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  • Officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 say their struggles linger, 5 years after the riot

    Officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 say their struggles linger, 5 years after the riot

    WASHINGTON — As Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time on Jan. 20, 2025, former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell put his phone on “do not disturb” and left it on his nightstand to take a break from the news.

    That evening, after Gonell spent time with family and took his dog on a long walk, his phone started to blow up with calls. He had messages from federal prosecutors, FBI agents, and the federal Bureau of Prisons — all letting him know that the new president had just pardoned about 1,500 people who had been convicted for their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The pardons included rioters who had injured Gonell as he and other officers tried to protect the building.

    “They told me that people I testified against were being released from prison,” Gonell said. “And to be mindful.”

    Gonell was one of the officers who defended the central West Front entrance to the Capitol that day as Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and hundreds of Trump’s supporters broke into the building, echoing his false claims of a stolen election. Gonell was dragged into the crowd by his shoulder straps as he tried to fight people off. He almost suffocated. In court, he testified about injuries to his shoulder and foot that still bother him to this day.

    “They have tried to erase what I did” with the pardons and other attempts to play down the violent attack, Gonell said. “I lost my career, my health, and I’ve been trying to get my life back.”

    Five years after the siege, Gonell and some of the other police officers who fought off the rioters are still coming to terms with what happened, especially after Trump was decisively elected to a second term last year and granted those pardons. Their struggle has been compounded by statements from the Republican president and some GOP lawmakers in Congress minimizing the violence that the officers encountered.

    “It’s been a difficult year,” said Officer Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was also injured as he fought near Gonell in a tunnel on the West Front. Hodges was attacked several times, crushed by the rioters between heavy doors, and beaten in the head as he screamed for help.

    “A lot of things are getting worse,” Hodges said.

    An evolving narrative

    More than 140 police officers were injured during the fighting on Jan. 6, which turned increasingly brutal as the hours wore on.

    Former Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger took over the department six months after the riot. He said in a recent interview that many of his officers were angry when he first arrived, not only because of injuries they suffered but also “they resented the fact that they didn’t have the equipment they needed, the training they needed ” to deal with the unexpectedly violent crowd.

    Several officers who fought the rioters told the Associated Press that the hardest thing to deal with has been the effort by many to play down the violence, despite a massive trove of video and photographic evidence documenting the carnage.

    Trump has called the rioters he pardoned, including those who were most violent toward the police, “patriots” and “hostages.” He called their convictions for harming the officers and breaking into the building “a grave national injustice.”

    “I think that was wrong,” Adam Eveland, a former District of Columbia police officer, said of Trump’s pardons. If there were to be pardons, Eveland said, Trump’s administration should have reviewed every case.

    “I’ve had a hard time processing that,” said Eveland, who fought the rioters and helped to push them off the Capitol grounds.

    The pardons “erased what little justice there was,” said former Capitol Police Officer Winston Pingeon, who was part of the force’s Civil Disturbance Unit on Jan. 6. He left the force several months afterward.

    Pushback from lawmakers and the public

    Hodges and Gonell have been speaking out about their experiences since July 2021, when they testified before the Democratic-led House committee that investigated Jan 6. Since then, they have received support but also backlash.

    At a Republican-led Senate hearing in October on political violence, Hodges testified again as a witness called by Democrats. After Hodges spoke about his experience on Jan. 6, Sen. Peter Welch (D., Vt.) asked the other witnesses whether they supported Trump’s pardons of the rioters, including for those who injured Hodges. Three of the witnesses, all called by Republicans, raised their hands.

    “I don’t know how you would say it wasn’t violent,” says Hodges, who is still a Washington police officer.

    It has not just been politicians or the rioters who have doubted the police. It also is friends and family.

    “My biggest struggle through the years has been the public perception of it,” Eveland said, and navigating conversations with people close to him, including some fellow police officers, who do not think it was a big deal.

    “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that, but ideology is a pretty powerful thing,” he said.

    Improvements in safety and support

    As police officers struggled in the aftermath, Manger, the former Capitol Police chief, said the department had to figure out how to better support them. There were no wellness or counseling services when he arrived, he said, and they were put in to place.

    “The officers who were there and were in the fight — we needed to make sure that they got the help that they needed,” Manger said.

    Manger, who retired in May, also oversaw major improvements to the department’s training, equipment, operational planning, and intelligence. He said the Capitol is now “a great deal safer” than it was when he arrived.

    “If that exact same thing happened again, they would have never breached the building, they would have never gotten inside, they would have never disrupted the electoral count,” Manger said.

    Pingeon, the former Capitol Police officer, said he believes the department is in many ways “unrecognizable” from what it was on Jan. 6 and when he left several months later.

    “It was a wake-up call,” he said.

    Pressing on

    Pingeon, who was attacked and knocked to the ground as he tried to prevent people from entering the Capitol, said Jan. 6 was part of the reason he left the department and moved home to Massachusetts. He has dealt with his experience by painting images of the Capitol and his time there, as well as advocating for nonviolence. He said he now feels ready to forgive.

    “The real trauma and heartache and everything I endured because of these events, I want to move past it,” he said.

    Gonell left the Capitol Police because of his injuries. He has not returned to service, though he hopes to work again. He wrote a book about his experience, and he said he still has post-traumatic stress disorder related to the attack.

    While many of the officers who were there have stayed quiet about their experiences, Eveland said he decided that it was important to talk publicly about Jan. 6 to try to reach people and “come at it from a logical standpoint.”

