law

April 21 (UPI) — The British government announced it will pass legislation to ban children from using smartphones in schools in England.

The plans unveiled Monday in the House of Lords by Baroness Jacqui Smith, the education minister, formalize what is already policy in many schools but introduces a “clear legal requirement” that would empower them to enforce it — including removing phones from children before class.

The proposed amendment to the Labour administration’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill came after repeated efforts by members of the upper chamber over the past few months to tack on a social media ban for children younger than 16.

Further “ping pong” opposition and blocking, with the Lords repeatedly refusing to pass the legislation and sending it back to the House of Commons, could risk the flagship bill running out of time to become law in the current session of parliament, which is due to end within weeks.

“We recognize the strength of feeling on this issue, both in this House and beyond,” said Baroness Smith.

“Notwithstanding the fact that we think the guidance already in place provides head teachers and schools with a range of approaches to be able to deliver the objective that we all share, we are committing to tabling an amendment in lieu, which will place the existing guidance on a statutory footing in the Bill, creating a clear legal requirement for schools.

“We’ve listened to concerns about how we support headteachers in delivering on this policy and we have listened to parliament,” added Baroness Smith.

The law will only apply to schools in England because education is an area where power is devolved to the parliaments and assemblies of the other countries of the United Kingdom — Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The move came two months after the Department for Education issued new guidance to schools that they should be phone-free environments, including during lessons, between lessons, breaktimes and at lunch, but stops short of an outright ban, stating only that phones must be off and in a bag or jacket.

Baroness Smith rejected criticism from some Lords that while the government’s proposal removes the “not seen, not heard” policy from guidance to schools — because phones remain a distraction even when off and out of sight — there was confusion with schools assuming the existing policy remains unchanged and “will continue to be the norm in schools.”

“We have now taken that out of the guidance, and we would be willing to consider whether we should be stronger on that. It is a complex area where different schools and different head teachers might have different ways of achieving the outcome, but it is not possible for me to say that it would be impossible [for children to still use their phones],” said Baroness Smith.

Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party opposition, said Tuesday that her party had been battling Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a ban for over a year and that it had only been realized due to the efforts of her education secretary, Laura Trott.

“In March last year, I asked Starmer to ban phones in schools. He dismissed it as ‘completely unnecessary.’ Now it’s the latest Government U-turn. This is a testament to the relentless work of Laura Trott and our shadow cabinet,” Badenoch wrote on X.

“Now, let’s get under-16s off social media,” she added.

In a post online, Laura Trott, credited the efforts of teachers, parents and health professionals for what she said was “the right step for improving behaviour and raising attainment in our classrooms,” but vowed to hold the government to its word on making sure phones were actually banned.

“We’ll push the government to make clear that ‘not seen & not heard’ policies aren’t allowed,” wrote Trott.

Christopher Meloni has a message for Elliot Stabler fans: “Thank you … for sticking with him and welcoming him back.”

The “Law & Order: Organized Crime” star took to Instagram on Thursday to convey his appreciation for his character’s long run in the franchise after it was revealed that the NBC show had been canceled after five seasons.

“I just saw that they announced … ‘Organized Crime’ won’t be coming back,” Meloni said in his video post. “So I wanted to take this moment to say thank you to the fans who not only helped give the character of Elliot Stabler life and longevity, but for sticking with him and welcoming him back.”

Meloni’s run as the seasoned detective began in “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” which debuted in 1999. Stabler investigated New York’s “especially heinous” sex-based crimes with partner Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and other detectives in his unit for the show’s first 12 seasons. (The character was written off the show in advance of the Season 13 premiere because Meloni and NBC could not come to an agreement on a new contract.)

Stabler returned to “SVU” in 2021 for a crossover event that helped launch “Organized Crime,” a “Law & Order” spinoff focused on NYPD officers who track down “vicious and violent members of the underworld.” While the character has occasionally appeared in “SVU” episodes since his return, the end of “Organized Crime” likely means Meloni is done playing Stabler full time, at least for now. “Law & Order: SVU,” meanwhile, has been renewed for a 28th season.

“I had a great time playing him,” Meloni said in his Instagram message. “It was a great ride. Thank you. You helped give me a career that I never dreamed of. Nearly 17 odd years.”

The California Supreme Court ordered attorney and former law school dean John Eastman disbarred on Wednesday for his role aiding the Trump administration’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

The court ordered Eastman’s name be “stricken from the roll of attorneys” and that he pay $5,000 to the State Bar of California.

Eastman’s attorney, Randall A. Miller, told the Associated Press that the court’s decision “departs from long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent protecting First Amendment rights, especially in the attorney discipline context.” Miller did not immediately return an after-hours phone call seeking comment from The Times.

State Bar Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona said in a statement that the ruling “underscores that Mr. Eastman’s misconduct was incompatible with the standards of integrity required of every California attorney.”

“Today’s California Supreme Court order disbarring John Charles Eastman from the practice of law in California affirms the fundamental principle that attorneys must act with honesty and uphold the rule of law, regardless of the client they represent or the context in which that representation occurs,” said Cardona said.

The Supreme Court’s decision affirms a 2024 ruling from State Bar Judge Yvette Roland that Eastman be prohibited from practicing law.

In a marathon trial that lasted off and on from June to November 2024, the State Bar, which regulates lawyers in California, argued that Eastman was unfit to practice law for peddling bogus claims that fraud cost Trump the election and for promoting a fake-elector scheme to block the electoral count.

“It is true that an attorney has a duty to engage in zealous advocacy on behalf of a client,” Roland wrote in 2024 in a 128-page ruling. “However, Eastman’s inaccurate assertions were lies that cannot be justified as zealous advocacy.”

Roland found Eastman culpable of 10 of 11 counts of misconduct.

Eastman fomented “predictable and destructive chaos” when he stood beside fellow Trump adviser Rudolph W. Giuliani on Jan. 6, 2021, and told an enormous crowd at the Ellipse that the election had been fraudulent, the bar argued.

Eastman claimed he was acting in good faith, and as a vigorous champion of his client. But State Bar attorneys argued that “the evidence, including his often not-credible trial testimony, shows that he held — and still holds — truth and democracy in contempt.”

Despite Eastman’s repeated assertions that Joe Biden’s victory was illegal, Roland ruled, Eastman’s own words showed he knew that proof was lacking.

The judge cited an email that Eastman sent to a friend, Cleta Mitchell, on Nov. 29, 2020, acknowledging that fraud serious enough to sway the results could not be proved.

“It would be nice to have actually hard documented evidence of the fraud in the areas to which the analyses pointed,” Eastman wrote.

After the 2024 ruling Eastman responded on his Substack writing that he hoped the California Supreme Court or U.S. Supreme Court would “step in to put a stop to this lawfare that has become a serious threat to the First Amendment, the right of controversial clients and causes to legal representation, and more broadly to our adversarial system of justice.”

Eastman has a long history in California’s conservative legal circles. He was hired by Chapman’s law school in 1999 and was dean from June 2007 to January 2010, then continued to teach courses in constitutional law, property law, legal history and the 1st Amendment.

He retired in early 2021 after more than 100 Chapman faculty and others affiliated with the university signed a letter calling on the school to take action against him for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Wednesday’s decision is a bookend in a lengthy investigation into Eastman’s actions that began in 2021. In October of that year, the nonpartisan legal group States United Democracy Center filed an ethics complaint calling on the State Bar to investigate Eastman’s Jan. 6 actions.

Christine P. Sun, senior vice president of legal at the States United Democracy Center, said on Wednesday that the court’s decision is “part of a broader reckoning for those who seek to undermine the rule of law.”

“Eastman played a central role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election—pressuring state officials, advancing baseless claims in court, and promoting a fringe theory that the vice president could reject certified electoral votes,” Sun said in a statement. “His unethical actions have had real, lasting consequences for our democracy, and we applaud the California Supreme Court’s decision to disbar him.”

Staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report

Police in France have arrested students at Sorbonne University, Sciences Po and Paris-Saclay University during a sit-in against a controversial anti-Semitism bill that could outlaw criticism of Israel. Lawmakers are set to vote on the ‘Yadan law’, named after a pro-Israel French MP who sponsored the bill, on April 16.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration fired four Justice Department prosecutors involved in cases against anti-abortion activists, accusing the Biden administration on Tuesday of abusing a law designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and threats.

The firings are the latest wave of terminations of employees involved in cases criticized by conservatives or because they were perceived as insufficiently loyal to President Trump’s agenda. The terminations came before the release of a report accusing the Biden administration of biased prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act or FACE Act.

