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Gov. Ron DeSantis calls for special session in April to redraw Florida’s congressional districts

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday he plans to call a special session in April for the Republican-dominated legislature to draw new congressional districts, joining a redistricting arms race among states that have redrawn districts mid-decade.

Even though Florida’s 2026 legislative session starts next week, DeSantis said he wanted to wait for a possible ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling in Louisiana v. Callais could determine whether Section 2, a part of the Voting Rights Act that bars discrimination in voting systems, is constitutional. The governor said “at least one or two” districts in Florida could be affected by the high court’s ruling.

“I don’t think it’s a question of if they’re going to rule. It’s a question of what the scope is going to be,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Steinhatchee, Fla. “So, we’re getting out ahead of that.”

Currently, 20 of Florida’s 28 congressional seats are held by Republicans.

Congressional districts in Florida that are redrawn to favor Republicans could carry big consequences for President Donald Trump’s plan to reshape congressional districts in GOP-led states, which could give Republicans a shot at winning additional seats in the midterm elections and retaining control of the closely divided U.S. House.

Nationwide, the unusual mid-decade redistricting battle has so far resulted in a total of nine more seats Republicans believe they can win in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio — and a total of six more seats Democrats expect to win in California and Utah, putting Republicans up by three. But the redrawn districts are being litigated in some states, and if the maps hold for 2026, there is no guarantee the parties will win the seats.

In 2010, more than 60% of Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment prohibiting the drawing of district boundaries to unfairly favor one political party in a process known as gerrymandering. The Florida Supreme Court, however, last July upheld a congressional map pushed by DeSantis that critics said violated the “Fair Districts” amendment.

After that decision, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez last August announced the creation of a select committee to examine the state’s congressional map.

Florida Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman said in a statement that what DeSantis wants the Legislature to do is clearly illegal.

“Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment strictly prohibits any maps from being drawn for partisan reasons, and regardless of any bluster from the governor’s office, the only reason we’re having this unprecedented conversation about drawing new maps is because Donald Trump demanded it,” Berman said. “An overwhelming majority of Floridians voted in favor of the Fair Districts Amendment and their voices must be respected. The redistricting process is meant to serve the people, not the politicians.”

In a statement, the Florida Democratic Party called the move by DeSantis “reckless, partisan and opportunistic.”

“This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to rig the system and silence voters before the 2026 election,” the statement said. “Now, after gutting representation for Black Floridians just three years ago, Ron is hoping the decimation of the Voting Rights Act by Trump’s Supreme Court will allow him to further gerrymander and suppress the vote of millions of Floridians.”

Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, said the state already has a fairly strong Republican gerrymander, so it would be difficult for Republicans to pick up additional seats, unless they’re planning to draw “noncompact districts that squiggle all over the place” and then hold the election before a judge can throw out the map. McDonald said DeSantis also could be trying to shore up Republican strongholds to mitigate the losses generally experienced by the party in power during midterm elections.

“Trump’s approval ratings are pretty low,” McDonald said. “And so looking at what we would expect to happen in November, unless something fundamentally changes in the country between now and then, we expect the Democrats to have a very good year.”

January 7, 2026
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani defends tenant official facing backlash for ‘white supremacy’ posts

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is standing behind a newly appointed housing official as she faces backlash for years-old social media posts, including messages that called for the seizure of private property and linked homeownership to white supremacy.

Cea Weaver, a longtime tenant activist, was tapped by the Democrat last week to serve as executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants. The mayor has vowed to expand and empower the office to take “unprecedented” steps against negligent landlords.

But in a sign of the high-level scrutiny on Mamdani’s administration, Weaver’s since-deleted posts have sparked condemnations from officials in the U.S. Department of Justice and the editorial board of The Washington Post.

The posts, which were circulated on social media in recent days by critics of Mamdani, included calls to treat private property as a “collective good” and to “impoverish the *white* middle class.” A tweet sent in 2017 described homeownership as “a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building public policy.’”

