Some 1,500 active-duty soldiers have been placed on standby for possible deployment to Minneapolis, a defense official confirmed to CBS News, as tensions in the city have mounted after a woman was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
Deploying the soldiers, from the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, is one option for which the military is planning in case President Trump decides to use active-duty military personnel to respond to the ongoing demonstrations, the official said. No decision has been made on whether to deploy the soldiers.
Asked about the preparations, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said, “The Department of War is always prepared to execute the orders of the Commander-in-Chief if called upon.”
ABC News was first to report that the soldiers were on standby.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz also mobilized the state’s National Guard on Saturday, although guard members had not yet been deployed to city streets, CBS News Minnesota reported. Walz had issued a warning order earlier this month to prepare guard members for mobilization, after an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Good on Jan. 7.
“We are doing the work to keep people safe in our city, and, specifically, it is our local police officers, it is the state of Minnesota and our governor,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday. “We are doing everything possible to keep the peace, notwithstanding this occupying force that has quite literally invaded our city.”
In addition to the recent surge of immigration agents, Mr. Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a law dating back to the 1790s that would allow him to send federal troops into Minneapolis. The president said he would invoke the act if Minnesota politicians “don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job.”
That move could catalyze a major escalation in the tensions between Minnesota officials and the federal government, which had already sent thousands of federal law enforcement agents to the state in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Mr. Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act before, during his first term and previously during his current one, but he has never actually used it.
The Minneapolis Police Department said Saturday that demonstrators had remained peaceful and lawful in the presence of federal immigration agents, CBS Minnesota reported.
“Today, when crowds blocked roadways, vehicles were used to block roadways, MPD deployed resources and made public announcements for people move to the sidewalk or out of the area. This occurred several times. In general, crowds were responsive to those directives,” the department said in a statement, urging community members involved in the protests to continue to demonstrate peacefully.
After Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s capture, President Trump said “we’re going to run the country” for now. Charlie D’Agata reports on the operation.
Trump repeatedly threatened to move from boat strikes to land strikes
President Trump repeatedly warned in recent months that his administration could attack accused drug traffickers who traverse Latin America by land “very soon,” which would mark an escalation in the U.S. military’s campaign of lethal strikes on alleged drug boats.
“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too,” Mr. Trump told reporters during a Dec. 2 Cabinet meeting when asked about the administration’s strikes at sea. “You know, the land is much easier … And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live. And we’re going to start that very soon, too.”
He said at the time that any country where illicit drugs are produced or trafficked could be subject to attack, not just Venezuela.
Cuba’s president denounces strikes on Venezuela as a “criminal attack by the U.S.”
Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said in a social media post that his country denounced “the criminal attack by the U.S.” on Venezuela, and he called for urgent condemnation from the international community for what he described as “State terrorism against the brave Venezuelan people and against Our America.”
Venezuela accuses U.S. of “very serious military aggression”
In a statement early Saturday, the Venezuelan government said it “repudiates and denounces to the international community the very serious military aggression” by the U.S. government.
Venezuela said the strikes targeted civilian and military sites in the city of Caracas and the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira.
The government vowed to defend against the apparent strikes, and accused the U.S. of seeking regime change.
“The whole country must be active to defeat this imperialist aggression,” the government’s statement read, adding a call for an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
Explosions heard in Caracas
U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News that President Trump had ordered strikes in Venezuela not long after reports started to emerge of explosions and low-flying aircraft in the country’s capital of Caracas in the early Saturday morning hours. Initially U.S. officials had said only that they were aware of the reports.
President Gustavo Petro in neighboring Colombia said in a social media post that someone was “bombing Caracas in this moment,” without saying who.
“Alert to the whole world, they have attacked Venezuela bombing with missiles,” he said, calling for a meeting of the United Nations.
A fire burns at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, after a series of explosions in Caracas on Jan. 3, 2026.
LUIS JAIMES /AFP via Getty Images
Trump approved Venezuela strikes days beforehand, sources say
President Trump gave the U.S. military the green light to conduct land strikes in Venezuela days before the actual operation occurred, according to two U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News under condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters.