“This Department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice,” Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said in a statement. “No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs. The weaponization that happened under the Biden Administration will not happen again, as we restore integrity to our prosecutorial system.”

The report is the first released from the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group,” created by former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to scrutinize the federal prosecutions of Trump and other cases criticized by conservatives.

Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted Trump, have said they followed only the facts, the evidence and the law in their decisions. Critics of the Trump administration say Bondi — who was fired by Trump this month — and Blanche are the ones who politicized the agency, with the norm-breaking actions that have stirred concern that the institution is being used as a tool to advance Trump’s personal and political agenda.

The Biden administration brought cases against dozens of defendants under the FACE Act, which makes it illegal to physically obstruct or use the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services, and prohibits damaging property at abortion clinics and other centers. It was signed into law in 1994, when clinic protests and blockades were on the rise along with violence against abortion providers such as Dr. David Gunn, who was murdered.

The Trump administration alleges in the report that prosecutors under Biden often “ignored and downplayed” attacks against pregnancy resource centers or houses of worship, which are also protected under the law. It also claims that the Biden administration pushed for harsher sentences against anti-abortion activists than it did in cases against abortion-rights defendants. Trump last year pardoned anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances, calling them “peaceful pro-life protesters.”

Kristen Clarke, who led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under Biden, defended the prosecutions, saying the attorneys “enforced the law even-handedly and put public safety at the center of this work.”

“The Civil Rights Division brought law enforcement leaders, crisis pregnancy center representatives, faith leaders, and reproductive health care staff together to address the real violence, threats of violence, and obstruction that too many people face in our country when it comes to reproductive health care,” Clarke said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

The firings are part of a broader personnel purge that has shaken career Justice Department lawyers generally insulated from changes in administrations thanks to long-recognized civil service protections.

Justice Connection, a network of former department employees, said the agency leadership’s “cruelty and hypocrisy are on full display in this report.”

“They insist on zealous advocacy by career staff in advancing the President’s priorities, while shaming and firing those who did just that in the prior administration,” Stacey Young, a former department lawyer who founded Justice Connection, said in a statement. “They’ve put career employees on notice: if they do their jobs, they face potential termination if future political leadership disagrees with the policy goals of prior leadership.”

Richer writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has notched a string of wins on the Supreme Court ’s emergency docket, in part because the conservative justices believe that blocking executive policies is a blow that can’t be easily fixed, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Thursday.

The increase in emergency appeals by the Trump administration is “unprecedented in the court’s history,” she said in a speech at the University of Alabama School of Law.

The high court sided with the Trump administration in about two dozen decisions last year, often lifting the orders of lower court judges who found their policies were likely illegal on topics as diverse as immigration and steep federal funding cuts.

While designed to be short-term, those orders have largely allowed Trump to move ahead for now with key parts of his sweeping agenda.

The emergency docket, which is made up of appeals seeking quick intervention from the justices in cases that are still playing out in lower courts, is itself a source of disagreement among the justices. That spilled into public view when two other justices, liberal Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservative Brett M. Kavanaugh, publicly sparred over the emergency docket in an unusual exchange last month.

Sotomayor has disagreed with many of the decisions in Trump’s favor, but the conservatives who form the court’s majority often reason that blocking those policies — or laws passed by Congress — causes legal harm that can’t be easily fixed, she said. It’s a bar that’s tough for the other side to overcome, even for plaintiffs like immigrants who could be newly exposed to deportation or states where schools are losing teacher-training funding.

“If you start with the presumption that there is irreparable harm to one side, then you’re going to have more grants of emergency relief. Because the other side is going to have a much harder time,” she said. “It has changed the paradigm on the court.”

Her comments provided a window into the Supreme Court decisions that are often released with little explanation. While many emergency docket orders have gone Trump’s way, the court also struck down his sweeping tariffs, a central plank of his economic platform, after a longer process of full briefing and oral arguments.

Whitehurst writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Last September, the Department of Homeland Security started advising unaccompanied immigrant children that they could either self-deport or expect to face long-term detention.

But a federal judge in Los Angeles on Mondayordered the government to stop using such “blatantly coercive” language, ruling that the new advisals, as they are known, violated a 40-year-old court order that bans immigration agents from pressuring unaccompanied children to give up asylum claims and leave the U.S.

According to court documents, the legal advisal was given to recently detained immigrant children. Unaccompanied children are those in the country without a parent or legal guardian.

The minors were told they had the option to return to their country, that doing so would result in no administrative consequences and that they still could apply for a visa in the future.

But the children also were told that if they chose to seek a hearing with an immigration judge or indicated that they were afraid to leave the U.S., they could expect to be held at a detention facility “for a prolonged period of time.”

Those who turned 18 while in custody would be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation, they were told. The advisal, though generally passed on verbally, was written out in court documents by lawyers representing the immigrant children, which the government did not dispute.

“If your sponsor in the United States does not have legal immigration status, they will be subject to arrest and removal,” the advisals continued. “The sponsor may be subject to criminal prosecution for aiding your illegal entry.”

U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald said that “such a threat disturbingly mirrors” the testimony of Jose Antonio Perez-Funez, a plaintiff in a 1980s class-action lawsuit challenging the tactics of immigration officers.

Perez-Funez, who was 16 when he was arrested near the Mexican border, testified in 1985 in Los Angeles federal court that he agreed to self-deport because federal officers said he would face lengthy detention if he didn’t return to El Salvador.

Perez-Funez’s case originally led the court to establish due process safeguards for immigrant children, giving them the right to speak with a relative or attorney before signing forms that waive their pursuit of legal protection.

“The Government was thus already on notice that such a statement delivered in this environment is precisely the kind of inappropriate persuasion the Injunction sought to prevent,” Fitzgerald wrote.

Fitzgerald, a judge in the Central District of California, also denied a request by the federal government to end the permanent court-mandated safeguards for immigrant children.

In response to a request for comment, U.S. Customs and Border Protection provided a statement, attributed to a spokesperson who wasn’t named, that the agency is following the law and protecting children. The agency said the advisal document explains to unaccompanied children their options available under federal law.

“Many unaccompanied minors are brought to the border by smugglers and face real risks of exploitation, which is why providing a clear, lawful advisal is essential,” the statement said. “It ensures they understand their rights and options — and for many who were trafficked or coerced, returning home to their family is the safest path.”

Unaccompanied children are first held by Homeland Security before being turned over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is within the Department of Health and Human Services, for long-term housing. Federal law requires ORR to provide them with a legal consultation within 10 days.

“It is difficult to imagine a scenario more coercive than the one faced by [unaccompanied immigrant children] in the 72 hours before they are transferred into ORR custody, particularly for noncitizen children who likely do not know whether they possess any rights at all,” Fitzgerald wrote in his order.

In declarations to the court, children wrote that they felt threatened by the government’s advisals. One minor, identified as D.A.T.M., said the threats to prosecute their parents and of long-term detention caused them to sign voluntary departure papers.

Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney at the pro bono law firm Public Counsel, helped secure the 1986 court order. He said his legal team discovered Homeland Security had changed the advisals only after a government attorney notified him in November that the agency was going to seek to end the court-mandated safeguards.

“I consider this a war on children — the most vulnerable population,” he said.

The government has until Thursday to decide whether it will appeal the judge’s ruling. Regardless, Rosenbaum said, his goal is to establish more aggressive monitoring of unaccompanied children’s cases to ensure their rights aren’t violated again.

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice seeking Massachusetts’ state voter rolls, marking the latest setback in a wide-ranging effort by the Trump administration to collect detailed data on the nation’s voters.

The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin marks at least the fifth time a judge has rejected similar attempts by the Justice Department. Sorokin, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said the U.S. attorney general’s office did not take the necessary steps required to access voter rolls, as outlined in federal law.

“Put simply, the statute requires a statement of why the Attorney General demands production of the requested records,” Sorokin wrote. That statement has to be factual, “not just a conceivable or possible basis.”

In an emailed response, the Justice Department said it “does not comment on ongoing litigation.”

It has said it’s seeking the voter data as part of an effort to ensure election security, but Democratic and Republican officials in several states have refused, saying the demand violates state and federal privacy laws. Some have raised concerns that federal officials will use the sensitive data for other purposes, such as searching for potential noncitizens.

During a hearing last month in Rhode Island, a Justice Department attorney told a federal judge that the department was seeking unredacted voter roll information so it could be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship status. Homeland Security over the past year has beefed up the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, program, for just this purpose.