Eric Adams, the city’s former mayor and a fellow Democrat, said the remarks showed “extreme privilege and total detachment from reality.”

Asked about the controversy on Wednesday, Mamdani did not address the substance of Weaver’s posts but defended her record of “standing up for tenants across the city and state.”

Weaver said in an interview with a local TV station that some of the messages were “regretful” and “not something I would say today.”

“I want to make sure that everybody has a safe and affordable place to live, whether they rent or own, and that is something I’m laser-focused on in this new role,” she added.

The discussion comes after Mamdani last month accepted the resignation of another official, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, after the Anti-Defamation League shared social media posts she made over a decade ago that featured antisemitic tropes.

While Mamdani had said he was unaware of Da Costa’s messages, Weaver’s past social media posts were known to the administration, according to a mayoral spokesperson, Dora Pekec.

Weaver previously led the Housing Justice for All coalition, which was widely credited with helping to convince state lawmakers to pass a sweeping package of tenant protections in 2019.

As leader of the city’s tenant protection office, she would play a key role in achieving one of Mamdani’s most polarizing campaign pledges: identifying negligent landlords and forcing them to negotiate the sale of their properties to the city if they are unable to pay fines for violations.

The “public stewardship” proposal has drawn consternation from landlord groups and skepticism from others in city government.

But the early days of his administration have brought signs that the new mayor is not backing off on the idea.

In a press conference immediately following his inauguration last week, Mamdani said the city would take “precedent-setting” action against the owner of a Brooklyn apartment building that owed the city money and was currently in bankruptcy proceedings.

He then announced Weaver’s appointment, drawing loud cheers from the members of a tenants union gathered in the building’s lobby.

“It is going to be challenging,” Weaver acknowledged. “New York is home to some of the most valuable real estate in the world. Everything about New York politics is about that fact.”

January 7, 2026
Bolsonaro leaves Brazilian prison to undergo medical examinations after fall from his bed

RIO DE JANEIRO — Former President Jair Bolsonaro was granted a brief leave Wednesday from his 27-year prison sentence for a coup attempt so that he could undergo medical tests at a hospital in the capital after he fell from his bed.

Police escorted Bolsonaro, 70, from the federal police’s headquarters in Brasilia to the nearby DF Star hospital where he arrived at around midday for three brain tests.

At about 4:30 p.m. local time, Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle, said on Instagram that the exams had been carried out and that they were awaiting results. Her husband went back to prison, she said.

Later, DF Star hospital said in a brief statement that the tests showed “mild soft-tissue thickening in the frontal and right temporal regions” due to the trauma, but that no additional treatment was needed.

Bolsonaro fell in his cell overnight from Monday to Tuesday while sleeping. His wife, and Bolsonaro’s son Carlos, said on social media Tuesday that the far-right politician needed medical attention and expressed frustration that Bolsonaro hadn’t been sent to the hospital on Tuesday.

In his decision authorizing the trip to the hospital Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes cited a health report conducted by the federal police on Tuesday. Bolsonaro reported mild head trauma, according to the report. Upon examination, the former Brazilian leader was found to be conscious and lucid, with a superficial cut to his face.

De Moraes authorized a tomography, brain scan and a brain wave test requested by Bolsonaro’s lawyers. The Supreme Court justice said that his transfer to the hospital should be conducted in a “discreet manner,” and that federal police were responsible for Bolsonaro’s security and his return to prison.

Bolsonaro had previously left the hospital and returned to prison last Thursday, a week after undergoing double hernia surgery.

Bolsonaro has been hospitalized multiple times since being stabbed at a campaign event before the 2018 presidential election.

Bolsonaro and several of his allies were convicted in September by a panel of Supreme Court justices of attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democratic system following his 2022 election defeat.

The plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and de Moraes. There was also a plan to encourage an insurrection in early 2023.

