HAVANA (AP) – Tens of thousands of Cubans demonstrated Friday outside the U.S. Embassy in Havana to decry the killing of 32 Cuban officers in Venezuela and demand that the U.S. government release former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks edged a bit lower on Wall Street as the first week of corporate earnings season closes out with markets trading near record levels. The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% Friday after a day of wavering between gains and losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.1%. Gains for several big tech companies helped offset weakness elsewhere.
WASHINGTON (AP) – When President Donald Trump announced the audacious capture of Nicolás Maduro to face drug trafficking charges in the U.S., he portrayed the strongman’s vice president and longtime aide as America’s preferred partner to stabilize Venezuela amid a scourge of drugs, corruption and economic mayhem.
HONG KONG (AP) – China’s economy expanded at a 5% annual pace in 2025, buoyed by strong exports despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. However, growth slowed to a 4.5% rate in the last quarter of the year, the government said Monday. That was the slowest quarterly growth since late 2022, when China was beginning to loosen stringent COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
WASHINGTON (AP) – CIA Director John Ratcliffe has traveled to Venezuela to meet with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, becoming the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit the South American country after the U.S. raid that captured former leader Nicolás Maduro.
U.S. President Donald Trump linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, telling Norway’s prime minister that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace,” in a text message released on Monday. Trump’s message to Jonas Gahr Støre appears to ratchet up a standoff between Washington and its closest allies.
MADRID (AP) – Venezuelans living in Spain are watching the events unfold back home with a mix of awe, joy and fear. Some 600,000 Venezuelans live in Spain, home to the largest population anywhere outside the Americas. Many fled political persecution and violence but also the country’s collapsing economy. A majority live in the capital, Madrid.
Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. forces in the Caribbean Sea have seized another sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration says has ties to Venezuela, part of a broader U.S. effort to take control of the South American country’s oil.