Military officials discussed conducting the mission on Christmas Day, but U.S. airstrikes in Nigeria against ISIS targets took precedence, the sources said.
The days following Christmas opened more potential strike windows to U.S. military officials but the operation was held due to weather conditions. The officials said the U.S. military wanted weather conditions that were advantageous to mission success.
U.S. launches airstrikes on Venezuela
President Trump ordered strikes on sites inside Venezuela early Saturday morning, including military facilities, U.S. officials told CBS News.
The Pentagon referred all requests for comment to the White House.
Before land strikes, Trump said it would be “smart” for Maduro to leave
President Trump has been noncommittal on whether the goal of his military buildup is to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. He told reporters on Dec. 22 it would be “smart” for Maduro to leave power, but it’s “up to him what he wants to do.”
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been more direct about the president’s intentions, telling Vanity Fair in November: “He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”
Mr. Trump said in mid-December that Venezuela was “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America.”
“It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us,” he posted on Truth Social on Dec. 16.
Military action follows more than 30 boat strikes, seizure of oil tankers
Then on Dec. 10, the U.S. seized an oil tankercalled The Skipper off the coast of Venezuela. The mission was launched from the USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier that has been in the area for weeks as part of a broader buildup of U.S. forces in the region, sources told CBS News.
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted a 45-second video of the operation on X, showing armed personnel descending onto the vessel’s deck from a helicopter. She said the U.S. executed a seizure warrant on the vessel, and that it was “used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.”
Less than a week later, President Trump announced a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting Venezuela. The U.S. later seized a second oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Dec. 20, and later pursued a third tanker that refused to be boarded and fled.
In what could be the campaign’s first known land strike, Mr. Trump said in late December the U.S. “knocked out” a “big facility” that was allegedly linked to drug trafficking. He described the target as a “dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” but he didn’t specify its location or offer many further details.
The Venezuelan government has criticized the operations at sea, calling the oil tanker seizures acts of “piracy” and accusing the Trump administration of seeking regime change.
Trump administration accuses Maduro, Venezuelan groups of narcoterrorism
The U.S. has asserted that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is complicit with armed criminal gangs smuggling drugs into the U.S. — allegations that Maduro has rejected.
The Trump administration has officially designated two groups as international terrorist organizations that it says are linked to the Maduro regime: the Cartel de los Soles and the gang Tren de Aragua, which are accused of international drug trafficking and violent attacks.
Some experts have questioned the designations. Analysts say the Cartel de los Soles is not a singular organization, but instead refers to elements within the Venezuelan government accused of colluding with drug cartels.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS News’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” in May that the administration believes Tren de Aragua is used as a tool of the regime — contradicting an assessment by the National Intelligence Council.
“There’s no doubt in our mind, and in my mind, and in the FBI’s assessment that this is a group that the regime in Venezuela uses, not just to try to destabilize the United States, but to project power,” Rubio said.
Maduro and several of his top lieutenants were charged in U.S. federal court in 2020 with narco-terrorism and drug trafficking, which he denied. “Maduro very deliberately deployed cocaine as a weapon” to harm the U.S., prosecutors alleged.
Strikes come after months of U.S. military buildup in region
Over the past few months, the U.S. has ratcheted up the pressure on the Maduro regime in Venezuela in multiple ways, including an extensive military buildup in the region, live fire exercises and deadly strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
There are currently about 15,000 U.S. troops in the region. Some 11 naval vessels were in the Caribbean Sea as of Dec. 30, Navy officials told CBS News, including the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s most advanced aircraft carrier.
The U.S. naval buildup in the Caribbean also includes five guided missile destroyers, two guided missile cruisers, an amphibious assault ship and two amphibious transport dock ships, officials said.
There are also several dozen U.S. fighter jets stationed in Puerto Rico. And this month, the U.S. moved aircraft to the region that are designed to carry special forces, including CV-22 Ospreys and C-17 cargo planes, a source familiar with the matter told CBS News.