Bolsonaro was also convicted on charges that include leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He has denied any wrongdoing.

January 7, 2026
CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames, who sold U.S. secrets to the Soviets, dies in prison at 84

WASHINGTON — CIA turncoat Aldrich Mr. Ames, who betrayed Western intelligence assets to the Soviet Union and Russia in one of the most damaging intelligence breaches in U.S. history, has died in a Maryland prison. He was 84.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons confirmed Mr. Ames died Monday.

Mr. Ames, a 31-year CIA veteran, admitted being paid $2.5 million by Moscow for U.S. secrets from 1985 until his arrest in 1994. His disclosures included the identities of 10 Russian officials and one Eastern European who were spying for the United States or Great Britain, along with spy satellite operations, eavesdropping and general spy procedures. His betrayals are blamed for the executions of Western agents working behind the Iron Curtain and were a major setback to the CIA during the Cold War.

He pleaded guilty without a trial to espionage and tax evasion and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Prosecutors said he deprived the United States of valuable intelligence material for years.

He professed “profound shame and guilt” for “this betrayal of trust, done for the basest motives,” money to pay debts. But he downplayed the damage he caused, telling the court he did not believe he had “noticeably damaged” the United States or “noticeably aided” Moscow.

“These spy wars are a sideshow which have had no real impact on our significant security interests over the years,” he told the court, questioning the value that leaders of any country derived from vast networks of human spies around the globe.

In a jailhouse interview with The Washington Post the day before he was sentenced, Mr. Ames said he was motivated to spy by “financial troubles, immediate and continuing.”

Mr. Ames was working in the Soviet/Eastern European division at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Va., when he first approached the KGB, according to an FBI history of the case. He continued passing secrets to the Soviets while stationed in Rome for the CIA and after returning to Washington. Meanwhile, the U.S. intelligence community was frantically trying to figure out why so many agents were getting discovered by Moscow.

Mr. Ames’ spying coincided with that of FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who was caught in 2001 and charged with taking $1.4 million in cash and diamonds to sell secrets to Moscow. He died in prison in 2023.

Mr. Ames’ wife, Rosario, pleaded guilty to lesser espionage charges of assisting his spying and was sentenced to 63 months in prison.

January 7, 2026
Iran army chief threatens preemptive attack over ‘rhetoric’ targeting country after Trump’s comments

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s army chief threatened preemptive military action Wednesday over the “rhetoric” targeting the Islamic Republic, likely referring to President Donald Trump’s warning that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”

The comments by Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami come as Iran tries to respond to what it sees as a dual threat posed by Israel and the United States, as well as the protests sparked by its economic woes that have grown into a direct challenge to its theocracy.

Seeking to halt the anger, Iran’s government began Wednesday paying the equivalent of $7 a month to subsidize rising costs for dinner table essentials like rice, meat and pastas. Shopkeepers warn prices for items as basic as cooking oil likely will triple under pressure from the collapse of Iran’s rial currency and the end of a preferential subsidized dollar-rial exchange rate for importers and manufacturers — likely fueling further popular anger.

“More than a week of protests in Iran reflects not only worsening economic conditions, but longstanding anger at government repression and regime policies that have led to Iran’s global isolation,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank said.

Army chief’s threat

Hatami spoke to military academy students. He took over as commander in chief of Iran’s army, known by the Farsi word “Artesh,” after Israel killed a number of the country’s top military commanders in June’s 12-day war. He is the first regular military officer in decades to hold a position long controlled by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

“The Islamic Republic considers the intensification of such rhetoric against the Iranian nation as a threat and will not leave its continuation without a response,” Hatami said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

He added, “I can say with confidence that today the readiness of Iran’s armed forces is far greater than before the war. If the enemy commits an error, it will face a more decisive response, and we will cut off the hand of any aggressor.”

Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been responding to Trump’s comments, which took on more significance after the U.S. military raid that seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend. But there’s been no immediate public sign of Iran preparing for an attack in the region.

