How The U.S. Captured Maduro

Hi readers, happy Tuesday and welcome back! Today we’re covering (mostly) everything about Venezuela, Ukraine’s spy chief shuffle, mass protests in Iran, a man with a hammer at JD Vance’s house, the end of Tim Walz’s governorship, and data centers in space.

We hope you were able to spend some time with loved ones over the holidays and are looking forward to another year of sharing the news with you!

“Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe

New Year, New… Presidential Kidnapping Operation?

What a way to start the new year. Early on Saturday morning, U.S. Army Delta Force commandos carried out a deadly raid in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. After killing more than 80 people – both civilians and military members – a team of more than 200 Special Operations forces returned to the U.S. with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife both in tow. 

The kidnapping operation was the culmination of months of U.S.-Venezuela tensions, with 15,000 troops and a whole fleet of Navy boats hovering off the country’s coast for a solid chunk of 2025. The U.S. forces killed more than 115 people in boats while they waited for the perfect moment to capture the Venezuelan president, claiming that their targets were running drugs into the U.S.

But back to Saturday’s operation. Things kicked off before dawn in Caracas, when over 150 U.S. military aircraft took off for the Venezuelan capital. They dropped bombs on key locations in the city, mainly targeting radar and communications infrastructure to leave the Venezuelan military in the dark. Then a second wave of aircraft carried out strikes on air defense batteries, clearing the way for helicopters full of Delta Force soldiers, who quickly closed in on Maduro’s compound. The infantry forces were able to get to the Venezuelan president before he was able to shut the door to his steel-reinforced safe room, capturing him alive and bringing him to the U.S.

In the U.S. – after being photographed in a variety of different outfits by military officials – Maduro and his wife now face federal drug trafficking charges, following up on White House claims that he’s the head of the mysterious “Cartel of the Sun,” a shadowy group that was never mentioned by the U.S. government until Trump’s first term. Maduro and his wife have already pleaded guilty to those drug charges, and their lawyer Barry Pollack, has already announced that he plans to contest the legality of their “military abduction.” Making things even more interesting, the judge presiding over Maduro’s case is a 92 year-old Clinton appointee who “doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks about him,” according to a former colleague.

What’s going on in Venezuela without Maduro in charge? Well, U.S. forces are still stationed en masse off the country’s coast – they’re supposedly going to continue the U.S. blockade on Venezuelan “shadow” oil tankers, though multiple of those ships have already departed the country since Maduro’s capture. While Trump initially stated that the U.S. would “run the country” on Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that U.S. forces would just continue their “oil quarantine.” Former vice president Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as her country’s interim president on Sunday – while she stated that Maduro is the country’s “only president,” Rodríguez has also offered “to collaborate” with the Trump regime amidst the ongoing uncertainty. 

New Year, New Spy Chief

• As peace talks and a corruption scandal pile pressure on Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has added to the chaos by dismissing his country’s top spy. Yesterday, Zelenskyy announced the resignation of Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Last June, Malyuk earned the title of “Hero of Ukraine” after orchestrating Operation Spiderweb, an SBU operation that destroyed roughly $7 billion worth of Russian military aircraft – now he’s been relegated to heading the SBU’s unconventional warfare unit. Malyuk is being replaced by Major General Yevhen Khmara for now as Kyiv searches for a more permanent successor.

• According to government sources, Malyuk was asked to step down as SBU head on Saturday but refused, and other members of the military called for him to be kept at his post. Despite those protests, Zelenskyy eventually got his way, though it’s still unclear the president decided to kick off 2026 by firing such a widely-supported military leader. Some Ukrainian sources believe Malyuk’s removal is retaliation for an anti-corruption raid on Andriy Yermak, the president’s former chief of staff. Others say that Zelenskyy has been steadily removing his most prominent ministers in order to cut off any political rivals in postwar elections.

Irate At Inflation In Iran

• Yesterday, Australian authorities filed charges against the surviving suspect in last weekend’s Bondi Beach shooting. That suspect, 24-year-old Naveed Akram, emerged from a coma on Tuesday; he’s currently being held under police surveillance at a hospital in Sydney.

• The suspect has been charged with a total of 59 charges, including 15 counts of murder, terrorism, and causing grievous bodily harm with intent to murder. According to court documents, the suspect participated in a bail hearing yesterday, though there was no bail requested during the appointment.

• Local police have stated that the mass shooting – the worst in the last three decades in Australia – was likely motivated by Islamic State-inspired antisemitism. Meanwhile, Sydney’s tight-knit Jewish community continues to mourn its massive loss of life. Three funerals took place on Wednesday, including one honoring the life of Matilda, the youngest victim of the shooting.