The U.S. Coast Guard said late Friday it has called off a dayslong search for several people in the Eastern Pacific who jumped overboard when their alleged drug-trafficking boats were targeted by the U.S. military.
The military says it struck a group of three boats on Tuesday — part of a monthslong campaign of airstrikes that the Trump administration says are targeting Latin American drug cartels at sea. But after the first boat was struck, killing three, as many as eight people aboard the other two boats abandoned their vessels, U.S. officials told CBS News earlier this week.
The Coast Guard said in a statement that the people were reported missing about 400 nautical miles off the Mexico-Guatemala border. The search lasted about 65 hours and covered an area of ocean that spanned more than 1,090 nautical miles, but multiple search boats did not spot any “survivors or debris,” according to the Coast Guard.
“At this stage of the response, the likelihood of a successful outcome, based on elapsed time, environmental conditions, and available resources for a person in the water is very low,” Coast Guard Capt. Patrick Dill said in the statement.
The search was carried out by a Coast Guard plane that took off from California, a vessel in the area that belonged to the Coast Guard’s emergency assistance system and three other nearby vessels that were asked to help. The Coast Guard said in its statement that “available assets were extremely limited due to distance and range constraints.”
A Coast Guard spokesperson told CBS News earlier Friday that 40-knot winds and nine-foot seas were reported in the area.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro — who has clashed with the Trump administration in recent months — wrote on X Friday that the people appeared to survive the strikes. He said the Colombian Navy was willing to assist.
The U.S. military has conducted at least 35 boat strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific between Sept. 2 and Dec. 31, killing at least 115 people.
The military has reported survivors in a handful of boat strikes — and has faced heavy scrutiny for its handling of those cases. Two survivors from a mid-October strike were detained by the U.S. Navy and then repatriated to Colombia and Ecuador. One survivor from a late October operation is presumed dead after the Mexican Navy called off a search for the person.
And in the Trump administration’s first set of boat strikes on Sept. 2, two people survived the initial attack but were killed in a follow-on strike. Congressional Democrats who viewed a video of the operation criticized the second strike, alleging the military killed shipwrecked people who no longer posed a threat, but GOP lawmakers have called the strike justifiable, arguing the survivors appeared to still be in the fight.
The boat strikes are part of a broader military buildup in the region, amid a growing U.S. pressure campaign against the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration has accused Maduro’s government of working with drug cartels, which it denies.
The operations have drawn criticism from lawmakers who argue the president is operating without permission from Congress. The Trump administration has defended the strikes as necessary to combat drug trafficking, calling the targets “unlawful combatants.”
Sangdong mine, South Korea — Over the course of decades, China has come to dominate the rare earths and critical minerals industries, virtually cornering the market on raw materials that are essential to every aspect of modern life, from cellphones to armor piercing ammunition and AI missile guidance systems.
Beijing’s stranglehold on the production of these valuable metals and minerals has driven a hasty search by U.S. authorities to secure alternative supply options.
Lewis Black says his company is ready to help fill the void, at least when it comes to the supply of tungsten, a mineral he calls “vital” to U.S. defense needs.
Black, CEO of the Canadian mining company Almonty Industries, flew from New York to South Korea last week to give CBS News a tour of the mine he hopes will soon be producing enough tungsten to meet at least the most urgent of America’s needs.
An aerial view shows the Sangdong tungsten mine in eastern South Korea, owned and operated by Almonty Industries, in November 2025.
CBS News
In the days before his flight to the Sangdong mine, Black met with U.S. officials, including at the White House, and he signed a deal guaranteeing that Almonty will, in the future, supply enough tungsten for U.S. security needs.
Black said he couldn’t discuss the details of the agreement with the U.S. government.
Tungsten’s superpower
The power of tungsten is rooted in the fact that it has the highest melting point of any element. While used in everyday items from electrical wiring to semiconductors and batteries, its applications in the defense industry make it truly indispensable.
