World
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims election victory, refuses to publish results
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is widely believed to have fraudulently won Sunday’s election, ensuring him another six-year term. Numerous regional governments cast doubt on the official vote tally, which showed Maduro with 51.2% of the vote with 80% of polling stations reporting.
The opposition contends that the results are not accurate, and claims that it won the election with 70% of the vote.
Polls taken over the course of the summer consistently showed opposition candidate Edmundo González winning by double-digit margins.
When the National Electoral Council announced around midnight that Maduro had received 51% of the vote compared to main opposition candidate González’s 44% support, National Electoral Council President Elvis Amoroso said the results were based on 80% of voting stations and represented an irreversible trend.
Despite Maduro being declared the winner for a third term, the opposition claimed victory, setting up a showdown with the government over the results.
EXPERTS FEAR VENEZUELA’S MADURO COULD STEAL SUNDAY’S ELECTION AS OPPOSITION LEADS IN POLLS
President Nicolás Maduro votes in the presidential elections in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 28, 2024. (AP)
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., condemned the result and criticized the policies of the Biden administration.
“Another foreign policy fiasco from the Biden-Harris team,” he wrote on X. “They gave Maduro relief from Trump oil sanctions and released his top money launderer & his two convicted drug dealer nephews in exchange for a “promise” to hold fair elections monitored by neutral international observers.”
The electoral authority, controlled by Maduro loyalists, did not immediately publish the results from each of the 30,000 polling booths across the country, impeding the opposition’s ability to challenge the results after alleging it only had data for about 30% of the ballot boxes.
“The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” González said.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said González’s margin of victory was “overwhelming.” Machado said the opposition had voting results from about 40% of ballot boxes across the country and that more were expected overnight.
Officials and lawmakers in the U.S. and elsewhere expressed skepticism about the validity of Venezuela’s presidential election results after Maduro was declared the victor.
A bipartisan group of congressional leaders alleged Maduro’s victory to be fraudulent:
“To no one’s surprise, dictator Nicolás Maduro has once again stolen a presidential election. However, what the narco-regime will never steal is the Venezuelan people’s desire to return to democracy and live in freedom after decades of tyranny.”
A supporter of Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado attends a campaign rally in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on July 23, 2024. (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)
The statement continued, “We must prioritize uniting the free world in rejecting these sham election results and securing the release of the more than 300 Venezuelans that remain arbitrarily detained in torture centers as political prisoners.”
Speaking in Tokyo on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. has “serious concerns” about the announced outcome.
Blinken said the U.S. feared the result did not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people and called for election officials to immediately release the full results. He also said the U.S. and the international community would respond accordingly.
Later on Monday, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel echoed Blinken: “We have serious concerns that this result does not reflect the will and the votes of the Venezuelan people.”
VENEZUELAN MIGRANTS’ BARBARIC CRIMES COME AS MADURO REFUSES TO TAKE BACK ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM US
The opposition’s presidential candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, leaves the polling station with wife Mercedes Lopez, center, and daughter Mariana after voting in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 28, 2024. (AP)
Several leaders from across the region were quick to condemn the result. Reuters reported that Argentinean President Javier Milei said, “Not even [Maduro] believes the electoral scam he is celebrating, neither does the Argentine Republic. We do not recognize fraud, we call on the international community to unite to restore the rule of law in Venezuela, and we remind the Venezuelan people that the doors of our country are open to every man who chooses to live in freedom.”
Panama’s new president, Jose Raul Mulino wrote, “We are putting diplomatic relations on hold until a complete review of the voting records and of the voting computer system is carried out.”
Supporters of Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado hold their pictures during a campaign rally in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on July 23, 2024. (Raul Arboldea/AFP via Getty Images)
Reuters also reported that El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said, “What we saw yesterday in Venezuela has no other name than fraud. An ‘election’ where the official result has no relation to reality. Something obvious to anyone.”
