US returning seized Venezuelan oil tanker

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US returning seized Venezuelan oil tanker – Reuters
FILE PHOTO. Venezuelan oil tankers. © Getty Images / Jesus Vargas;  picture alliance

 

RT

Washington is reportedly handing over the Panama-flagged M/T Sophia

The US is handing over to Venezuela an oil tanker it seized earlier this month, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing two American officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

The officials did not provide a reason for returning the vessel, which they identified as the Panama-flagged supertanker M/T Sophia, interdicted by the US Coast Guard and military forces on January 7 while carrying oil. At the time of its seizure, Washington described the sanctioned Sophia as a “stateless, sanctioned dark fleet motor tanker.” One official told Reuters it was unclear if the oil was still on board.

The reported handover of the Sophia comes amid a shift in US policy towards the oil-rich state and easing of sanctions following the January 3 kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and subsequent engagement with the country’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez.

Rodriguez has moved to align with key US demands, including opening Venezuela’s oil sector to American companies as part of a proposed $100 billion rebuilding plan. Trump has said the US plans to “control Venezuela’s oil resources indefinitely.”

The US has been enforcing a blockade on sanctioned Venezuelan oil exports for several weeks, having seized at least seven tankers it deemed were violating sanctions since late last year.

These included the seizure of a Russian-flagged vessel, the Marinera, which was captured on January 7 in the North Atlantic following allegations of violating oil sanctions against Venezuela.

Moscow condemned the move as a serious violation of maritime law and demanded the release of the detained sailors. On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed that two Russian sailors from the Marinera had been freed and were on their way home.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/631706-us-venezuela-return-tanker/

Traders placing record bets on dollar collapse

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Traders placing record bets on dollar collapse – Bloomberg
© Getty Images / PM Images

RT

The greenback’s plunge has been attributed to market turmoil created by US President Donald Trump’s policies

Traders are betting big that the US dollar will continue to fall amid uncertainty about Washington’s political and economic policies, Bloomberg has reported.

The dollar suffered its worst single-day decline in nearly a year on Tuesday, plunging to its lowest level since February 2022. The fall was part of a broader downtrend that began after US President Donald Trump launched sweeping global tariffs early last year. The resulting trade frictions, as well as expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts and rising deficits and debt have been undermining confidence in the currency.

“US policy volatility is now debasing the dollar,” said Luis Costa, Citi’s head of emerging markets strategy. “This… is prompting a market reshuffle into dollar shorts.”

Bloomberg said options that profit from a falling dollar are now the most expensive since 2011, as traders use them as insurance against a drop. Markets are also more negative on the dollar’s long-term outlook than at any point since May 2025, the outlet noted. Rising investor anxiety is pushing up hedging costs, with short-term dollar volatility at its highest since September and demand for protection against large swings climbing, signaling traders expect further losses.

The dollar’s selloff this week came just after Trump dismissed concerns over the currency’s weakness, insisting that it’s “doing great.”

While a weaker dollar can help multinationals convert foreign profits and boost US exporters’ competitiveness, critics warn it also risks acting as a hidden tax on consumers, raising import costs, fueling inflation, harming foreign suppliers, and undermining the greenback’s global standing as a reserve currency.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday argued that, over time, Trump’s economic policies will attract investment and help strengthen the greenback.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/business/631712-traders-bet-dollar-collapse/

Gold and Silver Dealers Start Restricting Buy Backs – May Soon Stop Buying Back Altogether

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by Brian Shilhavy
Health Impact News

The fact that the rapid rise in value for gold and silver for the past few weeks could actually be negative, is a thought that had never crossed my mind, until this week, when I tried to sell some of my gold, and found out just how difficult it was, and may soon be impossible.

I want to be very clear here that I am not offering financial advice, and that this article is ONLY about people who own physical gold and silver that they have in their possession. It has nothing to do with “paper gold” such as precious metal stocks and ETFs that are used for investments and a part of people’s investment portfolios which are traded on Wall Street.

I have almost no experience in that. There are a gazillion people on the Internet doing that already.