“It’s vital. It’s further than critical, it’s vital,” Black told CBS News, standing in an enormous red building covered in corrugated steel sheeting that houses his processing plant in Sangdong.
As he spoke, machinery that breaks down the ore — the rocks embedded with tungsten — ground in a slow circular motion, undergoing tests in preparation for being fully commissioned later this year.
A view inside a tunnel at the Sangdong tungsten mine in South Korea, November 2025.
CBS News
“It’s not just in the things you can see like munitions and armor,” Black said. “You want to build armored vehicles? All the engineering, all the AI chips, AI chips you can’t build without tungsten gas. You want to build a plane? The rockets, it’s in everything. It’s a vital component, a small one, but without it, you can’t do it.”
The Sangdong tungsten mine’s rise, fall and renaissance
Tungsten was first discovered in a rocky outcrop at the Sangdong site, about 115 miles southeast of Seoul, in 1906. A Japanese company started mining there about a decade later, and the tungsten extracted was later used for Japan’s war machine during the Second World War.
The end of that war brought an end to Japan’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula, and the Sangdong mine returned to Korean control. It would go on to have a profound effect on South Korea’s economy, at one point accounting for 30% of the nation’s GDP.
Heavy machinery operates underground in the Sangdong tungsten mine in South Korea, in November 2025.
CBS News
South Korean presidents visited the mine at least six times — it was a source of national pride. But in the 1990s, it fell victim to China’s price dumping policies and was mothballed.
For the ensuing three decades, the U.S., along with many other Western nations, benefited from the cheap, government subsidized materials being produced by China.
But that benefit became a reliance, and it left Washington exposed and vulnerable amid a tense trade war with China that’s seen Beijing impose export restrictions on some rare earths and other critical materials.
In response, there’s been a rush to establish alternative supply chains.
China controls at least 80% of the world’s current tungsten supplies, according to Almonty, with Russia and North Korea both holding a smaller but significant share of the assets.
Almonty Industries is in the process of relocating its headquarters to New York. It’s a clear indication that the U.S. government has become a very important part of Black’s business — his biggest customer, in fact.
Almonty took ownership of the Sandong mine in 2015.
Catching up with China is “going to be disruptive”
Almonty also has tungsten mines in Spain and Portugal, and it recently purchased one in Montana, specifically in the interest, Black said, of U.S. national security.
“With the U.S. government, that’s one of the reasons why we’ve taken a mine in the U.S. — bringing our technology to the country so that we can start to generate more human capital for the long term,” he said. “To me it feels good for the legacy of the company to fill a gap that has been left hugely exposed.”
Black said the mine in Montana won’t be operational for years, however, as Almonty still needs to secure permits and train personnel. It’s all analogous, he notes, to the overarching problem the U.S. and its Western partners have as they seek to untangle themselves from supply chain reliance on China; it’s going to take a long time.
“China dominates so many different sectors, whether it be rare earths, lithium, graphite, tin, lead, aluminum,” Black said, adding that over the last eight decades many such industries simply “fell out of favor in the West, and we abandoned raw materials.”
There are more recently discovered sources of some key materials, particularly in Africa, and the U.S. has sought to build business ties there — but Black says China has “covered most bases,” already securing investment in many African nations through its “Belt and Road” initiative.
He believes it will take at least a decade for the U.S. to completely diversify its supply chains, not least because of the need to train a workforce.
“We don’t have the people to run these mines,” Black told CBS News. “The U.S. and the West have some catching up to do.”
In the interim, he expects American industry to face some disruption.
“I bought this 10 years ago,” he said of the Sangdong facility. “Mines in democracies are a journey, and not for the faint hearted.”
Black expects “it’s going to be a really tough, miserable journey” as industries such as the American automotive sector work to wean themselves off cheap Chinese raw materials.
“You want to onshore all this production but you have no way of producing the components to supply this production. This has got to be done … It’s going to be disruptive, there are going to be times when some sectors are going to run out of components — that’s inevitable. In this particular instance, everyone is going to just suck it up and just power forward, because it’s the only way it can be done.”
