Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton. Attorney General Pam Bondi says the FBI and the Coast Guard seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. NPR's Quill Lawrence reports the U.S. has sanctioned Venezuela's oil industry.
Chapter 2: What recent actions has the U.S. taken against Venezuela's oil industry?
Bondi posted a video on social media showing U.S. forces boarding the vast oil tanker by helicopter. She said U.S. agents executed a seizure warrant on board and that the tanker has been sanctioned for years and is known to smuggle crude oil from Venezuela and also Iran. President Trump has ratcheted up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom he accuses of narco-trafficking.
The U.S. has assembled the largest naval fleet in decades off the Venezuelan coast and offered $50 million for Maduro's arrest. This news came as pro-democracy activist Maria Corina Machado snuck out of hiding in Venezuela en route to Norway to collect the Nobel Peace Prize. Quill Lawrence, NPR News.
A federal judge in California has ruled that the Trump administration must stop its deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles and return control of the troops to the state. It's the latest in a series of legal rulings against President Trump's deployments, as NPR's Kat Lonsdorff reports.
Trump seized control of California's Guard back in June against Governor Gavin Newsom's wishes and deployed more than 4,000 troops to the streets of Los Angeles to protect federal immigration facilities and officers.
That number has dropped to around 100 still in the city, but the administration has extended that federalization several times, most recently until February, saying it's still necessary. The administration also attempted to send California troops into Portland, Oregon. In his ruling to end the federalization, U.S.
District Judge Charles Breyer said that the administration's argument to, quote, hold unchecked power to control state troops would wholly upend the federalism that is at the heart of our system of government. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Washington.
Stocks rallied today after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates. NPR's Scott Horsley reports the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped nearly 500 points, or 1%.
Investors cheered when the central bank voted to lower its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says the rate cut is designed to boost the slowing job market, even though prices are still climbing faster than the central bank would like.
Everyone should understand that we're committed to 2% inflation and we will deliver 2% inflation. But it's a complicated, unusual, difficult situation where the labor market is also under pressure.
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