US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was considering strikes targeting Venezuelan cartels on land, after a series of deadly strikes at sea against alleged drug-carrying boats.”We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked if he was weighing strikes on land. But Trump declined to confirm a New York Times report that he had secretly authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela against the administration of President Nicolas Maduro.Asked if he had given the CIA authority to “take out” Maduro, Trump replied: “That’s a ridiculous question for me to be given. Not really a ridiculous question, but wouldn’t it be a ridiculous question for me to answer?”Venezuela is taking the threats — open or clandestine — seriously.On Tuesday, under Maduro’s direction, exercises were conducted across the entire Atlantic Caribbean coast of Venezuela, and other military activities are planned in the states on the border with Colombia.In a message on the social network Telegram, Maduro said he was mobilizing the military, police and a civilian militia to defend Venezuela’s “mountains, coasts, schools, hospitals, factories and markets.”Trump said on Tuesday that another strike on boats allegedly transporting drugs from Venezuela had killed six “narcoterrorists.”At least 27 people have been killed so far in the US attacks. Experts question the legality of using lethal force in foreign or international waters against suspects who have not been intercepted or questioned.Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has said he believes some of those killed were Colombian.Trump accuses Maduro of heading a drug cartel — charges Maduro denies.Ahead of ramping up military actions, the US Justice Department in August doubled a bounty for information leading to Maduro’s capture to $50 million.

Argentine stocks surged Wednesday on a new US promise of aid for embattled President Javier Milei, despite Donald Trump conditioning the assistance on his ally winning upcoming midterm elections.Some stocks on the benchmark Merval index rose by almost 10 percent on the announcement by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that his department was working on the second $20 billion “facility” for Argentina in as many months.The new program brings the total promised US assistance for the South American country to a whopping $40 billion.Bessent told reporters in Washington that the new aid “would be adjacent to our swap line” announced in September, which already totaled $20 billion.He said the new bailout would come from “private banks and sovereign wealth funds” and would be “more aimed at the debt market,” amid growing concerns over Argentina’s ability to meet its looming debt repayments.Bessent made the announcement a day after Trump hosted the right-wing Milei at the White House, in a bid to boost the Argentine leader ahead of midterm elections on October 26.Milei, once a global poster boy for budget-slashing libertarian politics, is heading into the polls diminished by his failure to stabilize Argentina’s ailing peso, despite spending nearly all the Central Bank’s dollar reserves to prop it up.Bessent last week said that the US Treasury had begun purchasing pesos to help support the currency.Milei has also faced a growing rebellion in Congress over his austerity measures and is still reeling from a corruption scandal engulfing his sister and right-hand woman, Karina Milei.Last month, he suffered a stunning defeat in Buenos Aires provincial polls seen as a key bellwether of his support.Opinion polls show his bloc running neck-and-neck with the center-left opposition in the midterms, but Milei’s La Libertad Avanza coalition is expected to fall far short of winning an outright majority.Political scientist Gustavo Marangoni, head of the M&R polling firm, told AFP that Milei’s party had “no chance of winning a majority,” predicting he would win around one-third of the seats up for grabs.Trump threatened Argentine voters with withdrawing aid if his ally was defeated.”If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” he warned.- ‘Quasi-colonial’ attitude -Economist Carlos Melconian, former president of the state-owned Banco Nacion, reacted angrily to Trump’s remarks, calling it “a quasi-colonial incursion” into Argentina’s affairs.”Trump doesn’t want to save the country, he only wants to save Milei,” centrist Senator Martin Lousteau said.On Wednesday, Bessent assured that Milei would continue to enjoy US support as long as he could continue to veto legislation passed by parliament that did not fit his agenda. “It is not election-specific, it is policy-specific,” he said. “So as long as Argentina continues enacting good policy, they will have US support,” he said.Milei enacted sweeping budget cuts after taking office in December 2023 on a promise to quell chronically high inflation and revive the sputtering economy.But his reforms left tens of thousands of public servants out of a job, caused consumer spending to nosedive and left many of Argentina’s most vulnerable citizens living on the breadline.In an interview with CNBC broadcast Wednesday, the 54-year-old president said he had “no intention of changing course until the end of my term.””I am committed to the agenda of lowering taxes, deregulating and keeping the economy growing,” he said.burs-cb/jgc