“Our intention is to run this against the DHS SAVE database,” Department of Justice attorney Eric Neff told U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy during a March 26 hearing challenging the federal government’s authority to access the voter data.

The Justice Department has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking to force release of the data, which includes dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

At least 12 states have either provided or promised to provide their detailed voter registration lists to the department, according to the Brennan Center: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

In the Massachusetts case, the the judge found that the Justice Department failed to follow the requirements for demanding the voter rolls set by a 1960 civil rights law.

That law, enacted as part of an effort to end racial discrimination in elections, says state voter records must be made available for inspection by the U.S. attorney general if the office includes a statement outlining why the information is being demanded and how it will be used.

The department’s letter demanding Massachusetts’ voter data made no reference to the Civil Rights Act and didn’t cite any concerns about the way Massachusetts complied with federal voting laws, the judge said. Most importantly, it didn’t include any factual basis for the demand, Sorokin wrote.

In court documents, the Justice Department said it was demanding the data to check for “Massachusetts’ possible lack of compliance” with federal voter registration list requirements. It also said the Civil Rights Act was designed to be an investigatory tool to identify federal election law violations and argued that the U.S. attorney general can’t be required to prove a violation before seeking evidence of one.

“These arguments miss the point,” Sorokin wrote.

Massachusetts Atty. Gen. Andrea Joy Campbell called the ruling a decisive win for voters and the rule of law.

“The privacy of our voters is not up for negotiation, and I will continue to defend the integrity and security of our elections from the Trump Administration’s cruel and harmful agenda,” she said in a news release.

Four federal judges in other states have dismissed similar lawsuits from the Department of Justice.

A federal judge in Michigan found the laws cited by the Justice Department do not require the disclosure of the voter records sought by the federal government. A federal judge in California said the administration “may not unilaterally usurp the authority over elections,” which the Constitution gives to the states and Congress. A federal judge in Oregon said the federal government was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists containing sensitive data.

A federal judge in Georgia dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit because he found it had been filed in the wrong city. The federal government then refiled the lawsuit in the city specified by the judge; that case is ongoing.

The Justice Department has appealed the Oregon, California and Michigan dismissals.

Boone writes for the Associated Press. Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. AP writer Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.

April 10 (Asia Today) — More than 1,000 subcontractor unions have requested collective bargaining with primary contractors in the first month since South Korea’s revised labor law took effect, though relatively few negotiations have begun.

According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, 1,011 subcontractor unions representing 145,860 workers filed bargaining requests with 372 primary companies as of Wednesday.

In the private sector, 616 unions sought talks with 216 companies, while 395 unions in the public sector filed requests with 156 organizations.

Despite the surge in requests, only 33 companies – about 8.9% – have formally announced the start of negotiations, and just 19 completed the process confirming bargaining parties. Handong Global University is the only case so far where formal talks have begun, holding an initial meeting with a subcontractor union Wednesday.

Officials said the process remains in an early stage, as companies and unions work through procedures such as determining employer status and separating bargaining units.

A total of 170 complaints were filed with the labor commission over companies failing to publicly acknowledge bargaining requests. Of those, 110 were withdrawn and 54 remain under review. In six completed cases, authorities recognized the primary contractor as the employer.

Applications to divide bargaining units have also increased, with 117 filed so far. Thirteen were approved and six rejected. Cases involving Korea Electric Power Corp. and major bank call centers were approved by job function, while other cases were split by union affiliation.

The ministry said the rulings show bargaining structures are not being fragmented indefinitely, countering concerns from businesses.

The government described the current phase as part of establishing a new bargaining framework between contractors and subcontractors.

However, business groups warned the law could increase the burden of negotiating with multiple unions and potentially extend into management decisions. Labor groups, meanwhile, criticized delays by companies in initiating the process.

Even within labor circles, there has been a cautious approach as both sides monitor early rulings and precedents.

Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon said the revised law is intended to institutionalize dialogue between contractors and subcontractors.

“Legal procedures such as bargaining requests and unit separation are part of building a stable framework for dialogue,” he said, adding that the government will continue to support the law’s implementation.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260410010003225

Caracas, April 10, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan National Assembly unanimously approved a new mining law geared toward attracting foreign investment on Thursday.

Deputies backed the legislation after going through the bill’s 130 articles over four separate parliamentary sessions. A preliminary version was approved on March 9.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez praised the parliamentary special commission that drafted the law and incorporated amendments after consultations, underscoring the bill’s far-reaching impact.

“We have approved a legal text which will undoubtedly become a vehicle for future prosperity,” he said during the legislative session, further promising that “every mineral from the Venezuelan soil will be translated into social welfare.”

Orlando Camacho, a deputy from the pro-government coalition, stated that the law’s objective is to “attract national and foreign capital with legal assurances” as well as “update the regulations” in the mining sector.

Divided into 19 sections, the legislation establishes a regulatory framework for small, medium, and large-scale mining, as well as the state’s prerogative to declare certain minerals strategic and reserve areas for security purposes. It also creates new oversight institutions and a state-run data bank.

Under the law, joint ventures, private corporations, and small-scale artisanal mining groups are allowed to receive concessions that can last up to 30 years and be renewed for two additional 10-year periods. Furthermore, private entities can bring disputes to international arbitration bodies.

Royalties and a mining tax are capped at 13 and 6 percent, respectively. The executive has the discretionary power to reduce them as well as grant additional fiscal incentives. The new law will replace a 2015 decree that imposed state control over mining exploration, as well as the 1999 Mining Law.

Former President Hugo Chávez sought to end foreign mining concessions in the 2000s, instead pushing for a leading state role and to interlink extraction activities to basic industries in sectors such as steel and aluminum.

The Chávez government likewise revoked several concessions from Western mining companies. A number of them, including Canada’s Crystallex and Gold Reserve, went on to secure compensation via international arbitration bodies.

Since 2015, the Nicolás Maduro government turned to mining as a potential revenue source amid escalating US sanctions, particularly in the 112,000 square-kilometer Orinoco Mining Arc. Nevertheless, the sector was targeted by unilateral coercive measures, while the proliferation of irregular mining groups has generated environmental concerns.

Venezuela possesses vast proven reserves of gold, iron, and bauxite, as well as lesser quantities of copper and nickel. Analysts have also drawn attention to Venezuela’s significant reserves of coltan in addition to unconfirmed rare earth deposits.

The approved legislation will be reviewed by the Venezuelan Supreme Court before being enacted by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez. On Thursday, the Venezuelan leader praised the new law as “a fundamental instrument to modernize and improve mining” in the Caribbean nation.

“This law strengthens legal security, attracts investment, and will boost our mineral wealth toward national development,” she wrote on social media.

Rodríguez first announced the mining reform during a visit by US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in early March. Burgum, who holds the natural resource portfolio in the Trump administration, came to Venezuela with more than 20 mining executives from US and Canadian conglomerates. He praised Venezuela’s mineral wealth and potential opportunities for Western corporations.

US companies Caterpillar and Hartree Partners, alongside Canadian counterparts Gold Reserve and Lundin Mining, were among the firms to send representatives to Caracas with Burgum. Canada’s Roland Mineral Enterprises recently announced plans to “aggressively seek out and acquire interests in Venezuelan mineral properties,” singling out its interest in Las Cristinas gold project, which is estimated to contain over 14 million ounces of gold.

In late March, the Trump administration issued three general licenses to facilitate Western conglomerates’ participation in the Venezuelan mining sector. 

The US Treasury sanctions waivers allow transactions with Venezuelan minerals, the provision of technology and services, and contract negotiations with Caracas. However, it mandates that corporations secure a special license before enacting contracts.

Washington’s licenses block transactions with entities from China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Russia. They additionally require that all Venezuela-bound revenues be deposited in accounts run by the US Treasury. A similar arrangement is presently in place regarding Venezuelan oil revenues, which are controlled by the Trump administration and released back to Caracas at the White House’s discretion.

The new mining law follows a recent pro-business overhaul of Venezuela’s Hydrocarbon Law, granting private conglomerates significant control over operations and sales, reduced fiscal responsibilities, and the possibility of taking disputes to international arbitration.

On Wednesday, Acting President Rodríguez announced several upcoming legislative projects to reform the South American country’s tax, labor, pension, and housing regulations.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Fusagasugá, Colombia.

