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US Senate moves resolution to curb Trump’s Venezuela war powers

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US Senate moves resolution to curb Trump’s Venezuela war powers


A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., July 1, 2024. — Reuters
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., July 1, 2024. — Reuters 
  • Senators vote 52 to 47 to advance war powers resolution.
  • Republicans blocked last resolution by just two votes.
  • Maduro’s capture led to fears of prolonged Venezuela campaign.

WASHINGTON: The US Senate advanced a resolution on Thursday that would bar President Donald Trump from further military action against Venezuela without congressional authorization, a rare rebuke of the Republican leader.

The vote on a procedural measure to advance the war powers resolution was 52 to 47, as five of Trump’s Republicans voted with every Democrat in favour of moving ahead. One Republican senator did not vote.

The vote took place days after US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a dramatic military raid in Caracas on Saturday. The rebuke for Trump, a day after senior cabinet members briefed every member of Congress about its Venezuela policy, marked a shift in the 100-member Senate.

It was a significant victory for lawmakers who have been arguing that Congress, not the president, should have the power to send troops to war, as spelled out in the Constitution.

However, the resolution faces steep hurdles before going into effect.

Even if it passes the Senate, the resolution must also pass the Republican-led House of Representatives and garner two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate to survive an expected Trump veto.

Trump’s Republicans had blocked two previous attempts to advance similar resolutions in the Senate last year, as the administration ramped up military pressure on Venezuela with attacks on boats in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific.

However, the vote blocking the last resolution in November was only 51-49, just after top Trump advisors told lawmakers they did not plan to change the government or conduct strikes on Venezuelan territory.

After Maduro’s capture, some lawmakers accused the administration of misleading Congress, including Democrats publicly and some Republicans behind the scenes. Maduro’s capture and Trump’s rhetoric have also raised concerns of military action to capture Greenland, an Arctic island that is a territory of Denmark, or against Colombia, Cuba or Iran.

Thursday’s vote paved the way for Senate debate and a vote on final passage in the Senate next week.

Republican misgivings

Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who co-sponsored the resolution, had said some of his fellow Republicans were considering supporting the measure.

“I can’t guarantee you how they vote, but at least two are thinking about it, and some of them are talking publicly about their misgivings over this,” Paul told a press conference on Wednesday with Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, another co-sponsor.

Both senators are members of the Foreign Relations Committee.

After the vote, Kaine said it was a “big victory,” telling reporters: “None of us should want this president, or any president, to take our sons and daughters to war without notice, consultation, debate and vote in Congress.”

The five Republicans who voted to move ahead were Paul, Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Todd Young of Indiana. Trump’s party holds a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

Trump said the five “should never be elected to office again.” He said on his Truth Social website: “Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America.”

‘Endless war’

Backers acknowledge the hurdles facing the measure, but said many Republicans may be wary of a prolonged and expensive campaign of government change in Venezuela, as the U.S. faces vast budget deficits.

Trump on Wednesday called for a huge increase in US military spending, to $1.5 trillion from $1 trillion.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York noted months of US strikes on Venezuelan boats, and Trump’s statement in a New York Times interview that the US would be involved in Venezuela for more than a year.

“The president is openly signaling a long-term military and financial commitment abroad with no authorisation, with no plan, another endless war,” Schumer told a press conference.

Senators who opposed the resolution said Maduro’s seizure was a law enforcement operation, not a military action. Maduro faces trial in a US court on drug and gun charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Opponents also said Trump is within his rights as commander-in-chief to launch limited military actions.

“The purpose of this resolution is to slap the president in the face. It will do nothing that it purports to do because it can’t stop something that isn’t going on right now,” Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the Republican foreign relations chairman, said in a Senate speech before the vote.





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New video fuels anger over Minnesota shooting

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New video fuels anger over Minnesota shooting


People hold signs and candles during a protest the day after the fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent, outside the ICE Field Office in Phoenix, Arizona, January 8, 2026.
People hold signs and candles during a protest the day after the fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent, outside the ICE Field Office in Phoenix, Arizona, January 8, 2026. 
  • White House reposts video of shooting of Renee Good in Minnesota.
  • Before being killed, woman heard saying, “fine, I’m not mad at you.”
  • State officials vow criminal probe, citing lack of FBI cooperation.

MINNEAPOLIS: The White House on Friday reposted on social media a new video taken from the mobile phone of the immigration officer who fatally shot a Minnesota woman in her car this week, adding to the evidence around an incident that has sparked days of nationwide protests.

The 47-second video shows 37-year-old Renee Good telling the officer, “That’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you,” moments before he opens fire after Good puts the car in gear in an apparent effort to pull back into the street.

