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The US Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure was largely unchanged last month, according to government data published Friday, but a widely scrutinized gauge of underlying price pressures rose.The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index rose 2.5 percent in the 12 months to February, the Commerce Department said in a statement, unchanged from a month earlier. Inflation rose 0.3 percent on a monthly basis.Both measures were in line with the median forecasts from economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.But of greater concern to Fed officials, an inflation measure stripping out volatile food and energy costs rose more than expected, by 0.4 percent month-on-month, and by 2.8 percent from a year ago.The Fed is attempting to return inflation to its long-term target of two percent. Friday’s data suggests policymakers still have some way to go as they also grapple with the effects of trade policy uncertainty.”They’re kind of in wait-and-see mode for awhile,” Wolfe Research chief economist Stephanie Roth told AFP. “Our call is that they’re going to cut rates because growth is weakening, but they actually need to see a rising unemployment rate first.”So today probably doesn’t really change the narrative that much for them,” she added. – Stop-start tariff rollout -US President Donald Trump has embarked on a stop-start rollout of country- and sector-specific tariffs, drawing condemnation from allies and warnings from Fed officials that the measures will likely push up prices. “It looks inevitable that tariffs are going to increase inflation in the near term,” Boston Fed President Susan Collins — who has a vote on the US central bank’s rate-setting committee this year — said Thursday.Earlier this month, the Fed voted to extend a pause in rate cuts, holding its key lending rate at between 4.25 and 4.50 percent.Financial markets see a roughly 90 percent chance that the Fed will vote to continue that pause at its next rate meeting in May, according to CME Group.”The data support our view that downside risks to the economy are emerging, but with inflation heating up, the Fed for now will maintain its wait-and-see approach,” Nationwide chief economist Kathy Bostjancic wrote in a note to clients. Personal income increased by 0.8 percent last month, according to the Commerce Department data published Friday.And personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income — a measure of how much consumers are saving — jumped to 4.6 percent last month, up from a revised 4.3 percent a month earlier.The jump in the personal savings rate since the start of the year may be related to consumer confidence, which has deteriorated sharply in recent months, with consumers more likely to save money if they are concerned about where the economy is headed.Americans are now feeling less optimistic about the US economy, and more concerned about rising inflation, according to fresh data on consumer sentiment published Friday by the University of Michigan.  “UMich isn’t the greatest measure, but I think directionally, it tells you something important,” said Roth from Wolfe Research. “And I think it’s telling you that consumers are starting to become concerned about the inflation backdrop, and this is the thing that differentiates whether the Fed is able to look through this tariff or not.”

A woman sentenced to life in prison for murdering a Mexican-American pop star in a Texas motel was denied parole on Thursday, almost three decades after the killing.Yolanda Saldivar was president of Selena’s fan club and had claimed she accidentally shot the singer on March 31, 1995 at a motel room in Corpus Christi, Texas.The 23-year-old star, whose full name was Selena Quintanilla Perez, was wildly popular in the Mexican-American community of Tejano music — an upbeat mingle of Texan and Mexican sounds — and on the verge of breaking through to a larger mainstream audience when she was killed.”After a thorough consideration of all available information, which included any confidential interviews conducted, it was the parole panel’s determination to deny parole to Yolanda Saldivar and set her next parole review for March 2030,” the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole said in a statement.According to the board, the decision was based on the “brutality, violence, assaultive behavior or conscious selection of the victim’s vulnerability” of the murder, which indicated Saldivar “poses a continuing threat to public safety.”The singer’s family welcomed the decision.”While nothing can bring Selena back, this decision reaffirms that justice continues to stand for the beautiful life that was taken from us,” her family and widower Chris Perez said in a joint statement.Saldivar, now 64, was a personal assistant to Selena and an employee at her boutique when she fatally shot the star in the back after meeting her at a motel.The singer had reportedly confronted Saldivar about more than 30,000 dollars missing from her fan club and two of her boutiques.Witnesses told police that Selena identified Saldivar as her killer before she collapsed and died.Listed by Billboard magazine as one of the greatest Latin artists of all time, Selena won a Grammy in 1993 and received a posthumous award in 2021.In 2017, she was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The United States is “doubling down” on its alliance with the Philippines, defence chief Pete Hegseth said Friday in Manila, in the face of