MADISON, Wis. — Democrats hoped to increase liberal control of the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin on Tuesday in an election that has focused largely on abortion rights as cases affecting congressional redistricting, union rights and other hot button issues also await in the perennial battleground state.

This year’s Supreme Court election stands in stark contrast to the swing state’s previous two, where national spending records were set in battles over majority control. Spending and national attention is down dramatically this year without control of the court at stake.

Democrats are looking to tighten their control of the court just months before a November election in which they seek to keep the governor’s office and flip the state Legislature, where Republicans have held the majority since 2011. Democrats aspire to undo a host of Republican-enacted laws that made Wisconsin a focal point for the nation’s conservative movement in the 2010s.

In Tuesday’s Supreme Court race, Democratic-backed Chris Taylor, a former state lawmaker who also worked for Planned Parenthood, faces Republican-supported Maria Lazar. Both Taylor and Lazar are state Appeals Court judges.

Liberals would increase their majority on the court to 5-2 from 4-3 with a Taylor win. That would lock in the liberal majority until at least 2030.

Liberals took control of the state’s top court in 2023, ending 15 years under a conservative majority. They held onto their majority with last year’s victory in a race that drew involvement from President Trump and billionaires George Soros and Elon Musk, who personally handed out $1 million checks to voters in the state.

Liberals argued that democracy was at stake in the 2025 election, noting that when the court was controlled by conservative justices in 2020 it came just one vote shy of siding with Trump in his attempt to invalidate enough votes to overturn his loss in that year’s presidential election.

Since liberals took control, the court has reversed several election-related rulings, including one that overturned a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes, and it is poised to once again be in the spotlight around the 2028 presidential election.

Races for the court are officially nonpartisan, but support for candidates breaks down mostly along partisan lines.

Taylor has focused much of her campaign on abortion rights, with one TV ad saying that “abortion is on the ballot.” In another ad, she criticized Lazar for calling the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 “very wise.”

Lazar, who was supported by anti-abortion groups in her run for the appeals court, tried to brand Taylor as nothing more than a politician who will push a partisan agenda on the court.

They sparred over each other’s partisanship during the campaign’s sole debate last week.

Lazar accused Taylor of being a “radical, extreme legislator” and a “judicial activist.” Taylor said that Lazar would bring “an extreme, right-wing political agenda to the bench.”

Lazar has had a much harder time getting her message out. Taylor had a large fundraising advantage and spent about nine times as much as Lazar on television ads, based on a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The liberal-controlled court has already struck down a state law banning abortion and ordered new legislative maps, fueling Democrats’ hopes of capturing a majority this November.

Taylor has been a judge since 2020 and before that she spent 10 years as a Democrat representing the liberal capital city of Madison in the state Assembly.

Lazar, a judge since 2015, previously worked four years under a Republican attorney general in the state Department of Justice. In that role, she defended a law enacted under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.

A circuit court judge ruled in December that the law is unconstitutional, a decision expected to ultimately land before the state Supreme Court.

Lazar also defended laws passed by Republicans and signed by Walker implementing a voter ID requirement and restricting abortion access.

Democrats are optimistic given the past two Supreme Court elections, which saw candidates they backed winning by double digits.

The seat is open due to the retirement of a conservative justice. Another conservative justice is retiring next year, giving liberals a chance to take 6-1 control of the court if they win on Tuesday.

Bauer writes for the Associated Press.

TAMPA, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure into law Monday that gives him along with other Florida leaders the ability to label groups as domestic or foreign terrorist organizations and expel state university students who support them.

The law, criticized by free speech advocates, allows a top official at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to designate a group as a domestic or foreign terrorist organization, with the governor and three other members of the Florida Cabinet approving or rejecting the designation. Besides the governor, the Cabinet is made up of the attorney general, the chief financial officer and the agriculture commissioner, all of whom are elected separately.

Once designated a terrorist organization, a group can be dissolved and it can no longer receive any state funding through school districts or state agencies. Universities also would have to report the status of expelled students attending on visas to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“So this will help the state of Florida protect you. It’ll help us protect your tax dollars,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Tampa. “It’ll help us protect things that should not be happening in the United States of America, but certainly shouldn’t be happening in the free state of Florida.”

DeSantis in December designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhoods as foreign terrorist organizations. A federal judge last month temporarily blocked the enforcement of DeSantis’ executive order.

PEN America, a free speech advocacy group, said the new law has vague language that could restrict education programs deemed to be “promoting” terrorism and that it could target student protesters who criticize Florida officials.

The new law “could chill education at every level,” said William Johnson, PEN America’s Florida director. “The implications are fraught.”

The Israeli parliament’s approval of a legislation that seeks the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks has stoked fears among the Palestinians and drawn condemnation from the international community, dismayed at the further entrenching of what rights groups have long described as Israel’s “system of apartheid”.

The law, which does not apply to Jewish citizens of Israel, was met with jubilation among its backers in the country’s far right.

France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom have all raised concerns over what many describe as the overtly racist nature of the bill, whose nature and wording appear to exclusively target Palestinians.

“We are particularly worried about the de facto discriminatory character of the bill. The adoption of this bill would risk undermining Israel’s commitments with regards to democratic principles,” the foreign ministries wrote in a joint statement on Sunday.

Rights groups have also criticised the bill, with Amnesty International in February saying the legislation would make the death penalty “another discriminatory tool in Israel’s system of apartheid”.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday called the law discriminatory as it would primarily, if not exclusively, be applied to Palestinians.

“Israeli officials argue that the imposing the death penalty is about security, but in reality, it entrenches discrimination and a two-tiered system of justice, both hallmarks of apartheid,” Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“The death penalty is irreversible and cruel. Combined with its severe restrictions on appeals and its 90-day execution timeline, this bill aims to kill Palestinian detainees faster and with less scrutiny.”

Nevertheless, on its successful passage through parliament, amidst the celebrating lawmakers, the legislation’s principal champion, far- right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir – who has previous convictions for far-right “terrorism” – was seen brandishing a champagne.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had attended the chamber to support the bill, could also be seen congratulating lawmakers on its passage.

So, how can Israel pass a law targeting one ethnic group and not others? Is that legal, and is this the first time Israel has passed legislation that deliberately discriminates against Palestinians?

Here’s what we know.

How does the law target Palestinians and not Israelis?

By limiting the bulk of the legislation to the military courts that only try Palestinians under occupation.

Under the new legislation, anyone found guilty of the killing of an Israeli citizen within the occupied West Bank will, by default, be sentenced to death by the military courts overseeing the occupied territory.

While the courts do not regularly publish statistics on convictions, in 2010, the court system did concede that, of the Palestinians tried for offences committed in the occupied West Bank, 99.74 percent were found guilty.

In contrast, Israeli settlers, who have killed seven Palestinians in just the weeks following the start of their country’s war on Iran in late February, are tried in civilian courts in Israel. According to an analysis by the UK’s Guardian newspaper in late March, Israel has yet to prosecute any of its citizens for killing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the start of this decade.

Under the new legislation, Israel’s civilian courts are granted an extra degree of leniency in sentencing Israelis found guilty of killing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with judges having the option to choose between the death penalty and life imprisonment.

Sentences for the military courts trying Palestinians, in contrast, carry an automatic death penalty, with life imprisonment only available under extreme circumstances.

According to a study by the Israeli rights group, Yesh Din, conviction rates for settlers found guilty by civilian courts of committing crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) between 2005 and 2024 ran to about 3 percent. Some 93.8 percent of investigations into settler violence were closed at the end of an investigation with no indictment filed, the group noted.

Underpinning much of this is Israel’s 2018 Nation State law, which, in the eyes of many, codifies Israel’s apartheid system of government, defining Israel as the exclusive homeland of the Jewish people and prioritising Jewish settlement as a national value.

Critics argue that it downgrades the status of Palestinian citizens, who make up about 20 percent of the population, by omitting any guarantee of equality.

How is that even legal?

According to many, it isn’t.

Despite the best efforts of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – who has administrative power over the occupied West Bank – to annex the Palestinian territory, it remains a foreign territory under military occupation.

According to Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Center for Security and Democracy of The Israel Democracy Institute, international law does not permit Israel’s parliament to legislate for the West Bank, since the area is not legally part of Israel’s sovereign territory.

In September 2024, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly called for end to Israeli occupation of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem within a year. The UNGA resolution backed an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which called Israeli occupation “unlawful”.

Similarly, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel announced it had already taken the matter to Israel’s highest court only minutes after the bill was approved. The group argued that the measure was “discriminatory by design” and that lawmakers had no legal authority to impose it on Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, who are not Israeli citizens.