A few months ago the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency put out a Request for Information (RFI) for tungsten — effectively an SOS call for the critical mineral, which surprised some in the industry as it effectively exposed the U.S. shortage.
“I think the U.S. government is saying, ‘all right, whatever we can find, we’d better stash it while we build this supply chain,’” said Black.
He expects the Sangdong to be operational by the first quarter of 2026, and once it is, it should be running 16 hours a day, with the associated processing plant operational 24 hours per day, producing an estimated 1.2 million tons of tungsten ore per year.
The U.S. is conducting airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria in retaliation for the attack that killed two American soldiers and a U.S. interpreter on Saturday, multiple sources told CBS News.
One of the officials said the U.S. began striking dozens of targets at multiple locations across central Syria using fighter aircraft, attack helicopters and artillery. More than 70 targets were struck, a U.S. official said.
F-15 fighter jets, A-10 Thunderbolts — known as “Warthogs” — and Apache attack helicopters were used to target ISIS positions in Syria Friday, U.S. officials told CBS News. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan were also involved in the operation.
U.S. Central Command described the operation as a “massive strike” and indicated that it was retaliatory in a post on X. In a follow-up post, U.S. Central Command said it used “more than 100 precision munitions targeting known ISIS infrastructure and weapons sites.”
A U.S. fighter jet prepares for a large-scale strike on ISIS targets in Syria. Dec. 19, 2025.
U.S. Central Command
President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth attended the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base earlier this week for the two soldiers killed, Sgt. William Howard and Sgt. Edgar Torres Tovar, both of the Iowa National Guard, and the interpreter, Ayad Mansoor Sakat.
The three individuals were killed when, according to the Pentagon, a lone ISIS gunman ambushed them while they were supporting a key leader in Palmyra, Syria. Three other members of the Iowa National Guard were wounded in the attack.
Mr. Trump vowed “very serious retaliation” in a TruthSocial post after the attack, and Hegseth also vowed to “avenge these fallen Americans with overwhelming force.”
Hegseth announced in a post on X Friday that U.S. forces have begun “Operation Hawkeye Strike” in Syria “to eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites in direct response to the attack on U.S. forces.”
“Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies,” Hegseth continued. “Lots of them. And we will continue.”
After the operation began, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement, “President Trump told the world that the United States would retaliate for the killing of our heroes by ISIS in Syria, and he is delivering on that promise.”
U.S. Central Command said Friday that since the attack on the American soldiers last weekend, it has conducted 10 operations in Syria and Iraq that have resulted in the death or detention of “23 terrorist operatives.”
President Trump on Wednesday announced that U.S. service members will receive a $1,776 bonus, which he called a “warrior dividend,” before Christmas.
Mr. Trump, who announced the plan in a White House address billed as focusing on affordability, said the amount was inspired by the year of the nation’s founding.
The money is “to both thank them for their military service and to commemorate the 250 years the U.S. military has been defending the nation,” the White House said in a statement Thursday.
Here’s what to know about the dividend.
Is it a recurring bonus?
The “warrior dividend” is a one-time pay bump for the nation’s 1.45 million military service members, according to the White House.
“1776; as you know, our great nation was founded in the crucible of revolution in that year,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a social media video posted Thursday.
“As he announced to the nation last night, thanks to President Trump’s unwavering commitment to our warriors and the provisions provided in the One Big, Beautiful Bill, more than 1.45 million service members will, in the coming days, receive a one-time tax-free bonus of $1,776,” Hegseth said.
The checks will be tax-free because they are being paid as a one-time basic allowance for housing supplement, The Hill reported. The IRS says that such housing payments are considered a military benefit and are excluded from taxable income.
Who gets a $1,776 check?
Active duty service members who fell under the pay grades of O-6 or below as of Nov. 30 are eligible for the checks. Reserve component service members on active duty orders of 31 days as of that same date also qualify for the payments, according to the White House.