New subsidy payment begins

Iranian state television reported on the start of a new subsidy of the equivalent of $7, put into the bank accounts of heads of households across the country. More than 71 million people will receive the benefit, which is 10 million Iranian rials, it reported. The rial now trades at more than 1.4 million to $1 and continues to depreciate.

The subsidy is more than double than the 4.5 million rial people previously received. But already, Iranian media report sharp rises in the cost of basic goods, including cooking oil, poultry and cheese, placing additional strain on households already burdened by international sanctions targeting the country and inflation.

Iran’s vice president in charge of executive affairs, Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah, told reporters on Wednesday that the country was in a “full-fledged economic war.” He called for “economic surgery” to eliminate rentier policies and corruption within the country.

More protests

Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the June war with Israel, its rial currency sharply fell in December. Protests began soon after on Dec. 28. They reached their 11th day on Wednesday and didn’t appear to be stopping.

Social media videos purported to show new cities like Bojnourd, Kerman, Rasht, Shiraz, and Tabriz, as well some smaller towns, joining the demonstrations on Wednesday.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency offered the latest death toll of 36 for the demonstrations. It said 30 protesters, four children and two members of Iran’s security forces have been killed. Demonstrations have reached over 310 locations in 28 of Iran’s 31 provinces. More than 2,100 people have been arrested, it said.

The group, which relies on an activist network inside of Iran for its reporting, has been accurate in past unrest.

January 7, 2026
Fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack brings fresh division to the Capitol

WASHINGTON — Five years ago outside the White House, outgoing President Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters to head to the Capitol — “and I’ll be there with you” — in protest as Congress was affirming the 2020 election victory for Democrat Joe Biden.

A short time later, the world watched as the seat of U.S. power descended into chaos, and democracy hung in the balance.

On the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, there is no official event to memorialize what happened that day, when the mob made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue, battled police at the Capitol barricades and stormed inside, as lawmakers fled. The political parties refuse to agree to a shared history of the events, which were broadcast around the globe. And the official plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol has never been hung.

Instead, the day displayed the divisions that still define Washington, and the country, and the White House itself issued a glossy new report with its own revised history of what happened.

Trump, during a lengthy morning speech to House Republicans convening away from the Capitol at the rebranded Kennedy Center now carrying his own name, shifted blame for Jan. 6 onto the rioters themselves.

The president said he had intended only for his supporters to go “peacefully and patriotically” to confront Congress as it certified Biden’s win. He blamed the media for focusing on other parts of his speech that day.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (second from right, front row), a Pennsylvania Democrat, was among members of Congress watching a video from the Jan. 6 attack during a hearing at the U.S. Capitol.

At the same time, Democrats held their own morning meeting at the Capitol, reconvening members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack for a panel discussion. Recalling the history of the day is important, they said, in order to prevent what Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) warned was the GOP’s “Orwellian project of forgetting.”

And the former leader of the militant Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, summoned people for a midday march retracing the rioters’ steps from the White House to the Capitol, this time to honor Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt and others who died in the Jan. 6 siege and its aftermath. More than 100 people gathered, including Babbitt’s mother.

Tarrio and others are putting pressure on the Trump administration to punish officials who investigated and prosecuted the Jan. 6 rioters. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy for orchestrating the Jan. 6 attack, and he is among more than 1,500 defendants who saw their charges dropped when Trump issued a sweeping pardon on his return to the White House last year.

“They should be fired and prosecuted,” Tarrio told the crowd before they arrived at the Capitol, confronted along the way by counterprotesters, and sang the national anthem.

The White House in its new report highlighted the work the president has already done to free those charged and turned the blame on Democrats for certifying Biden’s election victory.

Echoes of 5 years ago

This milestone anniversary carried echoes of the differences that erupted that day.

