Trump targeted protected Venezuelans in the U.S.
The Trump administration revoked Temporary Protected Status yesterday for more than 300,000 Venezuelans in the U.S., leaving the population vulnerable to potential deportation in the coming months.
Those under T.P.S. from Venezuela who received the protections in 2023 will lose their temporary status 60 days after the government publishes the termination notice. The move could face legal challenges from immigrant rights activists.
Background: T.P.S. is meant for migrants who cannot be returned to a country that is facing a natural disaster or conflict. In recent years, migrants have fled Venezuela as its government has unraveled under President Nicolás Maduro. Republicans have criticized T.P.S., describing it as a temporary measure that turned into a permanent arrangement.
Tariffs: Canada said yesterday that it would place retaliatory tariffs of 25 percent on more than $100 billion worth of U.S. goods, after President Trump imposed stiff tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico. U.S. items that would be affected beginning tomorrow include honey, tomatoes, whiskey, peanut butter and garments. Justin Trudeau, Canada’s leader, added that more measures, including curbing or taxing energy exports, were being considered.
China’s commerce minister vowed “countermeasures” and said it would file a legal case at the World Trade Organization against the U.S. Mexico’s president promised retaliatory “tariff and nontariff measures.”
Analysis: Trump took to social media yesterday to defend the tariffs while acknowledging that there could be “some pain.” They could upend the world economic order in China’s favor.
More on Trump
Syria’s leader went to Saudi Arabia for his first foreign visit
Ahmed al-Shara, Syria’s newly appointed interim president, landed in Saudi Arabia yesterday to forge a partnership with the oil-rich Gulf nation. He met with the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, according to Syrian and Saudi state news media.
The trip reflected Syria’s political shift away from Iran, a key ally of its longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad. For Saudi Arabia, recent events have presented an opening to reassert influence in both Syria and Lebanon, two countries where the kingdom had once vied for sway and largely lost out to Iran.
Negotiations: A Kremlin delegation arrived in Syria last week to see if Russia could keep its military bases in the country. To do so, the delegation would need to win over a country that Russia bombed ruthlessly while al-Assad was in power.
Strikes killed 18 civilians, Ukraine said
At least 14 people were killed on Saturday in a Russian missile attack on the city of Poltava, Ukrainian officials said. Later, a bomb smashed into a boarding school, killing four people in Sudzha, a Russian town held by Ukraine. Each country blamed the Sudzha attack on the other.
It was one of the highest single-day tolls this year and a grim reminder of the war’s enduring devastation and brutal toll on civilians. Since Russia’s invasion began, more than 12,300 civilians have been killed, the U.N. reported.
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Nova Scotia’s lobster fishers have been at war for decades, stealing one another’s crates, slashing rivals’ buoys, setting fires and shooting at homes. At the center of the conflict are two questions: Who gets to fish for lobster, and when?
The saga — further complicated by a group of criminals — affects Indigenous rights, economic equity and the future of Canada’s lobster industry.
Lives lived: James Carlos Blake, whose lyrical novels about outlaws, bootleggers and gunslingers resurrected the violent history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, died at 81.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
How a Monty Python veteran remains silly
In 1969, Michael Palin, a founding member of the sketch troupe Monty Python, quit his 40-cigarette-a-day habit and started a diary. His recollections, which began being published in 2006, chronicle the rise of the group that gave us “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and “Life of Brian.”
A fourth volume of entries will hit U.S. shelves tomorrow. Though he tackles sobering subjects — like his sister’s depression and the death of his friend George Harrison — he says that silliness remains very important: “People ask me, ‘What do you want on your tombstone?’ I want one that says, ‘Gone to lunch.’”
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That’s it for today. See you tomorrow. — Emmett
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A correction was made on Jan. 30, 2025: A caption in an earlier version of this newsletter misspelled the name of an Israeli hostage released by Hamas on Thursday. It is Arbel Yehud, not Yehoud. The caption also misstated her occupation. She worked as a guide at a space and technology center; she was not a soldier.