The new clip is likely to further inflame tensions between state officials and officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, who have offered sharply different accounts of the shooting. Minnesota authorities on Friday said they were opening their own criminal investigation, after some state leaders said the FBI was refusing to co-operate with state investigators.

The video, obtained by the website Alpha News and verified by Reuters, begins as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, Jonathan Ross, exits his car and approaches Good’s Honda SUV, which is partially blocking traffic. A black dog is visible through an open rear window.

As he circles around the front of the car, Good reverses farther out into the street before speaking to him through her open window. Ross then continues around the vehicle’s rear, where he films the vehicle’s licence plate and encounters Good’s wife, Becca Good, in the street. She tells him, “We don’t change our plates every morning, just so you know. It’ll be the same plate when you come talk to us later. That’s fine. US citizen.”

Becca Good, who was filming the ICE agent with her own phone, then adds: “You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy.”

At that point, another ICE agent approaches Renee Good in the vehicle and orders her to get out of the car. She can be seen reversing briefly, then putting the car into gear and turning the steering wheel, apparently trying to drive away.

As the car moves forward, Ross shouts “Whoa!” Shots can be heard, and the car briefly disappears from the frame of the video as the officer’s hand holding the phone appears to flail about.

The video then shows the car careering down the street, while someone can be heard muttering, “Fucking bitch.”

Vice President JD Vance, who has accused Good of deliberately using her car as a weapon, reposted the video, saying it showed the officer’s life was endangered.

Other videos of the shooting show Good turning her wheels away from Ross as she drives forward, while he fires three shots while jumping backwards from the front of the car. The final two shots appear to be aimed through the driver’s side window, after the car’s front bumper has already passed by the officer’s legs.

It is unclear whether Ross made any contact with the car, but videos show he stayed on his feet and walked calmly towards the car after the shooting.

Officials from the Republican Trump administration have defended the shooting as self-defence and accused Good of an act of “domestic terrorism” – a narrative described by Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey as “garbage” based on the video footage.

Good was a mother of three, including a 6-year-old son. Becca Good issued a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday, saying the two had “stopped to support our neighbours”.

“We had whistles,” she wrote. “They had guns.”

She also described her late wife as someone who had “sparkles coming out of her pores”.

“Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow,” she said. “Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.”

Separate investigations

Mary Moriarty, the top prosecutor for Minneapolis’ Hennepin County, and the state’s Democratic attorney general, Keith Ellison, said on Friday they were opening their own probe into the shooting.

The announcement came one day after the state’s lead investigative agency, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said the FBI had reversed its initial co-operation and blocked the BCA from scene evidence, witness interviews and other material.

The decision could set up separate, parallel probes into the shooting.

US officials, including Vance, have dismissed the idea that a federal officer could face state criminal charges. But Moriarty said the decision was hers to make.

“To be sure, there are complex legal issues involved when a federal law enforcement officer is involved. But the law is clear: we do have jurisdiction to make this decision,” she said.

The announcement underscored how the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Democratic-run cities has frayed trust between local and federal officials.

Earlier in the day, Frey accused the Trump administration of trying to predetermine the investigation’s outcome by cutting out state authorities.

“This is a time to follow the law,” Frey said. “This is not a time to hide from the facts.”

In Portland, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon, a US Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a man and woman in their car after an attempted vehicle stop. As in Minnesota, the Department of Homeland Security said the driver “weaponised” the car in an effort to run over the agent, who fired in self-defence.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, echoing Frey, said he could not be sure the government’s account was grounded in fact without an independent investigation.

The two shootings have drawn thousands of protesters in Minneapolis, Portland and other US cities, with more demonstrations expected over the weekend.

In both cases, Democratic mayors and governors have called on the Trump administration to pull federal officers out, arguing that their presence is sowing chaos and needlessly creating tensions on the streets.

While the operation is part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown, the president has for months aimed political attacks at the state, particularly its large Somali-American community.





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Minneapolis asks to join probe into woman’s killing by immigration officer

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Minneapolis asks to join probe into woman’s killing by immigration officer


Protestors clash with federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on January 8, 2026.— AFP
Protestors clash with federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on January 8, 2026.— AFP

The mayor of Minneapolis called on Friday for state investigators to be allowed to join the federal probe into the killing of a US woman by immigration enforcement, accusing the Trump administration of pre-judging the case.

Minnesota officials have complained that their law enforcement has been excluded from the investigation into the killing of motorist Renee Nicole Good by a federal immigration officer on Wednesday.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to paint the victim as a “domestic terrorist,” insisting that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer who fatally shot her was acting in self-defence.

“This is not the time to bend the rules. This is a time to follow the law […] The fact that Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice and this presidential administration has already come to a conclusion about those facts is deeply concerning,” Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, told a briefing on Friday.