My own gold and silver coins are in a secure safe and bolted to the concrete base of the house where I stay.

Yesterday, January 27, 2026, I went to a local jewelry store where I have sold gold coins in the past, as I wanted to redeem some gold coins for a major purchase that was planned for this weekend.

I have been to this place several times in the past when I needed to cash in some gold, and know the management quite well. Their usual rate for gold bullion is $50 below spot, which is very competitive. Sometimes if I had a gold collector coin, I could bargain them down to $20 or $30 below spot.

When I walked in yesterday, the place was packed and there were more people there than I had ever seen before. When I got up to the teller and presented my gold, he looked up at a monitor and stated: “Our buy back price just went from 98% of spot, to 97% percent of spot, as the spot price just jumped again.”

He also stated that they were not paying out in cash, but only by check, and it was limited to one ounce of gold, about $5000.00, and that everything else above that would be paid by check after two weeks.

Wow! There went my plans to make a major purchase by this weekend!

Then the bomb fell. The guy who runs the place, who I like very well because he is non-partisan and, like me, believes that both political parties who run this country are equally corrupt, said to me:

You’re lucky we’re buying any gold at all.

He went on to explain that his buyers were stiffing him, and some invoices were already 60 days late in paying him.

Then he said:

If we wake up tomorrow, and the price of gold has shot up to $10,000 an ounce, we’re all going to suffer.

So I sold only one coin so I could get a check to deposit, and he told me I could come back in 24 hours and get another check of the same amount, providing that gold did not go up too high overnight.

Well, I live over an hour away from this place, so it is 2 hours of my time, minimum, just to sell some gold.

So when I got back, I checked to see if I could sell more online.

I have in the past sold gold online through the popular website, APMEX, one of the largest businesses that sells and buys gold in the U.S. And it is fast. Usually the entire transaction can happen in a few days with money deposited directly into one’s account.

The first thing I saw on the APMEX site to sell gold back to them was this message:

Due to record volume we currently have a $20,000 minimum on buy back orders.

Well, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sell that much, but I started the procedure from this page to get an instant quote, to see how they compared to the local jewelry shop who was now only offering me 97% of the spot price.

I made sure I entered in about 5 oz. of gold to meet the $20,000 minimum in order to get the quote.

But when I hit “submit”, it gave me an instant quote that was less than $10,000.00! That was obviously a mistake, and either a glitch in their software (is AI now running everything??), or they just did not want to provide a quote above $20,000 because they really did not want to buy any gold at all right now with the price increasing so fast.

The other option they give is to call them, where you tell them what you want to sell, and then get a quote that way.

So I tried that. Here is the message I received:

So then I went and read the “Update from the CEO“, which was published on Jan. 26th, two days before I am writing this article.

January 26, 2026

Dear Valued Customer,

In an effort not to sound like a record on repeat, markets continue to accelerate.  Gold, silver, and platinum continue to set record highs, hitting levels many of us could not have imagined in such a short period of time.  We are experiencing volumes that we have not seen in our history.  This past weekend alone, order volume reached nearly seven times that of a normal weekend.

Compounding these challenges, Oklahoma City experienced one of the largest snow events in its history. We will always put the safety of our employees first, resulting in the shutdown of fulfillment and our mint for the weekend. We are up to 70% strength today and should be back to full strength by tomorrow. (Full update here.)

Now to be fair to APMEX, which is the only place I would recommend to anyone wanting to purchase or sell gold and silver online, I checked again before making my second trip the local jewelry store an hour away today.

I tried the same process again of getting a quote from their site as I had the day before, and this time when I clicked on “Submit”, I did NOT get a pop up instant quote with a timer ticking down, but was just informed that someone would email me within two business hours.

I didn’t wait the full two hours as I couldn’t, but when I got back I did have a quote from someone by email.

I checked the time the email came in, then used a graph from a financial site to see how much the gold spot value was during the day and chose the one that was the exact same time as the email came in, and it was 96% of spot, a full percentage point lower than what I got at the local jewelry store which gave me 97%.