In the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force, that includes people with the officer rank of colonel or below. For the Navy and Coast Guard, it includes those with the rank of captain or below.
Active duty officers with an O-6 pay grade and two years of experience or less earn $8,340.90 a month, according to 2025 military pay charts. O-1 officers with the same amount of experience earn $3,998.40 monthly.
When will the warrior dividend be paid?
Military members are expected to receive their bonuses “in the coming days,” according to the White House.
“The checks are already on the way,” Mr. Trump said from the White House on Wednesday. “Nobody deserves it more than our military, and I say, ‘congratulations’ to everybody.”
In its statement on Thursday, the White House said service members can expect to receive the payments before Dec. 20.
How is the dividend funded?
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump suggested the “warrior dividend” payments are being funded both by his administration’s tariffs and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which he signed into law this summer.
The payments, which are expected to total $2.6 billion, will come from a $2.9 billion appropriation to the military in the new tax and spending law, a senior administration official told CBS News.
The White House didn’t immediately return a request for comment about whether tariff revenue will also be directed to the fund the “warrior dividend” payments.
The Pentagon says it’s investigating Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona to see if he should be punished for alleged misconduct. Kelly is part of a group of Democratic lawmakers who released a video calling on members of the military to “refuse illegal orders.” The senator said, “if this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work.”
The Pentagon is now investigating Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona after he participated in a video with other Democratic lawmakers urging military and intelligence personnel to defy “illegal orders.” CBS News congressional correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns has the latest.
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release on Friday that the jury found Michael Robin Wicker of Clay County guilty of one count each of wire fraud, mail fraud, using a false military discharge certificate and fraudulent use of military medals.
Court records show that Wicker, from 2015 through 2020, Wicker fraudulently obtained benefits from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs by claiming he was a decorated veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He also claimed he had suffered from combat-related injuries, had been a prisoner of war during deployment in Iraq in 2005 and was given the Purple Heart medal.
Wicker supported the fraud scheme using forged documents, including a counterfeit military discharge certificate and fake medal certificates, according to court documents.
The Department of Veterans Affairs provided him more than $140,000 in healthcare, disability and education benefits as a result of the scheme, federal prosecutors said.
During a one-week trial, veterans from the group Wicker claimed to have been a part of said he never served with them.
“Agents testified that federal searches across Marine Corps, and Department of Defense databases confirmed there was no record of Wicker ever serving in the military,” federal officials said in the news release.
A sentencing date for Wicker has not yet been set.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that drones and flying IEDs are the “threat of humanity’s lifetime” as the calls for regulation on drones grow. “I’m pretty optimistic that we will be able to figure out a solution where we will know what is in the sky at every moment across our country, all at once,” he added.
President Trump says he has “sort of made up my mind” on whether to take military action in Venezuela. The comments come as America’s largest aircraft carrier, the Ford, and other U.S. forces move within striking distance of the country. Charlie D’Agata has new details.
Venezuela announced Tuesday that it was launching a massive military exercise across the country, reportedly involving some 200,000 forces, in response to the increasing presence of U.S. military assets in the region. The announcement by Venezuela’s military came as the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford had entered the Southern Command’s area of responsibility — which includes the Caribbean.
The Venezuelan Ministry of Defense said the exercise launched Tuesday involved the deployment of land, air and sea assets.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said on Venezuelan state TV that 200,000 troops were involved in the exercise, according to the French news agency, AFP.
Members of the Venezuelan Armed Forces participate in the “Plan Independencia 200” defense deployment, ordered by Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, amid rising tensions with the U.S., in Merida, Venezuela, in a handout picture made available on Nov. 11, 2025.
Merida Governorate/Handout/REUTERS
“They are murdering defenseless people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, executing them without due process,” Padrino was quoted as saying, referring to U.S. military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that began in September.
The USS Ford is the largest aircraft carrier in the world, and the U.S. Navy’s most advanced. It left the U.S. military’s Mediterranean Command region Tuesday and entered the Southern Command region, which includes the waters around Latin America.
