oil flow … to United States refineries and around the world to bring better oil supplies, but have those sales done by the U.S. government,” Wright said on Wednesday at Goldman Sachs's Energy, CleanTech & Utilities Conference. He said proceeds from those sales would be deposited into U.S. government-controlled accounts, flowing back to the country to “benefit the Venezuelan people.” Wright's comments come shortly after the U.S. seized sanctioned oil tankers on Wednesday morning, which it had been pursuing since last month. Venezuela's oil reserves played a significant role in President Donald Trump's decision to capture former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro over the weekend. Trump has said he would seek to revitalize the oil industry in Venezuela. Trump said on Truth Social on Tuesday that Venezuela would turn over “30 and 50 million” barrels of sanctioned oil to the U.S. that it would then sell. “We're going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela, first this backed up, stored oil, and then indefinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” he said. During an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, Trump said the U.S. oil industry could expand its operations in less than 18 months, but it would cost “a lot of money.” “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they'll get reimbursed by us or through revenue,” he said. Still, Trump faces an uphill battle, as the oil industry in Venezuela has seen a decline in production over the last few decades.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Exiled Crown Prince of Iran Reza Pahlavi says that the Iranian people ‘more than ever' are committed to the fall of the regime as protests continue on ‘Hannity.' Iranian protesters intensified nationwide demonstrations over the past 24 hours, directly appealing to President Donald Trump while chanting anti-regime slogans. Footage published Wednesday showed a protester in Tehran symbolically renaming a street after Trump, while other videos captured handwritten appeals reading, "Don't let them kill us," Iran International reported. Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, posted the video on X stating, "Since Trump's comments about the Iran protests, I've seen numbers videos of Iranian protesters either thanking him or, in this case, renaming streets after the US president." The appeals came as demonstrators faced a widening security crackdown, including the deployment of armed units and tear gas near major civilian sites in Tehran. Exiled Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi said the current unrest represents a historic opportunity to end Iran's Islamic Republic. "Iranian people are more than ever committed to bringing an end to this regime, as the world has witnessed in the last few days, the level of demonstrations is unprecedented in Iran," he said. Pahlavi said protests have spread to more than 100 cities and emphasized the role of Iran's traditional merchant class, describing developments inside the country's bazaars as a turning point. "We are beginning to see more and more defections," Pahlavi said, adding that "Either way, the regime is crumbling and is very close to collapsing." Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., posted a photo of himself posing with President Donald Trump, who is holding a signed "Make Iran Great Again" hat. Over the past 24 hours, Iran International reported continued protests and strikes across the country, including in Tehran, Tabriz, Qazvin, Kermanshah, Kerman, Shiraz, Falavarjan and Bandar Abbas. Tehran's Grand Bazaar remained a focal point of unrest, with large crowds chanting against Iran's leadership as authorities responded with tear gas and armed deployments. Videos published by Iran International showed tear gas used near or inside Tehran's Sina Hospital and the Plasco Shopping Center. Protesters hold signs during a demonstration in Iran amid ongoing unrest, according to images released by the Iranian opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, cited by Iran International on Wednesday, reported at least 36 people killed since protests began, including 34 protesters and two members of Iran's security forces, with more than 2,000 arrests nationwide. Iranian authorities have not released updated official figures. New footage from the past day showed demonstrators lighting fires in the streets of Shiraz and chanting "Death to Khamenei," referring to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iranian protesters try to take control of two cities in western Iran as nationwide unrest continues, with demonstrators chanting 'Death to Khamenei' in the streets. Workers also joined the unrest, with strikes reported at the South Pars gas refinery and widespread shop closures at major markets in Tehran and Tabriz. Efrat Lachter is an investigative reporter and war correspondent. She is a recipient of the 2024 Knight-Wallace Fellowship for Journalism. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

In this photo provided by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, lava flows from the crater of the Mayon volcano as alert level 3 remains raised in Albay province, north eastern Philippines on Wednesday Jan. 7, 2026. (Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology via AP) MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A series of mild eruptions at the most active volcano in the Philippines has prompted the evacuation of nearly 3,000 villagers in a permanent danger zone on its foothills, officials said Wednesday. Authorities raised the 5-step alert around Mayon Volcano in the northeastern province of Albay to level 3 on Tuesday after detecting intermittent rockfalls, some as big as cars, from its peak crater in recent days along with deadly pyroclastic flows — a fast-moving avalanche of super-hot rock fragments, ash and gas. Alert level 5 would indicate a major explosive eruption, often with violent ejections of ash and debris and widespread ashfall, is underway. “This is already an eruption, a quiet one, with lava accumulating up the peak and swelling the dome, which cracked in some parts and resulted in rockfalls, some as big as cars,” Teresito Bacolcol, the country's chief volcanologist, told The Associated Press. He said it is too early to tell if Mayon's restiveness would worsen and lead to a major and violent eruption given the absence of other key signs of unrest, like a spike in volcanic earthquake and high levels of sulfur dioxide emissions. Troops, police and disaster-mitigation personnel helped evacuate more than 2,800 villagers from 729 households inside a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) radius from the volcano's crater that officials have long designated a permanent danger zone, demarcated by concrete warning signs, Albay provincial officials said. Another 600 villagers living outside the permanent danger zone have evacuated voluntarily to government-run emergency shelters to be safely away from the volcano, Claudio Yucot, regional director of the Office of Civil Defense, said. Entry to the permanent danger zone in the volcano's foothills is prohibited, but thousands of villagers have flouted the restrictions and made it their home or maintained farms on and off for generations. A terrifying symbol of Mayon's deadly fury is the belfry of a 16th-century Franciscan stone church which protrudes from the ground in Albay. It's all that's left of a baroque church that was buried by volcanic mudflow along with the town of Cagsawa in an 1814 eruption which killed about 1,200 people, including many who sought refuge in the church, about 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the volcano. The thousands of people who live within Mayon's danger zone reflect the plight of many impoverished Filipinos who are forced to live in dangerous places across the archipelago — near active