📌 TOPINDIATOURS Hot ai: US conducts large-scale air strikes on Venezuela, explosio

The US reportedly launched a pre-dawn assault on Caracas and surrounding regions, with President Donald Trump announcing that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been captured and flown out of the country. 

Venezuela’s government strongly condemned the operation, accusing the US of striking both civilian and military targets. In an official statement, authorities called on citizens to resist the attacks, warning that Washington’s actions could destabilize the entire region. 

The government described the operation as “an extremely serious act of military aggression” and urged the nation to unite against what it termed imperialist interference.

Caracas and nearby states rocked by explosions 

The capital of Caracas and surrounding areas were rocked by explosions and the sound of low-flying aircraft in the early hours of Saturday. Venezuela’s government confirmed that attacks also targeted the states of Miranda, La Guaira, and Aragua.

Authorities accused Washington of attempting to seize control of the country’s natural resources, including oil and minerals. In its statement, the government called on the international community to condemn what it described as a blatant violation of international law, warning that the assault threatens the lives of millions and could have far-reaching consequences for regional stability.

According to Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, the US attacks have caused civilian casualties and widespread alarm. In televised remarks, Saab condemned the operation, saying that innocent victims have been mortally wounded and others killed in what he described as a criminal terrorist attack. 

He called on citizens to take to the streets “with calm and vigilance” to resist the assault. Saab also reiterated demands previously made by other government officials for evidence that President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are still alive.

US plans criminal charges for Maduro 

According to officials, the US Army’s Delta Force, an elite special operations unit, carried out the mission to capture Maduro. A Republican senator said Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that Maduro would face criminal charges in the US, where he was previously indicted, and suggested that no further action in Venezuela is planned. 

The Trump administration has long accused Maduro of drug trafficking and ties to gangs classified as terrorist organizations, charges the Venezuelan leader denies. The operation comes after months of US military buildup in the region, including the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford and other warships. In recent weeks, the US has seized two oil tankers, targeted more than 30 drug-carrying vessels, and struck areas used to load illicit shipments.

Meanwhile, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro called for an urgent UN Security Council session concerning the recent developments in the neighbouring country. In Europe, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged all parties to de-escalate tensions and act responsibly, stressing that international law and the UN Charter must be respected.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com

📌 TOPINDIATOURS Hot ai: NASA Reportedly Shutting Down Its Largest Library, Throwin

NASA’s budget is still an unfathomable mess. The government shutdown late last year once again delayed proceedings to determine the space agency’s future — but if it were up to the Trump administration, NASA’s science budget would be slashed in half, an “extinction-level” inflection point for US space exploration and science.

If Congress were to have its druthers, on the other hand, NASA’s budget would largely remain unchanged, securing the future of dozens of important missions — both ongoing and planned — that the White House is looking to place on the chopping block.

Trapped between the two, the fate of the space agency remains in the air. Congress passed a short-term resolution on November 12 that left the government until January 31 to ratify NASA’s budget. NASA’s recently sworn-in administrator and former SpaceX space tourist, Jared Isaacman, has yet to officially comment on the matter, though he’s made it clear that he’s aligned with the Trump administration’s tripling down on private industry-led space exploration.

As uncertainty and confusion prevail, though, the Trump administration has taken it upon itself to gut entire buildings at NASA’s iconic Goddard Space Flight Center (GFSC), which played a key role in the development of its groundbreaking James Webb and Hubble space telescopes, alongside countless other key missions.

This week, news emerged that the Trump administration is even shutting down the center’s library — NASA’s largest — and threatening to destroy an undetermined number of books, documents, and journals in the process.

As the New York Times reports, many of these invaluable artifacts haven’t been digitized or made available elsewhere. While a NASA spokesperson told the newspaper that the agency will review what to keep and what to throw away over the next 60 days, it’s a sobering glimpse at a federal agency in crisis.

After the NYT story ran, the agency’s freshly-minted administrator Jared Isaacman pushed back against its claims.

“The [NYT] story does not fully reflect the context NASA shared,” he wrote on X. “At no point is NASA ‘tossing out’ important scientific or historical materials, and that framing has led to several other misleading headlines.”

That claim seems to contradict the NYT, which reported that a NASA spokesman named Jacob Richmond had told it that the agency would “review the library holdings over the next 60 days and some material would be stored in a government warehouse while the rest would be tossed away.”

NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens, meanwhile, described the initiative as a “consolidation, not a closure,” saying the Trump administration is looking to close 13 buildings and more than 100 labs across the GSFC campus by March.

Stevens claimed the latest moves are part of a master plan reorganization effort that was first devised in 2022, several years before president Donald Trump took office. Per the NYT, seven other NASA libraries have already been shuttered since 2022. Three of them were closed in 2025.

In November, NASA staffers raised concerns over word that over a dozen buildings on the GSFC campus were being emptied without notice. It’s not just books and important documents on the line; the staffers warned that highly specialized equipment was at risk of being thrown away like trash as well.

Lawmakers have been furious at the Trump administration’s handling of the situation.

“The Trump Administration has spent the last year attacking NASA Goddard and its workforce and threatening our efforts to explore space, deepen our understanding of Earth, and spur technological advancements that make our economy stronger and nation safer,” senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MA) told the NYT. “These reports of closures at Goddard are deeply concerning — I will continue to push back on any actions that impact Goddard’s critical mission.”

The GSFC library contains important documentation about our efforts to study the cosmos, dating back to the Apollo era over half a century ago.

Critics of the moves to gut the campus argue it would be reckless to abandon these documents.

“It’s not like we’re so much smarter now than we were in the past,” planetary scientist Dave Williams, who took NASA up on its offer for an early retirement last year, told the NYT. “It’s the same people, and they make the same kind of human errors. If you lose that history, you are going to make the same mistakes again.”

Updated with additional context from NASA.

More on NASA: NASA Staff Horrified at Plan to Throw Out Incredibly Specialized Science Equipment Like Garbage

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🔗 Sumber: futurism.com