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U.S. Seizure of Russian-Flagged Tanker Heightens Global Tensions

The ship, currently between Iceland and the British Isles, has been accused of breaking US sanctions and shipping Iranian oil. It has historically transported Venezuelan crude oil. The United States has seized a Russian‑flagged oil tanker linked to Venezuela after a prolonged pursuit across the Atlantic, marking one of the most assertive enforcement actions under Washington’s sanctions program. The vessel, previously known as Bella‑1 and later renamed Marinera , was intercepted after evading an earlier boarding attempt near Venezuelan waters. U.S. military aircraft and naval units tracked the ship for weeks as it traveled across the Atlantic, at times shadowed by Russian naval vessels. Officials say the tanker was part of a network used to transport sanctioned Venezuelan and Russian oil. Its capture underscores Washington’s efforts to disrupt what it describes as illicit energy shipments that help sustain both governments. The operation comes at a delicate geopolitical moment, wit...
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Trump's Triumphant Return: A New Era Begins


Donald Trump will be sworn in as U.S. president on Monday, marking the start of another turbulent four-year term. His inauguration completes a triumphant comeback for a political disruptor who survived two impeachment trials, a felony conviction, two assassination attempts, and an indictment for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss. The ceremony will take place at noon inside the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, four years after a mob of Trump supporters breached the symbol of American democracy in an unsuccessful effort to forestall the Republican Trump's 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump, the first U.S. president since the 19th century to win a second term after losing the White House, has said he will pardon "on Day One" many of the more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. That promise is among a flurry of executive actions concerning immigration, energy, and tariffs that Trump intends to sign as soon as Monday after taking the oath of office. At a campaign-style rally on Sunday in Washington, Trump vowed to impose harsh immigration restrictions on his first day.

As he did in 2017, Trump enters office as a chaotic and disruptive force, vowing to remake the federal government and expressing deep skepticism about the U.S.-led alliances that have shaped post-World War Two global politics. The former president returns to Washington emboldened after winning the national popular vote over Vice President Kamala Harris by more than 2 million votes thanks to a groundswell of voter frustration over persistent inflation. 

Jeremi Suri, a presidential historian at the University of Texas at Austin, compared the present era to the late 19th century, when Grover Cleveland became the only other president to win non-consecutive terms. "What we're really talking about is a fundamentally different economy, a fundamentally different country in terms of its racial and gender and social makeup, and we are as a country struggling to figure out what that means," he said. "It's an existential moment".

Trump will enjoy Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress that have been almost entirely purged of any intra-party dissenters. His advisers have outlined plans to replace nonpartisan bureaucrats with hand-picked loyalists. Even before taking office, Trump established a rival power center in the weeks after his election victory, meeting world leaders and causing consternation by musing aloud about seizing the Panama Canal, taking control of NATO ally Denmark's territory of Greenland, and imposing tariffs on the biggest U.S. trading partners.

His influence has already been felt in the Israel-Hamas announcement last week of a ceasefire deal. Trump, whose envoy joined the negotiations in Qatar, had warned of "hell to pay" if Hamas did not release its hostages before the inauguration.

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