what he called “Communist China’s aggression in the region”.Hegseth’s trip, aimed at bolstering ties in the Asia-Pacific region as tensions rise with Beijing, comes in the shadow of a mounting scandal at home over leaked plans for a military strike.The defence secretary revealed details of strikes on Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen in a group of top administration officials on the Signal messaging platform, according to a journalist added to the chat by accident.But US President Donald Trump has defended Hegseth, and in Manila the defence chief focused on Washington’s plan to “reestablish deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region”, he told reporters alongside his Philippine counterpart Gilberto Teodoro.”Deterrence is necessary around the world, but specifically in this region, in your country — considering the threats from the Communist Chinese,” he said earlier, when he met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.His Manila visit, to be followed by trips to Tokyo and World War II battleground Iwo Jima, follows months of confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels in the disputed South China Sea.Beijing claims almost the entirety of the crucial waterway, despite an international ruling that its assertion has no merit.”Friends need to stand shoulder to shoulder to deter conflict to ensure that there’s free navigation, whether you call it the South China Sea or the West Philippine Sea,” Hegseth said.”Peace through strength is a very real thing”, he added.- ‘Advanced capabilities’ -Manila and Washington have deepened their defence cooperation since President Ferdinand Marcos took office in 2022 and began pushing back on Beijing’s sweeping South China Sea claims.Hegseth said Friday that the United States would deploy “additional advanced capabilities to the Philippines”, including anti-ship missile systems and unmanned surface vehicles, for next month’s joint Balikatan exercises.Teodoro said the Philippines would accelerate its “capability upgrades and our logistical support facilities to support deterrence”.The two countries have expanded the sharing of military intelligence in recent years and boosted to nine the number of bases US troops can access on the archipelago.Given the Philippines’ proximity to Taiwan and its surrounding waters, Manila’s cooperation would be crucial in the event of any conflict with China.- ‘Witch hunt’ -Despite mounting pressure over the Signal leak, Trump has defended Hegseth.”Hegseth is doing a great job, he had nothing to do with this,” Trump said when asked by AFP whether the defence secretary should be considering his position.”How do you bring Hegseth into this? Look, look it’s all a witch hunt,” Trump added in the Oval Office.He also repeated his insistence that no classified information was shared in the breach, adding that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz “took responsibility” for the error.Waltz added Atlantic Magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg to the group chat that included Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, National Intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard and others.Apart from the timing of the strikes in Yemen, Hegseth also identified the type of aircraft, missiles and drones used, according to the Atlantic, which later released screen grabs of the chat.The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a bipartisan call on Thursday for a Pentagon watchdog to probe the magazine’s claims.”If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information,” said a letter from Republican committee chair Roger Wicker and ranking Democrat Jack Reed.But the White House and its allies have largely held firm in their messaging, praising the success of the attacks and slamming Goldberg as an “anti-Trump hater”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday he has canceled more than 300 visas in a crackdown on anti-Israel activism and vowed to keep doing so, brushing aside furor after masked agents snatched a student.Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel, said that he personally signed off on every visa revocation and rejected charges he was violating US protections of free speech.Asked about a report on the number of visas he has stripped, mostly for students, Rubio said: “Maybe more than 300 at this point. We do it every day.””Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” he told reporters on a visit to Guyana.”At some point I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of them,” Rubio said.Since his return to the White House on January 20, President Donald Trump has moved aggressively against student activists and universities over the disruptive protests that swept US colleges campuses in response to the Gaza war.Earlier this week, a video went viral of a 30-year-old Turkish graduate student, Rumeysa Ozturk, being detained by masked, plain-clothed figures near Tufts University in Massachusetts.Ozturk had penned an op-ed in a student newspaper decrying Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide.” She now faces deportation.Immigration lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai complained that Ozturk had been taken to a detention center in the southern state of Louisiana, despite a court order that she remain in Massachusetts, and was denied access to legal representation.”Masked DHS agents unlawfully arrested my client,” she said, referring to the Department of Homeland Security.Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, accused the Trump administration of moving to “abduct students with legal status.””This is a horrifying violation of Rumeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released,” Pressley said in a statement.- Visas a ‘gift’ -Rubio, asked if Ozturk was being targeted over her writing in a student newspaper, said that she met his criteria for visa revocation without providing details.”I would caution you against solely going off of what the media has been to identify” for the visa decision, the former senator told reporters later on his plane to his home city of Miami.Rubio said that visas were a “gift” at the discretion of the State Department and not subject to any judicial review.He said it was “crazy” to allow in the United States students who were “supportive of a group that just slaughtered babies,” a reference to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 that triggered massive Israeli retaliation.Asked if the Trump administration would go after anyone who presents dissenting views, Rubio said, “If you’re complaining about paper straws, then we’re obviously not going to yank a visa over that.””The overwhelming majority of student visas in this country will not be revoked,” he said.The most high-profile deportation case is Mahmoud Khalil, who led protests at Columbia University in New York. He was also taken to Louisiana ahead of deportation proceedings, despite being a US permanent resident.Khalil’s supporters reject the characterization that he supports Hamas and note that he has spoken out against antisemitism. The US government has since pointed to technicalities in his original student visa.Rubio contends that student activists have made education intolerable for Jewish students.”If you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa,” Rubio said in Guyana.

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to remove “improper ideology” from the famed Smithsonian Museums — and the National Zoo — expanding his conservative clampdown on cultural institutions.Trump, who has sought to root out what he called “woke” culture since returning to power in January, accused the Smithsonian of trying to rewrite American history on issues of race and gender.His order puts hardline Vice President JD Vance in charge of efforts to carry out the order at the Smithsonian’s museums, educations and research centers.Trump said this should include a drive to “remove improper ideology from such properties.”The Smithsonian operates 21 internationally renowned museums and galleries, mainly in and around Washington, dedicated to art, science, space and American history.They include the National Zoo in the US capital, which recently welcomed two giant pandas from China, debuting them to the public just days after Trump’s inauguration for a second term.The presidential order — titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” — targeted a number of examples of what it also called “corrosive ideology.”It said the National Museum of African American History and Culture, one of the newest Smithsonian additions, had described hard work and the nuclear family as “aspects of ‘White Culture.'”Trump also targeted what he said was a plan by the as-yet-unopened American Women’s history museum for “celebrating the exploits of male athletes participating in women’s sports.”There was no immediate reaction from the Smithsonian.- ‘Safe and beautiful’ -The Smithsonian Institute was founded in the mid-19th century with a donation from a deceased and childless British chemist, James Smithson, who asked in his will for his wealth to be used to create an educational institution in the then-young United States — a country he had never set foot in.Trump’s wide-ranging 21st century effort to reshape the US government has increasingly extended to cultural issues, where he is seeking to stamp his conservative mark.The 78-year-old Republican recently took over the chairmanship of the Kennedy Center in Washington, a famed arts venue, after complaining that it was too liberal.The president has also eyed reforms in governance of the US capital city, which he has repeatedly complained of having high crime and unsightly nuisances such as graffiti.In a separate order on Thursday titled “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful,” Trump directed the creation of an inter-agency task force to increase immigration enforcement and other law enforcement priorities.It also calls for the development of a “coordinated beautification plan” for the city.”We will take over our horribly run Washington, DC, and clean up, renovate, and rebuild our capital so that it is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime,” Trump said on the campaign trail last year — a message reposted Thursday on X by the White House.Washington’s approximately 700,000 residents are overwhelmingly Democrats, with the party’s candidate Kamala Harris winning over 90 percent of the vote last November.The city has a unique status in the country as it is not a part of any state. It has no voting representation in Congress — despite having a population larger than two states.Though the city now runs its own affairs, Congress — currently controlled by Republicans — retains the ability to take back control, something Trump has repeatedly threatened to do.With that backdrop, city authorities have sought to develop a conciliatory relationship with the president, quickly fulfilling his requests, such as removing some homeless encampments and a “Black Lives Matter” mural.