And of course if I had chosen APMEX, they had already stated they would not even process my package for 8 business days after they received it.

I checked some other popular websites that buy gold and silver, and for those that had a warning about buy backs, this was the most common message:

Yeah, and the part of that message that is dangerous is the “+“, which is open-ended and could turn to much longer times (months?) if this crisis continues.

Again, I am not giving anyone financial advice. I am calling this an “EXCLUSIVE” report because it is MY personal experience for the past two days.

And because almost everyone else invests in “paper gold”, I searched online and just did not see anyone else talking about this, yet (although I am sure there are some). Everyone seems to be in pure euphoria right now thinking that as the price of gold keeps going up, they are going to be rich.

I just always assumed that anytime I needed some quick cash I could just redeem some gold coins. But when my friend at the jewelry store told me yesterday “You’re lucky we’re buying any gold at all,” I realized that I had to adjust my thinking about my own physical gold quite a bit.

This is a liquidity crisis, and that crisis is here RIGHT NOW! The top dogs on the ladder of this liquidity crisis are, of course, the banks, and there are rumors that have been going around that some of these banks, like Chase Bank, have already been bailed out due to liquidity issues, especially silver which has probably never moved this fast in price in my lifetime.

They will never admit this, of course, because it will cause panic and bank runs, similar to what we saw in 2023 with the Silicon Valley bank runs.

I’ve always kept some cold hard cash on hand, mostly in $20 bills, for the day when the ATMs shut down and you can no longer get your money out of the bank.

What we have seen recently, is that when local storms come through and take down the grid, many local businesses, including gas stations, will only accept cash, because they cannot run credit cards without electricity.

I also own a lot of Lady Liberty silver coins, but I don’t sell those, because even if the price of silver hits a few hundred dollars per oz., if cash runs out in a down grid scenario, a lot of people will probably take a silver coin for barter.

But if you are holding on to your gold because you fully expect the price will keep rising (as it probably will), consider the facts I just learned the past two days, that this is not necessarily a good thing.

If your gold 1 oz coin or bullion bar all of a sudden is worth $10,000 an ounce based on the spot price, how are you going to spend it in a down-grid scenario?

Do you think you can drive in to your local gas station and ask them to fill your tank, and then give them a $10,000 gold coin, and they are going to give you change back?? Not a chance….

[…]

Via https://healthimpactnews.com/2026/exclusive-gold-and-silver-dealers-start-restricting-buy-backs-may-soon-stop-purchasing-altogether/

Who is Funding the ICE Riots?

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By Helena Glass
January 28, 2026
[…]

Who is organizing the anti-ICE protests? Indivisible, ACLU, and Public Citizen.

Indivisible

Registered with the IRS. Based in Washington, DC. They have an Action PAC with 2,413 donors in 2024. Their donors are listed on Open Secrets. One such donor is Families USA Foundation which played a significant role in enacting Obama’s ACA. Their director is Frederick Isasi, JD. They have a Wikipedia page. WHY doesn’t the FBI investigate? 

There are two directors running Indivisible: Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin. They are married. They have been featured in the NYT, WAPO, CNN, MSNBC, etc. Ezra wrote a book. They are Jewish and have a national presence. Why isn’t Homeland Security investigating them for inciting the ICE riots?

Public Citizen

A registered 501©(3) whose board consists of members of the Public Citizen Foundation:

  • Halperin – special assistant for national security under Clinton.
  • Robert Weissman – JD.
  • Gerson Smoger – Trial Lawyer of The Year – 2012.
  • Annie Leonard – Director of Greenpeace.
  • Mark Chavez – former Civil Division of the DOJ.
  • Jim Bildner – Managing Director for The Fund For Sustainability.

They have sued the Trump administration 30 times since the inauguration. IF their actions are the source of the anti-Ice riots, why isn’t the FBI investigating them? The DOJ?