A prominent US scholar of India who was arrested after allegations of retaining classified documents and meeting Chinese officials is denying the charges against him, his lawyers said Wednesday.Ashley Tellis, 64, who held senior positions under former president George W. Bush and remained an unpaid advisor to the State Department, was arrested Saturday and faces up to 10 years in prison.”Ashley J. Tellis is a widely respected scholar and senior policy advisor,” his lawyers, Deborah Curtis and John Nassikas, said in a statement.”We will be vigorously contesting the allegations brought against him, specifically any insinuation of his operating on behalf of a foreign adversary,” they said.A criminal affidavit made public Tuesday said that Tellis went into the State Department late on September 25 and appeared to print from a secret document on US Air Force techniques.It alleged that Tellis met repeatedly with Chinese officials at a restaurant in the Washington suburb of Fairfax, Virginia, and that at one dinner he appeared to leave a manila envelope.The charges announced by the Justice Department relate to improper handling of documents rather than the meetings, with an FBI special agent saying a search found more than 1,000 pages of top-secret or secret documents in his house.Tellis has been a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a leading Washington think tank, which said Wednesday that he has been put on administrative leave.Tellis, a naturalized American originally from India, helped negotiate the Bush administration’s civil nuclear cooperation deal with India, a landmark step to closer relations between the world’s two largest democracies.But Tellis in recent years has emerged as a leading contrarian in Washington about India, saying that New Delhi’s interests were not aligned on a host of issues including Ukraine.

United Airlines reported a slight dip in profits Wednesday as operating expenses ticked higher, adding that a strengthening demand outlook would boost fourth-quarter results.The big US carrier reported third-quarter profits of $949 million, down 1.7 percent from the year-ago level, as growth in operating expenses edged out the increase in revenues of 2.6 percent to $15.2 billion.The company estimated fourth-quarter profits of between $3.00 and $3.50 per share, better than Wall Street estimates. United is poised for a “strong” fourth quarter “as the demand environment strengthens,” said a United press release.The outlook echoes bullish commentary about consumer appetite earlier this month from Delta Air Lines.Both carriers have billed themselves as able to provide a premium-travel experience that emphasizes better onboard amenities in addition to reliable operations in an effort to strengthen brand loyalty. United’s press release emphasized perks such as Apple TV on board, increased investment on food quality and the introduction of Starlink Wi-Fi on flights, which is scheduled to launch on Thursday in a flight from Newark to Houston.The company promises Starlink on “every plane by 2027,” said United CEO Scott Kirby. “Our customers value the United experience, making them increasingly loyal to United.”Shares of United fell 1.8 percent in after-hours trading.

Flawed engineering and inadequate testing contributed to the catastrophic implosion of a private submersible during a 2023 expedition to the Titanic wreckage, the US National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.Its report comes after a US Coast Guard investigation in August outlined a litany of issues with operator OceanGate’s conduct, as well as design flaws in its Titan submersible, that led to a “preventable tragedy” in which all five passengers were killed.”We found that OceanGate’s engineering process for the Titan was inadequate and resulted in the construction of a carbon fiber composite pressure vessel that contained multiple anomalies and failed to meet necessary strength and durability requirements,” NTSB’s report said.”Because OceanGate did not adequately test the Titan, the company was unaware of the pressure vessel’s actual strength and durability, which was likely much lower than their target.”Additionally, OceanGate’s analysis of Titan pressure vessel real-time monitoring data was flawed, so the company was unaware that the Titan was damaged and needed to be immediately removed from service” after a previous dive, it added.OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush was joined on the doomed expedition by British explorer Hamish Harding, French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani-British tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.Seats on the submersible cost $250,000 per person.Communications were lost with the SUV-sized submersible about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive on June 18, 2023, kicking off a dramatic search that briefly captivated the world.Debris was found a few days later on the ocean floor, about 1,600 feet (500 meters) from the bow of the Titanic, and human remains were recovered when the sub was brought to the surface.Shortly after the tragedy, OceanGate halted all operations.Last year, the family of Nargeolet sued OceanGate for $50 million, accusing the US-based company of gross negligence.The wreckage of the Titanic sits 400 miles (644 kilometers) off the coast of Newfoundland and has become a lure for nautical experts and underwater tourists since its discovery in 1985.The ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912 during its maiden voyage from England to New York, with 2,224 passengers and crew on board. More than 1,500 people died.