Is this the first time Israel has been accused of using its legal system to target Palestinians?

Far from it.

Human rights groups – including HRW and Amnesty International – have long argued that the legal systems applying to Palestinians and to Israeli settlers in the West Bank are fundamentally unequal.

Palestinians live under military law, while settlers fall under Israeli civil law, creating two parallel systems in the same territory.

According to rights groups, this structure enables discriminatory detention practices, such as administrative detention (where people can be held indefinitely without charge), dramatically unequal protections under the law, and the selective enforcement of those laws, which have all underpinned widespread accusations of apartheid.

As of March 2026, approximately 9,500 Palestinians are detained in Israeli prisons under harsh conditions, with about half held under administrative detention or labelled “unlawful combatants”, denied trial and unable to defend themselves.

Legislation relating to the treatment of children in custody has led to concern among many international observers and rights groups. Palestinian minors can be interrogated without parental present and are often denied timely access to legal counsel in defiance of Israel’s own and international law, the HRW noted.

Another key area of international concern is the ongoing demolition of Palestinian homes built without permits, which are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain. Unauthorised settler outposts, in contrast, are rarely troubled and increasingly retroactively legalised.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco says he’d like to be our governor, but more and more, it’s looking to me like the real goal for the far-right provocateur is just to be MAGA-famous.

That’s cool. That’s fine. Honestly, who in Southern California hasn’t dreamed of their 15 minutes? And he certainly has the cop-stache to play the role of rogue Wild West lawman.

But Bianco’s bid for celebrity may help extremists take down American elections, and that is a problem — one California needs to deal with quickly, before the midterms suffer from his antics. There are two separate issues at play here, both of which state courts will be asked to weigh in on in coming days — Bianco apparently is putting his so-called investigation on hold until those cases bring some measure of clarity, and hopefully sanity.

First, are California sheriffs answerable to anyone, or are they a law unto themselves? Second, who in California can legally handle and count ballots according to law, if state law does in fact matter?

The fact that these two issues are coming up now — together— is no accident. President Trump’s election fraud claims have been moving toward this moment for years, largely out of the consciousness of mainstream voters, but very much intentionally pushed by those who would like to see MAGA officials remain in power, even at the cost of democracy.

The real question being answered right now in Riverside — the one we should all be clear on — is, if Republicans want to invalidate election results that don’t go their way this November, what’s the nitty-gritty of actually doing that?

Bianco is attempting an answer.

“This is about more than just what Sheriff Bianco is doing,” said Matt Barreto, faculty director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project. “… It shouldn’t happen. And again, it doesn’t matter if Democrats are winning or Republicans are winning, no sheriff should come in and take over possession or counting of ballots.”

By now, you’ve probably heard that Bianco has obtained multiple secret, sealed search warrants from a buddy judge that allowed him to spirit away hundreds of thousands of ballots in his county from November’s Proposition 50 election.

Bianco claims he has the right to seize these ballots and investigate as he sees fit — and it’s not our business or anyone else’s, not even state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who ordered Bianco to stop what he was doing until Bonta could review it.

Bianco has largely ignored that order, instead scooping up even more ballots late last week — all but giving Bonta a certain finger reserved for simple communication. Fox News loved it. Bianco’s admission Monday that he is pausing his effort is the first hint that even he may see he’s gone too far.

But Bianco’s hubris is in line with the attitude of many so-called constitutional sheriffs, a national movement by some far-right elected lawmen that Bianco has been associated with, though he’s never claimed outright affinity.

These extremist sheriffs misguidedly believe that they are above both state and federal law, and get to decide for themselves what’s constitutional or not in their jurisdictions — and therefore what’s law and what’s not.

Since about 2020, empowered by successes in ignoring pandemic restrictions, these sheriffs have dived deeper and deeper into the election fraud movement that Trump loves so much, claiming increasing rights to investigate alleged fraud. Though their national organization doesn’t publish its membership list, media and other tracking show there are at minimum dozens of these like-minded lawmen across the country, likely closely watching Riverside County.

Some election experts now worry that if Bianco is successful in the courts in retaining the right to take ballots, it will give a dangerous legal precedent that empowers other constitutional sheriffs to do the same at the midterms. Only then it would be fresh, uncounted ballots — leaving these far-right sheriffs in charge of providing results instead of trained, trusted elections officials.

“What happens if the ballots have not been properly counted by the right people yet and a sheriff decides they want to go confiscate them?” said Chad Dunn, co-founder of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project and the trial lawyer who successfully halted Texas’ gerrymandering effort, for now anyway.

“Once the chain of custody … is broken, as they have been with these, you’ll never count them in a way that you’ll be able to get reasonable confidence from the public,” Dunn said. “It puts the entire election process in jeopardy.”

The constitutional sheriffs would become the boots on the ground for Trump’s election deniers to implement their will, seizing ballots as they see fit and creating such a crisis of confidence that it’s likely we the voters would never accept the results, Republican or Democrat.

It could even give Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson a plausible reason — an ongoing fraud investigation — not to seat elected Democrats, stalling as he did with Arizona’s Adelita Grijalva last year after she won a special election.

The Voting Rights Project, along with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, filed a lawsuit last week asking the state Supreme Court to uphold the laws that govern how ballots are handled in California — basically protecting that chain of custody and making it clear sheriffs can’t ignore it and are not part of it.

“They do not, under California law, have the right to take ballots away from the Registrar of Voters, and they do not, under California law, have the right to count or handle ballots,” Barreto said. “There’s no question that it violates California election law.”

Separately, Bonta’s office filed its own action, with that issue of constitutional sheriffs front and center. Bonta is asking courts to tell Bianco that he’s not a law unto himself, and does in fact answer to the state attorney general.

This issue of whether sheriffs have any legal duty to listen to the state’s top law enforcement officer has long been one of Bonta’s fights — he argued about it with then-L.A. Sheriff Alex Villanueva in another public corruption fiasco over then-L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.

I’m guessing Bianco will refer Bonta back to that simple communication of a single finger, much the same as Villanueva did.

But it’s long past time that the state decide just how powerful sheriffs are, for the good of the country this time. The state Legislature has repeatedly kicked the can on clarifying the issue, a failure on their part.

Legislators could amend the state Constitution to make sheriffs appointed instead of elected — the same as police chiefs. Then boards of supervisors could hire and fire them just like other law enforcement leaders.

With the Legislature’s resounding absence on the issue, we have to rely on courts. That’s likely to be a long battle.

In the meantime, Bianco is up to his mustache in attention. This has become a national story, boosting his profile throughout the MAGA-verse as a champion of election deniers everywhere.

Whether Bianco wins or loses these legal battles, resumes his investigation or not, he’s won the attention battle — he’s even polling at the top in the gubernatorial race, thanks to the 8 million Democrats who refuse to drop out.

Riverside County, once as red as it comes, is increasingly purple, Barreto points out. Bianco’s tenure as elected sheriff may not last forever. His shot at governor, despite the polls, is unlikely.

But maybe Fox News will be so impressed with his aggressive rants that he’ll get an offer. Maybe Trump, known for watching it, will like what he sees. So many possibilities from the publicity.

And so much real damage to democracy.

Minnesota public universities can continue to offer in-state tuition and scholarships to some immigrants in the country without legal status, a federal judge ruled Friday, dismissing a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department last summer that attempted to halt the programs.

The decision follows a series of clashes between the federal government and Minnesota officials over immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez said in her decision that the federal government failed to prove that programs offering in-state tuition for immigrants without legal status discriminated against U.S. citizens.

The federal lawsuit named Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic state Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison as defendants, along with the state’s Office of Higher Education. It said Minnesota law discriminates against U.S. citizens because it provides in-state tuition and scholarships to students living in the U.S. illegally if they attended a Minnesota high school for three years, and U.S. citizens who attended schools outside of the state cannot receive the same benefits. States generally set higher tuition rates for out-of-state students.

The federal government said those state statutes “flagrantly” violate a federal law that prevents states from providing preferential benefits to immigrants in the U.S. illegally regardless of whether or not they meet residency requirements.

“No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed last year.

Menendez said the Justice Department misinterpreted the law, enacted during the Clinton administration, because anyone who attended a Minnesota high school for at least three years are granted the same public benefits, regardless of their U.S. residency or immigration status.

She also said the federal government didn’t have standing to sue the state attorney general or governor since neither has the power to change the state laws that determine tuition eligibility.

