By Piper HudspethBlackburn, CNN

(CNN) — An emboldened President Donald Trump declared Sunday night that the US is “in charge” of Venezuela after detaining President Nicolas Maduro in a military raid over the weekend, as he issued stark warnings to other countries that they could be next.

Maduro, who was dragged into custody with his wife, Cilia Flores, in a deadly early Saturday morning raid, is slated to appear in court for the first time at noon ET in New York City to face charges that he and his associates conspired with with narcoterrorists to ship thousands of tons of cocaine to the US.

Trump’s latest comments come even as some in his administration, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, suggested the US would be relying more on leverage over Venezuela and coercion, rather than directly running it as Trump first suggested during a Saturday morning news conference.

Meanwhile, Venezuelans are hunkering down as they wait for more information about what the Trump administration has in store for their country. The Trump administration is working quickly to establish a compliant interim government, according to US officials, prioritizing administrative stability and repairing the country’s oil infrastructure over an immediate turn to democracy.

In particular, US officials have focused on the country’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who Trump advisers identified weeks ago as a viable, if nonpermanent, alternative to Maduro. Despite Rodríguez’s initial attacks on the administration over Maduro’s capture, US officials privately maintained optimism she would work with the United States.

By Sunday night, Rodríguez was striking a softer tone than she previously had, calling for “cooperation” with the US.

Trump returned to Washington, DC, late Sunday night where lawmakers are mostly divided along party lines in their reaction to the military operation, which Congress was not notified about ahead of time.

Democrats in Congress have slammed the administration for not seeking congressional authorization before the attack, while Trump allies in the GOP have mostly praised the operation.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, a Republican, told CNN on “State of the Union” that new “legitimate” elections including members of the country’s opposition party will likely be a next step.

Here’s what to know:

What happened during the military operation?

The Trump administration struck various parts of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city, in the early hours of Saturday, January 3. Members of the US Army’s elite Delta Force dragged Maduro and Flores from their bedroom and flew them to the USS Iwo Jima, then onto New York, via Guantanamo Bay.

The operation took months of planning and was the culmination of a pressure campaign on Maduro that has featured a massive US naval buildup in the Caribbean and a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers.

Trump’s pressure campaign on Maduro has included strikes destroying more than 30 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in what the US has described as a counter-narcotics campaign. Trump last month ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers coming to and leaving Venezuela,

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By Piper HudspethBlackburn, CNN

(CNN) — An emboldened President Donald Trump declared Sunday night that the US is “in charge” of Venezuela after detaining President Nicolas Maduro in a military raid over the weekend, as he issued stark warnings to other countries that they could be next.

Maduro, who was dragged into custody with his wife, Cilia Flores, in a deadly early Saturday morning raid, is slated to appear in court for the first time at noon ET in New York City to face charges that he and his associates conspired with with narcoterrorists to ship thousands of tons of cocaine to the US.

Trump’s latest comments come even as some in his administration, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, suggested the US would be relying more on leverage over Venezuela and coercion, rather than directly running it as Trump first suggested during a Saturday morning news conference.

Meanwhile, Venezuelans are hunkering down as they wait for more information about what the Trump administration has in store for their country. The Trump administration is working quickly to establish a compliant interim government, according to US officials, prioritizing administrative stability and repairing the country’s oil infrastructure over an immediate turn to democracy.

In particular, US officials have focused on the country’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who Trump advisers identified weeks ago as a viable, if nonpermanent, alternative to Maduro. Despite Rodríguez’s initial attacks on the administration over Maduro’s capture, US officials privately maintained optimism she would work with the United States.

By Sunday night, Rodríguez was striking a softer tone than she previously had, calling for “cooperation” with the US.

Trump returned to Washington, DC, late Sunday night where lawmakers are mostly divided along party lines in their reaction to the military operation, which Congress was not notified about ahead of time.

Democrats in Congress have slammed the administration for not seeking congressional authorization before the attack, while Trump allies in the GOP have mostly praised the operation.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, a Republican, told CNN on “State of the Union” that new “legitimate” elections including members of the country’s opposition party will likely be a next step.

Here’s what to know:

What happened during the military operation?

The Trump administration struck various parts of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city, in the early hours of Saturday, January 3. Members of the US Army’s elite Delta Force dragged Maduro and Flores from their bedroom and flew them to the USS Iwo Jima, then onto New York, via

By Mary Triny Mena, Max Saltman, CNN

Caracas, Venezuela (CNN) — The morning after US forces bombed Caracas, dragged President Nicolás Maduro out of bed, carted him over the Caribbean and installed him in a Brooklyn jail, many Venezuelans hurried to the grocery store.