volcanoes like Mayon, on landslide-prone mountainsides, along vulnerable coastlines, atop earthquake fault lines, and in low-lying villages often engulfed by flash floods. Each year, about 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippines, which lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of fault lines along the Pacific Ocean basin often hit by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Aimee Bock, the alleged mastermind behind Minnesota's $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scandal tied to the Somali community, is facing forfeiture of a Porsche, property, designer handbags and millions of dollars after a federal judge approved a preliminary order. A judge signed off on the preliminary forfeiture order last week, clearing the way for the government to seize assets that prosecutors say were purchased with ill-gotten taxpayer funds, according to MPR News, a Minnesota-based news outlet. The assets include about $3.7 million in bank accounts and cash, a 2013 Porsche and luxury items taken from her home, according to MPR News. Federal agents seized the assets in 2022, and the judge has now approved their forfeiture on a preliminary basis following Bock's conviction. A federal jury in March found Bock guilty on all counts she faced, including wire fraud, conspiracy and bribery. A split image shows defendant Aimee Bock in the Feeding Our Future fraud case, left, and a separate photo introduced as evidence during the trial depicting luxury spending allegedly tied to people in her network, right. Bock founded the Feeding Our Future nonprofit in 2016, and, for years, it operated modestly, handling roughly $3 million to $4 million annually in federal child nutrition reimbursements, according to prosecutors. That trajectory changed abruptly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when emergency rule changes loosened oversight and allowed sponsors to submit claims without normal verification. As executive director of Feeding Our Future, Bock approved meal sites, some of which were fake, and then certified the claims, signing off on the reimbursements from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). Government Exhibits BB-50 and BB-1 show designer bags, jewelry, cash piles, a Lamborghini photo and a white Mercedes prosecutors labeled as "Handy Helpers Spending" to illustrate the lavish lifestyle inside the network surrounding Aimee Bock. Prosecutors made no claim that Bock personally bought these items. She would soon preside over a network that claimed to have served 91 million meals, for which prosecutors say the scammers fraudulently received nearly $250 million in federal funds, a scale of growth that far outpaced the nonprofit's pre-pandemic size and internal capacity. Later filings and sentencing releases described the total impact as closer to $300 million. Attorney General Pam Bondi has suggested it may reach $400 million. Prosecutors described Bock as the scheme's gatekeeper who wielded near-total control over approvals and reimbursements that allowed the fraud to expand at a staggering pace. Government Exhibit S-12 shows Aimee Bock at a bank counter making a $30,000 cash withdrawal, evidence prosecutors said was tied to the bribery and kickback allegation in Count 40. She was also involved in a kickback scheme by accepting cash payments from meal site operators in exchange for site approvals and reimbursements, prosecutors said. In 2021, when the MDE grew suspicious and tried to stop the flow of funds, Feeding Our Future sued, alleging racial discrimination. Of the 78 defendants charged to date, 57 have been convicted, according to Bondi, who said that 72 of the defendants are of Somalian descent, while five defendants are "currently fugitives in Africa." You can send tips to michael.dorgan@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @M_Dorgan. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here. Everyone blamed social media, donors, or outside politics. What almost no one in power was willing to say was the obvious truth: Faculty activism has played a central role in chilling speech and narrowing debate. Last week, Harvard University President Alan Garber finally broke with years of institutional evasion and said it. In a candid interview on the Shalom Hartman Institute's Identity/Crisis podcast, Garber acknowledged that the university “went wrong” by allowing professors to inject their personal views into the classroom, arguing that faculty activism has chilled free speech and debate at Harvard. To be clear, this does not absolve student-facing administrators. I have written for years about the role of sprawling bureaucracies devoted to “belonging,” “safety,” and “dialogue” in narrowing acceptable speech, enforcing ideological conformity, and treating disagreement as harm. Those structures remain deeply implicated, and Garber's remarks do not erase that record. But what his admission finally does is break a long-standing taboo: it acknowledges that faculty are not innocent bystanders. They are not merely victims of administrative excess or student hypersensitivity. When professors use the grading relationship and their authority over students to signal which views are morally acceptable and which are suspect, they do not need censorship to silence dissent. The professional norm of the professoriate has never been advocacy; it has been inquiry conducted under conditions of trust, power imbalance, and restraint. Tenured professors grade students, design curricula, control classrooms, and shape professional norms. Students experiment with ideas; faculty set the rules of the experiment and the tone of inquiry, which is why their activism carries far greater consequences than that of their students. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's 2026 College Free Speech Rankings, roughly a quarter of college students say they self-censor “fairly often” or “very often” during classroom discussions, and a majority report discomfort expressing their views on controversial political topics. The source of that discomfort is not punishment, but fear of negative reactions from peers and professors — a climate created and sustained by those with institutional authority. Students did not invent this culture on their own. When faculty activism is rewarded, tolerated, or excused as “engagement,” students internalize the lesson that silence is safer than dissent. This is why workshops and dialogue initiatives fail. You cannot workshop your way out of a culture in which professors use institutional authority to advance political causes. You cannot train students to speak freely when they know the person grading them has already taken sides. At Harvard, faculty activists did not merely express opinions. They disrupted Widener Library, staging protests in what should be the most sacred and neutral space on campus — a place devoted to study, inquiry, and intellectual refuge. This matters beyond the specific controversy that prompted it. Libraries exist precisely so ideas can be encountered without intimidation or mobilization. They are sanctuaries for concentration, reflection, and the slow, patient work of learning. When faculty turn them into stages for political theater, whether framed as protest or pedagogy, they collapse the distinction between scholarship and advocacy. Universities cannot function if every space becomes ideological territory. What makes Garber's admission so consequential is that it collapses a convenient fiction in higher education: that faculty radicalism is somehow external to institutional responsibility. When that authority is used to advance political causes rather than disciplined inquiry, it reshapes norms, incentives, and silence itself. Universities cannot defend free expression while tolerating, let alone celebrating, those distortions. Garber deserves credit for finally saying the quiet part out loud. He acknowledged what students have long known and what administrators have long avoided: faculty activism has distorted the academic environment and chilled debate. If faculty are indeed part of the problem, as Garber now admits, then universities must be willing to reassert professional norms: the classroom is not an organizing space, the library is not a protest site, and authority is not a license to enforce ideological conformity. Acknowledging that tension and choosing inquiry over activism is the first step toward restoring what higher education claims to value. Student-facing administrators built the machinery of speech control. Now, higher education must act on that admission or own its complicity and the consequences in the silence that follows.