Daughter delivers speech, with Nobel Institute saying María Corina Machado still expected in Oslo after journey of ‘extreme danger’

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Venezuela’s most prominent opposition leader, María Corina Machado, has vowed to continue her struggle to free the country from years of “obscene corruption”, “brutal dictatorship” and “despair” as she was awarded the Nobel peace prize at a ceremony in Norway’s capital, Oslo.

The 58-year-old conservative has lived in hiding in Venezuela since its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was accused of stealing the 2024 presidential election from her political movement. Despite fevered speculation that she would make a dramatic appearance at Wednesday’s event, having somehow slipped out of Venezuela, Machado was not present, although she was expected to arrive in Oslo in the coming hours.

Don’t say you weren’t warned: Trump’s new national security strategy seeks to destroy liberal democracy as we know it

On the same day that Donald Trump received his made-to-order “peace prize” from his newest pal, Fifa president “Johnny” Infantino, his administration published an equally gaudy national security strategy. The relatively short document oozes Trump and Trumpism. It starts out with the typically modest claim that the president has brought “our nation – and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster”.

Even if the strategy mostly formalises the ongoing actions and statements of Trump and his administration, it should be heeded as a warning for the world, and Europe in particular.

Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today

The Emily in Paris actor and writer of the Tony-nominated Slave Play remains in Japan while prosecutors investigate the alleged discovery of MDMA in his bag

The American playwright and Emily in Paris actor Jeremy O Harris has been released three weeks after his arrest in Japan on suspicion of drug smuggling while prosecutors investigate, police said Wednesday.

Japan has some of the world’s strictest drug laws, and possession of illegal narcotics can result in jail time. Prosecutors also have a very high conviction rate.

President sought to rehab image after criticism of being out of touch, but speech aimed at midterms took different turn

• Fact-checking Trump’s speech

Donald Trump has sought to reboot his ailing US presidency at a rally-style event with a blitz of false claims about the economy and xenophobic attacks on immigrants and “shithole countries”.

In the wake of Republican election defeats and criticism that he is out of touch with America’s affordability crisis, Trump’s speech at the Mount Pocono casino in north-eastern Pennsylvania on Tuesday was billed as an opportunity to reclaim the economic narrative.

Trump had further said Nicolás Maduro’s ‘days are numbered’ as military has targeted alleged drug boats

Two US fighter jets circled the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, in what appeared to be an escalation of the Trump administration’s ongoing hostilities toward the South American country and its leftist leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuelans and South American media followed the flights in real time using websites like FlightRadar24, which showed a pair of F/A-18 Super Hornets flying together into the narrow Gulf of Venezuela for about 40 minutes. The jets flew just north of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s most populous city.

In stunning upset victory, Higgins also becomes first woman in post and first non-Hispanic candidate since 90s

Democrat Eileen Higgins was elected mayor of Miami on Tuesday night in a stunning upset victory that reversed a run of recent Republican successes in Florida.

The election of Higgins, 61, a former county commissioner, also added to a string of Democratic wins across the country that have served to highlight the growing level of resistance to Donald Trump in his second presidential term.

The 71-year-old performer’s son Micah has been arrested on suspicion of murder, Santa Monica police said

Jubilant Sykes, the Grammy-nominated opera and gospel singer, has died aged 71 after being stabbed to death at his home in California.

His 31-year-old son, Micah Sykes, was arrested on suspicion of murder, authorities said on Tuesday.

Civil rights coalition calls for immediate closure of camp, where more than 2,700 detainees are being held

Officers at the large immigration detention camp located at the Fort Bliss army base in Texas are allegedly mistreating detainees, with accusations including beatings, sexual abuse and clandestine deportations of non-Mexican nationals into Mexico, according to a coalition of local and national US civil rights organizations.

In a 19-page letter, addressed to senior government officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and Fort Bliss military command, the coalition accuses officers at the immigration detention facility on the base, called Camp East Montana, of being “in violation of agency policies and standards, as well as statutory and constitutional protections”.

• Frederick Green allegedly shot NFL player in abdomen

• Boyd was on night out with Jets teammates

A Bronx man has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of New York Jets player Kris Boyd, police announced Tuesday.

The New York police department said Frederick Green, 20, was charged late Monday night. Police had revealed Monday that a “person of interest” was in custody but didn’t name them. It was not immediately clear if Green has an attorney. He also faces additional charges of assault and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.

Boyd was shot in the abdomen just after 2am on 16 November in midtown Manhattan. Boyd, his friend and two other Jets’ players, Irvin Charles and Jamien Sherwood, had left a club and were approached by a group of men who made fun of their clothing, police told reporters at a news briefing.

Daniella Levine Cava wished the piglet ‘a long happy life’ in speech alluding to the several pardons issued by Trump

It might not have been at the same level as pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys, or January 6 US capitol attack participants – but the mayor of Miami-Dade had her own Donald Trump moment on Tuesday in ritually sparing the life of a pig named Six Seven.

Daniella Levine Cava performed the seasonal stunt in the Cuban-themed Latin Cafe 2000 in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, where the immigrant population has also been affected by Trump’s aggressive new policies targeting them.

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels clash with Congolese army and other groups as they march on strategic eastern town

About 200,000 people have fled their homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as Rwanda-backed rebels march on a strategic eastern town just days after Donald Trump hosted the Rwandan and Congolese leaders to proclaim peace.

The UN said at least 74 people had been killed, mostly civilians, and 83 admitted to hospital with wounds from escalating clashes in the area in recent days.