The USS Gerald R. Ford in Newport News, Virginia, on April 8, 2017.
Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ridge Leoni/U.S. Navy/Getty
Aircraft on board the Ford include four squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets, an electronic F-18 variant squadron, Airborne Warning and Control Systems, two Helicopter Sea Combat Squadrons and a logistics support squadron.
The U.S. has also deployed F-35 stealth warplanes to Puerto Rico, as well as six other U.S. Navy ships in the Caribbean.
Many people both inside Venezuela, including President Nicolas Maduro himself, and observers outside the country believe the increased U.S. military pressure on Caracas is aimed at forcing Maduro out of office.
President Trump has not stated that as his intention, though he’s said he believes Maduro’s days in office are numbered. Mr. Trump has repeatedly accused Maduro of being complicit with armed criminal gangs that smuggle drugs into the U.S. — accusations the Venezuelan leader has rejected.
A former top diplomat to Venezuela, Ambassador James Story, who served in President Trump’s first term and under President Joe Biden, told 60 Minutes last month that the U.S. could oust Maduro by force.
David Smolansky, one of Venezuela’s opposition leaders in exile, told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan he also “strongly” believes Maduro’s days are numbered.
“I think it’s important, the pressure that has been implemented from the U.S.,” he said, adding that he and fellow opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Maria Corina Machado are in “constant and fluent communication with the [Trump] administration.”
“We are convinced that the transition could happen soon,” he said.
If there is a U.S. military attack on Venezuela, Defense Minister Padrino said Tuesday in his televised remarks that foreign troops would find a “community united to defend this nation, to the death.”
Some of Venezuela’s neighbors have also raised serious concerns over the U.S. attacks on small boats.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday ordered his country to stop sharing intelligence with the U.S. He said the directive would “remain in force as long as the missile attacks on boats in the Caribbean continue.”
“The fight against drugs must be subordinated to the human rights of the Caribbean people,” said Petro, who told CBS News in an exclusive interview in October that the strikes against boats were illegal and ineffective.
CBS News deputy foreign editor Jose Diaz Jr. contributed to this report.
The Pentagon said the U.S. is deploying the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to the Caribbean, along with its strike group. The move comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted Friday that the U.S. military carried out its tenth strike at sea on alleged drug vessels. Ret. Army Maj. Mike Lyons, a military analyst, joins CBS News to discuss.
President Trump posted a video of a U.S. military strike on a submersible suspected of smuggling drugs on Saturday. Two people were killed in the Thursday strike but the two survivors were brought to a Navy ship. Mr. Trump says the U.S. will send the them back to their home countries for detention and prosecution. Willie James Inman has more.
President Trump announced the Pentagon is ordering 28 new B-2 Spirit stealth bombers — the military jet that has for decades been the tip of the spear of America’s air defense and global operations, most recently against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Ian Lee got rare access to the air base which operates the bomber fleet.
Key moments from Trump and Hegseth’s unprecedented meeting with senior military leaders – CBS News
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President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed a rare gathering of senior military leaders in Virginia on Tuesday. CBS News Pentagon reporter Eleanor Watson has the details.
A World War II sailor who died the day the war officially ended has been accounted for, military officials said Monday.
U.S. Navy Reserve Ensign Eugene E. Mandeberg, 23, was a member of Fighting Squadron 88 aboard the USS Yorktown during the summer of 1945, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. He enlisted in 1941 and first went overseas in February 1944, according to a news clipping shared by the DPAA.
His formation engaged with enemy fighter planes over Tokyo while returning from a mission in Japan on Aug. 15, on V-J (or Victory over Japan) Day, the DPAA said. Four of the six aircraft in the formation did not return to the USS Yorktown. A news clipping shared by the DPAA said that the formation was met by 20 Japanese planes.
U.S. Navy Reserve Ensign Eugene E. Mandeberg.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Mandeberg was listed as missing in action after he failed to return. His family held out hope that he might have survived and could have been on a Pacific Island, according to a news clipping shared by the DPAA.
