Category: World News

By Annie Karni / New York Times / Jan. 3, 2026, 10:46 a.m. ET

While President Trump crowed on Saturday about the dramatic capture of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela by U.S. authorities, Democrats in Congress sounded alarms about the legality of the action and raised questions about recent briefings in which administration officials assured them that they were not seeking regime change in the nation.

Senator Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, accused Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of having “blatantly” lied to Congress when they said the administration’s objective in Venezuela was not about toppling Mr. Maduro. He called the move to oust the Venezuelan leader “disastrous,” arguing that it would further isolate the United States on the global stage.

“Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the Administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war,” Mr. Kim, a former national security official in the Obama administration, wrote on social media.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat who represents a district in which Venezuelan immigrants cheered for the news, said that Mr. Maduro’s capture was “welcome” but that the way it was done raised serious questions.

Early Saturday, January 3rd, the Trump regime conducted a blatant and illegal act of war against Venezuela by bombing civilian and military sites and illegally kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

This act of aggression is a imperialistic continuation of U.S. policies against the sovereign South American country with attempts to seize and plunder Venezuela’s natural resources and threatens the sovereignty of other countries in Latin America.

The aggression goes against the will of the American people and against our Constitution. Nearly 70% of Americans oppose another war and reject the endless cycle of military interventions carried out in their name.

Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to military action in Venezuela, according to a Quinnipiac poll published in mid-December amid an escalation of U.S. pressure on President Nicolás Maduro.

Sixty-three percent of respondents told Quinnipiac they are against military action against Caracas, which President Donald Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out, with just 25 percent expressing support. And 53 percent of respondents said they opposed the administration’s use of military strikes to kill alleged drug smugglers in international waters.

As domestic and international condemnations of the attack and kidnapping mount up, there are typical sycophantic expressions of support from Trumpian Republicans.

Trump bombs Venezuelan land for first time: Is war imminent?

By Usaid Siddiqui / AlJaseera / Tue, December 30, 2025

United States President Donald Trump said the US carried out a land-based strike on Venezuela on Monday, marking a sharp escalation in Washington’s recent military activity against the South American nation.

Trump said the operation had targeted a docking facility being used to load boats carrying narcotics. Venezuelan authorities, however, have yet to confirm the incident.

Tensions between Washington and Caracas have risen sharply since September, when the Trump administration began a series of strikes on Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which the US government claims are trafficking drugs.

However, despite aerial strikes on more than two dozen boats, which have killed at least 100 people, the US has presented no evidence of drug trafficking.

More recently, US forces have seized Venezuelan oil tankers, which it claims are carrying sanctioned oil and ordered a naval blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers near the coast.

Caracas has long accused Washington of using allegations of drug trafficking as a pretext for forcing regime change in Venezuela, raising renewed concerns about the legality of such actions and the risk of a broader conflict. Indeed, legal experts say the targeting of vessels in international waters likely violates US and international law and amounts to extrajudicial executions.

Here is a screen recording of a 60 Minutes segment about the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison in El Salvador, which was intended to be aired December 22, 2025 but was pulled last minute for unclear reasons. Despite being pulled, it aired on Global-TV in Canada anyway.

It was pulled due to corporate censorship.

Here is an analysis by Salon – Reader Supported News

CBS News segment yanked off the air at the last minute by editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was apparently showcased in Canada, with its content quickly spreading online.

The “60 Minutes” story, “Inside CECOT,” featured testimonies from Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration from the U.S. to CECOT, a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador. Weiss canned the segment on Sunday, just three hours before it was set to air, saying it “wasn’t ready” to be presented.

By William Menard / Op-Ed San Diego U-T / December 12, 2025

Immigration officers have ignited a global outcry recently as masked ICE agents have patrolled communities across the country, arresting people at their homes, work and schools. While this is extremely distressing, ICE is now taking actions that have received much less attention but are just as concerning: arresting immigrants lawfully applying for green cards.

A few weeks ago, I was preparing my client and her husband for their green card interview at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service field office in San Diego. My client was from Australia, lawfully entered the United States, and had no criminal record whatsoever.  While she was here, she fell in love with her husband, a U.S. citizen and veteran of the U.S. Navy who received numerous commendations during his service. They lived together with their dog in a San Diego suburb.

My client’s only issue was minor — she had overstayed her visa in the United States for a few months. This was extremely typical. Federal statute explicitly permits spouses of U.S. citizens to apply for permanent residence even if they had previously overstayed a visa. I had submitted hundreds of nearly identical applications in the past without any issue.

Sean McKaveney Wins Men’s Division

by: Julian Del Gaudio / Fox5 San Diego / Dec. 10, 2025 

24 hours. Below freezing temperatures. The adventure of a lifetime.

Sean McKaveney’s vacations are unlike any other. He’s a lawyer by day with a lust for life’s ultimate adventures.

One of his recent adventures was the Antarctic Ice Ultra 50k, a total of 31 miles and the ultimate test.

