Maduro is set to make his first appearance in a US courtroom on drug trafficking charges
NEW YORK (AP) — Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is set to make his first appearance Monday in an American courtroom on the narco-terrorism charges the Trump administration used to justify capturing him and bringing him to New York.
Maduro and his wife are expected to appear at noon before a judge for a brief, but required, legal proceeding that will likely kick off a prolonged legal fight over whether he can be put on trial in the U.S.
The couple will be brought from a Brooklyn jail to a Manhattan courthouse just around the corner from the one where President Donald Trump was convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records.
As a criminal defendant in the U.S. legal system, Maduro will have the same rights as any other person accused of a crime — including the right to a trial by a jury of regular New Yorkers. But he’ll also be nearly — but not quite — unique.
Maduro’s lawyers are expected to contest the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a sovereign head of state.
Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriegaunsuccessfully tried the same defense after the U.S. captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990. But the U.S. doesn’t recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state — particularly after a much-disputed 2024 reelection.
Venezuela’s new interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has demanded that the U.S. return Maduro, who long denied any involvement in drug trafficking — although late Sunday she also struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post, inviting collaboration with Trump and “respectful relations” with the U.S.
Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed U.S. hostility was motivated by lust for Venezuela’s rich oil and mineral resources.
The U.S. seized Maduro and his wife in a military operation Saturday, capturing them in their home on a military base. Trump said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela temporarily, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that it would not govern the country day-to-day other than enforcing an existing " oil quarantine.”
Trump suggested Sunday that he wants to extend American power further in the western hemisphere.
Speaking aboard Air Force One, he called Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long.”
He called on Venezuela’s Rodriguez to provide “total access” to her country, or else face consequences.
A 25-page indictment made public Saturday accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. They could face life in prison if convicted.
It wasn’t clear as of Sunday whether Maduro had hired a U.S. lawyer yet.
He and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been under U.S. sanctions for years, making it illegal for any American to take money from them without first securing a license from the Treasury Department.
While the indictment against Maduro says Venezuelan officials worked directly with the Tren de Aragua gang, a U.S. intelligence assessment published in April, drawing on input from the intelligence community’s 18 agencies, found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.
Maduro, his wife and his son — who remains free — are charged along with Venezuela’s interior and justice minister, a former interior and justice minister and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, an alleged Tren de Aragua leader who has been criminally charged in another case and remains at large.
Among other things, the indictment accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money or undermined their drug trafficking operation. That included a local drug boss’ killing in Caracas, the indictment said.
Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office, resulting in additional monthly bribes, with some of the money going to Maduro’s wife, according to the indictment.
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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington, Darlene Superville aboard Air Force One and Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed to this report.
Hollywood starts 2026 with ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ No. 1, as James Cameron’s sci-fi epic crosses $1B
NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood kicked off 2026 with “Avatar: Fire and Ash” atop the box office for the third straight week and with hopes for a blockbuster-filled year after a disappointing 2025.
In three weeks of release, “Fire and Ash” has cleared $1 billion worldwide. The third chapter in James Cameron’s Pandora epic collected $40 million over its third weekend in North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday.
“Fire and Ash” is doing its biggest business overseas; it’s grossed $777.1 million internationally thus far. The Walt Disney Co. on Sunday trumped the $1 billion milestone as “cementing another monumental achievement for James Cameron’s groundbreaking franchise.”
But over the holidays, it wasn’t just about the weekend ticket sales. The whole week was a lucrative one for Hollywood, with most schools still out. What drove ticket sales, beyond “Avatar”? Sydney Sweeney, Timothée Chalamet and “Zootopia 2.”
The most sustained success over the holiday collider in theaters belonged to a movie that opened all the way back in November. Yet Disney’s “Zootopia 2” has had remarkable staying power. It landed in second place with $19 million, dipping a mere 4% from the previous weekend.
The animated sequel has amassed $1.59 billion in six weeks. That makes “Zootopia 2” Disney’s second highest grossing animated movie ever, trailing only 2019’s photorealistic “The Lion King” ($1.66 billion).
