Trump vs. South America

Hi readers, welcome back! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving break. Today, we’re catching up on a lot news — we’ll be covering the situation in Venezuela, deadly storms in Asia, the Ukraine deal, Honduras’ presidential elections, Pete Hegseth’s kill order, the D.C. shooting, and big problems for Airbus.

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” ― Federico García Lorca

Maduro Makes A Stand

On Saturday, the president of one country announced that the airspace over another country was closed. Take a wild guess who we’re talking about here. 

“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” wrote U.S. President Donald Trump on TruthSocial. The announcement marked the latest act of aggression carried out by the U.S. against Venezuela, as the Trump administration continues to push for regime change in the oil-rich South American nation. 

The next day, Trump confirmed that he’d talked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro over a phone call on November 21. According to Trump, he offered Maduro safe passage out of his country in exchange for the Venezuelan president stepping down. “You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now,” Trump supposedly said, adding that he would keep Maduro and his family safe “only if he agreed to resign right away.” Maduro countered by demanding “global amnesty” for himself and allies, but the Trump administration apparently never replied.

“We want peace, but peace with sovereignty, equality, freedom! We do not want a slave’s peace, nor the peace of colonies!” Maduro shouted at a rally on Monday. His government views the Trump administration’s threats and military buildup off Venezuela’s coast as a bluff, as Maduro has survived a laundry list of crises since his election in 2013.

A Torrential Thanksgiving

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, heavy rains and storms slammed South and Southeast Asia, leaving over 1,100 people dead and thousands more missing. In Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia, normal monsoon rains combined with Cyclone Senyar to cause widespread flooding and landslides – the downpour cut off villages and destroyed homes across the region. Sri Lanka, meanwhile, was hit by Cyclone Ditwah, the strongest storm to sweep over the island nation in more than two decades. At least 390 Sri Lankans have been confirmed dead, with over 350 still missing. 

“This is the first time the entire country has been struck by such a disaster,” said Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, suggesting that the cyclone had caused more damage than the 2004 tsunami which killed over 31,000 people across the country. This year’s storm is estimated to have affected at least 1.1 million people, and the damage has left the low-lying areas around the capital city, Colombo, still underwater.

Indonesia’s North Sumatra region was one of the areas most affected by Cyclone Senyar, with over 400 people confirmed dead. Widespread flooding and landslides have cut off locals from recovery efforts, and rescuers are still unable to access at least two parts of Sumatra island. Hat Yai, a commercial hub in southern Thailand, also suffered over the weekend – the city had already taken more than 13 inches of rain on November 21, and the waterlogged ground was unable to soak up last week’s downpour, leading to chest-high flood waters sweeping through an already-ravaged area.

This New Toilet Paper Just Might Save the World

What’s The Deal With The Ukraine Deal

• Diplomats from Ukraine, the E.U., and the U.S. were working overtime during the Thanksgiving break, looking to figure out a peace deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Paris yesterday to discuss deal terms with European diplomats, while a team of Ukrainian diplomats were also in Florida over the weekend holding negotiations with the Trump White House.

• On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration “feels very optimistic” about reaching a peace deal sometime soon, but President Zelensky didn’t seem as confident. According to the Ukrainian president, “the territorial issue is the most difficult” – that’s because a deal framework established by Russia and the U.S. calls on Kyiv to cede large chunks of the eastern Donbas region, something Ukraine’s government has refused to even consider. 

• French President Emmanuel Macron chimed in on the negotiations, presumably speaking on behalf of E.U. negotiators. Macron claimed that there is currently “no finalised peace plan to speak of,” and added that such a deal could “only be finalised by President Zelensky.”

The Don Takes On Honduras

• Two days after announcing that the airspace of a sovereign nation was closed, Trump moved on to meddling in another country’s presidential election. Yesterday, as votes were counted in Honduras’ presidential election, the country’s electoral commission called for “patience and prudence,” as right-wing candidate Nasry Asfura and centrist Salvador Nasralla were separated by a margin as small as just 515 votes.

• Impatiently and imprudently, Trump threw fuel on the fire last night, claiming via TruthSocial that vote-counting had “abruptly stopped” as the country’s government was allegedly “trying to change the results” of the vote tally. Prior to that, the U.S. president had threatened to cut off aid to Honduras if Asfura was not elected president, writing, “If he doesn't win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is.”

