Summary
We’re closing the blog for the evening, thanks for following along. A recap and key links from the day:
US forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro.
Venezuela’s government said the US seizure of an oil tanker “constitutes a blatant theft and an act of international piracy”.
Venezuela’s best-known opposition leader, the Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado, made a dramatic appearance in Norway after slipping out of her authoritarian homeland by boat.
Trump launched a new program that will allow wealthy foreign individuals to buy a US “golden visa” for $1m, and trailed a “platinum” version for $5m.
The US Federal Reserve announced it was cutting interest rates by a quarter point for the third time this year.
The US House has approved a sweeping defence bill that bolsters Europe’s security, in what appears to be sharp rebuke to Trump.
Trump issued a threat to Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, saying, “He better wise up, or he’ll be next.”
The Guardian reported that ICE is using smartwatches to track pregnant women.
Tourists to the United States would have to reveal their social media activity from the last five years, under new Trump administration plans.
Emil Bove, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump who now serves as a federal appeals court judge, is facing a misconduct complaint over his attendance at the president’s campaign-style rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
The complaint was filed by Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, an advocacy group.
“It should have been obvious to Judge Bove, either at the start of the rally or fairly close to it, that this was a highly charged, highly political event that no federal judge should have been within shouting distance of,” Roth wrote in his complaint, alleging violations of the code of conduct for US judges.
Bove told a reporter he was in attendance “just … as a citizen coming to watch the president speak.” The event, billed as an event about “affordability”, mirrored Trump’s campaign rallies, with the president meandering into a wide range of topics, including xenophobic remarks and racist attacks against a Democratic congresswoman.
