Overview

• Defense chief Pete Hegseth announced a strike in international waters near Venezuela and released video showing the vessel exploding, saying four men on board were killed and no U.S. forces were hurt.
• The Pentagon and White House said intelligence confirmed the boat carried large quantities of narcotics and labeled those aboard as narcoterrorists, though they offered no public evidence as Trump amplified the video on social media.
• The operation is at least the fourth such strike in recent weeks, with earlier attacks reported to have killed 17 people on other boats in the southern Caribbean.
• Venezuela condemned what it called an illegal incursion by U.S. fighter jets near its coast this week, placed forces on alert, and has a decree of exception ready for potential emergencies, according to officials.
• A confidential memo to Congress frames the campaign as a formal armed conflict with designated terrorist cartels, a rationale that legal and human-rights experts say raises serious concerns over compliance with international law and the risk of extrajudicial killings.