But it unfolds while attention is focused elsewhere, particularly after the U.S. military’s stunning capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and Trump’s plans to take over the country and prop up its vast oil industry, a striking new era of American expansionism.

“These people in the administration, they want to lecture the world about democracy when they’re undermining the rule of law at home, as we all will be powerfully reminded,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on the eve of the anniversary.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, responding to requests for comment about the delay in hanging the plaque honoring the police at the Capitol, as required by law, said in a statement on the eve of the anniversary that the statute “is not implementable,” and proposed alternatives “also do not comply with the statute.”

Democrats revive an old committee, Republicans lead a new one

At the morning hearing at the Capitol, lawmakers heard from a range of witnesses and others — including former U.S. Capitol Police officer Winston Pingeon, who said as a kid he always dreamed of being a cop. But on that day, he thought he was going to die in the mayhem on the steps of the Capitol.

“I implore America to not forget what happened,” he said, “I believe the vast majority of Americans have so much more in common than what separates us.”

Also testifying was Pamela Hemphill, a rioter who refused Trump’s pardon, blamed the president for the violence and silenced the room as she apologized to the officer sitting alongside her at the witness table, stifling tears.

“I can’t allow them not be recognized, to be lied about,” Hemphill said about the police who she said also saved her life as she fell and was trampled on by the mob. “Until I can see that plaque get up there, I’m not done.”

Among those testifying were former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who along with former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming were the two Republicans on the panel that investigated Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win. Cheney, who lost her own reelection bid to a Trump-backed challenger, did not appear. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi urged the country to turn away from a culture of lies and violence that she said sends the wrong message about democracy.

Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who has been tapped by Johnson to lead a new committee to probe other theories about what happened on Jan. 6, rejected Tuesday’s session as a “partisan exercise” designed to hurt Trump and his allies.

Many Republicans reject the narrative that Trump sparked the Jan. 6 attack, and Johnson, before he became the House speaker, had led challenges to the 2020 election. He was among some 130 GOP lawmakers voting that day to reject the presidential results from some states.

Instead, they have focused on security lapses at the Capitol — from the time it took for the National Guard to arrive on the scene to the failure of the police canine units to discover the pipe bombs found that day outside Republican and Democratic party headquarters. The FBI arrested a Virginia man suspected of placing the pipe bombs, and he told investigators last month he believed someone needed to speak up for those who believed the 2020 election was stolen, authorities say.

“The Capitol Complex is no more secure today than it was on Jan. 6,” Loudermilk said in a social media post. “My Select Subcommittee remains committed to transparency and accountability and ensuring the security failures that occurred on Jan. 6 and the partisan investigation that followed never happens again.”

The aftermath of Jan. 6

At least five people died in the Capitol siege and its aftermath, including Babbitt, who was shot and killed by police while trying to climb through the window of a door near the House chamber, and Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died later after battling the mob. Several law enforcement personnel died later, some by suicide.

The Justice Department indicted Trump on four counts in a conspiracy to defraud voters with his claims of a rigged election in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack.

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers last month that the riot at the Capitol “does not happen” without Trump. He ended up abandoning the case once Trump was reelected president, adhering to department guidelines against prosecuting a sitting president.

Trump, who never made it to the Capitol that day as he hunkered down at the White House, was impeached by the House on the sole charge of having incited the insurrection. The Senate acquitted him after top GOP senators said they believed the matter was best left to the courts.

Ahead of the 2024 election, the Supreme Court ruled ex-presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.

January 7, 2026
Trump says U.S. to get 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil from Venezuela at market price

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Donald Trump said Tuesday on his social media site that “Interim Authorities” in Venezuela would be providing 30 million to 50 million barrels of “High Quality” oil to the U.S. at its market price, an announcement that came after 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.

Trump posted on Truth Social that the oil “will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.” He said the money would be controlled by him as president but it would be used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States.

