Venezuela’s Machado Presents Trump With a Nobel Prize After All

Donald Trump on Thursday finally got his greatest wish: to obtain a Nobel Peace Prize.

He didn’t earn it, of course. Last year’s actual recipient, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, told reporters that she “presented” her medal to Trump during a meeting the two had at the White House.

“I presented the president of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, and I told him this,” she said. “Two hundred years ago, General Lafayette gave Simon Bolivar a medal with George Washington’s face on it. Bolivar since then kept that medal for the rest of his life.… It was given by General Lafayette as a sign of the brotherhood between the United States, people of the United States and the people of Venezuela in their fight for freedom against tyranny.

“And 200 years in history, the people of Bolivar are giving back to the heir of Washington a medal, in this case the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”

Machado had already dedicated her prize to Trump when she won it last year. And just because she gave it to him does not transfer the title of Nobel laureate to him, as the Nobel Committee clarified over the weekend.

It’s highly likely that Machado’s decision to give her medal to Trump is an attempt to win favor with the new self-declared leader of Venezuela. After directing troops to storm Caracas, nearly two weeks ago, and kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump announced that Vice President Delcy Rodriguez would take over as interim president.

He notably passed over Machado, saying that “it would be very tough for her to be the leader” because she lacked sufficient “respect” in Venezuela. And it appears that Machado’s gamble may not pay off, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said ahead of Thursday’s meeting that he had yet to change his mind.

More than 80 House Democrats have co-signed articles of impeachment for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The bill, introduced by Illinois Representative Robin Kelly, comes amid ratcheting tensions in Minnesota, where ICE agents’ aggressive tactics have led to multiple shootings involving federal officers and widespread protests in Minneapolis.

“Noem’s gestapo-style tactics and reckless leadership have left communities and families devastated,” Kelly wrote in a post on X Thursday.

Dozens of Democrats lent their name in support of the measure, including all four Democratic representatives from Minnesota: Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig, Betty McCollum, and Kelly Morrison.

Omar, a regular target of President Donald Trump, said casting her support behind the measure was a means of seeking justice for Renee Good, the mother of three who was shot and killed by an ICE agent last week.

“Renee Nicole Good should be alive. We’ll continue to fight until we achieve real justice and accountability,” she wrote in a post on X. “That begins with impeaching Kristi Noem and ensuring no federal agent can act as judge, jury, and executioner in our streets.”

Rather than turn down the temperature following Good’s killing, Noem oversaw the deployment of even more immigration officers to Minnesota after the deadly shooting.

Other high-profile Democrats who co-sponsored the impeachment bill included Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Maxwell Frost, Eric Swalwell, and Jasmine Crockett.

“Kristi Noem has been a complete and total failure at her job. She has violated her oath and has allowed ICE agents to terrorize our communities,” Crockett wrote in a post on X.

A new federal lawsuit alleges that former Senator Kyrsten Sinema had an affair with her married bodyguard, Mark Ammel, marked by drug use, countless concerts, international travel, snide comments about colleagues, and more.

Mark Ammel’s ex-wife, Heather Ammel, is seeking $25,000 in damages on the grounds that Sinema and her ex-husband’s affair incited divorce, ending their 14-year marriage. This is possible under North Carolina’s “alienation of affection” law, which allows ex-spouses to sue the third party they allege interfered in their marriage. Only five other states in the nation still have this law on their books.

Heather Ammel’s complaint alleges that Mark and Sinema traveled alone together to Napa Valley in 2023, outside of Ammel’s security detail duties. He then began to join Sinema at other events, like a U2 concert in Las Vegas, a Green Day concert in Washington (where he brought his young child with him), a Taylor Swift concert in Miami, and more.

In 2024, Heather discovered Signal message exchanges between her husband and Sinema that included a photo of Sinema wrapped in a towel, as well as multiple messages that revealed the lack of seriousness in which Sinema held her job.

In those messages, Sinema offered to help Ammel through his mental health and PTSD challenges from his time in the military, and even told him to bring MDMA, or molly, on an actual work trip so that she—the sitting senator—could “guide him through a psychedelic experience.”

In another message in 2024, Sinema told Ammel that she was skipping the State of the Union address that year because she didn’t want to hear “some old man, President Biden, talk about the legislation she wrote.” When Ammel messaged Sinema about missionary sex with the lights on, the then-senator replied, “Boring!”

Earlier that year, Ammel admitted that Sinema was “handsy” with him at an event, holding his hand and touching him. They then traveled to San Francisco in a work capacity—until Sinema invited Ammel into her hotel room, where he stayed “for hours.”

In April, Ammel spent time alone with Sinema in her Washington, D.C., apartment, and in May she paid for his “psychedelic treatment” in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ammel told Sinema he planned on divorcing from Heather that summer. That fall, Heather saw a message from Sinema to Mark that read, “I miss you. Putting my hand on your heart. I’ll see you soon.”