    Still, he said, “I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that just because something happened to me and was a major part of my world doesn’t mean that everyone else has to understand that or even be sympathetic to that.”

    He added: “The only thing I can do is tell my story, and hopefully the people who respect me will eventually listen.”

  • Hundreds march in silence to honor victims of Swiss bar fire that left 40 dead

    Hundreds march in silence to honor victims of Swiss bar fire that left 40 dead

    CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland — Hundreds marched in silence Sunday to honor the victims of the New Year’s Eve fire at a bar in the Swiss Alpine resort of Crans-Montana, which left 40 dead and many severely injured.

    Somber mourners, many with reddened eyes, filed silently out of the chapel to organ music after the hourlong Mass at the Chapelle Saint-Christophe in Crans-Montana. Some exchanged hugs before marching up a hill to Le Constellation bar.

    Many hundreds of people walked in the dense snaking procession in the bright sunlight past shuttered stores. Up on the mountain overlooking the town, snow machines sent plumes of white flakes into the air.

    At the top of the street, in front of Le Constellation — which is still largely shielded from view by white screens — the swelling crowd stood in near total silence, some weeping.

    Then they broke out into sustained applause for the rescue teams and police who rushed to the scene of horror, their hands in gloves and mittens against the cold. Mourners and well-wishers deposited bouquets at a makeshift memorial piled with flowers, cuddly toys, and other tributes. Some firefighters wiped their eyes too.

    “They went there to party”

    “Through this tragic event, I believe we must all remember that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity,” Véronique Barras, a local resident who knows grieving families, said. “It’s important to support each other, to hug each other, and to move forward towards light.”

    Cathy Premer said her daughter was out celebrating her 17th birthday on New Year’s Eve when she called in the early hours of the morning to say she was stuck because Le Constellation was cordoned off.

    “For the young — but even for adults — it’s hard to understand things that seem inexplicable,” she said. “They went there to party, it’s a destination for Dec. 31, it’s very festive, there were people of many nationalities … and it all turned into a tragedy.”

    In the crowd, Paola Ponti Greppi, an 80-year-old Italian who has a house in Crans-Montana, called for safety checks in bars. “We need more safety in these places because it’s not the only place like this. Why didn’t the town do the proper checks? For me that’s terrible.”

    A Mass for the victims

    During the Mass, the Rev. Gilles Cavin spoke of the “terrible uncertainty” for families unsure if their loved ones are among the dead or still alive among the injured.

    “There are no words strong enough to express the dismay, anguish, and anger of those who are affected in their lives today. And yet, we are here, gathered because silence alone is not enough,” he said.

    In the crowded pews, a grieving woman listened intently, her hands sometimes clasping rosary beads, as speakers delivered readings in German, French, and Italian.

    Forty people died and 119 were injured in the blaze that broke out around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday at Le Constellation bar. Police have said many of the victims were in their teens to mid-20s.

    By Sunday morning, Swiss authorities identified 24 out of the 40 fatalities. They include 18 Swiss citizens — aged as young as 14 — two Italians 16 years old, one dual citizen of Italy and the United Arab Emirates also 16 years old, an 18-year-old Romanian, a 39-year-old French person, and a Turkish citizen, 18.

    A grieving mother

    One of the victims was 16-year-old Arthur Brodard, whose mother had been frantically searching for him.

    “Our Arthur has now left to party in paradise,” a visibly shaken Laetitia Brodard said in a Facebook story posted on Saturday night, speaking to a camera. “We can start our mourning, knowing that he is in peace and in the light.”

    Brodard’s frenzied search for her son reflected the desperation of families of the young people who disappeared during the fire, who did not know whether their loved ones were dead or in the hospital.

    Swiss authorities said the process of identifying victims was particularly hard because of the advanced degree of the burns, requiring the use of DNA samples. Brodard also had given her DNA sample to help in the identification process.

    In her Facebook post, she thanked those who “testified their compassion, their love” and to those who shared information as she anxiously searched and waited for news of her son. Other parents and siblings are still waiting in anguish.

    Bar managers face a criminal investigation

    Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation of the bar managers.

    The two are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm, and involuntarily causing a fire, the Valais region’s chief prosecutor, Beatrice Pilloud, told reporters Saturday. The announcement of the investigation did not name the managers.

    Regional police said Sunday there were no legal grounds so far that would require the managers to be held pending the legal process. They have not been deemed to be a flight risk.

    Investigators have said they believe festive sparkling candles atop Champagne bottles ignited the fire when they came too close to the ceiling of the crowded bar.

    Authorities are looking into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar. The investigation also centers on other safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes, and whether previous work at the site was up to code.

    “Initial witness accounts cited a fire that spread quickly, generating a lot of smoke and a huge wave of heat,” the police statement Sunday said. “Everything happened very fast.”

    Swiss President Guy Parmelin announced a national day of mourning for the victims on Jan. 9.

    France’s Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said 17 patients have received care in France, out of a total of 35 transferred from Switzerland to five European countries. Other patients were planned to be transferred to Germany, Italy, and Belgium.

  • The big obstacles to Trump’s plan for a Venezuelan oil windfall

    The big obstacles to Trump’s plan for a Venezuelan oil windfall

    There’s a familiar ring to President Donald Trump’s plan to send U.S. energy giants to Venezuela to use the wealth generated from rekindling long-stalled oil production to stabilize that country and cement American energy dominance: Similar ambitions accompanied the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

    The quick riches promised did not materialize there, as firms grappled with years of political turmoil and security threats, struggled to negotiate workable contract terms and confronted vexing infrastructure inadequacies. Venezuela may not be any easier, industry analysts warn.

