President Trump Slaps new Sanctions On Venezuela

“The Trump administration stepped up its pressure campaign on Venezuela’s socialist president Monday, hitting the country’s state-owned oil company with sanctions and calling on other nations to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate interim president,” Dave Boyer reports for The Washington Times.   “The United States is holding accountable those responsible for Venezuela’s tragic decline,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.   Click here to continue reading.

In the Washington Examiner, Anna Giaritelli reports that U.S. Border Patrol officials seized bags full of rifles, handguns, and ammunition found near the southern border last week. “An unnamed citizen called the agency after seeing a group of suspected illegal immigrants carrying large bags on nearby land Friday. The area is about 25 miles east of the international border.”

In the Indianapolis Business Journal, Brad Rateike writes that after meeting with the women and men of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, it becomes clear that the crisis at our southern border is all too real. “In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to hear the president and Congress discuss next steps for border security. Whatever those may be, rest assured that after my trip there, I know firsthand that there is a real problem at the border, and there’s nothing manufactured about that.”

“President Donald Trump has donated his salary from the third-quarter of 2018 to the federal agency that researches alcoholism and alcohol-related problems. The White House says Trump donated $100,000 to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,” The Associated Press reports. “His older brother, Fred Jr., died in 1981 after struggling with alcoholism, and the president has said he learned from his brother's experience.”

There is “a wave of disabled Americans joining or returning to the U.S. labor force, breaking a long-running trend that had pushed millions to the sidelines of work,” Eric Morath writes in The Wall Street Journal. “These workers have benefited from a tight economy with a very low overall unemployment rate—3.9% in December, just above lowest level since 1969."