“The wind was howling, it was minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit,” said McKaveney, “We started just about 15 runners. You’re looking through the start gate and all you see is white in every direction, the wind is just pounding your face.”

There’s been a spike in detentions of Afghans living in San Diego recently and it’s being condemned by the local chapter of America’s largest Muslim civil rights group, CAIR, which stands for Council on American-Islamic Relations.

In a statement issued Dec. 3, the Executive Director, Tazheen Nizam of San Diego’s CAIR said:

“This past week, our office has seen a spike in calls from Afghan community members suddenly facing new threats to their status and safety. This morning, I accompanied an Afghan evacuee to what ICE claimed was a routine check-in in San Jose; despite full cooperation, he was detained immediately. We’re hearing the same fear from long-time green card holders, already-vetted refugees, and families who have waited years to reunite with loved ones now trapped in limbo.

By Steve Rodriguez

First comes the sighting of a Venezuelan boat.
Just about any fishing boat will suffice.
Next, fixing the target in a missile’s
crosshairs. Followed by a dramatic
blasting of the vessel. Bright flash
of light ensues, conveniently captured
by camera for later media airing.

Any talk of a quick invasion and easy ‘regime change’ is dangerously misleading.

By Mark Hertling / The Bulwark – Reader Supported News / Nov 13, 2025

OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS, the United States has embarked on a controversial maritime campaign in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific targeting small Venezuelan and Colombian vessels alleged to be engaged in drug smuggling. Under an asserted “narcoterrorist” deterrence operation, the United States has thus far carried out nineteen twenty lethal strikes on small boats in international waters, killing at least seventy-six people, all undertaken without the transparency, oversight, or legal foundation that normally governs the use of American force.

The Trump administration insists these are long-needed and decisive counternarcotics operations. But U.N. human-rights experts warn that the strikes may “amount[] to extrajudicial executions,” and allies with territory and citizens in the Caribbean are raising alarms about legal exposure, civilian risk, and regional instability. With the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group near to arriving on station and President Trump threatening “hundreds more” strikes, the mission looks less like enhanced interdiction and far more like the early shaping operations for regime-change in Venezuela.

By Csaba Petre

Living in a coastal community such as Ocean Beach raises questions about environmental conservation, sustainable use of resources, and equity of coastal access in San Diego. Given the scope of these issues, one may question the efficacy of individual contributions toward the conservation of threatened habitats and other environmental endeavors. These questions have been sharpened in the present Trumpian era of pro-industry sentiment wrapped in climate change denialism at the national level.

Clear answers are hard to formulate alone; it takes a community to tackle pressing environmental concerns. Recently, Coastal Roots Farm in Encinitas facilitated this global yet local conversation, featuring two environmental documentaries as part of their Farm Film and Music Series: Faka’apa’apa & Out of Mined, as well as an informative panel discussion. The event took place on a recent, chilly late October night on the farm’s property. It had the feel of a summer family movie night in the park, but with a message of pressing urgency.

The panel was made up of: Mayela Manasjan (moderator), executive director of the Association of Women in Water, Energy & Environment; Dr. Greg Rouse – Marine Biologist at Scripps Institute of Oceanography; Coach Jackson – Founder and executive director of Coastal Defenders; and Amber Sparks – Marine Biologist and Co-founder of the Blue Latitudes Foundation.

The Trump administration’s murderous strikes on small boats at sea constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings.

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout / October 30, 2025

As the Trump administration continues to murder people in small boats on the high seas and mounts the largest U.S. military buildup in decades in the Caribbean, it is moving inexorably toward an all-out, illegal attack and forcible regime change in Venezuela.

Despite Team Trump’s feeble attempts to legally justify its ocean strikes, which have now killed 57 people since early September, those extrajudicial killings are also unlawful.

Donald Trump’s murderous campaign came into focus on February 20, when the State Department designated eight drug trafficking organizations, including Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations. Although the administration has attempted — so far unsuccessfully — to use that designation to justify sending immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump is now invoking it in an effort to validate his illegal strikes at sea.

Moreover, on March 15, Trump issued “A Proclamation,” alleging that Tren de Aragua has been engaged, in association with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in “irregular warfare” in the United States, with no explanation of what is meant by irregular warfare. But on February 26, most U.S. intelligence agencies had made a finding that Tren de Aragua was neither controlled by the Venezuelan government, nor was it committing crimes in the United States on its orders.

When Trump is fighting the “enemy within” America and kicking out anyone who can’t prove they belong here?

By Robert Reich / Reader Supported News – Substack / October 13, 2025

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the U.S. will allow Qatar to build an Air Force facility at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, where Qatari F-15 fighter jets and Qatari pilots will train alongside US troops.

“The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots to enhance our combined training, increase the lethality, interoperability,” Hegseth said at the Pentagon during a meeting with his Qatari counterpart Saoud bin Abdulrahman al-Thani. “It’s just another example of our partnership. And I hope you know, Your Excellency, that you can count on us.”

What?