Ellison celebrated the decision in a statement Friday.

“Today, we defeated another one of Donald Trump’s efforts to misconstrue federal law to force Minnesota to abandon duly passed state laws and become a colder, less caring state,” he wrote.

The funding for immigrants without legal status represents an “investment for our state to do everything we can to encourage a more educated workforce,” Ellison wrote.

The U.S. Justice Department didn’t respond to an email request for comment Friday.

The department has filed similar lawsuits this month against policies in Kentucky and Texas. Last week, a federal judge in Texas blocked that state’s law giving a tuition break to students living in the U.S. illegally after the state’s Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, said he supported the legal challenge.

In discussing the Texas case last year, Bondi suggested more lawsuits might be coming.

Florida ended in-state tuition eligibility for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. At least 22 states and the District of Columbia have laws or policies granting the in-state benefit, according to the National Immigration Law Center. Those states include Democratic-led California and New York, but also Republican states including Kansas and Nebraska.

According to the center, at least 13 states in addition to Minnesota allow immigrant students without legal status to receive financial aid and scholarships on top of in-state tuition.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

Carlos Mendoza Potellá is an economist and university professor with vast experience and expertise regarding the Venezuelan oil industry. In this exclusive interview with Venezuelanalysis, Mendoza Potellá offers his analysis on the recent reform of the Hydrocarbon Law, the longstanding influence of Western conglomerates over Venezuela’s energy sector, and the struggle for sovereignty.

In late January, the Venezuelan National Assembly approved a reform of the Hydrocarbon Law. What are your views on the new law?

In broad terms, it is the relinquishing of our condition as a sovereign nation, plain and simple. We are not a nation anymore. We are a territory with some delegate administrators implementing decisions made abroad. Who decides? Emperor Trump, who has his proconsul Marco Rubio.

The approved law meets the maximum demands that the Venezuelan right and the oil conglomerates have been making for at least the last 25 years. The 2002 coup against Chávez was to impose something like this, the return to the old concession model. It is the fulfillment of all the dreams of the old “meritocratic” leadership of [state oil company PDVSA], the people who did everything to minimize the fiscal contributions to the country, whether that meant buying 37 refineries abroad or other disasters that wrecked the country.

The reform is a victory for international oil capital, alongside a discourse that hands over the destiny of the industry to major corporations and diminishes national participation as some unproductive “rentierism.”

The Venezuelan oil industry has gone through various stages, with varying degrees of influence from major transnational corporations, whether that is the period prior to the formal nationalization in 1976 or the Oil Liberalization (Apertura Petrolera) of the 1990s. How do we situate the new law within that context?

I believe this is a step backward beyond the apertura or the pre-nationalization period –perhaps it’s a return to 1832! In 1829, Simón Bolívar issued a decree transferring the Spanish crown’s mining rights to Gran Colombia. This, in turn, was based on old medieval law, essentially establishing that mines were the property of the sovereign, the king. In fact, that is where the term “royalty” comes from –as a tribute to the king. And in 1832, when Venezuela separated from Gran Colombia, that decree ratified the nation’s ownership of its mines. 

Obviously, oil didn’t emerge until 30 or 40 years later, but by 1866 concessions were already being granted. For a time, people spoke of “material that comes from the subsoil,” even though everyone already knew it was oil.

Our first boom was with asphalt. In 1883, Guzmán Blanco granted the Lago Guanoco concession to his buddy Horacio Hamilton, who later transferred it to the New York & Bermúdez Company, a subsidiary of the US firm General Asphalt. The asphalt boom lasted 50 years, and with it, streets and highways were built all over the United States.

But the example of New York & Bermúdez is significant because when Cipriano Castro came to power in 1899, he found out that the company had not paid taxes and attempted to collect them. What did the corporation do? It financed the so-called Revolución Libertadora led by Manuel Antonio Matos, a banker from La Victoria, which was ultimately defeated after two bloody battles. It was the first instance of foreign hydrocarbon interests seeking to control national politics. And it was always linked to the United States.

In the 1920s, then-dictator Juan Vicente Gómez tasked his minister, Gumersindo Torres, with drafting a hydrocarbons law, but the foreign companies did not like it. And Gómez told them, “Well, then, write the law yourselves!” Later, in 1936, the López Contreras administration drafted a very good law, but since it wasn’t retroactive, the companies did not mind because they already had their concessions granted.

When do we start seeing the first steps toward Venezuelan oil nationalism?

It was precisely in 1941 that Medina Angarita took office and commissioned a massive dossier on all the concessions in the country, informing the US government that Venezuela was aware of the importance of its oil. This was during World War II, and the oil companies were haunted by the specter of the 1938 Mexican nationalization under the government of Lázaro Cárdenas.

What was [Franklin D.] Roosevelt’s response? He sent a delegation from the State Department, not to intercede on behalf of the oil companies, but to convince them to accept Medina’s reform, because Venezuelan oil was vital to the war effort. The law passed in 1943 was quite progressive. Its first article stated that hydrocarbons are a matter of national public interest, and as such, concessions were granted for a maximum term of 40 years. Eighty percent of the concessions were granted at that time, to expire in 1983.

Venezuelan production grew through the 1970s, but as the end of the concessions approached, the transnational corporations began implementing policies to somewhat ease the hostility toward foreign investment.

Thus, a policy of “Venezuelanization” of the industry’s management was put into effect. That is why, when the so-called nationalization took place (1976), companies such as Shell and Creole, a subsidiary of Standard Oil-Exxon, had Venezuelans serving as president or vice president. These executives later assumed leadership of the newly created national companies. Their passports were Venezuelan, but their hearts belonged to foreign corporations!

Historically, how was the relationship between foreign corporations and Venezuelan authorities? And how did they respond to the 1976 nationalization?

The corporations grew accustomed to the idea of an industry tailored to their interests. I mentioned how they were the ones who drafted the first Hydrocarbons Law. Oversight bodies, such as the Technical Office of Hydrocarbons, were constantly undermined in their efforts to regulate oil activities. And so the companies could extract oil without paying royalties, violate technical standards for field exploitation, or export gasoline instead of fuel oil.

The 1970s were a turbulent time for the oil sector, marked by geopolitical tensions and the 1973 crisis in the Arab countries. In 1973, James Akins, the Nixon administration’s Director of Energy at the State Department, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs titled “The Oil Crisis; This Time the Wolf Is Here.” He argued that Venezuela could be key to reducing dependence on the Middle East, and that in the face of growing oil nationalism, it was necessary to cede some ground and consider other models of participation, while maintaining control over critical areas such as refining and commercialization.

Put differently, it was possible to offer some token concessions to the nationalist aspirations of oil-producing countries like Venezuela. And that rhetoric spread to the transnational corporations. The president of Shell said at the time, “Venezuela is going to have to take action regarding its oil industry,” while the head of Creole spoke of “the Venezuelans’ oil”!

There were growing signs of how the nationalization would take shape and how the transnationals were restructuring. A good example is the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation (CVP), created in 1960. Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, whom I consider a visionary and a deeply nationalist figure, had conceived it as a company that would develop until the time came for the state to take over production. But the governments did not let it grow; they did not assign concessions it was entitled to, and by the time of nationalization, the CVP was simply one more operator among 13 or 14. 

In contrast, [Petróleos de Venezuela, SA] PDVSA, created with the nationalization, did have a very clear vision from the start. I remember hearing senior PDVSA executives talking among themselves, discussing how one came from the “Exxon culture,” which was more vertical, and the other from the “Shell culture,” which was more horizontal. And these were the managers! They were the leaders of the Venezuelan oil industry, which had very little “Venezuelan” about it. What we are seeing now is the reconstitution of all these things.

Circling back to the current reform, we have seen that sovereignty is a central issue. How is it affected on different fronts?

For me, a fundamental issue is the return of concessions. Because that means going back decades, handing control back to transnational conglomerates. With taxes and royalties, the problem is not whether the rate is 30% or 15%; that flexibility existed in the past. But now it is the transnational corporations that tell the government what their operating costs are and how much goes to the Venezuelan state. There is no oversight body to verify this; instead, the company says, “I need you to lower royalties to this level” for the project to be profitable.

The return of international arbitration is also a brutal setback, because it means that disputes are not settled in Venezuelan courts, but in other bodies that have a history of defending corporate interests. There is no role left for the Public Solicitor’s Office (Procuradoría General), which is essentially the nation’s attorney. 