    “One of the clear lessons from Iraq — and it is not unique to Iraq — is that you need to have stability and be able to assess risk before you can start production,” said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a research firm. Until then, he said, companies may not be enthusiastic about making the billions of dollars in investments required in Venezuela.

    It’s unclear which firms Trump was referencing at a news conference Saturday morning, when he said: “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go and spend billions of dollars to fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure.”

    Chevron, which operates there now, declined to comment on plans.

    ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips exited the country and saw their assets seized after refusing to meet the terms of Venezuela’s government nearly two decades ago. ExxonMobil did not respond to requests for comment.

    “It would be premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments,” ConocoPhillips spokesperson Dennis Nuss said in an email.

    But the appeal is clear. Venezuela has one of the biggest oil reserves in the world, estimated at 300 billion barrels.

    “Every major oil company in the world and some of the smaller ones will look closely at this because there are very few places on Earth where you could increase production so much,” said Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American Energy Program at Rice University. “But first you need political stability and clarity.”

    He said restoring peak oil production there would cost up to $100 billion and take about a decade. And that is assuming there is enough political stability for companies to operate unencumbered during that entire period.

    There are other obstacles. The oil in Venezuela is a heavy form of crude that is more difficult to process and carries a heavier carbon footprint than oil pumped elsewhere. Venezuela’s power grid is on the brink, creating an uncertain outlook for oil production, which requires massive amounts of energy. Also, Russian and Chinese firms partnered with Venezuela after U.S. companies left the nation, complicating the reestablishment of U.S. firms.

    Returning to Venezuela has hardly been a central talking point of U.S. oil companies.

    In this era of relatively low oil prices and uncertainty about how robust future demand will be amid an on-again, off-again global energy transition from fossil fuels, firms are anxious about reinvesting tens of billions of dollars more in pumping in Venezuela absent assurances that their investments would be secure for at least a decade, according to industry analysts.

    Trump’s removal of Venezuela’s leader and plan to put the U.S. in charge of the country for now does not ensure that, despite his sweeping promises.

    “We built Venezuela’s oil industry with American talent, drive, and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us,” Trump said. “The oil companies are going to go in. They’re going to spend money there that we’re going to take back the oil that, frankly, we should have taken back a long time ago. A lot of money is coming out of the ground. We’re going to get reimbursed for all of that. We’re going to get reimbursed for everything that we spend.”

    Today, the nation’s oil production is a fraction of what it could be and its infrastructure is badly frayed because of domestic turmoil, the departure of foreign oil companies, and related international sanctions. The nation is pumping a mere 1 million barrels of oil per day, less than 1% of global output. That is also less than a third of its peak production under the Hugo Chávez regime and a quarter of what experts say it is capable of generating.

    That oil has largely been purchased by China.

    The only American company operating in Venezuela is Chevron, with its production constrained by considerable Venezuelan government restrictions.

    “Chevron remains focused on the safety and wellbeing of our employees, as well as the integrity of our assets,” said a statement from Bill Turenne, a company spokesman. “We continue to operate in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations.”

    While acknowledging that firms have reason to be reticent, Monaldi, of Rice University, pointed to forecasts showing Venezuelan oil could be crucial to meet rising global demand over the next decade.

    But none of that can happen overnight.

    “Oil companies do not operate in a vacuum and we are years from significant volume increase,” said Pedro Burelli, a critic of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro now living in the United States, and a former board member of the Venezuelan state oil company. “Regulations and contracts matter, as U.S. oil companies are publicly traded companies with shareholders who will demand rational investment decisions.”

    Oil companies have even been reluctant to increase their rig counts here, despite Trump’s repeated calls for more drilling, amid demand uncertainty and dropping market prices. U.S. oil production soared during the Biden administration, but the pace of growth has slowed since Trump returned to office, with some forecasts predicting declines this year.

    Book said oil companies will be looking to sign contracts that they are confident will be honored for the long term, and there is no government in Venezuela that right now can honor such a contract.

    “Before you make all these big investments and start running operations, you also need a stable country with reliable electricity, functioning ports, and an available workforce,” he said. “A lot of factors go into pulling this off.”

    Trump may have further complicated the outlook for U.S. oil firms returning to Venezuela by declaring that he does not believe the popular opposition leader there, María Corina Machado, commands the respect to run the country immediately following Maduro’s ouster.

    Machado has been a vocal proponent of helping U.S. firms re-establish operations in Venezuela. One of her energy advisers, Evanan Romero, a former Venezuelan oil executive and government minister, stressed in an interview that if the oil firms wish to return, “we will welcome them.”

    “They will make money, Venezuela will make money,” he said.

  • Trump administration misled Congress before Maduro raid, Democrats say

    Trump administration misled Congress before Maduro raid, Democrats say

    In early November, hours before the Republican-led Senate rejected bipartisan legislation to block the Trump administration from conducting a military attack on Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to reassure lawmakers it didn’t intend to.

    He told them that the U.S. lacked legal authority to invade the South American country and oust its president, Nicolás Maduro, and said that doing so would carry major risks, according to two people who attended the classified briefing.

    In the aftermath of Saturday’s raid to capture Maduro and his wife at a fortified military compound in Caracas, top Democrats are accusing Rubio of deliberately misleading Congress.

