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      Trump is marching into 2026 with the worst cabinet in history | Austin Sarat

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      From RFK Jr to Pete Hegseth, the president’s top aides have been disastrous. We shouldn’t be surprisedAs 2024 ended and Donald Trump’s cabinet picks were rolled out, commentators scrambled to decide which one was the worst. Was it Matt Gaetz for attorney general? Or Pete Hegseth, for secretary of defense? Or maybe Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead the Department of Health and Human Services?Soon after, the White House crowed that Trump had assembled “the greatest cabinet of all time”.Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty Continue reading… More

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      Opposition leader Machado says she hasn’t spoken to Trump since attack as she vows to return to Venezuela – live

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      María Corina Machado tells Fox News she would share her Nobel peace prize with US president after removal of Nicolás MaduroDeposed Maduro pleads not guilty after capture in shock US attack on VenezuelaUS foes and allies denounce Trump’s ‘crime of aggression’ in Venezuela at UN meetingMy colleague Sibylla Brodzinsky has reported on the relationship between the US and Colombia, home to significant oil reserves. Here is an extract from her story:Colombia has long been a close partner of the US in the fight against drug trafficking and enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington but relations have soured dramatically since Trump came to office.Colombia’s narcotics trade is largely controlled by illegal armed groups such as the Gulf Clan, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group, the majority of whose members demobilised after a 2016 peace deal … Continue reading… More

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      Europe’s failure to condemn Trump’s illegal aggression in Venezuela isn’t just wrong – it’s stupid | Nathalie Tocci

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      The more European countries act as colonies, unable and unwilling to stand up to Trump, the more they’ll be treated as suchThere is no two without a three, as we say in Italian. After their complicit silence on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and their tacit acceptance of the US/Israel attack on Iran, Europeans now hesitate to condemn the US’s audacious military operation to bring about regime change in Venezuela. With few notable exceptions – such as Spain, the Netherlands and Norway – most European leaders have fudged their response. Spain, in fact, has acted without its EU partners, condemning the US attack alongside a group of Latin American countries. European governments seem unable to utter in the same breath that, although Nicolás Maduro was an illegitimate dictator, the US attack to topple him is a gross violation of international law.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, at least made reference to international law, while emphasising that they shed no tears for the end of Maduro’s regime. Others, such as the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, strangely talked about looking into the legality of the US military action, as if there were any doubt about its nature. Worse still, Trump-friendly Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni defined this act of external military intervention as “legitimate” self-defence against narco-trafficking.Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading… More

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      Trump news at a glance: Maduro appears in US court as nations condemn president’s attack on Venezuela

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      Trump’s moves spark global wave of revulsion and fears that similar actions could happen in other countries – key US politics stories from Monday 5 January at a glanceThe deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty to drugs, weapons and narco-terrorism charges on Monday, two days after his capture by US special forces in an operation ordered by Donald Trump that sent shockwaves around the world.As Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores addressed the court in lower Manhattan, the UN security council held an emergency meeting just a few miles to the north, where a dozen countries condemned the US “crime of aggression” and secretary general António Guterres suggested the operation constituted a breach of international law. Continue reading… More

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      Corporation For Public Broadcasting formally dissolves after federal funding cuts

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      Board of directors vote to dissolve organization after nearly 60 years in operation after funding cuts under TrumpThe nonprofit charged by Congress with allocating funds to NPR, PBS and other US public radio and television stations announced is dissolving after massive federal funding cuts under Donald Trump.The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced on Monday that its board of directors had voted to dissolve the organization after nearly 60 years in operation. Continue reading… More

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      With Trump’s military action in Venezuela, the US has made every other country less safe | Volker Türk

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      This weakens the only mechanism we have to prevent world conflict, namely the UN. The international community must stand up for the rule of lawVolker Türk is UN high commissioner for human rightsThe US military operation in Venezuela undermines a fundamental principle of international law, agreed after the horrors of two world wars and the Holocaust: states must not use force to pursue their territorial claims or political demands.I am deeply disturbed by these events – and by some of the reactions I have seen. A narrative is emerging that seeks to justify the US military intervention as a response to the Nicolás Maduro government’s appalling human rights record.Volker Türk has been the UN high commissioner for human rights since 2022 Continue reading… More

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      For Americans, 2026 started with two starkly different visions for the country | Moira Donegan

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      Zohran Mamdani’s optimistic inauguration contrasted in every single way with Trump’s brazen invasion of VenezuelaThe new year opened with a pair of scenes that illustrated the great divide within the US and the stakes of the ongoing contest over its future. On 1 January, in a star-studded inauguration ceremony of uncommon pomp and optimism, Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist, was sworn in as the new mayor of New York and delivered a speech that declared the era of small government and centrist inhibition to be over, and a new dawn of ambitious social welfare programs to begin.The new mayor’s inauguration is the culmination of a decade of growth from the Democratic party’s insurgent left wing, and results from a feat of organizing within the country’s largest city that relied upon mass mobilization from downwardly mobile and economically disenfranchised millennial and gen Z voters. It was hailed as a generational shift in US politics, inaugurating a new, 21st-century vision for the party. Continue reading… More

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      All eyes on secretary of state races – with 2028 White House at stake

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      Voters will choose secretaries of state in contests that could play key role in outcome of 2028 presidential electionWhen Americans go to cast ballots in the midterm elections in 2026, much of the attention is likely to be on races for the US House, Senate and governorships – contests that will serve as a referendum on Donald Trump’s first two years in office and determine the trajectories of the final ones.But further down the ballot, voters will choose secretaries of state in key races that could have a major effect on how elections are run in many US states, including several battleground states that are key to the 2028 presidential race. Twenty-six states are set to choose secretaries of state next year, including the presidential battlegrounds of Nevada, Arizona and Michigan. Continue reading… More