A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a war powers resolution seeking to block the White House from launching an attack on Venezuela without congressional authorization, after President Trump said a land attack would start “very soon.” The resolution was co-sponsored by Democrats Chuck Schumer, Tim Kaine and Adam Schiff, along with Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, who wrote, “The American people do not want to be dragged into endless war with Venezuela without public debate or a vote. We ought to defend what the Constitution demands: deliberation before war.”

In Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday confirmed he spoke by phone with President Trump about 10 days ago, calling the conversation a potential opening for diplomacy.

President Nicolás Maduro: “I received a phone call and spoke with President Donald Trump. I can say that the conversation was in a respectful tone, and I can even say it was cordial between the U.S. president and the president of Venezuela. I add that if this call means there are steps toward a respectful dialogue between states, between countries, then welcome dialogue, welcome diplomacy, because we will always seek peace.”

The U.S. Navy commander overseeing the Pentagon’s attacks on alleged drug boats is set to testify on Capitol Hill today. Admiral Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley will provide a classified briefing to select congressmembers about the U.S. attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have condemned the strikes as “murder.”

The Pentagon’s inspector general is set to release a report today on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the widely available social media app Signal to discuss U.S. airstrikes in Yemen earlier this year. Two people familiar with the report’s findings told news outlets that Hegseth endangered U.S. troops in using Signal to discuss the strikes with several other senior Trump administration officials. The chat, which included Hegseth’s wife and brother, was revealed when The Atlantic’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to the Signal group. Defense Secretary Hegseth refused to cooperate with the inspector general, refusing to hand over his phone or sit for an interview.

This comes as The New York Times is suing the Pentagon over its new press policy that requires media outlets to pledge not to gather information unless defense officials formally authorize its release. Earlier this year, reporters at the Times, along with several other media outlets, gave up their press passes rather than comply with the Pentagon’s new policy. The Times argues in its lawsuit that the Pentagon’s policy “is exactly the type of speech- and press-restrictive scheme that the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit have recognized violates the First Amendment.”

Israeli forces have killed seven more Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in Israel’s latest violation of the ceasefire that was declared nearly two months ago. Among the dead are five members of a single family — a middle-aged mother, father, their eldest son and their two young children — killed when Israel bombed their tent in Khan Younis. The attack targeted the al-Mawasi evacuation zone, which Israel previously declared a “safe” area for displaced people. It followed funerals for Palestinians killed in strikes a day earlier. This is Saber al-Sakani, whose family members were killed and wounded in an Israeli attack on Gaza City Tuesday.

Saber al-Sakani: “I lost my brother and my two nephews. My brother’s wife and her daughter are hospitalized in intensive care. We’re asking you to stop the wars, for God’s sake.”

Health officials in Gaza report 366 Palestinians have been killed and 938 injured by Israeli forces since the October 10 ceasefire.

Meanwhile, in southern Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians attended a mass wedding for 54 couples in the city of Khan Younis on Tuesday. Organizers called it an act of defiance against Israel’s campaign of genocide against Palestinians.

Maher Mezher: “It is a message for the killers and criminals, whether Ben-Gvir or Smotrich or Netanyahu, that our Palestinian people embrace life, cling to life and love life, and that they will continue in their struggle and strife through this mass wedding and all forms of life. We will continue from the middle of the rubble, destruction and death in the city, the city of Hamad, to send a new message that we will rebuild this destroyed city.”

In Toronto, protesters interrupted speakers at a prominent debate series Wednesday evening, after organizers invited four former senior Israeli politicians to a discussion about the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, without inviting a single Palestinian to the stage. The Munk Debates event featured former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren and former Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked.

Protester 1: “You’re a war criminal!”

Tzipi Livni: “That the Zionist dream is in danger.”

Protester 1: “You’re all war criminals!”

Protester 2: [inaudible] “You shouldn’t even be in Canada!”

Protester 1: “Shut up and leave!”

Protester 2: “Easy for you to say.”

Protester 1: “Get the [bleep] out of here! You’re war criminals!”

In a statement, protest organizers wrote, “By putting these individuals on stage — unchallenged by any Palestinian voices — the Munk Debates is creating a sanitized, academic veneer for genocide. The event manufactures consent for ongoing occupation; launders the reputations of officials implicated in war crimes; and rewrites reality by excluding Palestinians entirely.”

The Trump administration deployed federal Border Patrol agents across immigrant communities in the New Orleans area Wednesday, calling it “Operation Catahoula Crunch.” Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official who has been the face of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign, was seen patrolling the city’s French Quarter. A New Orleans resident told the Associated Press he watched agents arresting men outside a home improvement store. The Trump administration says it’s seeking to arrest 5,000 people during the surge. It comes as Immigration and Customs agents have begun a mass arrest campaign in Minnesota targeting Somali American communities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region. The raids follow a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday in which Trump called Somalis “garbage.” Trump then doubled down on his racist rhetoric Wednesday.

