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Emergency workers in Trinidad and Tobago are racing to clean up a massive oil spill after a mystery vessel ran aground near the Caribbean island, casting a pall over Carnival tourism. The spill was "not under control" as of Sunday, said Prime Minister Keith Rowley, who added that the country is grappling with a national emergency. The mystery vessel capsized Wednesday in waters off the Caribbean island, having made no emergency calls, with no sign of crew, and no clear sign of ownership.

One by one, they are singing, the men who used to do dirty deeds for the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro. Nobody knows what’s going to happen, whether the United States will attack, and whether Maduro will fall. But these Venezuelans sniff change in the air. As more countries exit Venezuela’s orbit, more allegations are likely to emerge. Two of the men are in prison here in the U.S.: Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, the former spy mastermind, and Cliver Alcala Cordones, a former general, both of whom have written letters to President Donald Trump airing...

Russia has begun evacuating its citizens from Venezuela, a sudden move that analysts say signals a major shift in Moscow's stance toward dictator Nicolás Maduro's embattled regime — and comes as U.S. military pressure on Caracas steadily intensifies, La Derecha Diario reported. The Association of Tour Operators of Russia confirmed that flights are being organized to remove Russians from Venezuela. The announcement, circulated widely by Russian media, sparked immediate speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for instability or distancing itself from Maduro after years of backing the socialist strongman. The evacuation order comes at an unusual moment. Russian...

Donald Trump just sent Nicolas Maduro a Christmas message, of a sort. And that message is not many happy returns of the day. Earlier today, the US Navy boarded a tanker carrying Venezuelan oil in international waters. Unlike the first seizure, Marc Caputo reports for Axios, this ship had no specific sanctions applied to it [see update below]. This escalates the standoff over Maduro's illegal regime and the oil revenue he desperately needs to cling to power:The U.S. military early Saturday boarded a tanker that is not under U.S. sanctions as it shipped Venezuelan oil in hopes of escaping a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country’s economy. Trump’s escalation comes after U.S. forces last week seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast, an unusual move that followed a buildup of military forces in the region. In a post on social media Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and...

President Trump on Tuesday called for a "total and complete blockade" on all sanctioned oil tankers that enter or depart Venezuela, as the administration heaps pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at sea — and leaves the door open for land strikes. "Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America," the president wrote on Truth Social. "It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil,...

The commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), whose area of operations includes the Caribbean waters where the strikes against the alleged drug boats have been conducted, retired Friday as scrutiny surrounding the attacks mounts. Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, who became the head of Southern Command in November 2024, announced suddenly in October that he would retire from the military as operations heated up in the region that the administration claims is part of President Donald Trump’s crusade against the influx of drugs into the U.S. The Trump administration designated drug cartel groups like Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa and others as...

Any day now, a US Navy strike force, led by the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, will join an armada of war ships already positioned off the coast of Venezuela. Described in the naval media as “the most capable, adaptable, and lethal combat platform in the world,” the USS Gerald R. Ford bristles with state-of-the-art attack aircraft on its massive deck: Super Hornet fighters, Growler electronic warfare jets, and Seahawk helicopters among them. And the battleship carries some 5,000 seamen and Marines, adding to the phalanx of 10,000 military personnel already deployed on bases in Puerto Rico and on...

United States Southern Command on Monday announced that Joint Task Force Southern Spear took out three narcotrafficking vessels in the Eastern Pacific. A total of eight “narco-terrorists” were killed in the strikes. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking,” US SOUTHCOM said. Video from the strikes shows massive explosions on each boat, turning them into burning piles of rubble. WATCH: US Strikes More Venezuelan Drug Boats US Southern Command said in a statement on X, On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task...

United States Southern Command on Monday announced that Joint Task Force Southern Spear took out three narcotrafficking vessels in the Eastern Pacific. A total of eight “narco-terrorists” were killed in the strikes. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking,” US SOUTHCOM said. Video from the strikes shows massive explosions on each boat, turning them into burning piles of rubble. WATCH: VIDEOS AT LINK.................... US Strikes More Venezuelan Drug Boats US Southern Command said in a statement on X, On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete...

The U.S. seized an oil tanker near Venezuela this week, all while the Democrats have been busy proving that another one of their top priorities is protecting narco terrorists running drugs by boat for the cartels. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner posts, "So they can seize an oil tanker, but not a drug boat?" He could have easily said, "So they can blow up a drug boat, but not an oil tanker," and looked just as stupid. Warner was still butthurt on Friday over the United States blowing narco-terrorists out of the water. According to ABC News, Warner revealed that the...

