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The Trump administration’s latest offensive move against Venezuela, the seizure of a tanker carrying U.S.-sanctioned oil, has triggered predictable outrage from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government.  But behind the rhetorical fire, analysts say the regime has few practical ways to hit back without doing even more damage to itself. Experts say that Maduro could target U.S. oil interests in Venezuela, but doing so would almost certainly inflict more pain on his own cash-starved regime than on the United States. Maduro could also halt U.S.-chartered deportation flights , but again, would be harming his own interests, experts say.  MADURO’S FORCES FACE RENEWED SCRUTINY AS US TENSIONS RISE: ‘A FORTRESS BUILT ON SAND’  "Venezuelans are just leaving the country because of the terrible conditions the regime has created," said Connor Pfeiffer, a Western Hemisphere analyst at FDD Action. "By having people come back, even if they're on U.S. charter deportation...

Bloomberg : How Oracle's massive Stargate deal with OpenAI has pushed Oracle to the center of the AI boom, turning its market cap into a barometer on AI sentiment   —  Silicon Valley is in the midst of another epic boom, and Larry Ellison has Oracle right at the center of it, for better or worse.

Taylor Telford / Washington Post : Blowback over posts about the death of Charlie Kirk has prompted companies to be more aggressive about monitoring employees' social media activity   —  Fervor over employee posts about Charlie Kirk's death is leading companies to adjust policies and step up monitoring of workers' online conduct.

EXCLUSIVE: United States Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz recently returned from a Middle East swing, touting the "amazing progress" in the implementation of President Donald Trump’s Israel–Gaza peace deal, and telling Fox News Digital that the situation abroad is "night and day to where we were a year ago." Fox News Digital spoke exclusively with Waltz Thursday evening, just hours after he returned to the United States from the Middle East. MIKE WALTZ SEES TRUMP'S GAZA PLAN AS 'ONCE-IN-A-GENERATION OPPORTUNITY FOR PEACE' Waltz traveled from the Lebanese border to the Syrian border, the Egyptian border, Jordan to Israel and beyond. "The purpose of the trip was to get on the ground and see the implementation," Waltz said. "We met with the Jordanians, the king, the prime minister and president of Israel — we met with our troops."  Waltz explained that there is a "small contingent" of approximately 100 U.S...

Axios : Policymakers behind key state AI bills scoff at Trump's EO; some GOP governors are pushing ahead with their own AI bills; Steve Bannon says Sacks misled Trump   —  States are forging ahead with AI laws despite President Trump's new executive order aimed at reining them in.

Maxwell Zeff / Wired : OpenAI launches GPT-5.2, its “best model yet,” in Instant, Thinking, and Pro variants, with significant improvements in writing, coding, and reasoning   —  The ChatGPT-maker is releasing its “best model yet” as it faces new pressures from Google and other AI competitors.

Senate Republicans rammed through the first procedural hurdle on their road to confirming nearly 100 of President Donald Trump's nominees on Wednesday. The move tees up a later vote on 97 of Trump’s picks and marks the third time Senate Republicans advanced a bloc of the president’s nominees since changing the confirmation rules in September. The final vote to confirm the latest tranche of picks is expected next week. Once Republicans clear this latest package, they will have confirmed over 400 of Trump’s picks during the first year of his second term. DEM ATTEMPT TO THWART TRUMP NOMS BACKFIRES, REPUBLICANS TEE UP NEARLY 100 FOR CONFIRMATION That benchmark would place him well ahead of former President Joe Biden , who at the same point in his presidency had 350 of his nominees confirmed. Among the list of nominees are former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., to serve as inspector general at the Department of Labor, and two picks for the National Labor Relations Board, James M...