Cutting off the source of the riots would seem a ‘strategy’ to impede the riots. But our Department of Justice is too entangled with writing ‘stern letters’. Our FBI is defending Patel’s girlfriend from tweets, and Kristi Noem can’t decide which lipstick to wear to a raid. This is what happens when you hire incompetent people to run government agencies.

Who is training ICE?

Immigration and Customs Enforcement held job expos in multiple cities and dangled $50,000 bonuses, student-loan forgiveness, and other perks before potential recruits. 12,000 new recruits were hired. ICE agents are trained in Israel by the IDF. An ongoing arrangement since the early 2000’s. Training has focused on areas such as counter-terrorism, surveillance, crowd control, and border enforcement.

A retired army officer, Anthony Aguilar, has produced whistleblower videos in which he details the training as exploited by Israel – paid for by Homeland Security. Exchanges between the U.S. and Israeli police and military agencies are organized by a range of actors, including private companies both in the U.S. and Israel, non-profit organizations, and governmental agencies.

Those agencies include: Security Solutions International, Georgia Law Enforcement and Exchange, Jewish Voice For Peace, ADL, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, AIPAC, etc.

Security Solutions International’s website offers different training courses for the US government including Department of War, Homeland Security, FEMA, FBI, etc. Their website highlights one particular methodology: Advanced Israel Training – run by Henry Morgenstern, a US and Israeli citizen educated in the UK who contracts directly with Homeland Security and the intelligence community. Recruits are funded by the FBI thru the Joint Terrorism Task Force and FEMA via Urban Area Security Initiative.

The Director of SSI is Sol Bradman, a pilot operating out of Miami.

In essence, the reason our Israeli First government is NOT investigating who is funding the ICE riots is because they are funded by Israel with US government/taxpayer funds. We are funding the protests, then sending in ICE to disrupt the protests using IDF tactics of the Hannibal directive wherein human life is dispensable.

This is how the US pursues ‘criminal’ illegals like hunted animals – we bring them into America, hunt them down, organize riots, torture and kill whoever gets in the way, and use taxpayer funds for the GAME. 100% immunity guaranteed. Black book mercenaries.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/ice-trained-israel-funding-fbi-homeland-security-dod/5913702

Venezuela’s Rodríguez rejects US push to cut ties with China, Russia, Iran

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Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez speaks during a press conference at Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Venezuela on January 14, 2026.(Photo by AFP)

Press TV

US intelligence reports indicate that Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, is resisting Washington’s push to realign the country’s foreign partnerships.

The assessments have raised doubts about whether Rodríguez will fully comply with Washington’s demands to sever ties with Iran, China, and Russia.

Venezuela, home to some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, has become central to Washington’s pressure campaign to curb the influence of rival powers in the Western Hemisphere.

Trump has repeatedly demanded that Caracas expel diplomats and advisers from allied countries.

Representatives from all the three countries attended Rodríguez’s swearing-in earlier this month, following the US raid on the country that led to the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro on January 3.

In mid-January, the US President Donald Trump claimed he held a “long call” with Rodríguez, describing her as “a terrific person.” He later said the two discussed “many topics,” including oil, minerals, trade and national security, and claimed they had made “tremendous progress.”

Rodríguez, who has said she is working to unify the country after the US abduction of Maduro, has since signaled resistance to Washington’s pressure.

Nearly a month into her interim role, she said Venezuela has had “enough” of US interference.

“Enough already of Washington’s orders over politicians in Venezuela,” Rodríguez told oil workers in the city of Puerto La Cruz on Sunday.

“This republic has paid a very high price for confronting the consequences of fascism and extremism in our country,” she added.

US officials are now developing contacts with senior Venezuelan military and security figures in case Washington decides to change its approach, a source on Venezuela policy told Reuters.

Since the attack on the country, the US has also sought greater access to Venezuela’s energy sector. A senior Trump administration official said the president “continues to exert maximum leverage” and expects cooperation from the country’s leadership.

Washington is also moving to establish a permanent Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) presence inside Venezuela. CNN reported on Tuesday that the agency is quietly expanding its footprint, meeting local officials, monitoring political opponents, and shaping the policies of the new leadership.

