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Hello, I'm Neil Nunes with the BBC News.
The U.S. has announced new sanctions on figures and businesses close to Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. Treasury has imposed measures against three of his nephews, a businessman affiliated with the leader and six shipping companies said to be moving Venezuelan oil. Here's our South America correspondent, Ione Wells. It seems they are gonna continue enforcing what the White House has described as their sanctions regime. It's interesting that the further ships the U.S. has sanctioned have been sanctioned under an order which specifically is related to the illegal drug trade. Both the U.S. administration but also Venezuela's opposition leader María Corina Machado have said that international allies around the world must cut off financing to the Venezuelan government which they say is financing illicit activities like drug trafficking. President Zelenskyy of Ukraine has said Kyiv has two key points of disagreement in talks with Washington about a peace deal to end the Russian invasion. He said President Trump's peace plan called for a unilateral Ukrainian withdrawal of troops from its eastern territory of Donetsk without forcing the same condition on Russia. The plan is also said to call for the joint governance of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant currently occupied by Russia. We get more from James Landale. Basically what this is is the latest sort of Ukrainian tweaked version of what they think it should look like that's been sent back to the Americans. President Zelenskyy gave a briefing this afternoon and made it very clear that this was in no way finalized. He made it clear that on two issues there was no agreement. One was on the status of the huge Zaporizhia nuclear power plant but also crucially on this issue of territory. The Republican-controlled Senate in Indiana has voted against a new congressional district map which would have helped the party retain its slender majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the mid-term elections next year. The vote marks a rare instance of Republicans defying President Trump. From Washington, Sean Dilley. The defeat in Indiana is a significant blow to President Trump and his national push to redraw voting maps. It matters because the attempt to change the districts in a way that would have benefited Republicans has been thwarted by Republicans in a very public challenge to President Trump. The scale of the rebellion is also significant. The move had already been passed by members of Indiana's lower chamber and Donald Trump had used social media to tell any Republican senator who did not support remapping he'd support any electoral challenger to them. FIFA is facing calls to halt some ticket sales for the next football World Cup after fans branded prices a "monumental betrayal." The fan association, Football Supporters Europe, said it was "astonished" by what it called the "extortionate" cost imposed on dedicated supporters. BBC News. The South Korean cryptocurrency boss Do Kwon has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in the U.S. after his fraud conviction following the failure of his company. Kwon's firm, Terraform Labs, attracted huge investment with its so-called stablecoins, which failed in 2022, causing many investors to lose their life savings. Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says he may consider vetoing a bill which would heavily reduce the jail sentence of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. President Lula said Bolsonaro had to pay for attempting a coup to stay in power after the 2022 election. The bill could see Bolsonaro's sentence reduced from 27 years to two. El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has announced that Elon Musk's controversial AI chatbot Grok will be used in public schools. The platform will be at the heart of an AI-powered education program as Mimi Swaby now reports. Grok's use for personalized education in El Salvador is set to reach more than a million children across 5,000 public schools over the next two years. In a joint statement with Mr. Musk's X AI firm, President Nayib Bukele said it would allow personalized learning and help remote communities. Mr. Musk has called it an opportunity to "unlock the full potential of AI in education and inspire global change." However, Grok, which originated on X, has faced widespread criticism for questionable answers to prompts and is currently under investigation in France for alleged Holocaust denying comments. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has named the rapper Snoop Dogg as its first ever honorary coach ahead of the Winter Games in January. It said he had a "contagious" enthusiasm for the Olympics and would be a key part of what it called the "The Team Behind the Team." The rapper was an infectious presence throughout the Paris Olympics last year. BBC News. |