“The Housemaid,” the twisty thriller starring Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, also emerged as a holiday-season hit for Lionsgate. It collected $14.9 million over the weekend, giving it $75.7 million domestically over three weeks. It dipped only 3% from last weekend. Internationally, “The Housemaid,” which cost a modest $35 million to make, has added $57.3 million.
Just as Sweeney’s star power is propelling “The Housemaid,” so is Chalamet’s with “Marty Supreme.” The A24 release also held well in its third weekend, grossing an estimated $12.6 million. After two weeks of wide release, Josh Safdie’s frenetic table tennis tale has grossed $56 million in North America, passing the director’s previous film, “Uncut Gems” ($50 million worldwide).
Just about everything playing in theaters saw small drops from the previous weekend. Sony’s action comedy “Anaconda,” starring Jack Black and Paul Rudd, dipped 31% to collect $10 million in second weekend. Focus Features’ “Song Sung Blue” dropped only 17% in its second weekend with $5.9 million. The Hugh Jackman-Kate Hudson Neil Diamond cover band movie has earned $25 million domestically.
With “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and a wide variety of smaller hits, Hollywood started 2026 strongly. Overall sales were up 26.5% from the same weekend in 2025, according to data firm Comscore.
The movie industry is coming off a poor 2025, where domestic moviegoing continued to slide. U.S. and Canada ticket sales in 2025 amounted to $8.9 billion, a 2% increase from the year earlier, according to Comscore, but about 20% below pre-pandemic levels. That slight improvement was notably less than anticipated and was also boosted by higher ticket prices. Actual tickets sold declined from more than 800 million in 2024 to around 780 million in 2025.
The industry is now awaiting a potentially seismic shift with Warner Bros., one of the most theatrical-friendly studios, agreeing to sell to Netflix. That $83 billion deal awaits regulatory approval.
Yet studios are cautiously optimistic 2026 could be the best box-office year of the decade. A release slate filled with marquee franchises, including new “Toy Story,” “Avengers,” “Spider-Man,” “Super Mario Bros” and “Dune” movies, has raised hopes of a turnaround.
Top 10 movies by domestic box office
With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
1. “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” $40 million.
2. “Zootopia 2,” $19 million.
3. “The Housemaid,” $14.9 million.
4. “Marty Supreme,” $12.6 million.
5. “Anaconda,” $10 million.
6. “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,” $8.2 million.
7. “David,” $8 million.
8. “Song Sung Blue,” $5.9 million.
9. “Wicked: For Good,” $3.3 million.
10. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” $2.7 million.
US plans to ‘run’ Venezuela and tap its oil reserves, Trump says, after operation to oust Maduro
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Hours after an audacious military operation that plucked leader Nicolás Maduro from power and removed him from the country, President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States would run Venezuela at least temporarily and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.
The dramatic action capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on the South American nation and its autocratic leader and months of secret planning resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Legal experts immediately raised questions about whether the operation was lawful. Venezuela’s vice president Delcy Rodríguez demanded in a speech that the U.S. free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader, before Venezuela’s high court ordered her to assume the role of interim president.
Speaking to reporters hours after Maduro’s capture, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country’s oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries.
Maduro and his wife, seized overnight from their home on a military base, were first taken aboard a U.S. warship on their way to face prosecution for a Justice Department indictment accusing them of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.
A plane carrying the deposed leader landed around 4:30 p.m. Saturday at an airport in New York City’s northern suburbs. Maduro was escorted off the jet, gingerly making his way down a stairway before being led across the tarmac surrounded by federal agents. Several agents filmed him on their phones as he walked.
He was then flown by helicopter to Manhattan, where a convoy of law enforcement vehicles, including an armored car, was waiting to whisk him to a nearby U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office.
A video posted on social media by a White House account showed Maduro, smiling, as he was escorted through that office by two DEA agents grasping his arms.
He was expected to be detained while awaiting trial at a federal jail in Brooklyn.
Move lacks congressional approval
The legal authority for the incursion, done without congressional approval, was not immediately clear, but the Trump administration promoted the ouster as a step toward reducing the flow of dangerous drugs into the U.S. The president touted what he saw as other potential benefits, including a leadership stake in the country and greater control of oil.