    During a news conference at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, Rubio, who also serves as White House national security adviser, told reporters that he and other top officials had planned the Maduro operation for months. The acknowledgment led some on Capitol Hill to conclude that the administration was readying assets for the assault while having told lawmakers that the military buildup in the region was not meant to force a regime change.

    “Rubio said that there were not any intentions to invade Venezuela,” Rep. Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, told the Washington Post. “He absolutely lied to Congress.”

    In an interview with the Post later Saturday, Rubio rejected the assertion. He argued that Maduro is under indictment from a U.S. court, and neither the United States nor the European Union recognized him as the legitimate leader of Venezuela. So rather than an invasion, he cast the attack as a “law enforcement operation” that required military assets to conduct.

    Lawmakers previously asked whether the administration “would be invading Venezuela,” Rubio said. “This was not that,” he added.

    Democrats were incredulous at the argument.

    “It absolutely is one hundred percent regime change,” said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

    Smith said that he had asked Rubio directly whether the administration’s military buildup in the region would result in attacks on Venezuelan territory and that the secretary had said no.

    The Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress of the operation until late Saturday morning, sending a short notice that said the president had approved a “military operation in Venezuela to address national security threats posed by the illegitimate Maduro regime.”

    The operation, the notice said, came in response to the Justice Department’s warrant against Maduro, who was transported to New York to await trial.

    Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that Rubio tried to reach him after the raid had begun in the early morning hours but that they were unable to connect.

    Warner, who has had multiple briefings with Rubio over the past few months, declined to say whether he felt the administration had misled Congress but noted that the timing for the operation — with lawmakers days away from returning to Washington after a holiday break — was not “idle chance.”

    “Doing this during a congressional break raises huge questions,” he said in an interview.

    Senior Republicans called on the administration to brief lawmakers even while expressing near-unified support for the operation. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said in separate statements that they had spoken with senior officials early Saturday and wanted the administration to brief Congress in the coming week.

    Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) demanded far more information.

    “We want to know the administration’s objectives, its plans to prevent a humanitarian and geopolitical disaster that plunges us into another endless war — or one that trades one corrupt dictator for another,” Schumer told reporters.

    The Senate is set to vote this week on another war powers resolution that, if passed, would block the administration from conducting further military action in Venezuela. Trump said Saturday that the U.S. could carry out a larger “second wave” of attacks but that he did not think doing so would be necessary because Venezuela’s interim leader was cooperating with U.S. demands.

    Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) said he hoped the new measure would get more Republican support. He, too, accused the administration of lying to lawmakers and the public.

    At least two of the Republicans who considered supporting the measure that was narrowly defeated in November received calls from Rubio on Saturday, according to their public statements.

    “Congress should have been informed about the operation earlier and needs to be involved as this situation evolves,” said Susan Collins (R., Maine), one of the lawmakers who signaled that they might support the last resolution but ultimately opposed it.

    Shortly after news of the attack broke Saturday morning, Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), a skeptic of expansive U.S. military commitments abroad, posted on social media that he wanted to know “what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force” from Congress.

    Hours later, Lee posted again that he had spoken with Rubio and was satisfied that the attack “likely” was within the president’s authority.

  • How Trump’s foreign intervention could shake up the midterm elections

    How Trump’s foreign intervention could shake up the midterm elections

    President Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela will test Americans’ appetite for regime change, inserting a new and unpredictable element ahead of midterm elections this year that have so far been dominated by domestic issues.

    Democrats immediately began arguing that overnight action on Saturday was an abandonment of Trump’s promise to focus on improving lives at home, while many Republicans insisted it was an expansion, rather than a shift, in Trump’s “America First” mantra.

    Trump on Saturday said the United States had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and planned to “run the country” during a transition period, an action Trump cast as part of a new era of “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere.” The president touted the operation as a boost to U.S. interests: a blow to the drug trade, an opportunity for American oil companies, and a show of strength.

    But his argument drew skepticism on both the right and the left, as critics warned against dragging the U.S. into regime change and costly wars. Recent polls suggest there is significant political risk for Trump, who is already facing discord within his base. A CBS News poll in November found that 70% of Americans opposed U.S. military action in Venezuela and that the vast majority did not view the South American country as a major threat to national security. Americans in both parties have grown increasingly skeptical of foreign intervention in recent decades.

    Republican leaders mostly backed the president, but some expressed doubts as Trump outlined a potentially expansive U.S. role in Venezuela and said he is “not afraid of boots on the ground.” Many Democrats framed the attack as a violation of Trump’s campaign promises to “get rid of all these wars starting all over the place” and to avoid the type of foreign entanglements that bedeviled many of his predecessors and bred cynicism within his base.

    While foreign policy does not always play a central role in domestic elections, it often informs broader opinions about competence and focus. President Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan undermined his argument that he was restoring faith and effectiveness in government that had been hampered by the COVID-19 epidemic. President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq with faulty intelligence claims, and the attempts at nation-building that followed, damaged his party’s credibility and helped pave the way for Trump’s takeover of the GOP.

    “What Americans want is an American president that’s going to care about them … and I think what this shows is the president’s more concerned about what’s going on in Venezuela, what’s going on in Argentina than he is on what’s going on in Pennsylvania and Ohio,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) in an interview.

    The politics of the intervention are hard to assess immediately, some strategists said, as details of the U.S.’s plans remain unclear and the situation in Venezuela is still unfolding. The issue’s relevance to voters could change based on the ultimate extent of the U.S.’s involvement and Venezuela’s stability in the months to come. Trump on Saturday said Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, appeared “willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great,” but she later criticized the U.S.’s actions as “barbarity.”

