Nicolas Maduro

Seizing Panama’s leader was relatively easy. But the similarities between Panama and Venezuela are dangerously misleading, some analysts warn.

The Trump administration has developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela, including direct attacks on military units that protect President Nicolás Maduro and moves to seize control of the country’s oil fields, according to multiple U.S. officials.

A federal agent had a daring plan: persuade Nicolas Maduro's chief pilot to surreptitiously divert the Venezuelan president’s plane to a place where U.S. authorities could nab the strongman. The scheme reveals the extent — and often slapdash fashion — to which the U.S. has for years sought to topple Maduro.

In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS's 60 Minutes, Sen. Rick Scott advised the embattled Venezuelan leader to flee amid a massive U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean.

From Sucre to South Florida, Venezuelans have mixed feelings about whether a threatened U.S. military incursion against drug traffickers will affect their desperate situation — and their brutal dictatorship.

A Trump administration memo obtained by The Associated Press. appears to represent an extraordinary assertion of presidential war powers, with Trump effectively declaring that trafficking of drugs into the United States amounts to armed conflict requiring the use of military force.

U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, following the lead of President Donald Trump’s anti-drug policy, is introducing legislation to target Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and suspected drug trafficking.

President Donald Trump has sent American warships to the waters off Venezuela and has boasted about strikes on alleged drug boats.

Human Rights Watch and the Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners in Venezuela have documented 19 cases of detainees, many with ties to opposition political parties, who have been denied contact with their families and lawyers since their arrest.

Military officials, diplomats and analysts say a main purpose of the force is to ratchet up pressure on Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, as top figures in the Trump administration call him an illegitimate leader and accuse him of directing the actions of criminal gangs and drug cartels.

His comments at a news conference on Monday follow the U.S. boosting its maritime force in the Caribbean to combat drug cartels.

Venezuelan opposition leaders and civil society groups said that the government released 13 people jailed in a crackdown by the government of President Nicolás Maduro following last year’s disputed elections. Venezuelan authorities did not immediately confirm the releases.