The report said that the Trump administration is likely to rely heavily on the CIA to lead the initial re-entry into the country.

Trump has openly acknowledged that a central objective of the military action against Venezuela was control over its oil sector — underscoring a long US history of violence and imperial domination in Latin America.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/01/28/763091/US-intelligence-doubts-Venezuela-interim-leader-leader-Delcy-Rodr%C3%ADguez-cooperation-adversaries-Iran-China-Russia-Oil-resources

US unblocks Venezuelan assets – interim president

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US unblocks Venezuelan assets – interim president
Delcy Rodriguez delives her annual address to the nation at the Federal Legislative Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, January 15, 2026 © Getty Images / Ivan Mc Gregor

 

RT

Washington is reportedly sitting on $30 billion worth of the South American nation’s property

The US has unfrozen some of Venezuela’s impounded assets, acting President Delcy Rodriguez has announced. Rodriguez said the money will be spent on hospital equipment and power infrastructure.

Speaking on national television on Tuesday, Rodriguez said she had spoken to US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio with “respect and courtesy,” and that the unblocked funds would be used to purchase hospital equipment from the US “and other countries.”

“We are unblocking Venezuelan resources that belong to the Venezuelan people… and this will allow us to invest significant resources in equipment for hospitals,” she said. Rodriguez added that Venezuela will also purchase “equipment for the electricity sector and equipment for the gas industry” with the funds.

Rodriguez did not say what amount of assets would be released. President Nicolas Maduro claimed in 2022 that around $30 billion worth of Venezuelan assets were frozen abroad. These include oil impounded by the US and around $2 billion worth of gold frozen in the UK.

Maduro was abducted by US forces earlier this month and charged with narcoterrorism, cocaine trafficking, and firearms offenses. Rodriguez has denounced the kidnapping of Maduro, but has attempted to placate Washington – namely by allowing US companies to run the South American nation’s oil industry.

Venezuela’s oil industry was nationalized in 1976, with American contractors slapped with further restrictions by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, in 2007. Trump has repeatedly claimed that these moves amounted to Venezuela “stealing” oil infrastructure built by US firms.

Trump has warned that if Rodriguez “doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” The US president spoke with Rodriguez by phone last week, and announced plans to invite her to the White House.

Rodriguez insisted on Sunday that she had enough of “Washington’s orders,” and that Venezuelans alone would “resolve our differences and our internal conflicts.” Asked on Tuesday about Rodriguez’ comments, Trump replied: “I haven’t heard that at all. We have a very good relationship.”

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/631663-us-unblocks-venezuela-assets/

Trump: Cuba will soon collapse

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Cuba will soon collapse – Trump
FILE PHOTO: US President Donald Trump. ©  Global Look Press / RS / MPI / Capital Pictures

RT

The island nation will not be getting any oil from Venezuela, the US president has said

Cuba is about to collapse “pretty soon,” US President Donald Trump has claimed. His words came amid reports that Washington is planning a total oil blockade of the island nation in a bid to instigate a coup against President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

After abducting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month, the US has set its sights on Cuba, which Trump claims is “ready to fall” next. Speaking to reporters during a trip to Iowa on Tuesday, the US president stated that “Cuba is really a nation that is very close to falling.” According to the president, Havana was getting oil and money from Caracas, but that it would not be getting them “anymore.”

Shortly after Maduro’s kidnapping, Trump said Washington would “run” Venezuela during a transitional period and needs “total access… to the oil and to other things in their country.” US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has stated that Washington intends to control Venezuela’s oil sales “indefinitely.”

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, who was sworn in after Maduro’s capture, declared that no “foreign agent” would control Venezuela or turn it into a “colony.” She still tried to placate Washington by opening Venezuela’s oil sector to American companies.

Last week, Politico reported that the US was planning an oil blockade of Cuba to place it in a “chokehold to kill the regime.” Earlier, the Wall Street Journal also reported that Washington was looking for Cuban government insiders to help orchestrate a regime-change operation by the end of the year.