“Why did I have to go out?” said Judith Ledezma. “I have a pet that needs exercise and I was really stressed out staying indoors.”

Her orange dog sat beside her on a park bench in Caracas, along with numerous shopping bags. Ledezma, who lives near one of the airbases hit by US airstrikes, told CNN the noise from the attack woke her up.

“I thought it was an earthquake,” Ledezma said. “I got scared and came running out with my daughter and the dog.”

“We have no idea what our fate will be now with this new situation,” Ledezma continued. “I am completely in the dark. I have no idea what is going to happen to the country, to us.”

The government in Caracas wants Venezuelans out and about, though the streets are quiet, apart from a few militia members mustering with their motorcycles. Defense Minister Vladímir Padrino Lopez told people Sunday to “resume their economic activities, work, and all other types of activities, including educational activities, in the coming days.”

Olga Jimenez told CNN she finally left her house on Sunday after staying in all of Saturday. Maduro or no Maduro, Jimenez said, she doesn’t expect much to change in Venezuela – except maybe the lines at the shops.

“I’ve been glued to the TV, watching to see what’s going on, and what there is is uncertainty,” Jimenez said. “You don’t feel a change of government because everything is the same. The only thing is that we don’t know.”

“What’s happening to us is that places aren’t open, and you have to line up for everything, as if we were going backwards to the Chávez era, when you had to line up everywhere just to buy things,” Jimenez added. “I don’t know how to put it – it was Maduro’s government, and they should have taken them all, not just Maduro.”

Maria Azocar, meanwhile, told CNN that “having lived through so much, nothing really worries me anymore.”

“As I say, this is for the history books,” Azocar said, before listing the names of past Venezuelan leaders: “(Marcos) Pérez Jiménez, (Isaías Medina) Angarita, Rómulo Gallegos, Juan Vicente Gómez – people who, in their time, were overthrown or displaced.”

“I’ll tell you something straight: It was really an abuse on the part of the Americans,” Azocar said of the attack, “because they intimidated the people with their missiles. That says it all.”

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez (whom Azocar said US President Donald Trump “appointed” to lead the country) is “a woman of real strength,” she added.

“I think with her, it eases people’s hearts a little, on one side and the other,” Azocar said.

The United States is apparently tolerating having Rodríguez in charge, for now. Saturday, Trump told reporters he thought opposition leader María Corina Machado didn’t have the “respect’ or “support” to lead the country.

Resident Mario Valdez told CNN he thought an immediate, forceful transition to opposition rule “could lead us into violence.”

“It would mean the reds leave only for the blues to take over,” Valdez said, referring to the left and right respectively, “in a country which, at this moment, after 26 years of a Chavista government, can’t handle, because it would lead to anothe

By Abbas Al Lawati, CNN

(CNN) — Saudi Arabia has publicly accused the United Arab Emirates – a fellow Gulf Arab state and former partner in the Yemen war – of undermining its national security, an unusually blunt charge that exposes a rift long kept behind closed doors.

The language is among the sharpest Riyadh has used against its ally and reflects growing Saudi unease with the UAE’s increasingly independent foreign policy, tensions that last week culminated in Saudi strikes on a UAE-linked shipment in Yemen.

CNN has learned that Riyadh is particularly concerned about the UAE’s role in Yemen, which shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, and in Sudan, which lies across the Red Sea from the kingdom’s west coast. Saudi officials worry that instability or state collapse in either country could have grave consequences for its own national security.

Those concerns extend beyond Yemen and Sudan. Riyadh is also wary of the UAE’s policies in the Horn of Africa and in Syria, where it believes Abu Dhabi has cultivated ties with elements of the Druze community, some of whose leaders have openly discussed secession.

A UAE official told CNN that the country’s foreign policy prioritizes international cooperation and long-term prosperity, framing it as part of a broader commitment to “responsible leadership” and “enduring progress.”

The official didn’t address allegations regarding Abu Dhabi’s role in Syria. The UAE has not publicly endorsed Druze aspirations for autonomy or secession in the country.

For the UAE, southern Yemen’s strategic importance lies in its location along key maritime trade routes and Red Sea shipping lanes, as well as its proximity to the Horn of Africa, where Abu Dhabi has built both military and commercial interests. The UAE says its role in Yemen has to do with its broader strategy of combatting extremism. ISIS and Al Qaeda have long had a presence in the country.

But Yemen, Sudan and the Horn of Africa lie far closer to Saudi Arabia than to the UAE, magnifying Riyadh’s sense of exposure.