Trump claimed the U.S. government would help run the country and was already doing so, though there were no immediate signs of that. Venezuelan state TV continued to air pro-Maduro propaganda, broadcasting live images of supporters taking to the streets in Caracas in protest.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a Mar-a-Lago news conference where he boasted that this “extremely successful operation should serve as warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives.”
Maduro and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges, but the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, that painted the regime as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine. The U.S. government does not recognize Maduro as the country’s leader.
Trump posted a photo on social media showing Maduro wearing a sweatsuit and a blindfold on board the USS Iwo Jima.
Early morning attack
The operation followed a monthslong Trump administration effort to push the Venezuelan leader, including a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America and attacks on boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean accused of carrying drugs. Last week, the CIA was behind a drone strike at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September.
Maduro had decried prior military operations as a thinly veiled effort to topple him from power.
Taking place 36 years to the day after the 1990 surrender and seizure of Panama leader Manuel Antonio Noriega following a U.S. invasion, the Venezuela operation unfolded under the cover of darkness early Saturday as Trump said the U.S. turned off “almost all of the lights” in the capital city of Caracas while forces moved in to extract Maduro and his wife.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces had rehearsed their maneuvers for months, learning everything about Maduro — where he was and what he ate, as well as details of his pets and his clothes.
“We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again,” Caine said. “Not to get it right, but to ensure we cannot get it wrong.”
Early Saturday, multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas. Maduro’s government accused the U.S. of hitting civilian and military installations, calling it an “imperialist attack” and urging citizens to take to the streets.
The assault lasted less than 30 minutes, and the explosions — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report what they saw and heard. Some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed, said Rodríguez, the country’s vice president, without giving a number. Trump said some U.S. forces were injured but none were killed.
Video obtained from Caracas and an unidentified coastal city showed tracers and smoke clouding the landscape as repeated muted explosions illuminated the night sky. Other footage showed cars passing on a highway as blasts illuminated the hills behind them. The videos were verified by The Associated Press.
Smoke was seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without electricity.
Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would take over from Maduro. Rodriguez, however, stressed during a Saturday appearance on state television that she did not plan to assume power, before Venezuela’s high court ordered that she assume the interim role.
“There is only one president in Venezuela, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros,” Rodriguez said.
Some streets in Caracas fill up
Venezuela’s ruling party has held power since 1999, when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, took office, promising to uplift poor people and later to implement a self-described socialist revolution.
Maduro took over when Chávez died in 2013. His 2018 reelection was widely considered a sham because the main opposition parties were banned from participating. During the 2024 election, electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared him the winner hours after polls closed, but the opposition gathered overwhelming evidence that he lost by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
In a demonstration of how polarizing a figure Maduro is, people variously took to the streets to protest his capture and celebrate it.
At a protest in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas Mayor Carmen Meléndez joined a crowd demanding Maduro’s return.
“Maduro, hold on, the people are rising up!” the crowd chanted. “We are here, Nicolás Maduro. If you can hear us, we are here!”
Earlier, armed people and uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets of a Caracas neighborhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party.
In other parts of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack. Some areas remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.
“How do I feel? Scared, like everyone,” said Caracas resident Noris Prada, who sat on an empty avenue looking down at his phone. “Venezuelans woke up scared, many families couldn’t sleep.”
In Doral, Florida, home to the largest Venezuelan community in the U.S, people wrapped themselves in Venezuelan flags, ate fried snacks and cheered as music played. At one point, the crowd chanted “Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!”
Questions of legality
Some legal experts raised immediate concerns about the operation’s legality.
The U.N. Security Council, acting on an emergency request from Colombia, planned to hold a meeting on U.S. operations in Venezuela on Monday morning, according to a council diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet made public.
Lawmakers from both political parties in Congress have raised reservations and flat-out objections to the U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling near the Venezuelan coast. Congress has not specifically approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.
Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he had seen no evidence that would justify Trump striking Venezuela without approval from Congress and demanded an immediate briefing by the administration on “its plan to ensure stability in the region and its legal justification for this decision.”