For months we were told we were ready to confront imperialism, but the truth is that everything is being imposed on us. Even the National Assembly is castrating itself. It has enacted a law stating that oil projects no longer require the parliament’s approval; they need only be notified. And on top of all that, there is also the constitutional issue. The reform conflicts with Articles 1, 12, 150, 151, and several others of the Constitution. But this is not merely a constitutional violation; it is a total surrender. A surrender of sovereignty that calls into question our status as a republic.

One of the issues under debate is the distinction between a country that owns oil and a country that produces oil. How should we understand the difference?

Of course, that’s fundamental. A country that owns oil simply collects royalties, and it does so according to its political capabilities. At the moment, Venezuela’s capabilities are limited, because the military cannot confront the enemy, and allies like Russia and China have not shown themselves willing to take any risks. So, there is little room to impose conditions on the US.

But this is a country that has grown used to the multinational corporations having free rein over its oil sector. Unfortunately, there are many people, within the industry itself, who believe that “the foreign conglomerates developed this and therefore have a right to these privileges.” Curiously, that is the same rhetoric Trump uses! 

This struggle for sovereignty is fundamental in oil-producing countries. We have seen this with the countries of the Middle East, which try to assert themselves but remain highly dependent on the United States. Obviously, they have the advantage of not being as close as we are. But in my opinion, historically we have lacked nationalism on this issue.

One of the arguments in favor of reforming the Hydrocarbon Law was the need to attract investment to so-called “green fields,” on the grounds that when the previous law was passed in 2001, there were many mature fields ready for development and this is no longer the case. However, major corporations have not shown much enthusiasm. What is your reading on this?

Those are fantasies about oilfields that have always been unviable; it is the obsession with the Orinoco Oil Belt. Humberto Calderón Berti, minister of mines in the 1980s and a major proponent of PDVSA’s internationalization, was already talking about green fields back then. By the way, Calderón Berti is now talking about the possibility of fracking in Lake Maracaibo, which would make the lake’s environmental disaster even worse.

The idea that an avalanche of investment is coming is an illusion, and the oil companies themselves know it. Trump talks about investments of $100 billion, but transnational corporations like ExxonMobil use the word “uninvestable.” With market volatility, no one is thinking about investing in oil with extremely high production costs. There is a study that concludes that increasing production to 2.6 million barrels per day based on the Orinoco Belt would require US $90 billion in investments and $122 billion in operating expenses over the next 10 years to drill 13,000 new wells! In other words, it is completely unfeasible.

On top of that, OPEC’s forecasts for oil demand over the coming decades aren’t particularly ambitious. (1)

So who stands to benefit from this new landscape? On the one hand, small “rogue” companies that can take on a well here and there. But above all, the conglomerates that are already here, like Chevron, which know the lay of the land and can expand their operations or make their current operations more profitable. The same goes for Eni and Repsol, which have some crown jewels, like the offshore Perla natural gas field. The corporations that come will be betting mostly on conventional fields, not the Orinoco Belt.

It is very commonplace to hear about US refineries in the Gulf of Mexico that are built to receive Venezuelan crude. That is true, but it is not oil from the Orinoco Belt! It is oil from the Oriente (East) and Occidente (West) oil-producing regions.

Let us stay for a moment on the Orinoco Oil Belt, since that is where the talk of the “largest oil reserves on the planet” centers, as well as the prospects for a massive increase in production. What are the myths and realities surrounding these deposits?

The Orinoco Belt is a geological miracle. Eighty million years ago, 10–15 percent of all life that existed on the planet was fossilized north of the Orinoco River. It is something to cry out to the heavens. But that is not exploitable oil. It is extra-heavy crude, a sticky mess that needs to be upgraded. First it must be converted into liquid petroleum so it can flow through pipelines, and then taken to be refined and turned into gasoline. 

In the 1970s, the United States saw the energy crisis coming and asked, “When conventional oil runs out, where can we find oil around the world?” In three places: the Soviet Union, Canada, and Venezuela. And where in Venezuela? In the Orinoco Oil Belt. Pérez Alfonzo spoke of the belt as “something for the future,” but the United States wanted to accelerate exploitation and sent a delegation in 1971 to convince President Rafael Caldera to begin the process. In fact, the name was changed from “Tar Belt” to “Oil Belt” to make it more attractive.

The US Geological Survey estimates that there are 513 billion barrels of “technically recoverable” oil. But that is absurd, because there is no capacity. What makes a reserve recoverable has to do with economic ability, the market, and the available technology. Nevertheless, the Orinoco Belt has been at the center of grandiose projections over the past few decades, alongside the highly lucrative business of certifying reserves.

The oil reform took place in a specific context, following years of economic sanctions that have left PDVSA in a very difficult situation. What would be an alternative path? How can the industry recover without surrendering sovereignty?

There are no magic solutions, obviously. We are facing imperialism in the Trump era; we see all its destructive potential. It is a phase where the US, paradoxically, recognizes its weakness and is entrenching itself in its “backyard.” But we must be aware that the industry’s current course is one of total capitulation.

Whether we can recover, whether it is possible or not, we must think about it rigorously, in a sovereign manner. And above all, we must have a serious plan; we cannot be dreaming of 5 or 6 million barrels a day.

There are 17,000 conventional oil wells, with the capacity to produce, abandoned around the country. Of the 35,000 wells in Venezuela, only half are currently producing. The others require investment, though not particularly large ones. And what kind of oil will these wells produce? Crude grades ranging from 20 to 30 degrees. But we need a plan, to examine wells one by one. These are wells that will produce 20, 50, or 100 barrels a day, but it is light and medium crude—the “classic” Venezuelan oil.

So, from a nationalist perspective, what does the future hold for Venezuela’s oil industry? 

The future is to build a post-oil Venezuela. This was already being discussed by theorists such as Francisco Mieres and Pérez Alfonzo in the 1970s. Then, in recent years, many began talking about a post-oil or post-rentier country, but mostly to cover up their incompetence and inability to maintain production levels.

There is no magic solution, and the oil industry will have to play an important role. But the current situation is dire. We are in a new phase of absolute political dependence. It’s not just about oil, or that the US controls revenues, imposes concessions, and so on. It is that the country has lost the ability to make its own decisions.

There are also expectations of the people, who to a large extent have become accustomed to the idea that their oil will last forever. That creates the illusion that things can improve very quickly. The path will be slow, but it has to start with regaining sovereignty.

Note

(1) The interview was conducted before the launch of the US-Israeli war against Iran.

March 26 (UPI) — South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden on Thursday signed six election-related bills, including one that requires newly registered voters to prove their citizenship.

The bills, which Rhoden, his administration and the state legislature said are meant to protect the integrity of the state’s elections, also affect campaign finance disclosures, publication of election results, processing of absentee ballots, publication of statewide voter registration files and the submission of nomination petitions.

The voter registration law, called the South Dakota SAVE Act, is one of several that states across the country have been considering as similar legislation has been the subject of heated debate in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

“In South Dakota, we do things right, especially when running out state elections,” Rhoden said in a press release.

“This bill ensures only citizens vote in state elections, keeping our elections safe and secure,” he said.

All six bills that Rhoden signed were named emergencies, which allows them to go into effect immediately, as opposed to July 1, when laws in South Dakota usually go into effect.

This will allow for the requirements to apply to the state’s June 2 primary elections, registration for which has a May 18 deadline, the South Dakota Searchlight reported.

The governor’s office said the state’s SAVE Act applies only to state elections and only to people who are registering to vote in South Dakota for the first time, and will need to show a passport, birth certificate or other document that proves they are a U.S. citizen.

South Dakota residents who are already registered do not need to take any action, and those who need to update their name, address or other information are not required to prove their U.S. citizenship.

“Noncitizens cannot vote in South Dakota — this bill is wholly unnecessary,” South Dakota Democratic state Rep. Erik Muckey said during debate of the bill, The New York Times reported.

Earlier this year, Rhoden also signed into law a bill that would allow voters to challenge the citizenship of other registered voters with a sign, sworn statement and some type of documented evidence.

That law will not take effect before the primary, but it will be effective during the general election in November.

March 26 (UPI) — A petition effort to put a repeal of Utah’s anti-gerrymandering law approved by voters eight years ago on the November ballot failed to meet state requirements, an updated tally indicated Thursday.

The Utah state Republican Party has spent months gathering signatures to put Proposition 4 to a vote this fall, and while organizers had enough signatures to qualify, they did not get enough of them from enough parts of the state.