Immigration advocates and lawyers contend that despite ICE’s policy that agents shouldn’t detain, arrest or hold pregnant, postpartum and nursing mothers, pregnant people are increasingly rounded up, deported and detained. The ACLU has documented more than a dozen cases of pregnant women housed without proper medical care at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, and the ICE processing center in Basile, Louisiana. In one case, a woman was shackled while she miscarried. Another woman with a high-risk pregnancy was placed in solitary confinement.

Meanwhile, here in New York City, the news outlet The City is reporting ICE agents arrested a Chinese father named Fei and his 6-year-old son Yuanxin during an immigration check-in in Manhattan last week. The father was separated from his son and taken to an ICE jail in upstate New York. Advocates say “nobody knows” where Yuanxin is being held. According to the Deportation Data Project, the boy is part of a growing number of children arrested and detained by ICE. This year ICE arrested 151 children.

A new report by Amnesty International says that immigrants held at the ICE jail in Florida known as “Alligator Alcatraz” were shackled inside a two-foot-high metal cage and left outside without water for up to a day at a time. The report also details “unsanitary conditions, including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy.”

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released more than 150 new photos and videos of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean. The images show a room with a dentist’s chair surrounded by masks, a bedroom, a palm tree-lined swimming pool, and several other living spaces. Democratic Congressmember Robert Garcia, a ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said, “These new images are a disturbing look into the world of Jeffrey Epstein and his island. We are releasing these photos and videos to ensure public transparency in our investigation and to help piece together the full picture of Epstein’s horrific crimes. We won’t stop fighting until we deliver justice for the survivors.”

Meanwhile, Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, is planning to ask a court to release her — that’s according to a letter filed at a federal court in Manhattan. Earlier this year, Maxwell was transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security camp in Texas about a week after she spoke with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is one of President Trump’s former lawyers.

In labor news, new reporting from the payroll processing firm ADP shows the U.S. economy lost 32,000 jobs last month, led by a drop in small business employment. Most industries laid off workers, with net gains seen only in the hospitality and healthcare sectors. A year ago, the U.S. economy was adding about 200,000 jobs per month; now, it’s had its first three-month decline since the 2020 recession.

The Trump administration is seeking to slash fuel efficiency standards enacted under the Biden administration. Under current rules, U.S. automakers are required to boost the fuel efficiency of passenger cars and light trucks to about 50 miles per gallon by 2031. The revised standards proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would cut that to just 34 miles per gallon. In a statement, the Center for Biological Diversity wrote, “In one stroke, Trump is worsening three of our nation’s most vexing problems: the thirst for oil, high gas pump costs, and global warming.”

President Trump said Wednesday he will issue “full and unconditional” pardons for Democratic Congressmember Henry Cuellar and his wife Imelda, both of whom faced a dozen charges of bribery, money laundering and conspiracy. According to the indictment, the Cuellars accepted roughly $600,000 worth of bribes from a Mexican bank and an oil and gas company owned by the government of Azerbaijan. On X, the Sunrise Movement said, “This is disgusting. Henry Cuellar, the last anti-choice Democrat in the House, sold out his own community for bribes from a foreign government and oil corporation. Then he cozied up to Trump for a pardon while the Democratic establishment stood by and watched.” President Trump justified the pardon by praising Congressmember Cuellar’s stance on immigration.

President Donald Trump: “He’s a respected person. He was treated very badly because he said that people should not be allowed to pour into our country. And he was right. He didn’t like open borders.”

In media news, the Paramount Skydance Corporation has more than doubled the proposed breakup fee in its offer to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, as it seeks to outbid rivals looking to acquire the media conglomerate. The proposed merger comes just months after Skydance completed its acquisition of Paramount, the parent company of CBS, and after Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Trump, who objected to how “60 Minutes” edited an interview with Kamala Harris. Paramount board chair and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone reportedly sought the settlement to ensure the FCC approved Paramount’s merger. On Wednesday, Redstone defended the settlement during the Reuters NEXT summit in New York City.

Shari Redstone: “I do believe it was the right decision. I think the trial had been set for two years out. The chaos that would have been created over the next two years, I’m not sure the company could have survived, the internal distractions, the external distractions, in spite of everything that we were doing in the company. And during those months we became the number four streaming service. Nobody was talking about that. All people were talking about was the, you know, distraction of the Trump litigation.”