Cuba has been under a US trade embargo since the 1960s, but it has not faced the prospect of an American naval blockade since 1962, when President John F. Kennedy placed it under “quarantine” for 13 days to prevent the transfer of Soviet missiles to the Cuban military.

Diaz-Canel earlier dismissed Trump’s threats by saying that “nobody dictates what we do.” Moscow also condemned what it called the “language of blackmail and threats” against Cuba as well as decades of “illegitimate and illegal sanctions” by the US.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/631670-cuba-collapse-soon-trump/

Introduction to the Islamic Golden Age

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Uncovering the Golden Age of Islamic Civilization

From Camels to Stars in the Middle East

Islamic Golden Age (2017)

By Eamon Gearon

Film Review

Eamon Gearon introduces this lecture series by describing a solo trip he took across the Sahara and the training he got from Bedouin nomads on caring for his camels and using the stars to navigate. Thee Arab names Islamic astronomers gave many of our stars (eg Betelgeuse, Sirius and Algol) during the Islamic Golden Age persist to the present day.

Gearon dates the Islamic Golden Age from 750-1258 AD, with its pinnacle 813-833 AD under Caliph al Ma’mun. He dates the start of the Islamic Golden Age to the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750 AD by the Abbasid dynasty (who moved the Islamic capitol from Damascus to Bagdad). Although most scholars date the end of the the Golden Age to the Mongol’s 1258 sack of Baghdad Gearon maintains Baghdad’s ecumenical scholarship continued after that date.

During the Golden Age, Baghdad was the world’s largest city, enjoying unprecedented economic and political stability thanks to a vast empire extending across Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, Persia, the Levant, North Africa and Europe’s Iberian peninsula.

Under the first Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786-809 AD) the caliphate established houses of wisdom in Baghdad, where Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars,  translated classical texts on science, medicine, history and philosophy to build a collective body of global wisdom. This translation movement prevented the loss of much ancient wisdom from Greek and Roman times.The houses of wisdom also conducted experiments in optic, medicine and mathematics and built water fountains, mechanical toys and clocks. These ideas and inventions rapidly spread across the Islamic empire, leading to rival intellectual centers in Cordova (in Andalusia on the Iberian peninsula), Cairo and Samarkan.

In the 10th century Cairo became the global center for astronomy and math, guided by Ibn al-Hagtham (965-1040 AD), whose ground breaking experiments in optics influenced da Vinci. In the 12th century the center of Islamic scholarship moved to Cordova, influenced by

  • Ibn Rashid (1126-1198 AD) – a Muslim scholar who defended Aristotle’s rationalism and applied it to Jewish, Christian and Islamic philosophy.
  • Moses Maimonides (1135-1204 AD) – one of the greatest Talmudic scholars who helped usher in the golden age of Jewish culture in Andalusia. Their golden age ended in 1168,  when a new caliphate forced Jews to convert to Islam or leave the Iberian peninsula.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/5756987/5756989

Trump says he had ‘very good call’ with Walz on ICE operations, sending border czar

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By KTSP

President Donald Trump says he had a “very good call” with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Monday about the status of ongoing immigration enforcement operations in the state.

In a social media post, the president said he his administration asked Minnesota officials to turn over “any and all Criminals” and informed the governor he was sending “border czar” Tom Homan to oversee U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

KSTP’s Full ICE Coverage

“It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump said of his conversation with Walz.

A spokesperson for Walz’s office said the call was “productive,” with the governor asking the president to draw down the immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota and to allow for “impartial investigations” into multiple shootings of Minnesotans by federal agents.

Walz’s office added that Trump agreed to talk to the Department of Homeland Security about allowing the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to conduct its own investigations into shootings involving federal agents, “as would ordinarily be the case.”

During the call, the president reportedly agreed to work with Minnesota “in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals.”

“The Governor reminded President Trump that the Minnesota Department of Corrections already honors federal detainers by notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement when a person committed to its custody isn’t a U.S. citizen,” Walz’s office said. “There is not a single documented case of the department’s releasing someone from state prison without offering to ensure a smooth transfer of custody.”