President Donald Trump’s administration said Thursday it will investigate admissions practices at some of California’s top universities, broadening a campaign against elite educational institutions.US Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had ordered probes into how students are admitted to the private Stanford University, as well as to three of the most prestigious campuses of the University of California system — Berkeley, UCLA and UC Irvine.”President Trump and I are dedicated to ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity across the country,” Bondi said in a statement.”Every student in America deserves to be judged solely based on their hard work, intellect, and character, not the color of their skin.”A spokesperson for the University of California said the institutions have not considered race in admissions since it was outlawed in the state by a 1996 ballot measure, but clarified school applications gather race and ethnicity data “for statistical purposes only.””This information is  not shared with application reviewers  and is not used for admissions,” the spokesperson added.A Stanford spokesperson said in a statement that the private university “immediately took steps to ensure compliance in our admissions processes” after the US Supreme Court eliminated race-based affirmative action in 2023.Conservatives have long griped that America’s foremost universities make it easier for ethnic minority students to attend.They say the insistence on the notion of “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI, is damaging and unfair to otherwise well-qualified candidates.Bondi’s announcement comes with elite institutions across the country on the back foot.This month Trump’s administration revoked $400 million of funding from New York’s Columbia University, claiming school officials had not sufficiently protected Jewish students during last year’s campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.On Friday Columbia announced a package of concessions around defining anti-Semitism, policing protests and oversight for specific academic departments in a bid to head off the funding squeeze.A number of students at various colleges around the country have also been targeted for deportation, in what the government’s critics say is part of a broader campaign to silence dissent at America’s fractious universities and bring the left-leaning sector to heel.

The release of the latest image generator on OpenAI’s ChatGPT has triggered a flood of online memes featuring images done in the style of Studio Ghibli, the Japanese studio behind classic animated films like “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Princess Mononoke.”The virality of these images, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even changing his profile picture on X to match the style, immediately raised questions about copyright infringement by the ChatGPT maker, which already faces lawsuits regarding the use of source material without permission.Since the release on Wednesday, AI-generated images depicting Studio Ghibli versions of Elon Musk with US President Donald Trump, “The Lord of the Rings,” and even a recreation of the September 11 attacks have gone viral across online platforms.On Thursday, the White House took part by posting on X a Ghibli-style image of a weeping alleged felon being handcuffed by a US immigration officer before her deportation.Originally intended to be available on the platform for free, Altman said the huge success of the new generator was unexpected and meant the tool would remain limited to paid users for now.It was already possible to generate images with ChatGPT, but the latest version is powered by GPT-4o, the company’s highest-performing model, and allows sophisticated results to be obtained through very succinct requests, which was not the case before.After the viral trend, a video from 2016 resurfaced in which Studio Ghibli’s legendary director Hayao Miyazaki is seen lashing out during an AI demonstration by staff.”I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” an English translation of his remarks said in the video.The trend “is especially insidious and malicious because of how outspokenly scathing Miyazaki has been toward the tech,” wrote artist and illustrator Jayd “Chira” Ait-Kaci on Bluesky.”It’s always about contempt for artists, every time,” Ait-Kaci added.OpenAI is facing a barrage of lawsuits over copyright infringements, including one major case with the New York Times and others from artists, musicians and publishers.Asked by AFP about the latest viral trend, and whether it threatened Studio Ghibli’s intellectual property, OpenAI said the company is still fine-tuning its model.”Our goal is to give users as much creative freedom as possible,” a company spokesperson told AFP. “We continue to prevent generations in the style of individual living artists, but we do permit broader studio styles, which people have used to generate and share some truly delightful and inspired original fan creations,” she added. “We’re always learning from real-world use and feedback, and we’ll keep refining our policies as we go.”The company is aggressively lobbying the White House and Congress to make the use of copyrighted content by AI companies part of the fair use doctrine.Fair use allowances already apply to search engines or in the case of satire and memes online, and allow companies to freely use copyrighted material without permission.Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that OpenAI is close to finalizing a $40 billion funding round led by Japan’s SoftBank Group that would be the biggest funding round ever for a startup.OpenAI has projected its annual revenue could exceed $12.7 billion in 2025, up from $3.7 billion generated in 2024.

