Military

"The Trump administration announced an agreement with the Venezuelan government on Friday to develop a vast amount of Venezuela's oil reserves.

The U.S. government says it is entering into a joint venture with a private Venezuelan company, according to an official who spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the deal. The Trump administration says the U.S. would get 55% of the oil from the joint venture. That's equivalent to about 65 billion barrels of oil that's under the ground.

"Many Venezuelans suspected that there was going to be a price to pay for President Trump’s brazen capture of their autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, who was arrested by U.S. forces in January. On Friday, that cost became clear when Mr. Trump announced that the U.S. would be taking majority control of a vast part of Venezuela’s oil reserves — national resources long considered by many in the country to be a birthright."

"Dr. Adam Kalkstein is suing the U. S. Military Academy, where he was a professor of geography and the only climate scientist, after being fired." "After 17 years of teaching science at West Point, Dr. Adam Kalkstein says he was suddenly ordered last year to cut from his curriculum information about the human causes of climate change, according to a new lawsuit filed against the U.S. Military Academy."

"Heat and drought have diminished harvests in some of the biggest wheat-producing countries, including the United States, which is expected to have its worst wheat harvest in a half-century, spiking prices. Poor countries that agreed to buy American wheat under the threat of Trump tariffs could be stuck paying abnormally high prices."

"This year, one in four cars sold worldwide will be electric. War in Iran is speeding the shift."

"A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Pentagon to lift its freeze on reviewing onshore wind projects and to end some of the delays that have brought U.S. wind power development to a standstill."

"In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration proposed creating stronger cybersecurity guidelines to better safeguard the nation’s water supply from hackers. ... The E.P.A. rescinded the order, however, after Republican-led states and industry groups sued to block its enforcement."

"The scope of cyberattacks on U.S. water systems has grown to include at least seven states and may be far wider, officials and experts warned, as the authorities raced to safeguard the nation’s water supply against an assault that increasingly appeared to be the work of Iran."

"In a fiercely divided Washington, there is bipartisan anger at the stalled progress in cleaning up toxic chemicals at military bases. The delays have emerged as a rare issue uniting Democrats and Republicans in their criticism of the Pentagon."

"Investigators believe a cyberattack this week on dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota was probably the work of Iranian hackers, according to U.S. and state officials and others familiar with the matter, a potential act of aggression that comes at a precarious moment in the U.S. war against Iran." "There were no indications that any water supply had been rendered unsafe to drink."