RELATED: Minnesota prisons head calls out ICE misinformation on arrests, cooperation

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS on Monday that she will oppose a Senate budget bill that increases funding for ICE.

Sen. Klobuchar also said she would support a policy requiring ICE agents to wear body cameras as part of a broader budget negotiation.

Chief political reporter Tom Hauser asked Klobuchar whether she would be willing to see the government shut down if lawmakers don’t reach an agreement. She replied, “I hope that cooler heads prevail.”

Frey also spoke with Trump

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he also spoke with Trump on Monday, once again appealing to the president to end Operation Metro Surge. He said Trump agreed that a change in tactics was necessary.

Frey said Trump assured him that some — not all — federal agents will begin leaving the Twin Cities on Tuesday, though the mayor reiterated his demand for a total retreat.

“Minneapolis will continue to cooperate with state and federal law enforcement on real criminal investigations — but we will not participate in unconstitutional arrests of our neighbors or enforce federal immigration law,” Frey said in a statement. “Violent criminals should be held accountable based on the crimes they commit, not based on where they are from.”

He added that he plans to meet with Homan on Tuesday “to further discuss next steps.”

Homan’s role

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Homan will manage ICE operations on the ground and coordinate with investigators looking into fraud allegations in Minnesota.

Trump said on Monday that Homan will report directly to him.

Homan is a former Border Patrol agent who served as the executive associate director of enforcement and removal for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President Barack Obama, then as director of the agency in Trump’s first term. More recently, he’s been a conservative commentator before Trump named him to his new role, which didn’t require any Senate confirmation, at the start of his second term.

His placement comes at a time of high tension in the state, following another fatal shooting involving a federal agent on Saturday — the third shooting involving a federal agent and the second fatal one in the past three weeks.

It also comes on the day federal court hearings are scheduled to address two lawsuits against ICE, including one seeking to halt all enforcement-related operations.

Homan’s arrival in Minnesota will coincide with the departure of Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino, multiple sources confirmed to ABC News. Over the past few weeks, Bovino became the face of Operation Metro Surge, placing himself at the podium and in the thick of volatile demonstrations outside the Whipple Federal Building and throughout Minneapolis.

[…]

Via https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/trump-says-he-had-very-good-call-with-walz-on-ice-operations/

Craig Murray, Reporting from Venezuela

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by | Jan 26, 2026

Last year, British journalist and former diplomat Craig Murray provided valuable reports from Lebanon, documenting — among other things — death and destruction brought by Israel’s military. Now, Murray is on the ground in Venezuela, doing what he did in Lebanon last year — providing access to information that tends to be filtered out or distorted in much reporting.

Indeed, in his first report from Venezuela that he posted at his website on Monday, Murray provided, based on his crisscrossing of the nation’s capital, an account that the situation there is very different from what is commonly reported. “I have now been in Caracas for 48 hours and the contrast between what I have seen, and what I had read in the mainstream media, could not be more stark,” stated Murray to begin his report. Expanding on this observation, Murray wrote later in his report:

Pretty well everything that I have read by Western journalists which can be immediately checked – checkpoints, armed political gangs, climate of fear, shortages of food and goods – turns out to be an absolute lie. I did not know this before I came. Possibly neither did you. We both do now.

As in Lebanon last year, Murray is set to provide a view into matters much of the media is not interested in sharing with people around the world. Murray explained in his report:

When I was in Lebanon a year ago, the mainstream media were entirely absent as Israel devastated Dahiya, the Bekaa Valley, and Southern Lebanon, because it was a narrative they did not want to report.

Disgracefully, the only time the BBC entered Southern Lebanon was from the Israeli side, embedded with the IDF.

The BBC, Guardian or New York Times simply will not send a correspondent to Caracas because the reality is so starkly different from the official narrative.

To be more informed about what is happening in Venezuela, it would be a good practice to check periodically Murray’s website where he is planning to post more written and video reports in the coming weeks.

[…]

Via https://ronpaulinstitute.org/craig-murray-reporting-from-venezuela/