    Trump had been ramping up pressure on Maduro for months, but the action in Venezuela probably caught many Americans off guard, given that it did not follow a provocation like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    Republicans embracing his latest action in Venezuela are betting that the fallout there will be limited, and even some staunch critics of foreign intervention on the right declined to criticize Trump on Saturday. But a few echoed the concerns from Democrats.

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), a proponent of America First policies who has become one of Trump’s biggest critics from the right, questioned his justifications for the attack — noting that the fentanyl responsible for most U.S. drug deaths comes primarily from places other than Venezuela — and reiterated her worry that he is veering from principles on which he campaigned.

    “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end,” she wrote on X. “Boy were we wrong.”

    Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), who has long been at odds with Trump, said the president, at his news conference, had undercut earlier suggestions from administration officials that the action in Venezuela was a limited effort to apprehend Maduro. Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump adviser turned MAGA commentator, initially hailed Maduro’s capture as a “stunning overnight achievement” on his show — but after Trump’s news conference expanding on the U.S. role in Venezuela, he wondered if the plan would “hark back to our fiasco in Iraq under Bush.”

    Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.) called the Venezuela operation “successful” but added in a statement online, “We still need more answers, especially to questions regarding the next steps in Venezuela’s transition.”

    Other Republicans echoed Trump’s points about U.S. interests in the region. Raheem Kassam, a political strategist who is editor of the conservative National Pulse, suggested Trump’s MAGA base will “warm” to the idea that the Venezuela action is America First and noted that many supporters also embraced Trump’s long-shot ambitions to annex Greenland.

    Kassam doesn’t see the issue playing into the midterms much yet — but “if it turns into a disaster, certainly.”

    “These things are very risky,” he acknowledged. Trump “will know what risk he’s taking and people know what it means if Caracas suddenly overnight turns into a complete powder keg.”

    Some Republicans were skeptical that the U.S. would be as involved as Trump suggested Saturday was possible. “The president gets a lot of leeway up to a certain point,” said GOP strategist David Urban, “and I think that point would be, having U.S. soldiers in some meaningful capacity in Venezuela. I don’t think you’ll see that.”

    Democrats, meanwhile, questioned the legality of the military action in Venezuela. Some also sought to use it to build their longtime case that Trump is distracted from the issues that matter most to voters.

    “The American people don’t want to ‘run’ a foreign country while our leaders fail to improve life in this one,” wrote Pete Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary and potential Democratic 2028 presidential candidate, on social media, arguing that Trump was “failing on the economy and losing his grip on power at home.”

    Buoyed by victories in November’s elections in New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats are focusing intensely on the issue of affordability heading into the 2026 midterms. Trump’s advisers signaled after those elections that they would be refocusing on the economy, and Trump began to tout his economic achievements at rallies. Now, many Democrats say the operation in Venezuela could undercut that effort.

    “His biggest problem is that costs are continuing to go up, and he promised people they would go down, and whenever people see him creating some other kind of a problem, rather than buckling down and trying to un-break that key promise, they turn against him more,” argued Andrew Bates, a Democratic strategist and former White House communications official under Biden.

    Whit Ayres, a longtime GOP pollster, emphasized that it’s hard to predict the politics of Trump’s actions in Venezuela without more data.

    “What I can say based upon polling is that one of Trump’s strengths in public opinion polls is that he’s viewed as strong, and not indecisive or weak, and in that sense this plays to his strength,” he said of the Venezuela operation.

  • Horoscopes: Monday, Jan. 5, 2026

    ARIES (March 21-April 19). Your success formula couldn’t be simpler: Stick close to people who live the way you want to live, and you’ll pick up their magic by osmosis. The vibes mesh, the momentum builds, and everyone gets a lift.

    TAURUS (April 20-May 20). When is confidence too much? When it makes people certain without demanding any evidence — or ignoring evidence to the contrary — of the assertion. It is better to be underconfident than to be certain of something that isn’t true.

    GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Welcome it all — even the stuff you wouldn’t choose. It’s how you stay in conversation with reality instead of wrestling it. Resistance narrows your view; acceptance opens it. Bonus: Acceptance feels a lot better, too.

    CANCER (June 22-July 22). You might be tempted to act out of spite. Check the emotional price tag. Spite is expensive. You pay twice: once in energy, once in fallout. Choose something that feels good now and later. It’s more powerful to play the long game.

    LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). You can tell your taste is changing because new things suddenly appeal to you. You’re willing to be a little adventurous with a fresh pursuit, and it’s thrilling to feel the pull of something you didn’t even know existed until now.

    VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). When someone confuses you, don’t try to parse the details, because the answer won’t be there. Instead of zooming in, step back. Relationships will only reveal their logic at a distance. What are the human needs driving the action?

    LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Are the minutes and hours you’ve spent in fantasyland a waste? Your creativity is boundless. A little fantasy is fun. A lot of fantasy leads to unreasonable ideas and stratospheric possibilities that no one else would come up with.

    SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). The schedule is tight, but your vibe doesn’t have to be. Keep your pace even and your pulse low. The rule of cool? Everything looks cooler in slow motion. Even if you feel a bit hectic on the inside, don’t rush.

    SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). When you say yes, things begin to happen. You’ll end up in plans you never would have dreamed up alone, and they’ll carry you into unexpected adventures. But that’s all later. For today, all you have to do is say yes.

    CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). History is full of examples of people doing things that made no sense on paper. So the fact that a goal is unreasonable doesn’t automatically make it unattainable, which you will prove with today’s astonishing outcome.

    AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). You may have a bit of help, but you’re the one keeping everything on track today, which is why you feel a bit of pressure. You’re leading from within the ranks, and though you’re not the figurehead this time, none of it would get done without you.

    PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). The orange seed looks like the lemon seed, and both resemble the grapefruit seed. You can’t tell the fruit from the seed, and today’s project is similarly mysterious. These are early days. You won’t know the color of it until things ripen.

    TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Jan. 5). Welcome to your Year of Sublime Competence. You’ll handle life with style and move through life with less friction and more serendipity. Plans come together easily, schedules cooperate, and you find exactly who or what you need. More highlights: unexpected bonuses or gifts, a viral moment that brings doors knocking and adventures with people who get you completely. Libra and Aries adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 27, 5, 6, 12 and 8.

  • Horoscopes: Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026

    ARIES (March 21-April 19). Because your ambition can’t be stopped, before one project has ended you instinctively start looking for what’s next. Your natural rhythm between maintaining what you already have and seeking the new keeps the action popping.

    TAURUS (April 20-May 20). When the task is one of precision, go with the person who knows exactly what they’re doing. But today’s task is about the energy. The unconventional pick, like an eager beginner or an imaginative outlier, will be a good fit.

    GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Secrets build trust, curiosity and a bond. People are more likely to trade secrets than they are to simply give them up. In sharing secrets, you will reveal and receive thrilling surprises, layer by layer.

    CANCER (June 22-July 22). Change happens whether we want it to or not. We don’t have to accept or even acknowledge the change for it to unfold. The power move is to welcome reality and integrate developments into your experience.

    LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). You may not see yourself as a territorial person, but you have boundaries you don’t even know about until someone crosses them. The good news is, those little twinges of defensiveness are clues that reveal what matters to you.

    VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You can adjust your internal investment in a relationship without doing anything to the external one. There’s no need to cut anyone off or stage a confrontation. This isn’t about drama. It’s about engaging on your own terms.

    LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). The way you communicate is warm, charming and deals a greater impact than the mere content of words. Your intentions will come through, articulated by your heart and received by theirs.

    SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). You’re involved in a bit of a gamble, and the odds keep changing. Don’t let it deter you, though. You are playing at a high level, and you can continue mitigating your risk as you go. You’ve won before, and you’ll win again.

    SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). You’re now a bit distant from something you once defined yourself by. It’s akin to the liberating Zen state of nonattachment. You know you’re finally there when the thing that once broke your heart becomes light enough to smile or even laugh about.

    CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Be ready because someone else’s small mistake gives you an opening. Maybe they forget and you remember. Their lapse gives you a chance to be helpful, kind or socially skillful. You’ll be the hero of the moment.

    AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). You may wish you were simple and easy to satisfy, but you’re human, so you’re not. Your needs are layered and as specific as they are ever-changing. Have you wasted time chasing something that cannot satisfy you? No, because you learned from it.

    PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). The tables turn. Someone who once helped you now needs something you can provide. You won’t wait to be asked. You’ll offer what you think would help. The exchange will be lucky for all.

    TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Jan. 4). Welcome to your Year of Refreshing Realness. You can perform with the best of them, but you’re in the mood to stop performing and start expressing. People fall in love with the unfiltered version of you. You’ll attract collaborators, partners and an audience. More highlights: a financial surprise that solves a headache, gaining a skill ridiculously fast and social variety. Pisces and Gemini adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 20, 29, 3, 5 and 46.

  • Dear Abby | Loss of pet has complicated couple’s marriage

    DEAR ABBY: I lost my beloved puppy, “Truffle,” nine months ago. She was almost 15. I had to euthanize her because she was ill and suffering. I cannot begin to describe the depth of grief I’m experiencing. Her loss has been harder for me than any human loss. We had a connection that words cannot express. Truffle captured my soul. I work from home, and we spent every day together. I’m thankful that I had a lot more time with her because of this.

    My husband doesn’t understand my grief and can’t wrap his mind around my affection for an animal. He has tried to be understanding, but now he says he can no longer be supportive because it’s senseless for me to grieve this way. He said that life should be about HIM now, and my grieving is taking away from the attention he should have.

    I have learned to silence my pain in his presence, and this just feels wrong and unfair. To be completely transparent, I am far more broken than what he has ever known. I’m getting grief counseling he is not aware of, I keep journals and I am compiling a memory book for my precious Truffle puppy.

    I feel like I can’t win, because if he knows I am not being honest about how I feel, he’ll be upset (rightfully so). But he will also be upset if he knows the depth of grief I am dealing with. Any advice on how to handle this?

    — SUFFERING IN SILENCE

    DEAR SUFFERING: Please accept my sympathy for the loss of your beloved furry family member. Truffle was your companion and confidant for a long time. That you miss her companionship is understandable.

    What you said about your husband is revealing. Is it possible you doted so much on Truffle that he felt jealous, and now that she’s gone, he is relieved that he will finally have his wife fully back? If that’s the case, you may have work to do.

    That you are receiving grief counseling is wonderful. I think the memory book is a great idea, IF it helps you through the process and doesn’t hold you back. At this point, I don’t think you need to hide anything from your husband. You both could benefit from talking about all of this with a licensed marriage and family therapist.

    ** ** **

    DEAR ABBY: A man in a Facebook group has been rude and unpleasant to me, as well as to others. I blocked him, and life has been more pleasant since. My wife refuses to block him and encourages a Facebook relationship, which brings him back into my life. Am I wrong to feel she should be more supportive of me? I would absolutely support her if she were in a similar situation.