Opposition representatives in Venezuela said tallies they collected from campaign representatives at 30% of voting centers in the country showed González defeating the president. Reports of sporadic anti-Maduro protests broke out in parts of Caracas and other areas of the country as thousands protested the results.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Published on •Updated
A tragedy unfolded in the night between Friday and Saturday on the island of Lampedusa, where a newborn migrant baby girl just a few weeks old died of hypothermia immediately after disembarking and while being rushed to the island’s outpatient clinic.
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At 4.30 a.m., after being rescued by the V1307 patrol boat of the Guardia di Finanza, 55 people from Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria and Sierra Leone landed at Favarolo pier. Among them were seven women and six minors. The baby girl, whose condition immediately appeared critical, was taken together with her mother to the medical facility, where doctors could do nothing but declare her dead.
Investigation opened into the baby girl’s death
The Agrigento prosecutor’s office has opened an inquiry into the tragic case and ordered a post-mortem examination of the child’s body, a necessary step to confirm hypothermia as the actual cause of death.
The body is being transferred to the mortuary at the Cala Pisana cemetery, while in the coming hours the mother will be questioned by investigators to reconstruct the details of the crossing and establish exactly how and when the baby fell ill.
According to accounts from other migrants on board, the group had set off from Sfax-El Amra in Tunisia at around two o’clock yesterday morning, making the journey in a seven-metre metal boat that cost between 400 and 600 euros per person.
The baby girl’s mother, originally from Côte d’Ivoire, was later taken to the hotspot in the Imbriacola district together with her other daughter, aged around two. According to reports, the woman is currently in a severe state of shock over the loss of her child and is receiving continuous support from staff of the Italian Red Cross, which manages the island’s reception centre.
The centre’s director, Imad Dalil, confirmed to Italian media that psychosocial support measures had been activated. “The mother and the sister are here in the hotspot and are in good physical condition; for them and for the other people psychological support was activated immediately and in the coming hours the medical and psychosocial teams will continue their work,” he said.
NGOs’ reaction
The German NGO Sea-Watch voiced its outrage in a strongly worded post on X. “While the state attacks those who save lives at sea, investigating the captain of Sea-Watch, a one-month-old baby has arrived in LAMPEDUSA, dead in her mother’s arms, after a three-day crossing. Who will be held responsible for this injustice?” The outburst refers to the news, received by the NGO after arriving in Brindisi with 166 rescued people, that a criminal investigation has been opened against the captain of the Sea-Watch 5 on suspicion of aiding illegal entry.
The UN agency specialising in the protection and assistance of people forced to flee war, violence and persecution (UNHCR) also intervened to express deep condolences and grave concern over yet another victim claimed along the Mediterranean routes.
“A mother has lost her newborn daughter, who arrived dead this morning together with 54 other people in Lampedusa. Deep sorrow and concern for the many children and adults who should not be dying in the Mediterranean,” reads a post published on social media by UNHCR, which explains that the agency is on the ground providing assistance to the mother and all the other survivors of the landing.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Virginia’s bid to restore a congressional map that would have given Democrats a chance to pick up four seats in the closely divided House of Representatives.
The court’s order, issued without any noted dissent, is the latest twist in the nation’s mid-decade redistricting competition. It was kicked off last year by President Donald Trump urging Republican-controlled states to redraw their lines and was supercharged by a recent Supreme Court ruling severely weakening the Voting Rights Act that opened up even more winnable seats for the GOP.
In recent days, the justices have sided with Republicans in Alabama and Louisiana who hope to redo their congressional maps to produce more GOP-leaning seats following the court’s voting rights decision.
But the Virginia situation was different, stemming from a 4-3 ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court that struck down a constitutional amendment that voters narrowly passed just last month.
The state court found that the Democratic-controlled legislature improperly began the process of placing the amendment on the ballot after early voting had begun in Virginia’s general election last fall.