“Are you having an affair with my husband?” Heather responded. She and Mark separated that November, and Heather alleges that Sinema and Mark’s affair is still ongoing.

Before this, Sinema was most known for her “independent” heel turn, voting against workers’ rights and health care advances after campaigning as a next-generation progressive. Now she’ll be making headlines for the comments and actions revealed in this lawsuit.

According to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, anyone questioning her about ICE’s wanton killing of Renee Nicole Good—or any of their violent acts—is a biased radical leftist.

“Secretary Noem spoke to the media and she said, among other things, that [ICE agents] are ‘doing everything correctly,’” The Hill’s Niall Stanage said to Leavitt at her Thursday press conference. “Thirty-two people died in ICE custody last year, 170 U.S citizens were detained by ICE, and Renee Good was shot in the head and killed by an ICE agent. How does that equate to them doing everything correctly?”

“Why was Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?” Leavitt asked.

“You’re asking me my opinion? Because an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed her unjustifiably,” Stanage said.

“Oh, OK, so you’re a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion,” Leavitt replied, launching into her classic tangent to try to delegitimize the reporter rather than actually address the question—and the senseless killing the entire country saw on camera.

“What do you want me to do?” Stanage tried to ask.

“You’re a left-wing hack, you’re not a reporter, you’re posing in this room as a journalist, and it’s so clear by the premise of your question,” Leavitt said, wagging her finger. “You and the people in the media, who have such biases but fake like you’re a journalist—you shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat.... You’re a left-wing activist.”

“What was inaccurate with what I said?” Stanage asked while Leavitt went on.

“Do you have the numbers of how many American citizens were killed at the hands of illegal aliens who ICE is trying to remove from this country? I bet you don’t.… I bet you never even read about Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray, or all of the innocent Americans who are killed at the hands of illegal aliens,” she said, referencing the same two murders the GOP has been talking about for over a year. “Shame on people like you in the media, who have a crooked view.”

Leavitt calling this man a hack—when the Trump administration has gone out of its way to fill its Cabinet and press corps with them—is beyond irony. More importantly, it appears that Leavitt and the general GOP plan to stick to their narrative of Good as some crazed antifa activist who was trying to mow down ICE agents with her car. That could not be further from the truth, and we know that. It is critical for leaders at every level to combat that rhetoric.

“[Press secretary Leavitt] can posture all she wants,” The New Republic’s Greg Sargent commented on X. “But asking how the following—tons of US citizens detained; many deaths in ICE custody; killing of Renee Good—square w/the claim that ICE is doing everything correctly is a perfectly legitimate question that she is plainly unable to answer.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt snapped Thursday at a reporter who didn’t buy her attempt to dismiss President Donald Trump’s repeated mentions of canceling elections.

During a White House press briefing, a reporter asked Leavitt why the president kept mentioning canceling elections. Trump had pointed out while speaking to Reuters that presidents never do well in the midterm elections, and bragged that because his administration has already accomplished so much, maybe the democratic process wasn’t necessary at all.

“When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election,” Trump said. The president had made a similar remark while speaking to Republicans at the Kennedy Center last week.

“The president was simply joking,” Leavitt said. “He was saying, ‘We’re doing such a great job, we’re doing everything American people thought, maybe we should just keep rolling.’ But he was speaking facetiously.”

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg posed a follow-up. “Are you saying the president finds the idea of cancelling elections funny?”

“Andrew, were you in the room? No you weren’t. I was in the room, I heard the conversation. And only someone like you would take that so seriously, and pose that in a question in that way,” Leavitt replied.

But Trump’s repeated threats to cancel essential democratic processes get more real all the time, as Democrats continue to gain momentum ahead of the midterm elections. Earlier Thursday, he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which some have speculated he could use to seize control of the states—and even suspend elections.

NATO is rallying to protect Greenland from the United States.

Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland have all confirmed plans to deploy military personnel to Greenland, after diplomatic talks with the United States this week ended in disaster, CNBC reported Thursday. 

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on X Wednesday that the French military would “participate in the joint exercises” organized by Denmark in Greenland called Operation Arctic Endurance. The BBC reported that senior French diplomat Olivier Poivre d’Arvor confirmed that initial deployment of  just 15 service members was intended to “show the U.S. that NATO is present.”

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson also announced Wednesday that “several officers” from the Swedish Armed Forces had been sent “at Denmark’s request.” The BBC reported two Norwegian soldiers, one British military officer, and a Dutch naval officer had also been sent. 

Following a meeting Wednesday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, and other U.S. representatives, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke said that he “didn’t manage to change the American position.” And Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who did not attend the meeting, said there was still a “fundamental disagreement” about the “American ambition to take over Greenland.”

Ahead of talks Wednesday, Trump proclaimed again that the United States “needs” Greenland in order to build his “Golden Dome” security system. 