    — WANTS PEACE IN GEORGIA

    DEAR WANTS PEACE: Does your wife discuss this unpleasant person’s posts with you? If she does, tell her to cut it out because it upsets you. Apart from that, let her make her own communication choices because they are her decision and not yours.

  • Maduro, wife to face drug charges, court appearance in coming days

    Maduro, wife to face drug charges, court appearance in coming days

    Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife could appear in federal court in Manhattan within days to face narco-terrorism charges, which, if accepted by a jury, could put them behind bars on American soil for decades.

    A plane carrying Maduro arrived at a suburban airport outside New York on Saturday evening. He was expected to be processed by Drug Enforcement Administration officials and will be held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn until a court appearance, most likely on Monday, according to people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

    Maduro’s capture and indictment have drawn protests from some lawmakers and scholars, who say international law does not allow President Donald Trump to unilaterally attack a foreign country and bring its leader to the U.S. to face charges.

    Even those critics, however, concede that under Supreme Court precedent, those arguments are unlikely to have much impact on federal legal proceedings once Maduro gets to U.S. court.

    Trump and his top aides defended the decision to capture Maduro. They noted that the U.S. and many other countries have long viewed Maduro as an illegitimate leader who has remained in power despite losing the country’s most recent election. Officials sought to portray the extraordinary military action against Venezuela as a straightforward law enforcement operation, with the military backing up the Justice Department as they sought to bring someone to U.S. court.

    “At its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American justice,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a news conference with Trump on Saturday.

    A sweeping four-count indictment against Maduro was unsealed in the Southern District of New York on Saturday. It alleged that he, his wife, Cilia Flores, and members of their inner circle illegally enriched themselves as they conspired to flood the United States with cocaine. Among the charges: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.

    “The defendants, and other corrupt members of the regime facilitated the empowerment and growth of violent narco-terrorist groups fueling their organizations with cocaine profits,” the indictment reads. “These narco-terrorist organizations not only worked directly with and sent profits to high-ranking Venezuelan officials, but also reaped the benefits of the increased value of that cocaine at each transshipment point along the way to the United States, where demand and thus the price of cocaine is highest.”

    The remarkable prosecution of a foreign leader in American federal court was the result of Trump’s deployment of the U.S. military to strike Venezuela overnight and capture Maduro and his wife, bringing them to New York to face charges.

    Trump at the Saturday news conference gave reporters a more expansive set of reasons for Maduro’s capture, saying that the U.S. attack was justified, in part, because Venezuela stole U.S. oil — claims that are not included in the indictment. He also said the United States will “run” the South American country until a succession plan is determined.

    Critics said Trump’s arguments raised more legal questions.

    “If the United States asserts the right to use military force to invade and capture foreign leaders it accuses of criminal conduct, what prevents China from claiming the same authority over Taiwan’s leadership?” Sen. Mark R. Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement. “What stops Vladimir Putin from asserting similar justification to abduct Ukraine’s president? Once this line is crossed, the rules that restrain global chaos begin to collapse, and authoritarian regimes will be the first to exploit it.”

    International law experts, however, said that while those issues may be debated in Congress and international bodies, they are unlikely to affect the legal proceedings against Maduro and his co-defendants in U.S. court.

    A line of Supreme Court cases starting in the late 19th century makes clear that “you can’t claim that you were abducted and therefore the court should not be allowed to assert authority over you,” said Geoffrey Corn, who heads the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University and is a former top legal adviser to the U.S. Army.

    “Maduro is not going to be able to avoid being brought to trial because he was abducted so to speak, even if he can establish it violated International law.” Corn said, adding that in his view the administration’s overnight military operation lacked any “plausible legal basis.”

    Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law professor who previously headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in the George W. Bush administration, noted on Substack that similar arguments were raised after U.S. forces deposed Panamanian leader Manuel Antonio Noriega on Jan. 3, 1990. Courts upheld the government’s right to try Noriega, who was convicted on drug charges in 1992 and sentenced to 40 years in federal prison.

    The charging document against Maduro unsealed Saturday — known as a superseding indictment — is an update to charges filed against him and his associates during the first Trump administration in 2020. At the time, U.S. leaders conceded that they couldn’t go into Venezuela and arrest Maduro. The charges essentially made him an international fugitive, who risked arrest if he traveled outside his country.

    The superseding indictment contains the same four charges as the original 2020 indictment. But the new indictment also names Flores, who was not a co-defendant in the 2020 case. Some of the other co-defendants — all part of Maduro’s inner circle — are also different, including Maduro’s son, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro.

    The younger Maduro does not appear to have been captured.

    U.S. authorities have alleged that Maduro and his inner circle worked with international drug trafficking groups to transform Venezuela into a transshipment hub for moving massive amounts of cocaine to the United States. Maduro and his associates created a culture of corruption in which the Venezuelan elite made themselves rich through drug trafficking, the indictment alleged. Drug traffickers, the document said, gave these leaders a portion of their profits in exchange for protection and aid.

    “In turn, these politicians used the cocaine fueled payments to maintain and augment their political power,” the indictment states.

    Jeremy Paul, a law professor at Northeastern University, said the Trump administration had no legal authority to stage the military intervention, but he agreed that it probably would not derail Maduro’s prosecution.

    The administration’s justification is “a terrifying theory, because, as I have been saying to people, you’re basically saying that U.S. prosecutors and a grand jury is all you need as justification for sending the military into another country,” Paul said. “That can’t be the law.”