Bad Bunny’s ‘Debí Tirar Más Fotos’ could make Grammy history
NEW YORK (AP) — The Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny has redefined what it means to be a global giant — and he may once again make history at the 2026 Grammy Awards.
The artist born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio is up for six awards at the Feb. 1 show, becoming the first Spanish-language artist to be nominated for album, song and record of the year simultaneously. His critically acclaimed album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” is only the second Spanish-language record to be nominated for album of the year. The first? Well, that also belonged to Bad Bunny, 2022’s “Un Verano Sin Ti.”
Win or lose, experts say Bad Bunny’s Grammy nominations mark a symbolic moment for Latinos. Just a week later, after all, he’ll headline the Super Bowl halftime show.
Historic nominations reflect the cultural zeitgeist
Vanessa Díaz, associate professor of Chicano and Latino studies at Loyola Marymount University and co-author of “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance,” says Bad Bunny’s nods extend beyond his own art and serve as a “very welcome recognition of Latin music that is growing.”
“Music from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean has been shaping global music tastes since the 19th century,” adds Albert Laguna, associate professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale. “Bad Bunny is another link in a much longer chain of the popularity of Caribbean music on a global stage.”
Much of this music — particularly Latin trap and reggaetón, the genres Bad Bunny got his start in and continues to use in his new work — has been historically criminalized in Puerto Rico, not unlike hip-hop in the United States. Reggaetón in particular, Díaz points out, “comes from the most marginalized communities in Puerto Rico. And so, the fact that Bad Bunny is receiving nominations in three main categories, and this is an artist who came up with trap … is the most groundbreaking thing about the entire situation.”
Petra Rivera-Rideau, associate professor of American studies at Wellesley College and co-author of “P FKN R,” says that element is particularly noteworthy because institutions often ignore marginalized genres — including at the Latin Grammys, a sister award show to the Grammys.
A victory in the major categories could have “profound, symbolic meaning,” she says. But with a caveat: “I’m interested to see if this is going to open doors for other people.” After all, Bad Bunny himself isn’t immune to the Recording Academy’s institutional biases: He already has three career Grammys, but all have been in música urbana categories — despite the fact that he is the most streamed artist on the planet.
Local-to-global appeal that meets the political moment
Across “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Bad Bunny and his producers weave traditional Puerto Rican folkloric styles into a hyper-contemporary context. Latin trap and reggaetón aren’t abandoned but fused with música jíbara, salsa, bomba, plena and even aguinaldo, a kind of Christmas music, in “Pitorro de Coco.” While Bad Bunny’s previous albums also fused different genres — including bossa nova, mambo, rock, merengue and more — this album’s melange was more homegrown.
Laguna sees “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” as a direct challenge to the prevailing “formula for global pop stardom,” which he describes as an artist making it locally, gaining traction and then “watering down” their sound into something commercial and palatable for a global audience.
“Bad Bunny went in the opposite direction. It’s his most Puerto Rican album ever,” says Laguna. He hopes it will communicate to other artists that they, too, can look to their ancestry and history for artmaking.
“There’s so much amazing Latin music that has been overlooked and that’s part of what is so beautiful about this moment,” says Díaz. “And that’s why it feels like a win for all Latinos.”
The timing of the album’s release and recognition, too, feels consequential. “The U.S. has a history of othering Latinos, othering the Spanish language. … We’re in a moment where that feels extremely acute,” she continues. “For a community that is being targeted on such a deep level, it is a little bit of light, a little bit of faith that we can still carve out our place here.”
Latinos and the Spanish-speaking community in the U.S. have grown increasingly wary amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment and raids, as President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and executive actions have vastly expanded who is eligible for deportation and routine hearings have turned into deportation traps for migrants.
In an interview with i-D Magazine earlier this year, Bad Bunny mentioned that concerns around the mass deportations of Latinos factored into his decision not to tour in the continental U.S. ( Hundreds of people have been detained in Puerto Rico itself since large-scale arrests began in late January.)