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Fox News senior correspondent Mike Tobin reports on the fallout of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz's decision to drop reelection bid and more on 'Special Report.' Former pro hockey player Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., raised eyebrows Tuesday with a social media post referencing Minnesota Gov. Staub's post compared Walz's determination to fight fraudsters to the infamous 1994 murder trial of former NFL player O.J. Simpson, when Simpson vowed to find his wife's killer after being acquitted for the murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. "Tim Walz staying in office to fight the fraudsters is like O.J. saying he'd look for the real killer. A Walz spokesperson responded to Fox News Digital's request for comment on Stauber's post. Although Simpson was acquitted in the 1994 case, he later lost a civil lawsuit connected to the deaths. Most of that judgment went unpaid during Simpson's lifetime. Simpson died last April after a private cancer battle. Near the end of his life, he remained in Las Vegas and returned to the public eye on X, posting reactions to current events. Simpson's estate has taken a key step toward paying Goldman's family nearly $58 million — nearly three decades after Goldman won a wrongful death judgment in a civil case against Simpson, according to a November report by TMZ. Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, Barry Scheck, F. Lee Bailey, Shapiro and Alan Dershowitz comprised O.J. Meanwhile, Walz has been the subject of immense national scrutiny since October. He ended his bid for an unprecedented third term amid stinging criticism from Republicans and some Democrats over his handling of his state's massive welfare assistance fraud scandal. However, Walz insisted Tuesday he will not step down from his position, and passionately declared he will stay in office to help fight the state's fraudsters who potentially stole billions of dollars in taxpayer dollars under his watch. And you can make all your requests for me to resign. Over my dead body will that happen," Walz said. More than 90 people — most from Minnesota's large Somali community — have been charged since 2022 in what has been described as the nation's largest COVID-era scheme. How much money has been stolen through alleged money laundering operations involving fraudulent meal and housing programs, daycare centers and Medicaid services is still being tabulated. "This is on my watch, I am accountable for this and, more importantly, I am the one that will fix it," Walz told reporters last month, taking responsibility for the scandal. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter. Jackson Thompson is a sports reporter for Fox News Digital covering critical political and cultural issues in sports, with an investigative lens. Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

President Donald Trump is now laying claim to these vast deposits after his capture of the country's president Nicolás Maduro. Venezuelan oil is a tantalizing prospect for Trump, who reveres fossil fuels and has already set out a vision of US oil companies investing billions to unleash this black gold. Its consistency means heavy oil is generally harder and more energy-intensive to extract. It has to be heated, usually by pumping steam into the reservoir,” said Lorne Stockman, research co-director at the environmental non-profit Oil Change International. This requires large amounts of energy, primarily produced from planet-heating natural gas. The oil's high sulfur content also makes it harder and more expensive to refine into useful products like gasoline and diesel. It requires specialized equipment and more energy-intensive processes, further increasing climate pollution. On top of that, “the infrastructure (in Venezuela) is old and poorly maintained, which raises the risk of methane leakage, flaring, and spills,” said Carbon Tracker's Prince. Methane is a big climate problem because this planet-warming gas is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over short timeframes. In part, this is due to the country's high levels of flaring, a practice which releases large quantities of methane as excess natural gas is burned off. Currently, the climate pollution released for every barrel of Venezuelan oil produced is more than double the global average, according to Patrick King, head of emissions research at consulting firm Rystad Energy. It's possible that the climate impact could be reduced if US oil majors step in. They have managed to decrease the emissions intensity in some of their global oil operations, said Rystad's King. However, “there are limits” to how much could be reduced, he added. Venezuelan oil will still require large amounts of energy to extract and significant flare-reduction programs are very costly. Accurate data on the number of spills is hard to come by, especially as the national oil company stopped reporting on them publicly in 2016, but other organizations have published estimates. The Venezuelan Observatory of Environmental Human Rights produced a report in 2022 which found 199 spills between 2016 and 2021 — although it noted the true number was likely far higher. “Whether in Canada or Venezuela, we should not be digging this stuff up,” Oil Change International's Stockman said. Trump wants the US oil industry to thrive in Venezuela again. Not only are the climate and environmental risks high, but the economics of unleashing Venezuelan oil may simply not work. Venezuela's oil production has slumped significantly since 2016, when it stood at around 2 million barrels a day. It now produces fewer than 1 million barrels a day, due in part to US sanctions and reduced investment. It would take more than $53 billion of investment over the next 15 years just to sustain the current rate of oil production, according to data from Rystad Energy published Monday. To scale production to Venezuela's heyday of more than 3 million barrels a day would require an eye-watering $183 billion, Rystad concluded. It's a costly prospect in a world awash with oil, where prices are low and where peak global oil demand may be rapidly approaching. “In today's energy market, that simply doesn't line up with reality,” Prince said. “It would be a very expensive way to produce high-cost, high-emissions oil just as global demand growth is slowing. The global climate consequences of dramatically scaling up Venezuelan oil, if that does prove possible, are hard to predict. It would very much depend on how the oil is extracted “but most likely carbon emissions would very significantly increase,” said Diego Rivera Rivota, senior research associate at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. More important may be the impact on global efforts to halt the climate crisis, Prince said: “The most significant climate impact of a Venezuelan intervention wouldn't be releasing vast new carbon — it would be indirect: distracting from the clean energy transition, reinforcing a 20th century resource-conflict mindset, and creating instability that slows coordinated climate action.”