    Trump also faced criticism Saturday from Democratic lawmakers for striking Venezuela and capturing Maduro just a month after he pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court last year on drug trafficking charges.

    Maduro’s case in the Southern District of New York was randomly assigned to U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old jurist appointed by President Bill Clinton and who last year was among a group of judges who prohibited the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan immigrants. Those findings are under appeal.

    Hellerstein did not take any action in the case against Maduro on Saturday, and an appearance in court has not yet been publicly announced. But public officials, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, have said that officials are arranging this weekend to transport Maduro and his wife to New York.

  • China condemns U.S. strike in Venezuela after top diplomat met with Maduro

    China condemns U.S. strike in Venezuela after top diplomat met with Maduro

    China strongly condemned the overnight U.S. strike on Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, which came just hours after a Chinese special envoy met with the Venezuelan leader to reaffirm Beijing’s support for the imperiled regime, calling the action “deeply shocking” and a serious violation of international law.

    Shortly before the surprise U.S. attack unfolded, a delegation of Chinese officials arrived in Caracas, led by Beijing’s special envoy for Latin American and Caribbean affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi, and met with Maduro to discuss the rising tensions with the United States. It was Maduro’s last publicly reported official meeting before he and his wife were captured by U.S. forces and flown out of the country.

    President Donald Trump on Saturday said that the United States will now “run” Venezuela for an unspecified amount of time, following the operation that saw over 150 U.S. military aircraft marshal for a spectacular extraction mission.

    Maduro’s exit marked an abrupt end to a monthslong effort by China to support the embattled leader, as fears grew in Beijing that the United States would soon attempt to seize Chinese-flagged oil tankers as part of its blockade of the country. Beijing has been the regime’s most influential global ally and Venezuela’s primary financial lifeline through loans and oil purchases, accounting for around 80% of the country’s total oil exports.

    At 7:30 p.m. Friday, Maduro shared a final message on his Telegram channel, lauding his meeting with Qiu as reaffirming “the strong bonds of brotherhood and friendship between China and Venezuela. A relationship that stands the test of time!” It was accompanied by a video set to triumphant music showing Qiu — a vice-minister level diplomat — and his team walking through what appeared to be the hallways of the presidential palace and shaking hands with Maduro.

    Just 6½ hours later, Chinese officials in Caracas were stunned when the U.S. strike began, setting off a furious string of missives back to Beijing, according to one Chinese diplomat familiar with the situation. “It was completely shocking,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to media.

    On Saturday, China’s Foreign Ministry issued a sharp rebuke, strongly condemning the U.S. raid. “Such hegemonic acts of the U.S. seriously violate international law and Venezuela’s sovereignty, and threaten peace and security in Latin America,” it said in a statement. Separately, the Foreign Ministry and China’s embassy in Venezuela warned citizens to avoid traveling to the country.

    “China employed rare, forceful language previously reserved for political assassinations and mass casualty events,” sail Neil Thomas, a fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

    According to Venezuelan reports and the Chinese official, Qiu met with Maduro to review the roughly 600 political and economic agreements between the two countries and address concerns over the rising threat of a U.S. military intervention and potential threats to Chinese oil tankers.

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Maduro in May last year on the sidelines of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations. According to the Chinese readout of the meeting, Xi described the two countries’ relationship as an “all-weather strategic partnership” and reaffirmed China’s support for Venezuela’s sovereignty.

    Asked on Saturday how the takeover would affect U.S. relations with major oil buyers including China, Trump said that “in terms of other countries that want oil, we’re in the oil business, we’re going to sell it to them. We’re not going to say we’re not going to sell it to them.”

    China has long viewed Venezuela as a key political ally in Latin America as it seeks to expand its influence in the region. This month, Beijing released its first major Latin America strategy update in nearly a decade, more explicitly incorporating security cooperation — including military exchanges — into its framework and reaffirming support for the sovereignty of regional partners.

    Republican lawmakers focused on China policy welcomed the move Saturday, saying it curtailed Chinese influence in the region. “The Trump Administration’s decisive action against Nicolás Maduro removes a Chinese ally from power and makes the world a safer place. China’s partnership with Maduro propped up an authoritarian ruler who worked with our nation’s adversaries and hurt the American people,” said Rep. John Moolenaar (R., Mich.), chairperson of the House Select Committee on China.

    Analysts say that the potential seizure of Venezuela’s government by the United States is unlikely to seriously undercut Beijing’s broader efforts to expand its regional presence.

    “Left-leaning governments in the region will likely lean further toward Beijing as a preferred economic partner and diplomatic alternative to Washington. This strike is unlikely to dissuade China’s regional trade and investment; Beijing requires booming exports to sustain growth, and Washington currently lacks a competitive economic diplomacy strategy to match its security presence,” said Thomas.

    Trump on Saturday lambasted Maduro’s regime for facilitating the growing influence of U.S. adversaries in the region, but stopped short of naming China explicitly. “Venezuela was increasingly hosting foreign adversaries in our region and acquiring menacing offensive weapons that could threaten us,” said Trump. “They used those weapons last night.”

    In recent months, Maduro has called on China, as well as Russia and Iran, to provide weapons and other assistance amid rising U.S. pressure. According to documents obtained by the Washington Post, Maduro drafted a letter appealing to Xi for “expanded military cooperation” in the face of U.S. escalation, including a request to expedite the production of radar detection systems by Chinese companies.