US President Donald Trump confirmed Sunday he had recently spoken with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro amid soaring tensions between the two countries, while Caracas slammed what it called US preparations for an attack.The United States is piling the pressure on Venezuela, with a major military buildup in the Caribbean, the designation of an alleged drug cartel run by Maduro as a terrorist group, and an ominous warning from Trump that Venezuelan airspace is “closed.”Washington says the aim of the military deployment launched in September is to curb drug trafficking in the region, but Caracas insists regime change is the ultimate goal.”I wouldn’t say it went well or badly. It was a phone call,” Trump told reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One.The New York Times reported Friday that Trump and Maduro had discussed a possible meeting, while The Wall Street Journal said Saturday that the conversation also included conditions of amnesty if Maduro were to step down.Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” talk show that the United States has offered Maduro the chance to leave his country for Russia or elsewhere. The United States accuses Maduro, the political heir to Venezuela’s late leftist leader Hugo Chavez, of heading the “Cartel of the Suns” and has issued a $50 million reward for his capture.But Venezuela and countries that support it insist no such organization even exists. Several Venezuela experts say what Washington calls the Cartel of the Suns refers to the corruption of senior officials by criminal gangs.The United States also does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate winner of last year’s presidential election.Though Trump has not publicly threatened to use force against Maduro, he said in recent days that efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” would begin “very soon.”- Aid from OPEC? – Venezuela says it has requested assistance from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which it is a member, to help “stop this (American) aggression, which is being readied with more and more force.”The request came in a letter from Maduro to the group, read by Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who is also Venezuela’s oil minister, during a virtual meeting of OPEC ministers.Washington “is trying to seize Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the biggest in the world, by using military force,” Maduro wrote in the letter.Since September, US air strikes have targeted alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least 83 people. Trump’s administration has offered no concrete evidence to back up the allegations behind its campaign, and numerous experts have questioned the legality of the operations.US media reported Friday that in one strike in September, the US military conducted a follow-up strike that killed survivors of an initial attack. The Washington Post and CNN said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had issued a directive to “kill everybody,” but Trump said Sunday that Hegseth had denied giving such an order.”We’ll look into it, but no, I wouldn’t have wanted that — not a second strike,” Trump told reporters. “Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.”- ‘Extrajudicial executions’ -The head of Venezuela’s legislature, Jorge Rodriguez, said he met Sunday with relatives of Venezuelans killed in the strikes. He would not comment on a possible Trump-Maduro call.But when asked about the report about the Hegseth order, he said: “If a war had been declared and led to such killings, we would be talking about war crimes.””Given that no war has been declared, what happened…can only be characterized as murder or extrajudicial executions,” he added.The steady US military buildup has seen the world’s largest aircraft carrier deployed to Caribbean waters, while American fighter jets and bombers have repeatedly flown off the Venezuelan coast in recent days.Six airlines have canceled services to Venezuela, but on Sunday, the airport in Caracas was functioning as usual.

Four people including three children were killed and 11 more were wounded in a shooting at a birthday party in the US state of California late Saturday, authorities said, calling it a “targeted incident.”The shooting took place inside a banquet hall in Stockton, a city northeast of San Francisco, just before 6:00 pm (0200 GMT Sunday), San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Heather Brent told reporters at a news briefing.The four slain victims were aged eight, nine, 14 and 21, Brent told AFP on Sunday. The 11 wounded victims were taken to hospital, Brent said, without giving more detailed information about their injuries.   Between 100 and 150 people were attending the party at the time of the shooting, she said. “Early indications suggest that this may be a targeted incident,” Brent noted.When asked whether this could have been a gang-involved shooting, Brent said that investigators were looking into all possibilities.The sheriff’s office urged anyone with information or video footage to come forward.No suspect has been identified or arrested so far, Brent said, adding that the possibility of multiple shooters has not been ruled out.California Governor Gavin Newsom was briefed on the shooting, his office said on social media.There have been 504 mass shootings in the United States so far this year including the Stockton incident, according to the Gun Violence Archive — which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot.burs-nr-rfo/iv/sst