“The content of the lyrics — which are so steeped in the history of Puerto Rico, political histories, tourism and gentrification — there’s so much rich political and historical content,” Díaz adds. “This album is historic even without a Grammy win.”
But if Bad Bunny does win, Díaz says, it will be “akin to Halle Berry being the first Black woman to win an Oscar. That was a watershed moment. Or Rita Moreno being the first Latina to win.”
Beyond that, Laguna says the politics of the album are not exclusive to Puerto Rican or even Latino identity — “the lyrics on this album align with global struggles,” he says. Take, for example, “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii” (“What happened to Hawaii”), a rallying cry for cultural autonomy in an era of neocolonialization.
The album’s multigenerational appeal
Rivera-Rideau says one of the reasons “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” has resonated is not just the political implications of using folkloric music in addition to música urbana, but its sound. The traditional genres are “a lot more digestible” to listeners who embrace the antiquated taboos surrounding Latin trap and scoff at reggaetón’s sexuality. As a result, the combination of sounds makes for an album that is “popular across generations,” she says.
But it only works because it is “musically really interesting. If it was just traditional music, and that’s only what people cared about, it wouldn’t have done as well as it did,” she explains. “Musically, it is super innovative and makes accessible a lot of these older genres that people in Puerto Rico listen to, but he’s been able to globalize these very local genres in a way that no one else has.”
That intergenerational appeal was a feature of Bad Bunny’s landmark Puerto Rican residency, with the age and global diversity of its audience.
“A lot of people feel like this is a tense moment, it’s a difficult moment. And here’s someone giving us a sonic language in which to narrate this complex present,” Laguna says. “There’s pleasure, in political critique, that the music makes possible in a beautiful way. And I think that’s very much welcomed.”
Venus Williams, 45, receives wildcard entry for Australian Open
Jan 2 (Reuters) - Venus Williams will return to the Australian Open after receiving a wildcard entry, the tournament's organisers said on Friday, marking her first appearance at Melbourne Park in five years.
The seven-time Grand Slam winner last played at the tournament in 2021, exiting in the second round to Italy’s Sara Errani.
Despite 21 previous campaigns, the American has never lifted the trophy, finishing runner-up twice - losing to sister Serena in the finals in 2003 and 2017.
“I am excited to be back in Australia and looking forward to competing during the summer,” Williams, 45, said.
“I’ve had so many incredible memories there and I’m grateful for the opportunity to return to a place that has meant so much to my career.”
Williams will become the oldest woman to feature in the Australian Open main draw, surpassing Japan’s Kimiko Date, who was 44 when she bowed out in the first round in 2015.
She has also accepted a wildcard for the Hobart International, a warm-up event starting on January 12, where she will join fellow major winners Barbora Krejcikova and Emma Raducanu.
Reporting by Karan Prashant Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus
Russians won't represent their country at Winter Olympics even if Ukraine war ends, IOC chief says
ROME, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Russian athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics will not be able to represent their country even if a peace deal is reached with Ukraine, International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry said in an Italian newspaper interview.
At this stage nothing would change the Committee's decision allowing Russian athletes to take part in the February games only as individuals representing themselves, Coventry told Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Friday.
The IOC banned Russia and Belarus following the former's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the IOC ruled in September that Russians and Belarusians competing at Milano Cortina would do so as individual athletes, without a national flag or anthem.
In other remarks, Coventry - the IOC's first woman president - said holding the Olympics in multiple cities, as Italy is doing, would become "the new normality" and the Milano Cortina games would provide useful guidance for the future.
The IOC did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for confirmation of Coventry's comments.
The Milano Cortina games run from February 6 to 22.
Reporting by Enrico Sciacovelli, Editing by Gavin Jones and Kate Mayberry
Argentine soccer body in turmoil ahead of World Cup over mystery villa and dirty money claims
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 1 (Reuters) - In March 2024, retired Argentine soccer star Carlos Tevez published a tweet, opens new tab hinting at something suspicious going on in a Buenos Aires suburb. The treasurer of the Argentine Football Association, Tevez claimed, was making many trips to Pilar, where he implied the soccer official had buried bags of money and kept a collection of antique cars.