Long before Donald Trump suggested he should be tried for treason, Mark Kelly started sitting in restaurants with his back to the wall. And Kelly had worried about the dangers of his job as an Arizona senator long before recording a video that drew Trump's anger. The president, who survived two 2024 assassination attempts himself, lashed out over Kelly and other Democrats suggesting troops shouldn't follow illegal orders and reshared a post calling for “traitors” to be hanged. But what's happening now, Kelly said, is frightening in a new way. I flew a rocket ship built by the lowest bidder,” he told CNN, referring to his time in the Navy and as an astronaut. After a year in which the assassinations of Charlie Kirk and former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman were just among the highest-profile horrors, managing the fear of violence has become a central feature of political campaigns. Just this past weekend, a man was arrested and accused of breaking windows at Vice President JD Vance's Cincinnati home. That fear is part of the conversations many Democrats who could be competitors for the White House are having with each other, comparing notes and anxieties, according to several people familiar with the conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity. Future campaigns will be defined more than ever by security – who needs it, how much they need, and who can pay for it – in ways that are likely to change who runs for high office and how they interact with voters. Parades, for many top contenders, are out, along with most other outdoor events. The offices of multiple prospective candidates do their own threat tracking, from having staff monitor online chatter to building out bespoke intelligence units in some cases. For members of Congress, the US Capitol Police has stepped up coordination with local law enforcement. “As governor, I have incredible security around me,” Kentucky Gov. But as Kelly and other Democrats start exploring 2028 White House runs — and challenging a Republican president well known for celebrating violence against his adversaries — they're balancing raising their national profiles against the threats flooding their phones and being read out to them in private reports. But here's the thing: You can't drive it down to zero. There's just no way to do that in this job, with the exception of quitting and moving to a cabin somewhere in the Pacific Northwest,” Kelly said. American politicians have always had to confront the threat of assassination, long before Trump came millimeters from death in 2024. But a political debate often portrayed as an existential war, online radicalization and easy access to guns have combined to create a volatile moment. A prospective field that includes prominent Jewish, Black, gay and female candidates, several people familiar with security arrangements tell CNN, means not just more threats but more intense ones. Gretchen Whitmer was the target of a 2020 kidnapping plot. These days, when they talk to up-and-coming politicians they're encouraging to run, both spend part of their time on safety and resilience in the face of threats. JB Pritzker has been speaking out against Trump has often been slammed by the president due to his opposition to immigration raids in Chicago. Pritzker had a right-wing influencer who came to the city embedded with immigration agents filming in front of his house in September calling for his followers to “take action” against the governor. That frightened him to the point of texting the Republican statehouse leader that he was dealing with “vastly increased threats on my family and myself.” Now his wife has her own state trooper detail and he keeps his children away from public events in hopes of limiting the identifiable images of them in public. He takes troopers with him even on trips that he used to take without them, whether on vacations or going to what he pointedly would only refer to as another state to watch what he would only describe as sports games one of his children plays in. “Occasionally I have wanted to go without protection in the past, and it has not been a problem. “What's making this harder is we normally would have a president of the United States who would stand up and speak out about the violence on both sides, call for peace and call for calm. He threatened to jail me, says I am a criminal.” In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that between two assassination attempts and Kirk's death, “no one understands the dangers of political violence more than President Trump.” “But President Trump, and the entire Administration, will not hesitate to speak the truth and call out Democrats — including slobs like JB Pritzker — for smearing their opponents as Nazis, encouraging members of the military to ignore lawful orders, and enabling violent criminals to invade our country,” Jackson said. “Sharing these facts is not inciting violence and the media would be wrong to make such an accusation.” Several Democratic presidential candidates traveled with private security in 2019 and 2020, but their details tended to be one or two guards only hired once they had already started to rise in the polls. It has taken on primary candidates before, notably then-Sen. Barack Obama in May 2007. Keeping up with campaign demands has always been a struggle, and though the Secret Service regularly conducts trainings with state and local officers to help them learn about protection, many campaigns will have to handle measures like collecting and vetting names of event attendees, particularly early in the race. “The threat landscape is something we're constantly looking at and evaluating in how we do better,” said Special Agent Joe Routh, a spokesman for the agency. Breaking through for lesser-known candidates could be harder than ever, even as social media gives any candidate freedom to vault into the public's consciousness. Barriers and burly guards may limit unscripted moments that often go viral. The living room meet-and-greets and town halls that have always been a feature of early primary state campaigns will be much harder to pull off if everyone first needs to be screened by X-ray machines getting lugged around. Some prospective candidates' aides tell CNN that they have already gotten complaints from skipping events. At least two governors, for example, were overruled by their state trooper details when they wanted to attend No Kings Day protests in June. Others spoke from behind bulletproof shields with snipers roaming nearby rooftops for the October round of marches. They've taken heat from local press for limiting release of their public schedules. November's off-year elections weren't just a harbinger of voter concerns about affordability or Democratic energy going into this fall. They displayed what midterm and presidential campaigns will look like in a heightened threat environment. Six days before her victory, Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Alexandria. The 100 or so people who attended first had to go through a metal detector, then had two workers wand them with handheld devices. A few days later, an open-air event outside of Richmond, two armed men stood on either side of Spanberger as she spoke, with others circulating through the crowd. Even with her background as a former CIA case officer, the governor-elect told CNN, it was hard to process what she knew was looming throughout her campaign. “The short answer is I generally try to not think about it. And then the longer answer is, I will not be afraid, because when good people become afraid, they don't run,” she said in an interview on her campaign bus just before the election. In an interview over the summer, Sherrill told CNN that the worries were often on her mind, but she tried to keep them from changing her approach to campaigning because “that would be a real blow.” As his primary campaign surged in New York City, Zohran Mamdani started to speak about the death threats that began streaming in, choking up at one point in public as he said the threats “take a toll.” By the end of his campaign in the fall, Mamdani's aides said that they were so worried about violence, even though he had an official New York Police Department detail as the nominee, that they tried to hold off announcing his public appearances in advance. After one rally the Saturday before the election that he had for days been expected at, CNN observed the candidate being led out surrounded by a huddle of over a dozen officers, some plain-clothed and some in uniform. Spencer Cox came together for a bipartisan discussion on lowering the temperature, attendees needed to go through metal detectors and be checked by guards. They talked about how Shapiro was the first person to call Cox when Kirk was shot in Utah, and how, the Republican recalled affectionately, Shapiro “told me to speak with moral clarity and to speak from the heart.” They talked about the guilt Shapiro said he felt for putting his family in danger through his work, with the Democrat acknowledging, “there are also scars that come that are not physical, that are emotional. I think our family has grappled with that.” They talked about how just two days earlier, a man had been arrested for saying he wanted to shoot Cox in the head. Along the way, four protesters stood up at separate moments and began to approach the speakers, screaming – three about climate change, one about Gaza. Each was led off by multiple armed security officials positioned around the cathedral, prepared for exactly that.