President Donald Trump withdrew right-wing firebrand Elise Stefanik as his nominee for US ambassador to the United Nations Thursday, as Republicans fear for their narrow majority in Congress.The New York congresswoman is just the second Trump cabinet pick not to go through, after Matt Gaetz pulled out of the running to be attorney general following allegations of sexual misconduct.Stefanik is a vocal Trump ally and pro-Israel stalwart.”With a very tight Majority, I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat” in the House of Representatives, Trump said on his Truth Social platform.Trump said it was “essential that we maintain EVERY Republican Seat in Congress.””The people love Elise and, with her, we have nothing to worry about come Election Day. There are others that can do a good job at the United Nations,” he added.The president said he had asked Stefanik to stay in Congress and “rejoin the House leadership team,” although he did not say in what capacity.Republicans won both the House and Senate in the November 2024 election that returned Trump to the White House, but they have a very tight lead in the lower chamber.They control the House by 218 seats to 213, giving them just a tiny margin and making it difficult to pass key legislation.Two crucial special elections will be held in Florida on April 1 to fill the seats vacated by Mike Waltz, who is now Trump’s national security advisor, and Gaetz.While both Republicans comfortably won the seats in November, polling in one of the districts has shown the Democratic candidate closing the gap considerably.Trump himself has leaned into the races, with an appearance Thursday at a candidate’s online event seen as evidence that Republicans are worried.Those concerns were further heightened on Tuesday, when a special election for Pennsylvania’s state senate saw Democrats flip a district that Trump won handily last year.- Firebrand -Stefanik has effectively been in limbo since Trump’s nomination, keeping her place in the House for a number of key votes.A firebrand who was considered a moderate before the Trump era, Stefanik is seen as one of the most vocal supporters in Congress of both Israel and US Jewish causes.In January, she railed against “anti-Semitic rot” in the United Nations as she was grilled by senators at her confirmation hearing.She also called for UN reform to ensure US tax dollars were not “propping up entities that are counter to American interests, anti-Semitic, or engaging in fraud, corruption or terrorism.”During that hearing, Stefanik noted that she voted to defund UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Former president Joe Biden halted its US funding over allegations that members were possibly involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks. Stefanik also revealed that she agreed with far-right Israeli ministers who believe Israel has a “biblical right to the entire West Bank” — but avoided being pinned down on whether she supported Palestinian self-determination.

A man who allegedly set fire to five Teslas and sprayed them with bullets from a semi-automatic rifle appeared in a US court Thursday to face federal arson charges, the Department of Justice said.Paul Hyon Kim, 36, is suspected of being behind the assault on a Tesla business in Las Vegas, among a wave of attacks targeting Elon Musk’s electric car brand as anger rises over government funding cuts he is overseeing.The DoJ said in a statement that emergency services were called to the Tesla repair center on March 18 after reports of gunshots.”During the investigation, it was determined that Molotov cocktails and a .30 caliber AR-style firearm were used to damage and destroy five Tesla vehicles, and graffiti was sprayed to write ‘Resist’ on the front of the building,” the statement said.Kim was arrested a week later. He has been charged with one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm and one count of arson. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the arson charge alone.”The Department of Justice has been clear: anyone who participates in the wave of domestic terrorism targeting Tesla properties will suffer severe legal consequences,” said US Attorney General Pamela Bondi.”We will continue to find, arrest, and prosecute these attackers until the lesson is learned.”Musk, the South African-born billionaire chief of Tesla and SpaceX, is leading Donald Trump’s ruthless cost-cutting drive at the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).Several Tesla dealerships and a number of cars around the country have been vandalized in recent weeks and the company’s stock price has plummeted over the past month.

