Energy Secretary Chris Wright attends a cabinet meeting at the White House on January 29. Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg/Getty Images/FileUS Energy Secretary Chris Wright is in Venezuela, making him the highest-ranking US official to visit the socialist country in almost three decades. The account of the US embassy in Venezuela said in a post on X that his visit is “key to advance the vision” of President Donald Trump in the South American country. CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Rodríguez on January 15, less than two weeks after Maduro’s capture. Read our coverage of Wright’s visit to Venezuela in Spanish.

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WATCH HEREImageOn Redactions in the Epstein Files:“I am going in later this week, probably Thursday, maybe Friday, to review the unredacted Epstein files. And the other problem is that 50% of the Epstein files have not been released to us. We saw them then deny that the Epstein files existed. So this all reeks of a cover-up right now and we need to release the entire Epstein files. That is why we've been seeking the Epstein files for months and months now, because the person at the heart of this is a known liar.

Groundskeeper Manuel Nava leaps over a flooded area of Pacific Coast Highway while working in the rain in Sunset Beach in early January. A fast-moving storm drenched Los Angeles overnight and triggered a flash flood warning in a local burn scar Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. AdvertisementBy 6 a.m. Wednesday, the storm was flowing east at about 15 mph and was exiting Los Angeles County hours earlier than initially expected. “It moved faster than anticipated, which did result in a little bit higher rainfall rates,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. The rain is expected to continue on and off across the Southland before tapering off in the afternoon, according to a weather service forecast.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, second right, speaks alongside President Trump before the signing of a funding bill. How else to explain his persistent claim there’s something sinister and nefarious about the way California casts and counts its election ballots? AdvertisementWith an apparent eye toward rigging the 2026 midterm election, Trump suggested Republicans should “take over the voting” in at least “15 places,” which, presumably, would all be Democratic strongholds. I mean, they hold the elections open for weeks after election day,” Johnson told reporters. The state allows those ballots to arrive and be counted up to seven days after the election, so long as they are postmarked on or before election day.

The Dilley Detention Center was opened during the Obama administration. The idea of detaining families is not new, and they built this detention center for them. What would you say life is like inside the detention center for the women and children who are there? The two main reasons someone can be detained in immigration detention. But there are limitations on detention of children; they’re not supposed to hold them for very long.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter and lawyers tour the Brentwood School, where the pool, football field and other facilities are on land leased from the Department of Veterans Affairs. School officials issued a brief statement saying the VA had offered to meet with them in Washington. In his judgment, Carter nullified the leases on the grounds that they do not principally benefit veterans as required by law. But Carter took a conciliatory stance toward the Brentwood school, saying he did not want to deprive students of the facilities. He praised the VA for terminating the illegal leases and said he was encouraged by its apparent openness to larger housing units.

El Paso, with a population of nearly 700,000, is the sixth-largest city in Texas and one of the 25 largest in the United States. Nearly 3.5 million passengers passed through El Paso International Airport in the first 11 months of 2025, according to its website. Security personnel at El Paso International Airport on February 11, 2026. Samuel, a traveler in El Paso, told CNN affiliate KFOX he was doing a book tour with a client and didn’t get any notification from his airline. “They did not alert the El Paso city manager or the El Paso mayor,” Escobar said on a press call Wednesday morning.

Richard Tillman, 44, was arrested on July 20 after he rammed a car into the post office in a strip mall and then set the vehicle ablaze. Tillman, of San Jose, on Monday entered a guilty plea in federal court to malicious destruction of government property. Pat Tillman left the Arizona Cardinals to join the military after 9/11 and was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 at age 27. His family is from the San Jose area. Kevin Tillman also left his Major League Baseball career with the Anaheim Angels to serve in the military.

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And this week has felt spiritually trying since I learned that the Trump administration forced the Stonewall National Monument in New York City — the birthplace of the LGBTQ+ rights movement — to take down its Pride flag. Because if there is any exception for the flags that can be flown, the Pride flag at the Stonewall Monument sure as hell seems like it should be one of them. AdvertisementIn 2016, President Barack Obama made the Stonewall Inn, a bar where trans and queer people protested against police brutality in the ’60s, a national monument, ensuring its protection. There have been Pride flags there long before it was a national landmark. And as the neighborhood and other parts of Manhattan become less gay thanks to gentrification, banning Pride flags at Stonewall feels pretty damn personal.

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Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Peter Welch (D-VT), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led a letter to U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio pushing the Trump Administration to immediately end deportation flights to Iran. “Given Iran’s horrific human rights record, we are deeply concerned that the Trump administration is returning people to a country where they may be persecuted or tortured, in violation of U.S. and international law,” wrote the senators. Given Iran’s horrific human rights record, we are deeply concerned that the Trump administration is returning people to a country where they may be persecuted or tortured, in violation of U.S. and international law. [3]Iran’s violations of human rights are extensive, well-documented, and horrifying. You and others in the Trump administration spoke extensively about the horrors of the Iranian regime when attempting to justify the June 22, 2025, U.S. military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program.

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Students exit the Tumbler Ridge school after deadly shootings, in British Columbia, Canada, on Tuesday. AdvertisementMore than 25 people were wounded Tuesday in the attack in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, police said. “Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers in Tumbler Ridge will wake up without someone they love. The provincial government website lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as having 175 students in grades 7 to 12. “I’m asking the people of British Columbia to look after the people of Tumbler Ridge tonight.”Morris and Gillies write for the Associated Press.