In order to place an amendment on Utah’s ballot, at least 8% of registered voters in the entire state must sign the petition and 8% of registered voters in at least 26 of the state’s 29 Senate districts must sign the petition.

The group pushing for the new amendment, Utahns for Representative Government, initially surpassed the required 141,000 signatures statewide — they’d collected 162,974 — and met the 8% in 26 districts requirement, but an effort to remove signatures deemed inadmissable in Utah’s District 15 nixed the effort, KUTV-TV in Salt Lake City reported.

“We have significant concerns about the practices utilized by the opposition and continue to review the signature validation and removal process,” Rob Axson, chair of the Utah Republican Party, said in a statement to KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City.

“Whether now or in the future, by litigation or initiative, we will Repeal Prop 4,” he said. “This fight is not over but just beginning.”

The 2018 law that was passed by Utah voters created an independent redistricting commission and banned partisan gerrymandering.

For the past year, Republican-controlled state legislatures have looked to redraw congressional districts to make it easier for GOP candidates to win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and retain control of the chamber in this year’s election.

Generally, congressional districts are redrawn by states once a decade, using data from the latest census.

Utah’s legislature last year approved redrawn districts alleged to favor Republicans, but they were later invalidated by a federal court for violating Prop 4 — leading to the effort to repeal the voter-approved law.

Over the past several months, the groups Better Boundaries and Brave Utahns Rapid Response Network have challenged signatures and the methods used to collect them, successfully dropping the petition effort below the numbers it needed to make the ballot.

“A well-informed voting population leads to better outcomes for everyone,” said Elizabeth Rasmussen, executive director of Better Boundaries. “A majority of Utah voters approved Prop 4 in 2018, and we look forward to the day when Utah voters can finally pick their politicians, not the other way around.”

The U.S. can continue to detain immigrants without bond, an appeals court ruled on Wednesday, handing a victory to the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

The opinion from a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis overturned a lower court ruling that required that a native of Mexico arrested for lacking legal documents be given a bond hearing before an immigration judge.

It’s the second appeals court to rule in favor of the administration on this issue. The 5th Circuit in New Orleans ruled last month that the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested across the country was consistent with the Constitution and federal immigration law.

Both appeals court opinions counter recent lower court decisions across the country that argued the practice is illegal.

In November, a district court decision in California granted detained immigrants with no criminal history the opportunity to request a bond hearing and had implications for noncitizens held in detention nationwide.

Under past administrations, most noncitizens with no criminal record who were arrested away from the border had an opportunity to request a bond hearing while their cases wound through immigration court. Historically, bond was often granted to those without criminal convictions who were not flight risks, and mandatory detention was limited to recent border crossers.

In the case before the 8th Circuit, Joaquin Herrera Avila of Mexico was apprehended in Minneapolis in August 2025 for lacking legal documents authorizing his admission into the United States. The Department of Homeland Security detained Avila without bond and began deportation proceedings.

He filed a petition seeking immediate release or a bond hearing. A federal judge in Minnesota granted the petition, saying the law authorized detention without bond when a person seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to being admitted. The judge found this was not the case for Avila because he had lived in the country for years without seeking naturalization, asylum or refugee status and thus wasn’t “seeking admission.”

Circuit Court Judge Bobby E. Shepherd wrote for the majority in a 2-1 opinion that the law was “clear that an ‘applicant for admission’ is also an alien who is ‘seeking admission,’” and so Avila couldn’t petition on these grounds.

Circuit Court Judge Ralph R. Erickson dissented, saying that Avila would have been entitled to a bond hearing during his deportation hearings if he had been arrested during the past 29 years. Now, he wrote, the Circuit Court has ruled that Avila and millions of others would be subject to mandatory detention under a novel interpretation of “alien seeking admission” that hasn’t been used by the courts or five previous presidential administrations.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Avila, didn’t immediately return an email message seeking comment.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi hailed the ruling, writing in a social media post: “MASSIVE COURT VICTORY against activist judges and for President Trump’s law and order agenda!”

At question is the issue of whether the government is required to ask a neutral judge to to determine whether it is legal to imprison someone.

It’s based on the habeas corpus, which is a Latin legal term referring to the constitutional right for people to legally challenge their detention by the government.

Immigrants have filed more than 30,000 habeas corpus petitions in federal court alleging illegal detention since Trump took office, according to a tally by the Associated Press. Many have succeeded.

McAvoy writes for the Associated Press.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights set a deadline Tuesday that sounds much like two earlier deadlines, giving San José State University 10 days to comply with a list of athletics-related demands or face enforcement action, including the termination of the university’s federal funding.

This is the third 10-day deadline issued by the OCR to SJSU, the first in January and the second having expired last weekend. All three concern the same case, that of a transgender woman who played on the school’s women’s volleyball team from 2022 to 2024.

A federal investigation was launched in February 2025 after controversy over Blaire Fleming disrupted the 2024 volleyball season. Four Mountain West Conference teams — Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State and Nevada-Reno — chose to forfeit matches to SJSU.

The probe concluded that SJSU’s policies “allowing males to compete in women’s sports and access female-only facilities deny women equal educational opportunities and benefits.”

SJSU pushed back, insisting it followed the law in allowing Fleming to play. SJSU president Cynthia Teniente-Matson wrote in a March 6 letter to the campus community that the university “vigorously disputes the conclusions that OCR reached. … Our position is simple: We have followed the law and cannot be punished for doing so.”

SJSU requested that the OCR rescind its findings and close its investigation. Instead, the federal agency redoubled its efforts, with the latest salvo a “letter of impending enforcement” issued Tuesday and accompanied by a statement from U.S. Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey.

“We have provided SJSU with multiple opportunities to resolve its Title IX violations with common sense actions: separating male and female athletes based on their biological sex, keeping men out of women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, restoring rightfully earned titles and accolades to female athletes, and apologizing to the women forced to forfeit competitions to protect themselves,” Richey said. “Yet, SJSU remains obstinate, choosing a radical ideology over safety, dignity, and fairness for its own students.

“With today’s action, the Department is putting the university on notice: comply with the law or risk losing its federal funding.”

SJSU enlisted the support of the California State University system, which sued the Department of Education on March 6 to challenge its allegedly “lawless overreach” and block the federal government from cutting funding to SJSU if the school does not agree to a proposed itemized resolution agreement.

“Whether and under what conditions transgender women should be allowed to compete in women’s athletics has been hotly contested,” the CSU lawsuit said. “But this case is not about that issue. It is about the Department’s attempt to punish SJSU, even though the law in the Ninth Circuit has been and is clear. Under Ninth Circuit law, Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause protect transgender students from discrimination.”

Suing the Education Department “is not a step we take lightly,” Teniente-Matson said. “However, we have a responsibility to defend the integrity of our institution and the rule of law, while ensuring that every member of our community is treated fairly and in accordance with the law.”

An estimated two-thirds of SJSU students receive federal financial aid totaling about $130 million annually, according to Cal State University. Losing federal funds could also disrupt $175 million in research.

The Office of Civil Rights’ proposed resolution agreement, which SJSU dismissed out of hand, contains the following demands:

1) Issue a public statement that SJSU will adopt biology-based definitions of the words “male” and “female” and acknowledge that the sex of a human — male or female — is unchangeable.

2) Specify that SJSU will follow Title IX by separating sports and intimate facilities based on biological sex.

3) State that SJSU will not delegate its obligation to comply with Title IX to any external association or entity and will not contract with any entity that discriminates on the basis of sex.

4) Restore to female athletes all individual athletic records and titles misappropriated by male athletes competing in women’s categories, and issue a personalized letter of apology on behalf of SJSU to each female athlete for allowing her participation in athletics to be marred by sex discrimination.

5) Send a personalized apology to every woman who played in SJSU’s women’s indoor volleyball from 2022 to 2024, beach volleyball in 2023, and to any woman on a team that forfeited rather than compete against SJSU while a male student was on the roster — expressing sincere regret for placing female athletes in that position.

In a related lawsuit, a Colorado district judge this month deferred ruling on motions to dismiss former SJSU volleyball player Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University system. Slusser alleged that she was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with Fleming without being informed that Fleming is transgender.

Judge Kato Crews dismissed the Mountain West Conference as a defendant but said he wants to put the rest of the case on hold until after a Supreme Court ruling in B.P.J. v. West Virginia, which is expected to come in June.

The B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a transgender teen sued West Virginia to block a state law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.

Former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court Geoffrey Nice says that the US-Israel war on Iran was not based on imminent threat and warns that holding powerful states accountable is ‘unrealistic.’