Coalicion Civica, a progressive political party, began investigating after Tevez's post and filed a criminal complaint centered on a mystery villa in Pilar.
As the World Cup approaches, allegations that the villa may have been used for money-laundering have become one of a series of scandals gripping the soccer association that is in charge of the game in Argentina, the current world champions.
In early December, police raided the AFA headquarters and more than a dozen soccer clubs as part of a money-laundering probe that looked at transfers of money tied to clubs and a financial services company.
Three days later, authorities raided the Pilar villa, finding a heliport, stables and 54 vehicles, including luxury cars and collectible cars. In its criminal complaint, Coalicion Civica alleges the property is a front for a money-laundering scheme connected to Chiqui Tapia, the president of the AFA, and its treasurer, Pablo Toviggino.
Last week, in another case, a prosecutor charged Tapia, Toviggino and other AFA leaders for unlawful retention of taxes totaling $13 million following a complaint from Argentina’s tax agency, according to news outlet La Nacion.
The AFA did not respond to an inquiry from Reuters requesting an interview with both Tapia and Toviggino and for comment on the various judicial investigations that have been opened.
In a public statement, the association has said it is being attacked by the government of President Javier Milei, referring to how Milei has pushed for Argentina’s soccer clubs, which have long functioned as nonprofit entities run by their members, to become for-profit companies under private owners.
“We are on the right path,” the AFA said, listing competitions Argentina has won since Tapia became president in 2017, including the World Cup itself in 2022.
A representative for Tevez did not respond to an interview request. Toviggino did not respond to a request for comment.
CRISIS DESPITE SUCCESS
Despite plaudits for Argentina’s performance on the field, the AFA is going through its biggest crisis in years.
“There are two AFAs,” said Nestor Centra, an Argentine sports journalist, referring to its international success and the instability at home.
Several months after Tevez’s tweet, Matias Yofe, president of Coalicion Civica's branch in Pilar, told Reuters that he and his colleagues talked to about 10 employees who had worked at the Pilar property and presumed that Toviggino or Tapia were the owners.
One person, Yofe said, described Tapia once arriving by helicopter and then gifting employees soccer jerseys.
“What they described was they moved as owners of the place, they got in the pool, used the facilities,” Yofe said. “Everyone indicated that this belongs to people of the AFA.”
Coalicion Civica’s complaint alleged that the property had been purchased in 2024 by a company owned by Ana Lucia Conte and Luciano Nicolas Pantano, a mother and son that it claimed could not afford the purchase. An attorney who has represented Pantano did not respond to a request for comment.
Records viewed by Reuters indicate that the property, several city blocks long, was bought for $1.8 million, although experts suspect it's worth much more. The complaint points to Pantano's connections with the soccer world, such as serving as the head of the Argentine Civil Association of Futsal and Beach Soccer.
According to court documents, officials during the raid found a black imitation leather bag branded with the AFA logo and Toviggino’s name, several books on soccer and a plaque honoring Toviggino. The 54 vehicles included a Ferrari and several Porsches, registered under the company the complaint attributed to Pantano and Conte.
An official with knowledge of the case said that Toviggino’s relatives had authorization to drive at least several of the cars, confirming a report by local television station TN. Authorities have requested information on the pilots who used the heliport in the hopes of learning about the passengers.
The justice ministry has demanded that the AFA and the Superliga, an association that handles transmission rights of matches, give explanations for accounting entries of nearly half a billion dollars going back to 2017. Daniel Vitolo, the head of the ministry’s Inspector General’s office, told Reuters that those amounts fall into categories on balance reports with generic names such as “others." The Superliga declined a request from Reuters for comment.
“If the AFA really has its papers in order, why doesn’t it explain something that’s very easy to explain?” he said.
'THESE THINGS HAPPEN'
Experts said it’s unlikely that the judicial cases will affect Argentina’s participation in the World Cup.
“No one can pay the political cost of doing that,” said Alan Wilder, a sports law attorney in Buenos Aires. “No one would approve of the mere idea of taking (Lionel) Messi out of the World Cup, with this possibly being his last World Cup. He’s the sacred cow.”