The Supreme Court typically doesn’t intervene in state court proceedings unless they present an issue of federal law. Virginia Democrats had hoped to persuade the justices that the Virginia court misread federal law and Supreme Court precedent that hold that, even if early voting is underway, an election does not happen until Election Day itself.
Virginia’s amendment had been intended as a response to Republican gains in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, and to blunt a new map in Florida that just became law. Once the Virginia amendment passed, it briefly turned the nationwide redistricting scramble into a draw between the two parties.
That was unraveled by the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision.
The state’s attorney general, Democrat Jay Jones, slammed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, saying it was another example of what he described as a national attack on voting rights and the rule of law.
“Let’s be clear about what is happening. Donald Trump, Republican state legislatures, and conservative courts are systematically and unabashedly tilting power away from the people for Trump’s political gain,” Jones said in a statement issued late Friday night.
The state’s top Democrats had disagreed about whether it was even too late for help from the Supreme Court. “Time grows short, but it is not yet too late,” lawyers for the Democratic leaders of the legislature as well as the state told the justices in a brief filed Friday.
A day earlier, the office of Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger already had confirmed that the state will hold this year’s elections under the current districts established in 2021. Last month, Virginia Commissioner of Elections Steve Koski said a court order was needed by this past Tuesday to set the district lines for primary elections on Aug. 4.
Spanberger reacted to Friday’s decision by saying both courts had nullified the votes of the more than 3 million Virginians who cast ballots in the April 21 special election.
“These Virginians made their voices heard — casting their ballots in good faith to push back against a President who said he’s ‘entitled’ to more seats in Congress before voters go to the polls,” she posted on her X account.
The leader of the state Republican Party said the justices made the right call.
“Wisely, the Supreme Court of the United States has confirmed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia,” state party chairman Jeff Ryer said. “This should once and for all put to rest the Democrats’ effort to disenfranchise half of Virginia.
___
Associated Press writer Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.
World
Trump says Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, killed in US-Nigerian operation
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President Donald Trump announced late Friday that U.S. and Nigerian forces carried out an operation that killed a global ISIS leader.
Trump identified the terrorist as Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, whom he described as ISIS’s second-in-command globally.
“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing,” Trump continued. “He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”
100 US TROOPS LAND IN NIGERIA AS ISLAMIC MILITANTS THREATEN WEST AFRICA REGIONAL SECURITY
President Donald Trump sits at a table monitoring military operations during Operation Epic Fury against Iran at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 2. (The White House via X Account/Anadolu/Getty Images)
Trump also thanked the Nigerian government for its cooperation in the mission.
“With his removal, ISIS’s global operation is greatly diminished,” he added.
Additional details surrounding the mission were not immediately available.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
US MILITARY IN SYRIA CARRIES OUT 10 STRIKES ON MORE THAN 30 ISIS TARGETS: PHOTOS
The announcement comes after U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said it carried out multiple strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria in February as part of a joint military effort to “sustain relentless military pressure on remnants from the terrorist network.”
CENTCOM said U.S. forces struck ISIS infrastructure and weapons-storage targets using fixed-wing, rotary-wing and unmanned aircraft.
DEADLY STRIKE ON US TROOPS TESTS TRUMP’S COUNTER-ISIS PLAN — AND HIS TRUST IN SYRIA’S NEW LEADER
The U.S. military carried out ten strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria following a December ambush that killed U.S. troops. (CENTCOM)
Trump told reporters on Jan. 27 that he had a “great conversation” with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“All of the things having to do with Syria in that area are working out very, very well,” he said at the time. “So, we are very happy about it.”
CENTCOM announced in February that more than 50 ISIS terrorists had been killed or captured and more than 100 ISIS infrastructure targets struck during two months of targeted operations in Syria.
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The U.S. launched Operation Hawkeye Strike in response to an ISIS ambush that killed two U.S. service members and an American interpreter Dec. 13, 2025, in Palmyra, Syria.
Fox News Digital’s Ashley J. DiMella contributed to this report.
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