Additional World News

• US attack on Greenland would mean end of Nato, says Danish PM (Guardian) 

• Ten found guilty of cyber-bullying Brigitte Macron (BBC) 

• After Venezuela, Trump Says Cuba Is ‘Ready to Fall’ (NYT, $)

• Mexico dismisses US military intervention despite Trump's threats after Venezuela operation (AP) 

• Dense, sticky and heavy: why Venezuelan crude oil appeals to US refineries (Guardian) 

• Israel strikes multiple sites in Lebanon ahead of a key disarmament meeting (AP)

Giving JD The Sunday Scaries

• Just after Sunday turned into Monday, a man was arrested outside of Vice President JD Vance’s Cincinnati, Ohio home (he owns two more in Washington, D.C.). The man, 26-year-old William Defoor, was arrested for breaking multiple windows and also skulking around someone else’s house while wielding a hammer. Defoor is set to face charges of damaging government property, engaging in physical violence against a person or property in a restricted building or grounds, and assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers, at his arraignment on Thursday.

• According to the Cincinnati Police Department’s arrest report, Defoor has been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and it’s not clear whether he has any legal representation. Defoor was charged with criminal trespassing in 2023 and arrested on vandalism charges in 2024 – he was declared incompetent in the 2023 case and dodged charges in the 2024 case (after paying a fine and promising to join a treatment program). While that legal history might suggest that Defoor might get away with breaking the windows, the massive raft of charges in this case means that prosecutors are taking this pretty seriously.

Walz-ing His Way Out The Door

• Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has announced that he will be abandoning his 2026 re-election campaign, which would have seen him push for a third term as governor. Instead, Walz is pushing for Senator Amy Klobuchar to replace him. Walz’s decision to step down comes as his government has been rocked by what can only be described as “The Somali Daycare Fraud Scandal,” which has seen a small ring of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora set up daycare companies in order to siphon large amounts of social services funding from the federal government.

• “I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all,” Walz said on Monday. “Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences.” While they haven’t won a statewide election in Minnesota since 2006, Republicans are piling on the pressure this election cycle by leveraging “The Somali Daycare Fraud Scandal” as much as possible. Klobuchar is seen as a safe pick for the Dems as she’s won each of her four Senate terms by at least 16 percentage points.

Additional USA News

• New York Times and Washington Post held off on reporting Venezuela raid (Semafor)

• US cuts universal childhood vaccine recommendations, including covid and hepatitis (BBC)

• Novo Nordisk launches Wegovy weight-loss pill in US, triggering price war (Guardian) 

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting votes to shut itself after funding cuts (CNN)

• Pentagon moves to punish senator for anti-Trump video (Politico)

• Trump Signs Defense Bill Prohibiting China-Based Engineers in Pentagon IT Work (ProPublica)

AI But It’s In Space

• Space, according to the writers of Star Trek, is the final frontier. That applies to humans, vulcans, aliens, and now… AI data centers. Many of the businesses behind the current AI boom (or bubble) believe that AI technology’s insatiable appetite for data centers will soon outpace our planet’s ability to provide the space and energy needed to keep their racks of processors fed. Instead, companies like Google, Nvidia, and OpenAI are betting that we’ll need to set up data centers in space to keep improving our AI models. On the surface, the idea of computing in space makes sense – there’s more, well, space up there, you can harvest sunlight around the clock for a steady supply of electricity, and there are no pesky humans around to complain about things like air or water pollution. But the engineering problems with sending massive server racks into orbit are more complex than you’d think. 

• First, the data centers won’t have Earth’s atmosphere protecting them from cosmic radiation and solar wind, meaning they’ll need to launch with specialized shielding. Second, we won’t be able to use convection cooling – letting heat dissipate into the air – which is the primary way data centers keep processors from overheating. That’s because space is a vacuum, meaning there’s no air for the heat to dissipate into. 

• Lastly, there’s the problem of data transfer. We “train” AI models by feeding them massive amounts of data, and as we train them, more parameters are added to the algorithm. These parameters also take up memory space, meaning more advanced models require more space. But current satellite-to-Earth data links max out at about 1 gigabyte per second, while terrestrial data links can carry literally 1,000 times that capacity. With the massive amount of training data needed to feed AI models as well as the other issues associated with sending delicate computer chips into space, it’s not clear that it makes sense to train our AI overlords in orbit.

Additional Reads

• The best tech announced at CES 2026 so far (Verge) 

• The Secret That Workers Found Gutting the Flatiron Building (Curbed) 

• How the Italian right is weaponizing food (Politico)

• Space Events 2026: NASA’s Artemis II Moon Mission, Summer Eclipse and More (NYT, $)

• Nvidia unveils 'reasoning' AI technology for self-driving cars (BBC)

• This Is the Difference Between Child Prodigies and Late Bloomers (Nautilus) 

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Peanut For Your Thoughts

Amy Klobuchar has some interesting stories floating around about her dietary habits – apparently she once ate a salad with a comb, and a single unverifiable source claims she has a Winnie the Pooh-like honey addiction. Allegedly.

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