On March 20, 1946, U.S. personnel retrieved the remains of an unknown American servicemember from a temple in Yokohama, Japan, the DPAA said. The remains, known as X-341 Yokohama #1, were believed to belong to an American pilot who had crashed there on Aug. 15, 1945. The wreckage of the plane was linked to the USS Yorktown, but the remains could not be positively identified. The remains were interred at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial as a “World War II Unknown.”
In 2019, the DPAA exhumed those remains, and scientists used dental and anthropological studies, as well as multiple forms of DNA analysis, to identify them as Mandeberg’s.
Mandeberg’s surviving family members were briefed on his identification and recovery in March 2025. He was buried in Livonia, Michigan, on Sept. 14.
Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.
Deep in the pine forests of South Carolina, the trees stretch endlessly across the horizon. To the untrained eye, it’s just another patch of wilderness. But beneath the sandy soil of Camden lies something sacred: the long-forgotten remains of Revolutionary War soldiers.
“I was completely blown away every time we found one,” said archaeologist Jim Legg. “It’s kind of stunning.”
The remains weren’t discovered by police detectives, but by South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology archeologists, Steve Smith and Legg, who had spent decades combing Camden’s historic battlefields for artifacts. What they found was more than history — it was humanity.
The Battle of Camden
On Aug. 16, 1780, Camden’s grounds witnessed one of the most brutal clashes of the American Revolution. The Continental Army, led by General Horatio Gates, faced off against British forces under General Lord Cornwallis. The result was devastating: nearly 2,000 American troops were killed, wounded, or captured.
“It was really brutal,” Legg explained. “All parties fought stubbornly and exchanged musket fire at close range. It was a disaster for the Americans.”
The Battle of Camden is mentioned in history books and even films like “The Patriot,” but the precise location of much of the fighting remained unclear until Legg and Smith began their archaeological survey in the 1990s. Years later, a simple uniform button led to an extraordinary discovery: a shallow grave containing five sets of human remains. Soon after, nine more were found nearby.
The evidence suggested these were hastily dug battlefield burials. Among them were Continental soldiers, a Scottish Highlander from the British side, and even a Native American fighter. Yet their identities were lost to time.
A Revolutionary War cold case
Today, Camden and its historic foundation are working to bring these forgotten soldiers back into the light. To do so, they’ve turned to an unexpected source: forensic genealogy.
“This is the ultimate cold case,” said President of FHD Forensics, Allison Peacock. “It belongs to the whole country.”
Peacock, who specializes in identifying unknown remains by combining DNA analysis with family tree research, was asked if it could be done on bones more than 240 years old. Her answer? Maybe.
So far, her team has built genetic profiles for two sets of remains, nicknamed 11A and 9B. Astonishingly, each profile shows more than 25,000 living genetic matches, far more than a typical unidentified remains case.
“In a typical John Doe case, I might get 3 or 4,000, 5,000 at the most,” Peacock said.
One soldier, 9B, has already revealed key details.
“He was a teenager,” said FHD Forensics Senior Investigative Genetic Genealogist Valerie Kemp. “We know for sure his family came from the Anne Arundel area.”
The team has narrowed the search to a handful of family names including Warfield, Griffith, and others, and is now asking possible descendants to submit their own DNA through the Revolutionary War Forensic Institute.
“My dream would be that a Warfield or a Griffith reaches out,” Peacock said. “We’ll send them a cheek swab and pay for it.”
Honoring the forgotten
In 2023, the city of Camden gathered to formally bury twelve of the discovered Continental soldiers with full military honors. For many, it was a moving reminder that America’s earliest soldiers should not be forgotten.
“These are the first Americans,” said Smith. “The first American soldiers.”
Yet their names remain unknown, and for Peacock, that work is far from finished.
“When you see someone getting the respect they deserve, that maybe they had been forgotten about, it matters,” she said. “These men were just left to the elements. Nobody knew their names. But we want to change that.”
The battle to restore their identities has just begun.