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters. At Vox, our mission is to help you make sense of the world — and that work has never been more vital. But we can't do it on our own. We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today? The question of whether transgender athletes have a right to play school-sponsored sports was always the toughest legal issue facing trans advocates. The Supreme Court's trans rights precedents are particularly ill-suited for plaintiffs challenging state laws prohibiting trans women from playing on women's sports teams. The politics of this issue are absolutely awful for trans people. And the Court is dominated by Republicans who, just last June, voted that states could ban trans youth from receiving gender-affirming medical care. So it is likely that most of the justices will rule, in either Little v. Hecox or West Virginia v. To understand why trans advocates must climb such a steep hill to prevail in Hecox or B.P.J., it's helpful to be familiar with Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), the one major victory the Court has given transgender Americans. Bostock held that a federal law which bars employment discrimination “on the basis of sex” prevents workplace discrimination targeting LGBTQ employees. Although Bostock assumed that the word “sex” refers only to “biological distinctions between male and female” (that is, to sex assigned at birth), it concluded that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” Similarly, if a cisgender male worker is allowed to wear stereotypically male clothes, to use a male name, and to otherwise present as a man, then an “employee who was identified as female at birth” must also be allowed to do so, or they are also being discriminated against because of their sex. If a company attempted to divide its workers into male and female “teams,” that would be illegal. To prevail in a case like Hecox or B.P.J., in other words, trans plaintiffs must show that they are protected from discrimination because they are transgender — and not just because they are men or women. And, while the Supreme Court held half-a-century ago that ordinary sex discrimination by the government is typically forbidden by the Constitution, it has never ruled that transgender Americans are protected because they are trans. Meanwhile, several sitting justices appear to have already concluded that trans people do not enjoy constitutional protection. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote an entire concurring opinion in United States v. Skremetti (2025), the trans health care case, arguing that they do not. In an even more ominous sign for trans athletes, Justice Brett Kavanaugh worried during the Skremetti oral argument that, if trans women were given heightened constitutional protection, that could enable them “to play in women's and girls' sports … notwithstanding the competitive fairness and safety issues that have been vocally raised by some female athletes.” They don't claim that all trans athletes should be allowed to play women's sports, but rather only a certain subset whom, they argue, do not have a competitive advantage. The plaintiff in B.P.J., who is identified only by her initials because of her young age, is a high school track-and-field athlete. The plaintiff in Hecox is Lindsay Hecox, a former college athlete who “is treated with both testosterone suppression and estrogen” and who says she “has circulating testosterone levels typical of cisgender women.” (Hecox is also a college senior who does not currently play on any team and who says that she does not intend to play college sports in the future, which is why she argues her case is moot.) Neither plaintiff argues that all transgender women should be allowed to play high school or college sports. Meanwhile, the state of Idaho, the defendant in Hecox, spends a simply enormous amount of its brief doubting this factual claim. They rely largely on statements by Gregory Brown, a professor of exercise science whose professional webpage identifies him as “the faculty advisor for Turning Point USA” on his campus. The plaintiffs, meanwhile, rely largely on testimony by professor Joshua Safer, an endocrinologist who told the trial court that heard Hecox that “there is a medical consensus that the difference in testosterone is generally the primary known driver of differences in athletic performance between elite male athletes and elite female athletes.” deemed Safer's testimony to be more credible than Brown's. And appeals courts like the Supreme Court typically aren't supposed to second-guess a trial court's factual findings unless they are “clearly erroneous.” In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), a case about a public school football coach who incorporated prayer and other Christian activity into his coaching, the Court's Republican majority made up a fake set of facts to justify ruling in favor of that coach — and even adhered to these fake facts after Justice Sonia Sotomayor produced photographic evidence that her Republican justices weren't telling the truth. In cases involving disagreements about medicine, Republican justices often argue that state legislatures have broad leeway to do what they want so long as “medical uncertainty” exists. As a general rule, the government is allowed to discriminate. It can discriminate against unqualified applicants and in favor of highly qualified ones when deciding whom to hire. And the Constitution typically permits this kind of discrimination, even when there is scientific evidence that a particular law discriminates for unsound reasons. Laws that discriminate on the basis of race, sex, or religion, for example, are subject to “heightened” scrutiny under the Constitution. The details of how this scrutiny works often depend on the type of discrimination — the Constitution treats race discrimination with more skepticism than sex discrimination, for example — but most laws that are subject to heightened scrutiny fail. The Supreme Court held in United States v. Virginia (1996), for example, that “a party seeking to uphold government action based on sex must establish an ‘exceedingly persuasive justification' for the classification.” The Court also sometimes looks at other factors, such as whether a group exhibits “obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics that define them as a discrete group” or whether the group is relatively politically powerless. Religious discrimination is constitutionally suspect, for example, even though people can change their religion. make a strong argument that discrimination on the basis of gender identity should be subject to heightened scrutiny. In their brief, they list several historical laws that targeted trans people. Over two dozen US cities, including major metropolises like Chicago, used to ban “cross dressing,” for example. Others targeted bars that served “female impersonators.” At one point, the lawyers argue, the United States effectively barred openly trans people from immigrating. As the plaintiffs' lawyers write, “being transgender does not make someone less capable of being a lawyer, engineer, farmer, or doctor.” And openly trans people have historically held little political power. In all of American history, there's been exactly one openly trans member of Congress — and she hasn't even completed a single term in office. As Barrett noted in her Skrmetti concurrence, the Court “has not recognized any new constitutionally protected classes in over four decades.” The Court's gay rights cases, for example, seemed to actively avoid the question of whether discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is suspect — even when those decisions found other reasons to rule in favor of gay plaintiffs. So a decision adding trans people to the pantheon of protected groups would be a highly unusual move by the Supreme Court. somehow convince a majority of these justices that discrimination against trans people is just as odious as discrimination against women, and thus that laws that discriminate on the basis of gender identity should be subject to heightened scrutiny. Indeed, one example of a law that discriminates on the basis of sex, but that courts have allowed to remain in place, is a law that segregates men and women onto different high school or college sports teams. Because highly athletic men typically outperform highly athletic women in sports, women-only sports teams are necessary to ensure that women have the opportunity to play. If women-only teams did not exist, nearly all women would be excluded from high school and college sports, because they would be unable to compete with their male classmates. Or, to use the same language the Supreme Court used in Virginia, gender-segregated sports teams are allowed because they are substantially related to the important objective of allowing both men and women to play competitive sports. Significantly, this rationale holds even though there are some women who can outperform nearly all men, and there are some men who underperform most women. A cisgender high school boy isn't allowed to try out for the women's field hockey team, even if he can demonstrate that he has unusually low testosterone levels. The law, in other words, allows states to use the blunt instrument of declaring that all cisgender men must play on one team, and all cisgender women must play on another team, regardless of whether any particular man or woman's athletic performance matches that of the other sex. can convince the Court that trans women with low testosterone levels do not enjoy a competitive advantage over cisgender women, and even if they convince the Court that laws that discriminate against trans people are subject to heightened scrutiny, there is still one more hurdle that they must overcome. The law typically permits schools to segregate sports teams based on students' sex assigned at birth, so why should a trans athlete be treated differently than a cis athlete with similar athletic ability? 