Trump wants to unlock Venezuela’s oil reserves but the world doesn’t have much appetite for more oil

Trump wants to unlock Venezuela’s oil reserves but the world doesn’t have much appetite for more oil

The Wall Street Journal reports: For months, the U.S. sold its pressure campaign against Venezuela as a way to curtail drug trafficking. Now, it’s about getting American energy companies access to one of the world’s largest oil bounties. The Trump administration’s move to oust Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in a surprise military operation early Saturday will pave the way for U.S. oil companies to regain a foothold in the South American nation, President Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago press conference….

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Bipartisan opposition to data center boom puts AI industry’s growth plans at risk

Bipartisan opposition to data center boom puts AI industry’s growth plans at risk

CNBC reports: Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and right-wing Gov. Ron DeSantis agree on virtually nothing. But they found common ground this year as leading skeptics of the artificial intelligence industry’s data center boom. The alignment of two national figures on the left and right signals that a political reckoning is brewing over the AI industry’s impact on electricity prices, grid stability and the labor market. The opposition could slow the industry’s development plans if it reaches a broad bipartisan…

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Hundreds of iceberg earthquakes detected at the crumbling end of Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier

Hundreds of iceberg earthquakes detected at the crumbling end of Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier

Copernicus / ESA, CC BY By Thanh-Son Pham, Australian National University Glacial earthquakes are a special type of earthquake generated in cold, icy regions. First discovered in the northern hemisphere more than 20 years ago, these quakes occur when huge chunks of ice fall from glaciers into the sea. Until now, only a very few have been found in the Antarctic. In a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, I present evidence for hundreds of these quakes in Antarctica…

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Trump’s imperial ambitions

Trump’s imperial ambitions

Julian Borger writes: Trump’s belief in his own global omnipotence, and his desire to grab the territory and natural resources of other countries has been held in check until now by his fear of entanglement in foreign wars. He claimed (falsely) to have ended eight wars, and his greatest ambition in 2025 seemed to be winning the Nobel peace prize. Less than a month ago he was brandishing a hastily confected substitute, the Fifa peace prize. That act of self-abasement…

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Trump promised MAGA the U.S. wouldn’t police the world – now it’s running Venezuela

Trump promised MAGA the U.S. wouldn’t police the world – now it’s running Venezuela

James Ball writes: America was supposed to be done with being “the world’s policeman”. Donald Trump said so repeatedly during his first term, and during his campaign in 2024. MAGA was sick of seeing US troops deployed around the world, of spending billions on conflicts thousands of miles away, of hearing about places they’d never heard of. Donald Trump would put America first. Today, President Trump announced the United States will be running Venezuela for the foreseeable future – at…

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Venezuela’s VP refuses to bow to Trump’s imperial dictate

Venezuela’s VP refuses to bow to Trump’s imperial dictate

Axios reports: Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez condemned the U.S. attack and capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, saying in a televised address the nation “will never return to being the colony of another empire.” Why it matters: Rodríguez’s words are the first indicator the transition from Maduro’s regime won’t go as smoothly as President Trump hoped. Trump told reporters Saturday that he expects the U.S. to run Venezuela temporarily, and that Rodríguez had been sworn in as president. Venezuela has not announced that Rodríguez has…

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After capturing Maduro, Trump warns Cuba, Mexico and Colombia could be next

After capturing Maduro, Trump warns Cuba, Mexico and Colombia could be next

Axios reports: Hours after the U.S. invaded Venezuela to seize President Nicolás Maduro, President Trump sent a warning to the governments of Mexico, Cuba and Colombia that their countries could be next. Why it matters: The stunning attack on Caracas follows Trump’s recent assertion of his own version of the Monroe Doctrine, and the president’s comments that the U.S is not afraid to put “boots on the ground” in the country suggest that the administration won’t hesitate to have an ongoing presence in the…

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American justice was supposed to be blind and impartial. Now it aims at vengeance

American justice was supposed to be blind and impartial. Now it aims at vengeance

Paul Rosenzweig writes: Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been forcibly taken from Venezuela and are being moved to the United States to face criminal drug-trafficking charges. Regardless of the international-law implications of this military action, the Trump administration’s description of what awaits Maduro and Flores has also transgressed basic principles of American domestic criminal law, as well as the underlying philosophical justification for punishment. Attorney General Pam Bondi has promised that Maduro and Flores “will soon face…

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Trump claims the job market is booming for U.S.-born. The data shows the opposite

Trump claims the job market is booming for U.S.-born. The data shows the opposite

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump and White House leaders say that American workers are winning because of his immigration crackdown. But the data doesn’t back that up. Since the summer, Trump officials have been trumpeting the idea that job creation is booming for U.S.-born workers. Trump said so, too, during a prime-time address last month aimed at assuaging Americans’ concerns about the economy. “In the year before my election, all net creation of jobs was going to foreign…

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How big a threat is AI to the climate?

How big a threat is AI to the climate?

The Guardian reports: During a golden sunset in Memphis in May, Sharon Wilson pointed a thermal imaging camera at Elon Musk’s flagship datacentre to reveal a planetary threat her eyes could not. Free from pollution controls, the gas-fired turbines that power the world’s biggest AI supercomputer were pumping invisible fumes into the Tennessee sky. “It was jaw-dropping,” said Wilson, a former oil and gas worker from Texas who has documented methane releases for more than a decade and estimates xAI’s…

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Why Trump is quickly losing Hispanic support

Why Trump is quickly losing Hispanic support

Sam Sanchez and Massey Villarreal write: Forty-eight percent of Hispanic voters supported Donald Trump in 2024. He and his party ought to make a New Year’s resolution for 2026: Listen to Hispanic voters. Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Republicans are bleeding Hispanic support, driven by frustrations over economic hardship and overreaching immigration enforcement. Mr. Trump won record Hispanic support by promising durable solutions on immigration and the economy. Nearly a year later, the administration is taking an enforcement-only approach to…

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Trump’s Iran intervention claims are ‘escalatory rhetoric’ says former U.S. diplomat

Trump’s Iran intervention claims are ‘escalatory rhetoric’ says former U.S. diplomat

  Reuters reports: U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to come to the aid of protesters in Iran if security forces fired on them, days into unrest that has left several dead and posed the biggest internal threat to Iranian authorities in years. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” he said in a social media post. The United States bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in June, joining an Israeli air campaign that targeted Tehran’s atomic programme and…

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After Watergate, the presidency was made legally accountable. Trump decided that doesn’t apply to him

After Watergate, the presidency was made legally accountable. Trump decided that doesn’t apply to him

Matthew Purdy writes: A power-hungry president had twisted the government into a tool for his personal political benefit. His aides kept an “enemies list” of opponents to be punished. His cronies ran the Justice Department and he made puppets of other agencies that were meant to be independent. Corporations that wanted favorable treatment from the White House were pressured to make illegal contributions to the president’s political coffers. As revelations of rot in the Nixon administration tumbled out through the…

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Kennedy Center being operated as a ‘slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies’

Kennedy Center being operated as a ‘slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies’

The Guardian reports: “That’s the tactic they use,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island senator, pondering whether Donald Trump might attach his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “You float stuff and you float stuff and you float stuff until people get inured to what a stupid or outrageous thing it is that has been floated and then you pull the trigger.” Whitehouse was sitting in his Senate office and speaking to the Guardian at…

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