Soccer worldwide is no stranger to financial scandals, and in recent years top FIFA officials have been charged with corruption. Tapia’s predecessor resigned amid an investigation into irregularities involving management of match broadcasting funds. Those charged in the case were absolved this month.
Prior to the current scandals, AFA had already faced criticism by fans for favoritism. Many were angered when the AFA recently awarded Rosario Central, home team of national star player Angel Di Maria, a new and controversial trophy.
"I think the lid has been blown off the pot," said Enzo Gutierrez, 30, a Buenos Aires resident who roots for the team San Martin from his native province of San Juan. "It has grabbed my attention a lot but if you're a soccer fan you live knowing that these things happen in Argentine soccer."
Reporting by Leila Miller; additional reporting by Ramiro Scandolo; Editing by Alistair Bell
TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS REPRESENTED AT THE BRITISH OVERSEAS TERRITORIES YOUTH PARLIAMENT
Tune in and show your support for our youth representative as she proudly makes her mark on behalf of the Turks and Caicos Islands!
Watch the rebroadcast here:
ihttps://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/89a3202a-c04e-4e5b-a1f1-da4df00c06d4
Biden Posthumously Pardons Marcus Garvey
United States President Joe Biden on Sunday just before stepping down from the role, posthumously pardoned black nationalist and Jamaican National Hero Marcus Garvey, who influenced Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders and was convicted of mail fraud in the 1920s.
Also receiving pardons were a top Virginia lawmaker and advocates for immigrant rights, criminal justice reform and gun violence prevention.
Congressional leaders had pushed for Biden to pardon Garvey, with supporters arguing that Garvey’s conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the increasingly popular leader who spoke of racial pride. After Garvey was convicted, he was deported to Jamaica, where he was born. He died in 1940.
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr said of Garvey: “He was the first man, on a mass scale and level” to give millions of black people “a sense of dignity and destiny.” End quote
Marcus Garvey (born August 17, 1887, St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica—died June 10, 1940, London, England) was a charismatic Black leader who organized the first important American Black nationalist movement (1919–26), based in Harlem, New York City.
He argued that Black people would be respected only when they were economically strong, and he preached an independent Black economy within the framework of white capitalism. To forward these ends, he established the Negro Factories Corporation and the Black Star Line (1919), as well as a chain of restaurants and grocery stores, laundries, a hotel, and a printing press.
He reached the height of his power in 1920, when he presided at an international convention in Liberty Hall, with delegates present from 25 countries. Wearing military regalia, Garvey led an estimated 50,000 people in a parade through the streets of Harlem to celebrate the event.
Biden has set the presidential record for most individual pardons and commutations issued. He announced on Friday that he was commuting the sentences of almost 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offences. He also gave a broad pardon for his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes.
The president announced he was commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment just as Trump, an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment, took office.
British Airways Leaves Passengers Stranded in Aruba Overnight
Passengers were left stranded overnight at Aruba's airport after British Airways canceled flight BA 2156 to Antigua and London, leaving many without accommodations during peak tourist season.
The ordeal, which began around 7pm when travelers were informed of technical issues while already aboard the aircraft.
What started as a 90-minute delay stretched into multiple updates throughout the evening, culminating in the flight's cancellation at 12:20am.
Passengers were forced to disembark and collect their luggage with no immediate assistance from the airline.
The situation was particularly challenging for travelers whose phone plans were expiring that day, leaving them unable to make calls.
And with limited hotel availability, some passengers had no choice but to sleep on the airport floor.
The Caribbean travelers were forced to endure uncomfortably cold conditions as strong winds whipped through the area, making an already difficult situation even worse.
It wasn't until 2am that British Airways sent an email to affected passengers, stating: "We sincerely apologize for the unprecedented and extended delay onboard today. This was due to a technical issue identified with the aircraft prior to departure, which our engineers were unable to resolve in time to operate the flight. Safety is our highest priority, and we would never operate a flight unless it is safe to do so."
The airline's email promised that their customer relations team would make contact within 48 hours and offered to automatically rebook connecting flights for affected passengers.