In the 1980s, the U.S. negotiated the exile of world leaders like Haiti’s Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier to France and Ferdinand Marcos from the Philippines to Hawaii.Now, President Donald Trump wants Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro out of power. Maduro’s “days are numbered,” Trump told Politico in an interview released on Dec. 9. His Administration considers Maduro the head of a government-sponsored cocaine smuggling syndicate. Since September, he’s blown up 22 alleged drug boats off Venezuela’s coastline, parked a carrier strike group in the Caribbean, and flown F/A-18 attack jets near Venezuela’s border. On Wednesday, the U.S. seized an oil tanker...

Senator Eric Schmitt delivered an absolute demolition of a clueless reporter on Tuesday after she tried—and failed spectacularly—to equate narco-terrorist drug-running vessels as harmless “fishing boats.” What followed was a brutal reality check that the fake news media desperately needed. While Democrats obsess over protecting cartel operatives and criticizing U.S. interventions, Schmitt made clear the only victims in this story are American families burying loved ones poisoned by fentanyl. The exchange was filmed by Caden Olson, a congressional reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Reporter: If you can seize a tanker without killing anyone, shouldn’t that… If you can...

The interception of a sanctioned Russian tanker by the USS Stockdale near Venezuela has turned a slow-burning sanctions story into a visible test of sea power, energy leverage, and political resolve in the Caribbean. As Washington tightens the screws on fuel shipments that have been worth roughly 3 billion dollars to Nicolás Maduro's government, the encounter signals that the era of quiet workarounds is giving way to open contests on the water. I see this clash as more than a one-off naval drama. It is the moment when a shadowy sanctions evasion network, a fragile petrostate, and a resurgent U.S....

This is the dramatic moment that US commandos stormed a Venezuelan oil tanker in a breathtaking airborne takedown amid ratcheting tensions in the Caribbean. Footage released by the Trump administration on Wednesday showed American forces swooping on the tanker in helicopters and rappelling down ropes. Troops with guns drawn darted up stairs to the bridge to take control of the vessel off the coast of Venezuela. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a statement on X: 'Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a...

The United States seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said, escalating US pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s regime. “As you probably know we’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela,” Trump said. “Large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually.” Attorney General Pam Bondi said the tanker has been sanctioned by the US for multiple years “due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” including Venezuela and Iran.

No matter how much I try to ignore the Democrats' latest "The Walls Are Closing In" spectacle, it has come to my attention that liberals are hopping mad about our military killing two Venezuelan drug traffickers. Cocaine has killed 100,000 Americans in the last 20 years. Venezuela is a major player in the supply chain that brings it here. But Democrats are concerned with the safety and well-being of the narco-terrorists. Of course, Democrats also root for cop-killers, serial rapists, wife-beaters, drug kingpins, cold-blooded killers and Ana Navarro. Liberals are OK with killing people unless it's good for America. They...

To order the killing of people shipwrecked is clearly illegal according to military justice, according to our own military laws. If our pilots have to eject from a plane, we show that we don’t shoot people. We don’t shoot pilots that are descending by parachute. If we blow up a boat and there are survivors we don’t shoot those people. We don’t sidle up in a boat and take a nine millimeter pistol out, put it to their head and shoot them. Nobody would do that.” “But just because the missiles come from a long distance doesn’t make it any...

The U.S. has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, three officials told Reuters on Wednesday, a move that raised oil prices and is likely to further inflame tensions between Washington and Caracas. President Donald Trump has ordered a massive U.S. military build-up in the region, including an aircraft carrier, fighter jets and tens of thousands of troops. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the operation was led by the U.S. Coast Guard. They did not name the tanker, which country's flag it was flying or exactly where the interdiction took place. Oil futures rose...

Once again, the United States is using lethal force off its shores. In recent weeks, American drones and warships have sunk or disabled a string of speedboats in international waters off Venezuela. Washington says the vessels belonged to narcoterrorist networks tied to the Maduro regime and Tren de Aragua and that they were carrying cocaine and fentanyl precursors bound for the United States. At least 83 alleged traffickers and others are dead. Caracas calls this extrajudicial murder. Human-rights groups call it assassination. Cable-news panels and UN press releases are already rehearsing the same ritual question: Is this legal under international...