Separately, the White House is organizing an Oval Office meeting Friday with oil company executives regarding Venezuela, with representatives of Exxon, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips expected to attend, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss the plans.

Earlier Tuesday, Venezuelan officials announced the death count in the Maduro raid as the country’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, 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. Trump has said his administration will now “run” Venezuela policy and is pressing the country’s leaders to open its vast oil reserves 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 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.

In addition to the Venezuelan security officials, Cuba’s government had previously confirmed that 32 Cuban military and police officers working in Venezuela were killed in the raid. The Cuban government says the personnel killed belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, the country’s two main security agencies.

Seven U.S. service members were also injured in the raid, according to the Pentagon. Five have already returned to duty, while two are still recovering from their injuries. The injuries included gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment on the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A video tribute to the slain Venezuelan security officials posted to the military’s Instagram account features faces of the fallen over black-and-white videos of soldiers, American aircraft flying over Caracas and armored vehicles destroyed by the blasts. 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.”

Trump grumbles about how Democrats reacted to the raid

Trump on Tuesday 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.

In 2020, Maduro was indicted in the United States, accused in a decades-long narco-terrorism and international cocaine trafficking conspiracy. 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. The Trump administration doubled the award to $50 million in August.

“You know, at some point, they should say, ‘You know, you did a great job. Thank you. Congratulations.’ Wouldn’t it be good?” Trump said. “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. They’ve been after this guy for years and years and years.”

With oil trading at roughly $56 a barrel, the transaction Trump announced late Tuesday could be worth as much as $2.8 billion. The U.S. goes through an average of roughly 20 million barrels a day of oil and related products, so Venezuela’s transfer would be the equivalent of as much as two and a half days of supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

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.

What U.S. opinion polls show

Americans are split about the capture of Maduro — with many still forming opinions — according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and SSRS using text messages over the weekend. About 4 in 10 approved of the U.S. military being sent to capture Maduro, while roughly the same share were opposed. About 2 in 10 were unsure.

Nearly half of Americans, 45%, were opposed to the U.S. taking control of Venezuela and choosing a new government for the country. About 9 in 10 Americans said the Venezuelan people should be the ones to decide the future leadership of their country.

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.

In the days since Maduro’s ouster, Trump and top administration officials have raised anxiety around the globe that the operation could mark the beginning of a more expansionist U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. 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 responds to Trump

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. The island is a self-governing territory of the kingdom of Denmark and thus part of the NATO military alliance.

“Greenland belongs to its people,” the statement said. “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

January 7, 2026
Shooter who killed Brown students and MIT professor planned attack for months, says DOJ

BOSTON — The man identified by law enforcement as the shooter who killed two Brown University students and an MIT professor had been planning the attack for at least six semesters, according to information released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility after he killed two students and wounded nine others in an engineering building on Dec. 13. Two days later, he killed MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline.

Justice Department officials said Tuesday that during the search of the storage facility where Neves Valente’s body was found, the FBI recovered an electronic device containing a series of short videos made by Neves Valente after the shootings.

In the recordings, the shooter admits in Portuguese that he had been “planning the Brown University shooting for a long time,” according to a press release. He did not provide a motive for targeting Brown or the MIT professor, with whom he attended school in Portugal decades ago.

He said he felt he had nothing to apologize for. He also complained in the videos about injuring his eye in the shootings.

“I’m not going to apologize because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me,” he said.

Neves Valente said his “only objective was to leave more or less” on his “own terms” and to ensure he “wouldn’t be the one who ended up suffering the most from all this.”

“No, that cannot happen. So if you don’t like it, tough luck,” he said. Neves Valente called his execution of the murders “a little incompetent.”

“But at least something was done,” he said.

In the recording, he said he’d had the storage space where his body was found for about three years.

January 6, 2026
Danish prime minister says a U.S. takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday an American takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. Her comments came in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed call for the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island to come under U.S. control in the aftermath of the weekend military operation in Venezuela.

The dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas to capture leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife early Saturday left the world stunned, and heightened concerns in Denmark and Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of the Danish kingdom and thus part of NATO.

Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens Frederik Nielsen, blasted the president’s comments and warned of catastrophic consequences. Numerous European leaders expressed solidarity with them.

“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday. “That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War.”

20-day timeline deepens fears

Trump called repeatedly during his presidential transition and the early months of his second term for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has not ruled out military force to take control of the island. His comments Sunday, including telling reporters “let’s talk about Greenland in 20 days,” further deepened fears that the U.S. was planning an intervention in Greenland in the near future.

Frederiksen also said Trump “should be taken seriously” when he says he wants Greenland. “We will not accept a situation where we and Greenland are threatened in this way,” she added.

Nielsen, in a news conference Monday, said Greenland cannot be compared to Venezuela. He urged his constituents to stay calm and united.

“We are not in a situation where we think that there might be a takeover of the country overnight and that is why we are insisting that we want good cooperation,” he said.

Nielsen added: “The situation is not such that the United States can simply conquer Greenland.”

Ask Rostrup, a TV2 political journalist, wrote on the station’s live blog Monday that Mette previously would have flatly rejected the idea of an American takeover of Greenland. But now, Rostrup wrote, the rhetoric has escalated so much that she has to acknowledge the possibility.

Trump slams Denmark’s security efforts in Greenland

Trump on Sunday also mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.

“It’s so strategic right now,” Trump had told reporters Sunday as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”

He added: “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

But Ulrik Pram Gad, a global security expert from the Danish Institute for International Studies, wrote in a report last year that “there are indeed Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic, but these vessels are too far away to see from Greenland with or without binoculars.”

U.S. space base in northwestern Greenland

Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled this weekend by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON.”

“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark’s chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump’s influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

The U.S. Department of Defense operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland. It was built following a 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States. It supports missile warning, missile defense, and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

On Denmark’s mainland, the partnership between the U.S. and Denmark has been long-lasting. The Danes buy American F-35 fighter jets and just last year, Denmark’s parliament approved a bill to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil.

Critics say the vote ceded Danish sovereignty to the U.S. The legislation widens a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.

January 6, 2026
Joseph McGettigan, prosecutor in Jerry Sandusky and John du Pont cases, dies at 76

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Joseph E. McGettigan III, a Pennsylvania prosecutor who obtained criminal convictions against Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and chemical heir John du Pont, has died at age 76.

Mr. McGettigan, who lived in the Philadelphia suburb of Media, died on Dec. 31, according to the funeral home Boyd Horrox Givnish Life Celebration Home of East Norriton.

He was a senior deputy attorney general when he served as a lead prosecutor in the trial of Sandusky on child molestation charges in 2012. During the closing argument, Mr. McGettigan showed jurors photos of eight of Sandusky’s victims as children, all of whom had taken the stand.

“He molested and abused and hurt these children horribly,” Mr. McGettigan said. “He knows he did it, and you know he did it. Find him guilty of everything.” Sandusky was convicted of 45 of 48 counts.

Mr. McGettigan was an assistant district attorney in Delaware County when he prosecuted du Pont, who was found guilty of third-degree murder but mentally ill in the death of Olympic gold medal-winning freestyle wrestler David Schultz at du Pont’s palatial estate outside Philadelphia in 1996. Schultz come to live and train at a state-of-the-art training center that du Pont had built on his property.

Du Pont died in a Pennsylvania prison in 2010 at the age of 72. Sandusky, 81, is currently serving a 30- to 60-year sentence in state prison.

Mr. McGettigan’s work as prosecutor, which also included a stint in Philadelphia, often involved murder and child molestation cases. More recently he had been a lawyer in private practice, including work on behalf of crime victims.

Survivors include his wife, Gay Warren; his mother, Ruth L. McGettigan; and six siblings.

January 6, 2026