NEWS

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The Trump administration’s capture of Venezuela’s president and plans to “run” the country are raising stark new questions about the legality of the U.S. moves under a broader campaign against the South American nation.

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President Donald Trump has announced the withdrawal of National Guard troops from multiple US cities, notably Chicago and Los Angeles, following a Supreme Court ruling that limited his executive authority to use military forces for domestic policing. This decision comes after the administration dropped its legal challenge to maintain control over troops in Los Angeles on Tuesday, a move prompted by last week’s Supreme Court verdict involving similar deployments in Chicago.

Trump's statement also mentioned Portland, Oregon, but not Washington DC, where troops remain on patrol.

"We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again," Trump wrote on Truth Social on New Year's Eve.

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Zohran Mamdani will become mayor of New York City as the clock ticks over into 2026, but the celebrations are set to last through New Year’s Day.

The Democrat’s team is planning two separate swearing-in ceremonies Thursday, a small, private one with his family in an old subway station around midnight, followed by a large event in the afternoon that will include a public block party outside City Hall.

As a new mayor’s term begins immediately with the new year, it has been customary for the city’s incoming leaders to hold two events. Outgoing mayor Eric Adams held his initial swearing-in at Times Square shortly after the famous ball drop, while Adams’ predecessor, Bill de Blasio, took his first oath at home in Brooklyn.

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Venezuela is open to negotiating an agreement with the United States to combat drug trafficking, the South American country’s President Nicolás Maduro said in a pretaped interview aired Thursday on state television, but he declined to comment on a CIA-led strike last week at a Venezuelan docking area that the Trump administration believed was used by cartels.

Maduro, in an interview with Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, reiterated that the U.S. wants to force a government change in Venezuela and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the monthslong pressure campaign that began with a massive military deployment to the Caribbean Sea in August.

“What are they seeking? It is clear that they seek to impose themselves through threats, intimidation and force,” Maduro said, later adding that it is time for both nations to “start talking seriously, with data in hand.”

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The historic all-female Blue Origin space flight earlier this year, featuring Vietnamese-American scientist and civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, has been overshadowed by the personal toll it took on her. Nguyen, the first Vietnamese woman to venture into space, has opened up about a period of depression after facing a "tsunami of harassment," which she attributed to "an avalanche of misogyny."

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Zohran Mamdani became mayor of New York City just after midnight Thursday, taking the oath of office at an historic, decommissioned subway station in Manhattan.

Mamdani, a Democrat, was sworn in as the first Muslim leader of America’s biggest city, placing his hand on a Quran as he took his oath.

“This is truly the honor and the privilege of a lifetime,” Mamdani said in a brief speech.

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President Donald Trump has indicated that the U.S. has “hit” a dock facility along a shore as he wages a pressure campaign on Venezuela, but the U.S. offered few details.