Top US diplomat Marco Rubio on Thursday bluntly warned Venezuela against attacking its oil-rich neighbor Guyana, brandishing the power of the US military to protect the small South American nation.Venezuela, whose leftist leader Nicolas Maduro is despised by the Cuban-American Rubio, has increasingly pushed its claim to the disputed Essequibo region controlled by Guyana, and was accused earlier this month of making an incursion.”I have full confidence saying it now as secretary of state — there will be consequences for adventurism. There will be consequences for aggressive action,” Rubio told a joint news conference on a visit to Guyana.Asked what the United States would do if Venezuela attacked ExxonMobil oil projects in Guyana, Rubio said: “It would be a very bad day — a very bad week for them.”Stopping short of spelling out a military response, Rubio said: “We have a big navy, and it can get almost anywhere.”Maduro responded angrily to the threat, calling Rubio an “imbecile” and saying “no one threatens Venezuela.”While in Guyana, Rubio signed an agreement to boost security cooperation with the country including through greater information sharing. It comes years after Guyana and the United States agreed to joint maritime patrols.Guyanese President Irfaan Ali welcomed the stance of Rubio, who called Venezuela’s claims “illegitimate.””I’m very pleased at the reassurance of the US, ensuring the safeguard of our territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Ali said.Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil, in a statement on Telegram, said his country did “not need nor seek conflicts, but neither will we allow foreign interests to try to rewrite the reality about our Essequibo.” “Get your noses out of this dispute!” he added. Mauricio Claver-Carone, the US special envoy on Latin America, earlier said that the United States envisioned a future “binding” security relationship with Guyana similar to the Gulf region, where US troops protect oil-rich Arab monarchies, particularly against larger neighbor Iran.Rubio later visited neighboring Suriname, whose oil production has also been rising.- US seeks advantage against China -Guyana, an English-speaking former British and Dutch colony where the majority of the 800,000 people still live in poverty, has for years had a long-shot movement that has sought to join the United States.Such formal accession was not on the agenda, but Trump has made no secret of his passion for expansionism in the Western Hemisphere, even at the expense of traditional alliances. The Republican billionaire has vowed to take control of Greenland from Denmark and to “take back” the Panama Canal, pointing to rising Chinese influence.While Exxon has dominated the oil industry, China — viewed by the Trump administration as the top global adversary — has made rapid inroads in Guyana with infrastructure projects including an expansion of the international airport where Rubio landed.Trump has proposed imposing major fees on vessels linked to China, but the idea has hit opposition from US farmers as well as Caribbean nations which say they have little option and will take a hit.Rubio said it was “dangerous to have one country in the world building all the ships.”But in a shift in tone from Trump’s usual uncompromising position, Rubio acknowledged concerns among Caribbean nations and said he would advise US trade policymakers of the risks of hurting US partners.”Rest assured we will take that message back,” Rubio said.- Rapid oil growth -The parliament in Caracas last year approved a bill to declare the Essequibo region, which makes up two-thirds of Guyanese territory, as Venezuela’s 24th state, a move rejected internationally.Guyana insists the border was finalized by an 1899 arbitration panel, but Venezuela claims the Essequibo River to the region’s east as a natural border recognized as far back as 1777.Texas-based ExxonMobil has taken the lead in offshore oil exploration, which has rapidly scaled up since the 2015 discovery of huge crude reserves.ExxonMobil anticipates gross production from Guyana of 1.3 million barrels a day by the end of the decade, dwarfing current output from Venezuela.The Trump administration, under pressure from anti-communist Latino lawmakers, has canceled US oil major Chevron’s exemption from US sanctions to operate in Venezuela.