's lawyers, for what it is worth, have a pretty good answer to this question. They argue that “courts have recognized that sex separation in sports can pass constitutional muster where men and women still have equal opportunities to compete.” Thus, the hypothetical cisgender boy with low testosterone does not face discrimination because he can still try out for the men's team. But transgender women who experience gender dysphoria, a psychological condition where the inability to express their gender identity causes great distress, cannot try out for the men's team without triggering that distress. As Hecox's lawyers note in their brief, one court concluded that claiming that trans women can simply play men's sports “is analogous to claiming [gay people] are not prevented from marrying under statutes preventing same-sex marriage because lesbians and gays could marry someone of a different sex” — an argument the Supreme Court rejected in its marriage equality decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). And two other current justices, Kavanaugh and Barrett, have signalled pretty clearly that they are unsympathetic to trans women who wish to play school sports. That's five votes — a majority in the Supreme Court. And even if these plaintiffs faced a less hostile panel of justices, current legal doctrine is not very favorable to trans people, at least in areas where the Constitution typically permits the government to treat men differently than women. Five years later, the White House is still rewriting January 6.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon has warned New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani‘s administration about anti-white discrimination. Her warning to Mamdani's administration came after the new mayor appointed the controversial Cea Weaver as his “tenant advocate” earlier this month. An old video of Weaver was recently circulated on social media in which she expressed left-wing ideological principles regarding property ownership, specifying that there would be a transition to treating property as a “collective good” and a model of shared equity. NYC Mayor Mamdani's Tenant Director, Cea Weaver:"We'll transition from treating property as an individual good to a collective good. “I think the reality is that for centuries we really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good, and we are … transitioning to treating it as a collective good towards a model of shared equity,” Weaver said in an unearthed video making its rounds on social media. “It will require that we think about it differently, and it will mean that families, especially white families, but some POC families who are homeowners as well, are going to have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have,” Weaver said. Additionally, social media posts from 2019 show Weaver commented that property ownership was white supremacy. “Private property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building' public policy,” Weaver said in a post from August 2019. !” Dhillon said in a post on X about Weaver's rhetoric. “New York: Consider this your official notice from @TheJusticeDept,” Dhillon added. “We will NOT tolerate discrimination based on skin color. During an interview on One America News Network's Fine Point with Chanel Rion, Dhillon also said discrimination against white people is still discrimination and that it would not be tolerated. We all have equal rights in our country, and we will not stand for New York City violating any federal law whatsoever,” Dhillon said.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley joins ‘America's Newsroom' to discuss the potential timeline for Nicolas Maduro's trial and the fallout after Vice President JD Vance's Ohio home was vandalized. Drawing from historical examples, such as the 1983 invasion of Grenada to rescue Americans and halt a communist coup — and the 1989 invasion of Panama to oust the drug-trafficking dictator Manuel Noriega, Trump has ample legal authority under Article II of the Constitution as commander in chief. These interventions were justified under the need to protect U.S. citizens, combat threats to regional stability and advance U.S. interests against narcotics and communism. Similarly, Trump's deployment draws on the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) framework and executive powers affirmed by the Supreme Court, which recognizes the president's broad authority in foreign affairs. These precedents underscore that when a neighboring regime poses a clear and present danger — through mass migration, drug flows and alliances with hostile powers — the U.S. has the right to act decisively. Moreover, Trump's bold strike aligns with the principles of just war theory, which justifies military action when it meets criteria such as just cause, right intention and proportionality. Unlike previous presidents — who lacked the courage to defend America against encroaching socialism, allowing regimes like Maduro's to fester and export chaos — Trump's resolve marks a pivotal shift, invoking tools like the Alien Enemies Act and the War Powers Resolution to confront these dangers head-on. While prior U.S. administrations squandered resources on misguided foreign policy programs, including the promotion of LGBT and gender ideology initiatives that alienated traditional allies and distracted from core threats, Trump's actions have swept away such follies, refocusing American foreign policy on tangible results and moral clarity. True to his word, President Trump is fulfilling his promises by addressing the Venezuelan crisis head-on, including securing the nation's vast oil reserves. By taking control of the oil that powered the communist regime for over two decades, Trump is reclaiming resources that have been weaponized against America. These moves echo Trump's "America First" ethos, ensuring that Venezuelan oil bolsters U.S. energy independence rather than funding anti-American forces. It's a pragmatic step toward stabilization, preventing further humanitarian collapse and stemming the tide of refugees overwhelming our borders. Importantly, Americans played a key role in developing Venezuela's oil infrastructure in the early 20th century, with American companies investing heavily to build refineries, pipelines and extraction facilities that transformed the nation into a major producer. Yet, under communist Hugo Chávez, this infrastructure was confiscated through nationalization and expropriation, stripping rightful stakeholders and leading to its decay because of communist plundering. "Operation Absolute Resolve," conducted by the U.S. Department of War, represents a robust implementation of the Monroe Doctrine, originally proclaimed in 1823 to ward off European powers. These adversaries have entrenched themselves in Venezuela: China through predatory loans and resource extraction, Cuba via its intelligence apparatus propping up Maduro's repression and Russia with military advisors and arms deals that destabilize the region. Trump's intervention is challenging this axis of authoritarianism, hopefully expelling foreign influencers and reasserting U.S. primacy in our backyard by implementing the new National Security Strategy. By dismantling these networks, we not only neutralize immediate security risks — like potential missile bases or cyber threats — but also send a clear message that the Americas will no longer be a playground for hostile forces. To ensure success, the embargo on Venezuelan oil must continue until the dictatorial regime is no longer in power. Ultimately, Venezuela's oil must be administered by the United States to ensure a smooth transition. American stewardship provides the economic leverage needed for reconstruction and the incoming investments by U.S. energy firms will only benefit Venezuelan citizens. Under U.S. oversight, we can root out corruption, rebuild infrastructure and avoid the costly nation-building mistakes of the past that were paid for by American taxpayers. Venezuela's liberation by Trump proves that America is back. Communist dictators in Cuba and Nicaragua should take note: Under the "Donroe Doctrine," we will no longer sit idle as an axis of evil grows in our backyard. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

The Monroe Doctrine, named for and implemented by President James Monroe in 1823, established that the U.S. would take action to prevent colonization of foreign nations in North and South America. Trump has resurrected this imperative since taking power in his second term, with his State Department explicitly declaring: “This is OUR Hemisphere, and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened.” Russia and Iran have been among the most prominent critics of Trump's operation against Maduro, undoubtedly due in part to their vested interests in sustaining an allied regime so close to the U.S. So this does strike a blow to the sort of axis of do-no-gooders that were trying to seek advantage in our own hemisphere,” Yates continued. “And also seeking to skirt responsibility for the things they were doing — whether it's Russia versus Ukraine, or Iran versus a number of different counterparts […] in the Middle East.” The Atlantic Council asserted in a November 2025 report that Russia has been a “vital source of military and economic aid for Venezuela” since coming to Maduro's aid in 2000. “In return for arms and money, Russia gains a significant foothold in South America, helping to fulfill Putin's ambitions of making Russia a great power and challenging the United States in its own hemisphere,” the Atlantic Council explained. “Russia's support for Venezuela furthers the Kremlin's ability to act as a spoiler for U.S. interests, and it has the potential to pull U.S. attention and resources away from opposing Russian aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe.” “There is only the law ​of force — but Russia has known that for a long time,” former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov told Reuters on Tuesday. “Is the United States really ready to recognize Russia's dominance over the former Soviet Union, or is it simply that the United States is so strong that it will not tolerate any great powers even close to it?” It is not a foundational cut of the Chinese oil economy, but the full extent of its impact is difficult to trace due to the laundering of oil through Chinese “teapot” refineries that rebrand it as outside oil. He continued, “Trump's moves towards Venezuela won't move up Xi's timeline for Taiwan; rather, Beijing will treat it as a reminder of the underlying righteousness of its perspective and a call to prioritize its capacity to project power.” While Trump's National Security Strategy does place a heightened focus on the western hemisphere — calling for “a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations” — the administration's policy doesn't turn a blind eye to interests in other regions.

