TV News LIES

Amid the immense confusion surrounding the US strikes on Venezuela, the seizure of the president, Nicolás Maduro, and Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will “run” the country and “take back the oil”, one thing is clear – they set a truly chilling precedent.

The US has a grim history of interference, invasion and occupation in the region, but the early hours of Saturday saw its first major military attack on South American land. “American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Mr Trump declared. The decision to unilaterally attack another country and abduct its leader – days after he publicly sought an off-ramp – has still wider repercussions. It should alarm us all.

Venezuelans have endured a repressive, kleptocratic and incompetent regime under Mr Maduro, widely believed to have stolen the last election. They now face profound uncertainty at best. Mr Trump has suggested that Mr Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, would follow US instructions, and dismissed the rightwing opposition leader and Nobel prize-winner María Corina Machado as a plausible replacement. But Ms Rodríguez, now interim president, has so far struck a defiant tone – and other parts of the decapitated regime are more hardline.

A man who won power promising to abandon foreign wars now says he is “not afraid of boots on the ground”. Rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War was more than posturing. He does not see the world’s superpower as policeman; he is turning it into a rogue state. He believes the US’s might allows it to do as it wishes with minimal cost: witness the strikes on Nigeria, on Iran’s nuclear facilities and elsewhere. He promises that Venezuelan oil means this latest episode “won’t cost us a penny”.

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Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was given political asylum in Cuba after her 1979 escape from a U.S. prison where she had been serving a life sentence for killing a police officer, has died, her daughter and the Cuban government said.

Shakur, who went by Joanne Deborah Chesimard before changing her name, died Thursday in the capital city of Havana due to “health conditions and advanced age,” Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Shakur’s daughter, Kakuya Shakur, confirmed her mother’s death in a Facebook post.

Officials in New Jersey, where Shakur had been arrested, convicted and imprisoned, said she was 78.

A member of Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Shakur’s case had long been emblematic of the fraught relations between the U.S. and Cuba. American authorities, including President Donald Trump during his first term, demanded her return from the communist nation for decades.

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As uncertainty simmers in Venezuela, interim President Delcy Rodríguez has taken the place of her ally President Nicolás Maduro, captured by the United States in a nighttime military operation.

Rodríguez served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, overseeing much of Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy and its feared intelligence service, and was next in the presidential line of succession.

She’s part of a band of senior officials in Maduro’s administration that now appears to control Venezuela, even as U.S. President Donald Trump and other officials say they will pressure the government to fall in line with its vision for the oil-rich nation.

On Saturday, Venezuela’s high court ordered her to assume the role of interim president, and the leader was backed by Venezuela’s military. In a televised address, Rodríguez gave no indication that she would cooperate with Trump, referring to his government as “extremists.”

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A Wisconsin judge has resigned in the wake of her conviction in an obstruction case involving an immigrant, The Associated Press reported.

Judge Hannah Dugan on Saturday sent Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) a resignation letter, according to the AP, and a spokesperson for the governor told the outlet that Dugan’s letter had reached their office.

“As you know, I am the subject of unprecedented federal legal proceedings, which are far from concluded but which present immense and complex challenges that threaten the independence of our judiciary. I am pursuing this fight for myself and for our independent judiciary,” Dugan wrote, the AP reported.

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In mid-December, Dugan was found guilty of obstruction charges centered on her providing assistance to a Mexican immigrant in avoiding authorities after learning about an impending arrest.

Dugan’s resignation letter came amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which has drawn widespread criticism from those on the left.

A helicopter crash on Jan. 2 claimed the lives of four family members from Oregon in a remote area of Pinal County, Arizona. Officials said the aircraft struck a slackline stretched across a canyon just before 11 a.m. local time.

The helicopter crashed in Telegraph Canyon, south of Superior and about 65 miles east of Phoenix, according to the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office.

Search and rescue teams reached the wreckage later that evening and confirmed four fatalities, according to the Pinal County Sheriff's Office.

The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board were investigating the crash.

Family members have identified the four passengers as David McCarty, 59, Rachel McCarty, 23, Faith McCarty, 21, and Katelyn Heideman, 22. The identities have not yet been officially released by the Pinal County Sheriff's Office.

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A day after the U.S. military toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump appeared to have his eyes trained on the next target for American intervention: Greenland.

Since taking office in 2025, Trump has repeatedly floated buying the ice-covered Arctic island from Denmark and has refused to rule out taking the resource-rich land through military force. Trump has argued that annexing Greenland is a national security necessity, noting its mass of critical minerals and strategic location.

He renewed those calls Sunday, Jan. 4 as his administration took a victory lap for their ouster of Venezuela's socialist dictator and as he promised to "run" the South American country until a democratic transition could occur.

"We do need Greenland, absolutely. We need it for defense," Trump told The Atlantic in an interview published Jan. 4, describing the island as reportedly "surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships."

The same day, Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, posted a photo of Greenland covered with the American flag. Above it, Miller wrote "SOON."

Denmark's ambassador to the United States, Jesper Moeller Soerensen, responded, saying: "We expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark."Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has repeatedly rebuked Trump’s interest in colonizing Greenland. The "U.S. shall not take over Greenland," he said in stark terms in December.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, blasted President Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela and removal of its leader, President Nicolás Maduro, describing it as a sharp departure from his "America first" campaign promise.

Greene, who earlier this year had a public falling out with Trump, criticized the military move as unaligned with Trump’s vow during the 2024 presidential election to end the United States' involvement in foreign conflicts.

While Greene said she didn’t support Maduro’s leadership and was "happy" for the people of Venezuela, she expressed doubt that Maduro’s capture was related to narco-terrorism and the flow of drugs, as Trump has suggested.

Speaking to NBC’s "Meet the Press," Greene argued that if Trump cared about drug trafficking, he’d be focusing on other entities, including Mexican cartels.

"This is the same Washington playbook that we are so sick and tired of that doesn't serve the American people, that actually serves the big corporations, the banks, and the oil executives," Greene said on "Meet the Press". "My understanding of America first is strictly for the American people."

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Thousands of tents supplied by China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to shelter displaced Palestinians in Gaza offer only limited protection against rain and wind, an assessment compiled by shelter specialists in the devastated territory has revealed.

The assessment will undermine claims that Palestinians in Gaza are being supplied with adequate shelter. Fierce storms in recent weeks blew down or damaged thousands of tents, affecting at least 235,000 people, according to UN estimates.

Prepared by the Palestine Shelter Cluster, which coordinates the activities of nearly 700 non-government organisations in Palestine and is chaired by the Norwegian Refugee Council, the assessment found that newly delivered tents housing hundreds of thousands of people would “likely need to be replaced”.

“The fabric [of the Egyptian tents] tears easily as sewing quality is poor,” it reported. “The fabric is not waterproof. Other issues include small windows, weak structure, no flooring, the roof collects water due to the design of the tent, and no mesh for openings.”

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