Additional World News

• Netanyahu requests a pardon to end his ongoing corruption trial in Israel (AP)

• Russia's Putin seeks to boost energy, defence exports with India visit (Reuters) 

• Putin and Trump's envoy set for key Ukraine talks in Moscow (BBC) 

• Israeli settlers attack and rob Italian and Canadian volunteers in West Bank (Guardian) 

• Hong Kong arrests 13 on suspicion of manslaughter over apartment fires (Guardian) 

• Outdoor Concerts? Uncovered Hair? Shimmying in Public? Is This Iran? (NYT, $)

The Department Of War (Crimes?)

• Since early September, the American military has killed over 80 people in the Caribbean. The Pentagon claims that it’s targeting drug-smuggling boats used to bring narcotics into the U.S., but has yet to offer any concrete evidence that its targets were actually running drugs. On Friday, the Washington Post published a report claiming that the first attack – carried out on September 2 – had left two survivors. According to the report, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered soldiers to “kill everybody” on board, prompting SEAL Team 6 members to fire a second missile at the two remaining survivors clinging on to the vessel.

• The Geneva Convention forbids signatories from attacking wounded participants, calling on soldiers to capture and treat the wounded. Hegseth has contended that the Post report is “fake news” and President Trump has stated that he stands with the Secretary of Defense “100%,” but the information has prompted a bipartisan group of lawmakers to call for an investigation into the strike. 

• “The Committee is aware of recent news reports – and the Department of Defense's initial response – regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” said the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee on Monday. ”The Committee has directed inquiries to the Department, and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”

In The Midst Of Every Crisis Lies Great Opportunity (To Change Immigration Policy)

• On November 26, a pair of National Guard soldiers were shot in Washington D.C.  One was killed in the incident, while another remains in the hospital in critical condition. The main suspect in the case is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who had worked in a CIA-backed Afghan army unit before entering the U.S. in 2021 – Lakanwal was hospitalized after another National Guard member shot him during the altercation.

• Soon after the shooting, the Trump administration announced a list of changes to U.S. immigration policies. Joseph Edlow, Trump’s director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, announced on X that all asylum decisions would be paused “until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.” He later announced that USCIS would be conducting a “full scale, rigorous reexamination” of every green card holder from “every country of concern.” His boss, meanwhile, broadcasted another change with some less-professional language – in a TruthSocial post, Trump said that the country would “permanently pause” migration from all “Third World Countries” in response to the shooting.

Additional USA News

• Donald Trump's MRI test results released by White House doctor (BBC)

• Trump Administration Fires 8 Immigration Judges in New York (NYT, $)

• Investigators plead for tips after 3 children, 1 adult killed in shooting at child's birthday party (AP)

• Supreme Court weighs copyright fight between music industry and internet providers (NPR)

• Former Trump personal lawyer Alina Habba is unlawfully serving at the US attorney for New Jersey, appeals court says (CNN)

• FBI under Kash Patel has become ‘internally paralyzed by fear’, new report reveals (Guardian) 

Airbus? More Like Airbus-ted!

• It hasn’t been a great year for airplane makers, and the Thanksgiving weekend was no exception. On Friday, Airbus issued a safety alert for all of its A320-family jets, effectively grounding roughly 6,000 planes operated by air carriers across the globe. “Analysis of a recent event involving an A320 Family aircraft has revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls,” said the company.

• By Monday – after the holiday rush home – the company announced that the majority of affected aircraft had been fixed thanks to an emergency software update pushed out by the company’s engineers. Unfortunately for Airbus, there’s a paragraph underneath this one, which means the story doesn’t end there.

• After Airbus announced that most of the A320 jets had had their solar flare problems fixed, the company had to make another press release announcing issues with fuselage panels on some recently-sold A320s. While the company noted that “the source of the issue has been identified, contained and all newly produced panels conform to all requirements,” Airbus stock closed Monday down 5.9%. How much more bad news can aerospace companies take in the last month of the year? One can only imagine.

Additional Reads

• The Transgender Cancer Patient and What She Heard on Tape (NYT, $)

• Samsung unveils first multi-folding phone as competition set to heat up (Reuters)

• How to spot a bubble bursting (Economist, $)

• The end of malaria: How politics, not parasites, became the biggest threat in the fight against malaria (Vox)

• Why singing is surprisingly good for your health (BBC)

• Don't get angry, but the 2025 Oxford Word of the Year is 'rage bait' (NPR) 

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Peanut For Your Thoughts

Does anybody have any insight into why exactly airplanes seem to be malfunctioning more this year? Or have news outlets just realized that people are more likely to click on “airplane has problem” type stories?

Editor + Writer: Marcus Gee-Lim

Designer: Joe Stella