Cuba denied it had reached out to the United States about what the region would look like without President Nicolas Maduro leading Venezuela, calling the media report "absurd and false." Cuba vice foreign minister Josefina Vidal told the Associated Press on Monday that those alleged discussions,

U.S. President Donald Trump late Tuesday announced what he called a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, a dramatic escalation that lawmakers, legal experts, and anti war advocates described as an act of war carried out without congressional authorization.

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Iran has armed Venezuela with missile boats, drones, and proxy networks. Here’s what that alliance means for U.S. forces and the Caribbean.

President Donald Trump announced late Tuesday he had ordered a “A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela”—an escalation of the Trump Administration’s military pressure campaign on the South American country.

As U.S.-Venezuela tensions escalate, Trinidad and Tobago has been drawn into the conflict, with citizens worried that their country’s alignment with Washington could put them in harm’s way. Two Trinidadians were reportedly killed in one of the U.

They were really close,” one of the pilots told controllers of the encounter at approximately 26,000 feet. “We were climbing right into him.”

The United States is preparing to intercept more ships transporting Venezuelan oil following after a tanker was seized this week, as it increases pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.