Polls closed Sunday in Honduras’ knife-edge presidential election, after a campaign dominated by US President Donald Trump’s threat to cut aid if a conservative candidate loses.Trump threw his weight behind 67-year-old Nasry “Tito” Asfura in the final days of the race, upending a contest that is too close to call in a country plagued by drug trafficking and gang activity.Asfura’s main challengers are 60-year-old lawyer Rixi Moncada from the ruling leftist Libre party and 72-year-old TV host Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party.Lawmakers and hundreds of mayors will also be elected in the fiercely polarized nation, which is also one of the most violent countries in Latin America.An Asfura victory would see Honduras become the latest country in Latin America — after Argentina and Bolivia — to swing right after years of leftist rule.”If he (Asfura) doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad,” Trump wrote Friday on his Truth Social platform, echoing threats he made in support of Argentine President Javier Milei’s party in that country’s recent midterms.Trump also made the shock announcement that he would pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, of Asfura’s National Party, who is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for cocaine trafficking and other charges.Some Hondurans have welcomed Trump’s interventionism, saying they hope it might mean Honduran migrants will be allowed to remain in the United States.But others have rejected his meddling in the vote.”I vote for whomever I please, not because of what Trump has said, because the truth is I live off my work, not off politicians,” Esmeralda Rodriguez, a 56-year-old fruit seller, told AFP.Nearly 30,000 Honduran migrants have been deported from the United States since Trump returned to office in January.The clampdown has dealt a severe blow to the country of 11 million people, where remittances represented 27 percent of GDP last year.After voting in the capital Tegucigalpa, Asfura denied that the planned pardon would benefit him, saying: “This issue has been circulating for months, and it has nothing to do with the elections.”- Fears of election fraud -Leftist Rixi Moncada — who represents outgoing President Xiomara Castro’s ruling Libre party — has portrayed the election as a choice between her and a “coup-plotting oligarchy.”That is a reference to the right’s backing of the 2009 military ouster of leftist Manuel Zelaya, Castro’s husband.Preemptive accusations of election fraud, made both by the ruling party and opposition, have sown mistrust in the vote and sparked fears of post-election unrest.The president of the National Electoral Council, Ana Paola Hall, warned all parties “not to fan the flames of confrontation or violence” at the start of the single-round election.Moncada, who has held ministerial portfolios under both Zelaya and Castro, said she will only acknowledge the final results, not preliminary counts.Nasralla also served in Castro’s government but fell out with the ruling party and has since shifted to the right. The 67-year-old Asfura was in the construction business before being elected mayor of Tegucigalpa, serving two terms.- ‘Escape poverty’ -Long a transit point for cocaine exported from Colombia to the United States, Honduras is now also a producer of the drug.But the candidates barely addressed the fears of Hondurans about drug trafficking, poverty and violence during the campaign. “I hope the new government will have good lines of communication with Trump, and that he will also support us,” said Maria Velasquez, who is 58.”I just want to escape poverty.”

US President Donald Trump said Sunday there was a “good chance” of a deal to end the war in Ukraine after the latest US negotiations with Kyiv, as his envoy prepares to travel to Russia for follow-up talks.After hours of what both sides called “productive” discussions in Hallandale Beach, north of Miami, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that more work was required, and a source in Kyiv’s delegation characterized the discussions as “not easy.”The talks, which come as Kyiv battles military pressure and reels from a domestic corruption scandal, set the stage for a visit to Moscow by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, who is expected to discuss Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.Washington has put forward a plan to end the nearly four-year conflict and is seeking to finalize it with Moscow and Kyiv’s approval.”Ukraine’s got some difficult little problems,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, referring to a corruption probe that recently forced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to sack his chief of staff and top negotiator.”But I think that there’s a good chance we can make a deal.”Rubio earlier told reporters the Florida talks — also attended by Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — were “very productive” but “there’s more work to be done.””This is delicate. It’s complicated,” Rubio said.”There are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there’s another party involved here that will have to be a part of the equation, and that will continue later this week when Mr. Witkoff travels to Moscow.”Ukraine’s security council secretary Rustem Umerov led Kyiv’s delegation, which also included Andrii Hnatov, the chief of staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, and presidential adviser Oleksandr Bevz.Umerov wrote on Facebook that he had briefed Zelensky on the “substantial progress” made in the talks.”It is important that the talks have a constructive dynamic and that all issues were discussed openly and with a clear focus on ensuring Ukraine’s sovereignty and national interests,” Zelensky wrote on X after the talks.- Flurry of diplomacy -An initial 28-point US proposal — drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies — would have required Kyiv to withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region, and the United States then would de facto recognize the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian.The United States pared back the original draft following criticism from Kyiv and Europe, but the current contents remain unclear.A source close to the Kyiv delegation in Florida told AFP on Sunday that “the process is not easy because the search for formulations and solutions continues.” Another source briefed on the developments told AFP that “the Americans really want the final points to be agreed upon” ahead of the US talks in Moscow.After the Florida negotiations, French President Emmanuel Macron is set to host Zelensky for talks in Paris on Monday.Rubio is set to skip a meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Wednesday and Thursday in Brussels, despite allies’ concerns about the US plan for Ukraine. But Witkoff will head to Russia on Monday and is expected to meet Putin on Tuesday.The flurry of diplomacy comes as the war — which has killed tens of thousands of civilians and military personnel and displaced millions of Ukrainians — shows no sign of easing.- Russian oil terminal hit – Ahead of the Florida talks, Russia’s forces targeted Ukraine’s capital and the region for two nights in a row as they advanced on the front line. A drone attack in the outskirts of Kyiv killed one person and wounded 11 late Saturday, the regional governor said.Hours earlier, a Ukrainian security source said Kyiv was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers in the Black Sea that it believed were covertly transporting sanctioned Russian oil.One of Russia’s largest oil terminals halted operations on Saturday following a drone attack.The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), a group that includes US oil majors Chevron and ExxonMobil and which owns the terminal, called the strike a “terrorist attack.”Ukraine, which did not comment on the incident, regularly targets Russian energy facilities in a bid to sap the country’s war chest.burs-ac/sst