Uganda is preparing for a election in an atmosphere of political violence. The leading opposition presidential candidate, Bobi Wine, wears a flak jacket and helmet while campaigning to protect himself from gunfire. Wine is challenging President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986 by rewriting rules to stay in power. Uganda's leading opposition presidential candidate, Bobi Wine, poses for a photo at the National Unity Platform party office in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. Uganda's leading opposition presidential candidate, Bobi Wine, speaks in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Unity Platform party office in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. A supporter holds a flag of Uganda's long-time President Yoweri Museveni at an election rally at Kololo Airstrip in Kampala, Uganda Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016. WAKISO, Uganda (AP) — The Ugandan presidential candidate known as Bobi Wine wears a flak jacket and helmet while campaigning to protect himself from gunfire. Wine is challenging President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986 by repeatedly rewriting the rules to stay in power. Term and age limits have been scrapped, rivals jailed or sidelined, and state security forces are a constant presence at opposition rallies as Museveni seeks a seventh term in elections on Jan. 15. Wine, a musician-turned-politician whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, faced similar setbacks in 2021, when he first ran for president. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, he charged that this time “the military has largely taken over the election” and that at least three of his supporters have been killed in violent campaign events. “Using tear gas for rioters is both legal and non-lethal,” Museveni said in a televised speech. Security forces, notably the military, have repeatedly broken up Wine's campaign rallies, sending his supporters scampering into ditches and swamps. Critics note that Museveni, in contrast, campaigns without disruption and can go wherever he wants. Some charge that the election is simply a ritual to keep Museveni in power, not a fair exercise that could possibly lead to a change of government in the east African nation of 45 million. Wine, the most prominent of seven opposition candidates, has urged supporters to show courage before the security forces, although he has not called outright for protests. In his interview with the AP, Wine cited at least three deaths at his rallies, including a man shot by the military and another run over by a military truck. Police spokesman Kituuma Rusoke said he was not aware of the alleged incidents. Now he seeks to extend his rule into a fifth decade. Decades ago, Museveni criticized African leaders who overstayed their time in power. Years later, Ugandan lawmakers did the same thing for him when they jettisoned the last constitutional obstacle — age limits — for a possible life presidency. His son, army chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has asserted his wish to succeed his father, raising fears of hereditary rule as Museveni has no recognizable successor in the upper ranks of the ruling party, the National Resistance Movement. He has since fallen out with many of the comrades who fought alongside him, including some who say he betrayed the ideals of their bush-war struggle. One of them is Kizza Besigye, once Museveni's personal doctor, who has been jailed for over a year and repeatedly denied bail after facing treason charges. Besigye was Uganda's most prominent opposition leader before the rise of Wine, 43, who presents a different challenge for Museveni as the face of youthful hope for change. Wine has a large following among working-class people in urban areas, and his party has the most seats of any opposition party in Parliament. In the 2021 election, Wine secured 35% of the vote, while Museveni, with 58%, posted his worst-ever result, establishing Wine as a serious challenger for power. Yet Museveni dismisses Wine as an agent of foreign interests and questions his patriotism. Kyagulanyi and his evil foreigners that back him fail to understand that Uganda is a land of spiritual and political martyrs,” Museveni said in his New Year's Eve address. Sarah Bireete, a government critic who runs the non-governmental group Center for Constitutional Governance, was arrested last week and criminally charged over allegations she unlawfully shared data related to the national voters' registry. “The evidence is out for everyone to see that indeed Uganda can no longer claim to be a constitutional democracy,” she said. Uganda has not witnessed a peaceful transfer of presidential power since independence from colonial rule six decades ago. That raises the stakes as an aging Museveni increasingly depends on a security apparatus helmed by his son, Gen. Kainerugaba. Kainerugaba has warned force could be used against Wine, including threatening to behead him in one of several tweets widely condemned as reckless a year ago. Museveni “can't credibly claim to oppose repressive tactics that his own administration has employed for years,” said Gerald Bareebe, a Ugandan who is an associate professor of politics at Canada's York University, speaking of Museveni's advice to the security forces. Bareebe pointed out that some within Museveni's party think the security forces have gone too far. Video journalist Patrick Onen in Kampala, Uganda, contributed to this report.