“We know that they’ve already determined much of the investigation,” he said, adding that the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has consistently run such investigations.

“Why not include them in the process?” Frey said.

“We’re not even talking just about full control here. We’re talking about being at the table.”

On Thursday US Vice President JD Vance asserted that the ICE officer, named in US media as Jonathan Ross, had “absolute immunity.”

Minnesota officials have said that local investigators were initially invited by the FBI to participate in the inquiry, but were subsequently blocked from the probe.

Good, 37, was shot in the head on as she apparently tried to drive away from ICE in the midwestern US city as officers approached her car, which they said blocked their way.

Good was one of four people who have been killed by ICE since Trump launched his immigration crackdown and seven others have been injured, reported The Trace, an outlet that tracks gun violence.

Large, noisy crowds gathered around Minneapolis in protest on Thursday, chanting slogans against ICE. Federal immigration officers armed with pepperball guns and tear gas wrestled several protesters to the ground.

In a separate incident on Thursday afternoon, US federal agents shot and wounded two people in the western city of Portland, Oregon, local police said.

“ICE needs to get out of Minnesota, we don’t need them here, these are not criminals — and actually ICE they are the criminals,” Minneapolis resident Eleanor told AFP.





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Khamenei insists ‘won’t back down’ in face of Iran protests

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Khamenei insists ‘won’t back down’ in face of Iran protests


Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shows him addressing a meeting with students in Tehran on November 3, 2025. — AFP/File
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shows him addressing a meeting with students in Tehran on November 3, 2025. — AFP/File
  • Trump to be “overthrown” like Iran’s imperial dynasty in 1979: Khamenei.
  • Rights groups accuse authorities of opening fire on protesters.
  • Pahlavi says rallies show how “massive crowd forces LEAs to retreat”.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday insisted that the government would “not back down” in the face of protests after the biggest rallies yet in an almost two-week movement sparked by anger over the rising cost of living.

Chanting slogans including “death to the dictator” and setting fire to official buildings, crowds of people opposed to the establishment marched through major cities late on Thursday.

Internet monitor Netblocks said authorities had imposed a total connectivity blackout late on Thursday and added early on Friday that the country has “now been offline for 12 hours […] in an attempt to suppress sweeping protests”.

The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges yet to the nation in its over four-and-a-half decades of existence, with protesters openly calling for an end to its theocratic rule.

But Khamenei struck a defiant tone in his first comments on the protests that have been escalating since January 3, calling the demonstrators “vandals” and “saboteurs”, in a speech broadcast on state TV.

Khamenei said US President Donald Trump’s hands “are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians”, in apparent reference to Israel’s June war against the Islamic republic which the US supported and joined with strikes of its own.

He predicted the “arrogant” US leader would be “overthrown” like the imperial dynasty that ruled Iran up to the 1979 revolution.

“Last night in Tehran, a bunch of vandals came and destroyed a building that belongs to them to please the US president,” he said in an address to supporters, as men and women in the audience chanted the mantra of “death to America”.

“Everyone knows the Islamic republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people, it will not back down in the face of saboteurs,” he added.

Trump said late on Thursday that “enthusiasm to overturn that regime is incredible” and warned that if the Iranian authorities responded by killing protesters, “we’re going to hit them very hard. We’re ready to do it.”

Even larger

AFP has verified videos showing crowds of people, as well as vehicles honking in support, filling a part of the vast Ayatollah Kashani Boulevard late on Thursday.

The crowd could be heard chanting “death to the dictator” in reference to Khamenei, 86, who has ruled the republic since 1989.

Other videos showed significant protests in other cities, including Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Mashhad in the east, as well as the Kurdish-populated west of the country, including the regional hub Kermanshah.

Several videos showed protesters setting fire to the entrance to the regional branch of state television in the central city of Isfahan. It was not immediately possible to verify the images.

Flames were also seen in the governor’s building in Shazand, the capital of Markazi province in central Iran, after protesters gathered outside, other videos showed.

The protests late on Thursday were the biggest in Iran since 2022-2023 rallies nationwide sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code.

Rights groups have accused authorities of firing on protesters in the current demonstrations, killing dozens. However, the latest videos from Tehran did not show intervention by security forces.

The son of the shah of Iran ousted by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, US-based Reza Pahlavi, who had called for major protests on Thursday, urged a new show of force in the streets on Friday.

Pahlavi, in a new video message early on Friday, said Thursday’s rallies showed how “a massive crowd forces the repressive forces to retreat”.

He called for bigger protests on Friday “to make the crowd even larger so that the regime’s repressive power becomes even weaker”.





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