President Trump wants to put U.S. boots on the ground in Mexico to fight drug cartels, once again reinforcing his complete disregard for the concept of state sovereignty.

According to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Trump has been pushing for “the participation of U.S. forces,” even though Mexico says it’s not necessary.

Nonetheless, The New York Times has reported that the Trump administration prefers to send either Special Forces (green berets) or CIA officers to join Mexican forces while they raid suspected fentanyl labs. Trump first made the request early last year but raised the idea again after the U.S. military abducted Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.

The Mexican government remains staunchly opposed to the proposition.

“We have highly trained army units and special forces,” Mexico’s national security chief, Omar García Harfuch, said last month. “What would they be needed for? … What we need is information.” Harfuch has overseen what he says is a fourfold crackdown on labs and cartels since Sheinbaum came into power.

This has been a long time coming. Trump has floated bombing and invading Mexico repeatedly since returning to office, and has certainly been emboldened by the brazen kidnapping of Maduro. Now, as he sets his eyes on Mexico, the popularity and legitimacy of Sheinbaum and her administration hang in the balance.

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has stayed noticeably silent after one of the newspaper’s reporters, Hannah Natanson, had her home searched by federal agents Wednesday—and the Post’s staff isn’t happy.

Status.news reports that several of the publication’s employees aren’t happy with their owner’s muted reaction to the raid. One called it “nauseating and irresponsible to have our owner remain silent given this unprecedented event,” while another said they were “disappointed” but “not surprised.”

“If there was a moment to stand up for our journalistic values, this would be it,” a third staffer said.

The newspaper’s executive editor, Matt Murray, forcefully condemned the search, which resulted in a phone and a smartwatch being seized from Natanson’s home.

“This extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work,” Murray wrote in an internal memo. “The Washington Post has a long history of zealous support for robust press freedoms. The entire institution stands by those freedoms and our work.”

Bezos, though, hasn’t said anything, even as the Post’s own editorial board and other publications, such as The New York Times, have spoken out. That’s possibly due to Bezos’s efforts to cozy up to President Trump in his second term, donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attending the inauguration in person.

Since then, Bezos has shifted the Post’s opinion section to the right, paid $40 million to first lady Melania Trump for the rights to a documentary, and has met privately with the president multiple times. All signs point to Bezos staying silent in order to keep Trump happy and protect his billions.

How are ICE agents picking where to commit their next act of wanton violence? Well, Palantir has an app for that!

According to a user guide obtained by 404 Media, the app provides ICE agents with a digital map populated by potential deportation targets, each of which has their own detailed dossier, including information such as their name, date of birth, Alien Registration Number (a unique identifier assigned by the U.S. government), and a photograph of the target. The dossier also includes a “confidence score” out of 100 as to how certain the app is of the target’s address.

“Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) is a targeting tool designed to improve capabilities for identifying and prioritizing high-value targets through advanced analytics,” the user guide states.

The information comes from a number of sources, including the Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and something called CLEAR, which could be an investigation software from Thomson Reuters, according to 404Media.

The app’s “Geospatial Lead Sourcing Tab” allows ICE agents to select targets based on a number of criteria, including “Bios & IDs,” “Criminality,” “Location,” and “Operations,” the user guide shows. Using the app, ICE agents can select individual targets or multiple targets at once by drawing a shape around a selected area. During a sworn deposition earlier this month about a “dragnet” raid in Woodburn, Oregon, an officer with ICE’s Fugitive Operations Unit said that agents used the app to find target-rich areas.

“You’re going to go to a more dense population rather than … like, if there’s one pin at a house and the likelihood of them actually living there is like 10 percent … you’re not going to go there,” said the agent, who was identified as “JB” in the court documents obtained by 404 Media.

While the user guide does not explicitly state what company created the app, the app’s full name appears in a $29.9 million supplemental agreement with Palantir that started in September and is planned to continue for at least a year, 404Media reported.

ICE previously signed an agreement with Palantir in July to develop an ImmigrationOS platform, which would use artificial intelligence to identify and track potential targets. ICE has also assembled a team to monitor social media 24/7, surveying platforms including Instagram, X, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement used artificial intelligence to streamline its rush to add 10,000 more agents to its countrywide crackdown, according to NBC. This resulted in a grave technical error, as recruits were hired and assigned to field offices without adequate training.

The AI was supposed to simply scan résumés and identify recruits for the law enforcement officers, or LEO, program. The program requires four weeks of online training, while applicants who aren’t LEOs require eight. But most of all recent applicants reviewed were classified by the AI as LEOs, allowing them to forgo half of the required training even though they had no law enforcement experience whatsoever—a decision that could be dangerous for all involved.

The mistake was not identified until mid-fall, when ICE was through most of its hiring upswing. While it is in the process of correcting the mistake, how many of those 10,000 officers entered American streets with only four weeks of training?