The White House is aggressively seeking to weaken and dominate the United States’ traditional allies. European leaders must learn to fight back.

Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz have become adept at scrambling to deal with the latest bad news from Washington. Their meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Downing Street on Monday was so hastily arranged that Mr Macron needed to be back in Paris by late afternoon to meet Croatia’s prime minister, while Mr Merz was due on television for an end-of-year Q&A with the German public.

But diplomatic improvisation alone cannot fully answer Donald Trump’s structural threat to European security. The US president and his emissaries are trying to bully Mr Zelenskyy into an unjust peace deal that suits American and Russian interests. In response, the summit helped ramp up support for the use of up to £100bn in frozen Russian assets as collateral for a “reparations loan” to Ukraine. European counter-proposals for a ceasefire will need to be given the kind of financial backing that provides Mr Zelenskyy with leverage at a critical moment.

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The inaugural award bestowed upon the US president could pave the way for many more colourful accolades. I have some ideas ...

What a privilege it is to be alive in such a peaceful and prosperous time. If you ignore the genocides in Sudan and Gaza, fighting in eastern Congo, continued attacks on Ukraine, military airstrikes in Myanmar, near-daily strikes on Lebanon, “extrajudicial killings” on Venezualan vessels, increased political violence in the US, along with various other inconvenient issues, then I think we can all agree that Donald Trump has ushered in world peace.

Good luck convincing the nasty Norwegians on the Nobel committee of that, though. They’ve doled out peace prizes to many an alleged war criminal but have a weird grudge against Trump. Still, at least Fifa, an organisation renowned for its impeccable ethics, appreciates the president’s efforts. Last Friday, Trump was awarded the inaugural Fifa peace prize in an over-the-top ceremony that would have made a lesser man, one burdened with a smidgen of self-awareness, feel like a prize idiot.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Long Beach City college’s Safe Parking Program provides a protected space for students who are homeless to live in their car

When Edgar Rosales Jr uses the word “home” he isn’t referring to the house he plans to buy after becoming a nurse or getting a job in public health. Rather, the second-year student at Long Beach City college is talking about the parking lot he slept in every night for more than a year.

With Oprah-esque enthusiasm, Rosales calls the other students who use LBCC’s Safe Parking Program his “roommates” or “neighbors”.

President did same thing his administration is now calling ‘mortgage fraud’ in case against Fed governor Lisa Cook

Donald Trump signed mortgage documents in the 1990s claiming two separate Florida properties would each serve as his principal residence – the same thing his administration is calling “mortgage fraud” when done by political rivals, records show.

ProPublica unearthed documents demonstrating that within seven weeks of each other in late 1993 and early 1994, the president obtained loans for neighboring Palm Beach homes, pledging each would be his primary dwelling. Instead of living in them, though, he rented both out as investment properties.

Former employees from justice department’s civil rights division accuse Trump administration of purging experts

More than 200 former employees in the justice department’s civil rights division signed a letter released on Tuesday decrying the “near destruction” of the agency that is supposed to enforce US civil rights laws and accused political leadership of waging a campaign to purge career experts from its ranks.

There was a mass exodus of lawyers earlier this year after political appointees removed career managers, detailed employees to menial work, unilaterally dropped cases, and made it clear the division’s focus would be enforcing Donald Trump’s priorities. By 1 May of this year, the department had lost about 70% of its attorneys – a staggering number. The letter was released on Tuesday to commemorate the 68th anniversary of the founding of the civil rights division.

The musician, who led the Grammy-winning band, had been receiving treatment for colon cancer

Raul Malo, the soulful tenor and frontman of the genre-defying, Grammy-winning band the Mavericks, has died. He was 60.

Malo died on Monday night, his wife, Betty Malo, posted on his Facebook page. He had been diagnosed with cancer. The frontman of the Mavericks had documented his health journey on social media since he disclosed in June 2024 that he was receiving treatment for colon cancer.

Ron DeSantis’s legally dubious order designating Cair – and Muslim Brotherhood – follows similar move by Texas

Florida is declaring the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) – a US civil rights and liberties group – a foreign terrorist organization, the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, announced on Monday.

The move closely follows a similar order issued in November by Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, DeSantis’s fellow Republican, even though only the federal government can designate terrorist organizations.

European Commission to assess whether Gemini owner is putting rival companies at a disadvantage

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The EU has opened an investigation to assess whether Google is breaching European competition rules in its use of online content from publishers and YouTube creators for artificial intelligence.

The European Commission said on Tuesday it would examine whether the US tech company, which runs the Gemini AI model and is owned by Alphabet, was putting rival AI owners at a “disadvantage”.

US president’s efforts under harsh spotlight as Rwanda-DRC deal and Thailand-Cambodia mediations waver

For the sake of anyone confused by Donald Trump’s apparently supernatural abilities as a global peacemaker – for which he was given the inaugural (and perhaps only) Fifa “peace prize” – current events have intervened to offer some clarification.

Trump has claimed a number of dubious diplomatic successes on the international peace front, among them a freshly signed deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mediating in Thailand and Cambodia’s deadly border dispute, and the Gaza “ceasefire”.

Federal judge declared January executive order unlawful, ruling in favor of a coalition of state attorneys general

A federal judge on Monday struck down Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, saying the effort to halt virtually all leasing of windfarms on federal lands and waters was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated US law.

Judge Patti Saris of the US district court for the district of Massachusetts vacated Trump’s 20 January executive order blocking wind energy projects and declared it unlawful.