Michael Reagan, the son of former President Ronald Reagan, introduces Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during a campaign stop, Jan. 30, 2012, in Pensacola, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) Michael Reagan introduces a video tribute to his late father, President Ronald Reagan, during the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute announced his death in a post on the social platform X on Tuesday, calling him “a steadfast guardian of his father's legacy.” “Michael Reagan lived a life shaped by conviction, purpose, and an abiding devotion to President Reagan's ideals,” the foundation said. “Michael was called home to be with the Lord on Sunday, January 4th, surrounded by his entire family,” his wife, Colleen Reagan, and two children, Cameron Reagan and Ashley Reagan Dunster, wrote in a statement. “Our hearts are deeply broken as we grieve the loss of a man who meant so much to all who knew and loved him.” Reagan was a contributor to the conservative Newsmax television network and was known for his talk radio program, “The Michael Reagan Show.” Born to Irene Flaugher in 1945, Reagan was adopted just hours after his birth by Ronald Reagan and his then-wife, actor Jane Wyman. After attending Arizona State University and Los Angeles Valley College, Reagan took up acting, playing in television shows including “Falcon Crest,” and he spent nearly two decades as a conservative radio talk show host, speaking of politics and culture. In two autobiographical books titled “On the Outside Looking in” and “Twice Adopted,” he told of, at times, a difficult childhood, which included coming to terms with his adoption and his journey of faith. Reagan penned several others, including “Lessons My Father Taught Me” published in 2016, where he detailed lessons learned growing up the son of Ronald Reagan. Throughout his life, Reagan raised money and worked for charities, using powerboat racing as a means of fundraising for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Statue of Liberty Restoration Fund. Reagan served as chair of the John Douglas French Alzheimer's Foundation board for three years, working on the same disease his father succumbed to in 2004. The conservative former president was known for trying to scale back government and devoting his presidency to winning the Cold War.

At least 24 Venezuelan security officers were killed in a U.S. military operation on Saturday, Venezuela's military announced, bringing the official death count up to at least 56. Venezuela's Attorney General, in a separate press conference, said three prosecutors have been assigned to investigate the deaths in what he described as “war crime.” (AP video by Brayan Antequero) AP's Joshua Goodman explains Rodriguez's rise to power. In remarks before House Republicans Tuesday, President Donald Trump praised the US raid in Venezuela that captured President Nicolás Maduro as “brilliant tactically” and “an amazing military feat.” He also slammed Democrats for criticizing the operation. Venezuela's Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello appeared at a pro-government march on Tuesday. Whilst Cabello has been seen in public this is his first time at a pro-government event since ousted President Nicolas Maduro was taken from the country on Saturday. President Donald Trump dances as he walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. President Donald Trump walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. Government supporters gather for a women's march to demand the return of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, three days after U.S. forces captured him and his wife. Venezuela's Foreign Relations Minister Delcy Rodriguez gives a news conference after a private meeting with U.S. Chargé d'Affaires Lee McClenny in Caracas, Venezuela, March 2, 2015. The White House is organizing a meeting Friday with U.S. oil company executives to discuss Venezuela, which the Trump administration has been pressuring to open its vast-but-struggling oil industry more widely to American investment and know-how. Earlier Tuesday, officials in Caracas announced that at least 24 Venezuelan security officers were killed in the dead-of-night U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face drug charges. And the country's acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, pushed back on Trump, who earlier this week warned she'd face an outcome worse than Maduro's if she does not “do what's right” and overhaul Venezuela into a country that aligns with U.S. interests, including by granting access to American energy companies. Rodriguez, delivering an address Tuesday before government agricultural and industrial sector officials, said, “Personally, to those who threaten me: My destiny is not determined by them, but by God.” Venezuela's Foreign Relations Minister Delcy Rodriguez gives a news conference after a private meeting with U.S. Chargé d'Affaires Lee McClenny in Caracas, Venezuela, March 2, 2015. Venezuela's Attorney General Tarek William Saab said overall “dozens” of officers and civilians were killed in the weekend strike in Caracas and said prosecutors would investigate the deaths in what he described as a “war crime.” He didn't specify if the estimate was specifically referring to Venezuelans. Five have already returned to duty, while two are still recovering from their injuries. Meanwhile, the streets of Caracas, deserted for days following Maduro's capture, briefly filled with masses of people waving Venezuelan flags and bouncing to patriotic music at a state-organized display of support for the government. “Their spilled blood does not cry out for vengeance, but for justice and strength,” the military wrote in an Instagram post. “It reaffirms our unwavering oath not to rest until we rescue our legitimate President, completely dismantle the terrorist groups operating from abroad, and ensure that events such as these never again sully our sovereign soil.” With oil trading at roughly $56 a barrel, the transaction Trump announced late Tuesday could be worth as much as $2.8 billion. Despite Venezuela having the world's largest proven crude oil reserves, it only produces on average about one million barrels day, significantly below the U.S. average daily production of 13.9 million barrels a day during October. The company's major oil discovery in 2015 prompted Venezuela to revive a century-old territorial dispute with Guyana and take steps to annex the remote region known as Essequibo, which comprises about two-thirds of Guyana's land mass. President Donald Trump walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. The development has also led to wide-ranging accusations from Venezuela's government, including Rodríguez, against Guyana's leaders and ExxonMobil. Earlier Tuesday, Trump pushed back against Democratic criticism of this weekend's military operation, noting that his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden had also called for the arrest of the Venezuelan leader on drug trafficking charges. Trump in remarks before a House Republican retreat in Washington grumbled that Democrats were not giving him credit for a successful military operation, even though there was bipartisan agreement that Maduro was not the rightful president of Venezuela. White House officials have noted that Biden's administration in his final days in office last year raised the award for information leading to Maduro's arrest after he assumed a third term in office despite evidence suggesting that he lost Venezuela's most recent election. “I would say that if they did a good job, their philosophies are so different. But if they did a good job, I'd be happy for the country. Nearly half of Americans, 45%, were opposed to the U.S. taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country. Government supporters gather for a women's march to demand the return of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, three days after U.S. forces captured him and his wife. Maduro pleaded not guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in a U.S. courtroom on Monday. U.S. forces captured Maduro and his wife early Saturday in a raid on a compound where they were surrounded by Cuban guards. The president in recent days has renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests and threatened military action on Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.” Colombia's Foreign Affairs Minister Rosa Villavicencio said Tuesday she'll meet with the U.S. Embassy's charge d'affaires in Bogota to present him with a formal complaint over the recent threats issued by the United States. On Sunday, Trump said he wasn't ruling out an attack on Colombia and described its president, who's been an outspoken critic of the U.S. pressure campaign on Venezuela, as a “sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.” Villavicencio said she's hoping to strengthen relations with the United States and improve cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking. “It is necessary for the Trump administration to know in more detail about all that we are doing in the fight against drug trafficking,” she said. Meanwhile, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom on Tuesday joined Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in defending Greenland's sovereignty. AP writers Josh Boak, Konstantin Toropin, Sagar Meghani, Isabel DeBre, Linley Sanders and Manuel Rueda contributed reporting.