While analysts do not expect the rift to escalate into direct conflict, even a limited deterioration could carry far-reaching consequences. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are among the world’s largest oil exporters and are positioned near two of the most critical maritime chokepoints in global trade – the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab – through which a significant share of the world’s seaborne oil flows and much of the shipping bound to and from the Suez Canal passes. Even a limited confrontation between the two US allies would be closely watched by energy markets.

They are also the largest and second-largest Arab economies respectively, with long-term investment pledges to the US running into the trillions of dollars, particularly in defense and technology, alongside access to some of Washington’s most advanced military systems.

A fraying alliance

Just a decade ago, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were closely aligned around what they saw as the region’s most pressing threats: Islamism, Iran’s expanding influence and the challenge to the regional status quo posed by Arab Spring–inspired uprisings. Together, they launched a military intervention in Yemen to roll back the advance of the Iran-backed Houthis, backed counter-revolutionary forces in the region and imposed a punishing blockade on fellow Gulf state Qatar over its alleged support for Islam

Por Nicquel Terry Ellis

El ambiente de hospitalidad en el restaurante Albi Kitchen, en Minneapolis, ha sido fracturado por el miedo. Fardowsa Ali, propietaria del establecimiento, denunció que el flujo constante de clientes que buscaban sus tradicionales sambusas ha desaparecido, siendo reemplazado por una ola de llamadas telefónicas violentas y amenazas de vandalismo.

La hostilidad contra este negocio local estalló tras la publicación de un video del creador de contenido conservador Nick Shirley, quien lanzó acusaciones de fraude contra centros de cuidado infantil de la comunidad somalí. “Es realmente triste; llamé a la Policía porque un hombre amenazó con venir y romperlo todo”, relató Ali, cuyo restaurante comparte edificio con una de las guarderías señaladas en el video. Esta situación ha provocado no solo un desplome en las ventas, sino un clima de inseguridad para la comunidad somalí en la zona.

Desde que el video fue publicado, Ali y otros propietarios de negocios y familias en la arraigada comunidad somalí del estado han dicho que han sido amenazados, acosados e intimidados en las redes sociales. Una guardería fue vandalizada y los padres tienen miedo de enviar a sus hijos a la escuela. Restaurantes y cafeterías somalíes que antes estaban llenos de clientes estuvieron casi vacíos la semana pasada y la gente tiene miedo de ir a sus trabajos.

La reacción contra el video de Shirley ha exacerbado la ansiedad que los residentes de ascendencia somalí en Minnesota ya sentían después de que el presidente de EE.UU., Donald Trump, calificó a la comunidad de “basura” y envió agentes de inmigración al estado en diciembre, haciendo de las llamadas Ciudades Gemelas el último objetivo de su campaña de deportaciones, que antes se había visto en ciudades como Los Ángeles, Chicago, Charlotte y Nueva Orleans.

“Este clima de miedo está interrumpiendo los medios de vida, separando familias y minando la sensación de seguridad y pertenencia para toda una comunidad”, dijo Jaylani Hussein, director ejecutivo del capítulo de Minnesota del Consejo de Relaciones Americano-Islámicas, sobre cómo se ha sentido la diáspora somalí más grande de la nación en las últimas semanas.

Algunos proveedores de guarderías dicen que el video de Shirley ha interrumpido su vida diaria mientras cuidan niños, algunos de los cuales provienen de familias trabajadoras que dependen mucho del cuidado infantil. Ahora están recibiendo una avalancha de llamadas telefónicas, amenazas y atención mediática, al tiempo que tratan de calmar a padres y niños asustados.

Las llamadas telefónicas a la guardería del propietario y consultor Kassim Busuri, cerca de Minneapolis, se han disparado con personas haciendo preguntas sobre inscripciones, horarios de operación y disponibilidad, dijo.

Las personas que llaman, dijo, no parecen ser padres genuinamente interesados y son una distracción del trabajo que su equipo necesita hacer. CNN evita nombrar la guardería de Busuri porque él teme que su centro pueda ser un objetivo de nuevas amenazas.

“Son solo llamadas al azar, cosas adicionales en las que no necesitamos enfocarnos”, dijo Busuri. “Necesitamos enfocarnos en los niños de los que cuidamos”.

El Departamento de Niños, Jóvenes y Familias de Minnesota dijo el viernes que sus investigadores visitaron los centros de cuidado infantil en el centro de las acusaciones de fraude y encontraron que estaban operando como se espera, con la excepción de uno, que “aún no estaba abierto para familias”.

Las acusaciones de fraude han traído atención no d