NPR News: 01-07-2026 11AM EST
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This week on Up First, the Trump administration and Venezuela. Can the U.S. run a foreign government, as the president says? They simply may not adopt the policies that Trump would like to see. It's a complex, fast-moving story. As always, we're working overnight and every night, so you can start each morning knowing what matters. Listen to Up First on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. U.S. officials say they've seized two tanker ships. One of them is an oil tanker that was bound for Venezuela. It was sailing under a Russian flag and had reached the North Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and Britain. NPR's Quill Lawrence reports U.S. forces chased the oil tanker for two weeks.
Before the raid that removed the Venezuelan president, a U.S. military pressure campaign included boarding ships that were skirting the American blockade of that country's oil. But one tanker, then called the Bella One, refused to halt and led the U.S. Coast Guard on a chase thousands of miles across the Atlantic. On the way, it renamed itself and, more importantly, re-flagged as a Russian ship. It may have been headed to a Russian port in the Arctic when U.S. forces boarded it. The Department of Homeland Security also announced it seized another tanker in the Caribbean, which is being taken to an American port. President Trump says the U.S. is going to take billions of dollars worth of oil from Venezuela.
Quill Lawrence, NPR News.
President Trump and White House officials have been more vocal about the president's desire to obtain Greenland following the Venezuela raid. The Wall Street Journal reports earlier this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told U.S. lawmakers the administration's plan is to buy the island from Denmark. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said yesterday in a statement, the U.S. military is always an option at the president's disposal. Rufus Gifford is the former U.S. ambassador to Denmark. He says Greenland is different than Venezuela. He says using the U.S. military to take over Greenland would be a move against Denmark, a NATO ally, and against NATO's charter.
The premise of Article 5 is that if you attack one of us, you attack all of us. So the argument that we need Greenland for national security doesn't hold water.
Officials in Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with Rubio. Hamas fighters say they have resumed the search for the final Israeli captive's body in Gaza. Israel says it won't move to the next phase of President Trump's peace plan until the body is returned. NPR's Anas Baba reports from Gaza City.
A spokesperson for Qatar, a key mediator in the ceasefire, told reporters Tuesday that talks still haven't started for phase two of the ceasefire, which came into effect three months ago. Meanwhile, Hamas fighters resumed the search of the last Israeli body in eastern Gaza City Wednesday. President Trump had been pushing to move to the next phase of the deal, but has yet to announce members of a so-called Board of Peace that will oversee Gaza in the near term. Key to this next phase is the presence of an international stabilization force over the ground to maintain the ceasefire and separate Palestinians from Israeli troops, who still occupy more than half of Gaza. Azerbaijan's president recently appeared to rule out of his country's participation in the force, calling it a, quote, Arab affair.
Anas Baba and Pura News, Gaza City.
You're listening to NPR News from Washington. The Department of Homeland Security says it's launching a large immigration operation in Minnesota. Some 2,000 agents are to be deployed. It reportedly targets alleged fraud involving people who are Somali or Somali-American. The Trump administration says, without evidence, that daycare centers run by Somali residents in Minneapolis have committed up to $100 million in fraud. Another high-profile artist has withdrawn from performing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Virtuoso banjo player Bela Fleck has canceled a February engagement with the National Symphony Orchestra.
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