Succession Shift: Venezuela Regroups With New President and Old Repression Tactics (Bloomberg)

Venezuela’s government is reimposing itself after the capture of Nicolás Maduro, swearing in Delcy Rodríguez as acting president and flashing warning signs that a new wave of repression has begun.
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As the government continued to churn inside the presidential palace Miraflores, Venezuela’s military counterintelligence officials have been patrolling the streets of Caracas, according to at least two witnesses. Heavily armed security forces and pro-government motorcycle gangs known as colectivos were seen roaming the capital, at times stopping drivers and checking their phones.

What’s happening on the ground in Caracas doesn’t quite match the calls for peace Rodríguez made during her swearing-in ceremony on Monday.

At least for now, Rodríguez has the backing of both the Chavismo strongholds in her government and US President Trump, who has said she would work with Washington to “make Venezuela great again.” She also struck a conciliatory tone on Sunday, asking the US to work with her country on a cooperation agenda.

US vs. Maduro: Nicolás Maduro Pleads Not Guilty in Narco-Terrorism Case in US Court (Bloomberg)

Ousted Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty on Monday to US charges in a narco-terrorism case against him, kicking off an extraordinary legal battle with major geopolitical ramifications.

The indictment alleges Maduro remained in power despite losing the 2024 election, making him the “de facto but illegitimate ruler of the country.” Maduro “sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking,” the US alleges.

Maduro entered not guilty pleas to the four charges he faces - narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns, and conspiracy to possess machine guns. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, 92, is presiding over the case and may oversee an eventual trial before a jury of New York citizens. Lawyers for Maduro and his wife said they may seek bail at a later date.

This Week in Miami: Trump’s Energy Boss to Meet with Oil Companies on Venezuela (Bloomberg)

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright plans to talk this week with oil-industry executives about reviving Venezuela’s energy sector.

Wright will attend the Goldman Sachs Energy, Clean Tech & Utilities Conference in Miami this week which executives from Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips and other companies are scheduled to attend. Chevron is the only oil supermajor still operating in the South American nation.

President Trump has vowed to resuscitate Venezuela’s oil sector after years of underinvestment and neglect tanked production in a country that sits atop the world’s largest trove of crude. Trump has estimated the rebirth will take billions of dollars, but it’s unclear how keen foreign companies will be to take on such a task and its inherent risks.

NYC's Transit Success

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27 Million Fewer Car Trips: Life After a Year of Congestion Pricing in New York City (New York Times)

One year after the start of congestion pricing, traffic jams are less severe, streets are safer, and commute times are improving for travelers from well beyond Manhattan, according to the New York Times.

Though these changes aren’t noticeable to many, and others feel the tolls are a financial burden, the fees have generated hundreds of millions of dollars for public transportation projects. 

Paid transit ridership is up this year compared with 2024 across the subway, M.T.A. buses, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad as transit has continued its recovery from pandemic declines. About 300,000 more people are riding the subway each day — far more than the 70,000 cars that have been taken off the road in the congestion zone. So while congestion pricing is probably contributing to rising transit ridership, it’s not the main driver of it.

Commuters from farther out are seeing accumulating benefits from all these sources: faster speeds outside the congestion zone, much faster speeds through the tunnels and bridges, and then the improvements inside Manhattan.
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The program, which on Jan. 5, 2025, began charging most drivers $9 during peak travel times to enter Manhattan below 60th Street, has quickly left its mark.

Mike Bloomberg called the program's success "a big win for New Yorkers" in a post on LinkedIn, writing that "transit ridership and visits to the business district are up" due to congestion pricing. 

A Pivotal Year for Climate

Climate of Hope: Banks Earn More on Green Bonds Than Fossil Fuels for Fourth Year in a Row (Bloomberg)

Wall Street’s biggest banks made more money financing green projects than they did from working with fossil fuel companies for a fourth straight year, even as they faced ongoing pressure to pull back from the business.

Lenders generated roughly $3.7 billion of revenue from climate-related loans and bond underwriting in 2025, compared with about $2.9 billion from oil, gas and coal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Surging demand for capital tied to the energy transition, including renewables and batteries, resulted in “strong green issuance,” said Grace Osborne, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Banks are no longer backing sustainability for reputational reasons. It’s increasingly where deal flow, fees and growth are.”

Placing Bets: Climate Tech Investors Are Rewriting Their Playbooks for 2026 (Bloomberg)

Climate Crossroads: 14 Global Forces Shaping 2026, From Power Surges to Political Rollbacks (Bloomberg Green)
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The world is now moving into the latter half of a critical decade to fight climate change. Scientists have warned that nations need to cut carbon emissions nearly 50% by 2030 to stave off a 1.5C temperature rise.
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The world is woefully off track to meet those targets and risks further backsliding, even as there are some surprising sources of progress.
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In the US, those tensions are on full display. The future of the energy transition is being shaped by President Trump’s climate policy rollbacks that favor fossil fuels — but also the life support for renewables and batteries paradoxically coming from data center power demand.
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China’s role as the world’s biggest emitter and hub for green tech are also affecting efforts to curb carbon pollution. This year, the country will set a new plan laying out how climate fits with its economic ambitions, while its booming clean tech sector is expected to help more developing countries adopt renewable energy and electric vehicles.

From whether global climate talks can regain momentum at COP31 to a widening split in the electric-vehicle market, and from the surge in power demand driven by artificial intelligence to the mounting pressure on US climate policy and institutions, these are some of the climate and energy fault lines Bloomberg Green will be watching as the world enters the back half of a decisive decade. Read the full list of trends here. 

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5 Years After US Insurrection

Never Forget: For Many Jan. 6 Rioters, a Pardon From Trump Wasn’t Enough (New York Times)
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In the first hours of his second administration, President Trump sought to wipe away all trace of the attack on the Capitol by granting amnesty to nearly 1,600 people implicated in the riot stoked by his lies about a stolen election, the Times reports. 

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The pardon proclamation saved them, opening prison doors and ending all of the criminal prosecutions related to the Capitol attack. Even more, it gave a presidential stamp of approval to their inverted vision of Jan. 6, 2021: that those who assaulted the police and vandalized the historic building that day were victims, and those who spent the next four years using the criminal justice system to hold them accountable were villains, the Times reports.
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But nearly a year after Trump’s sweeping proclamation asserted that he had cleared the way for “a process of national reconciliation,” many recipients of his clemency remain consumed by conspiracy theories, angry at the Trump administration for not validating their insistence that the Capitol attack was a deep-state setup and haunted by problems from both before and after the riot.

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What I'm Reading

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Greenland Enters the Chat: Trump Aide Stephen Miller Asserts US Has Right to Take Greenland (New York Times)

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, asserted in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN Monday that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States and that the Trump administration could seize the semiautonomous Danish territory if it wanted.

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“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Watch the interview here. 

Red Lines: Denmark Says US Attack on Greenland Would Mean End of NATO (Bloomberg)

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that if Donald Trump were to attack the Danish island of Greenland, that would mean the end of the NATO alliance.

Frederiksen has responded forcefully to Trump’s renewed campaign, urging him to stop his threats. Across Europe, officials have pledged their support for Greenland, which is part of the Danish kingdom and therefore also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Today in Paris: Ukraine’s Allies Aim to Secure US Offer to Deploy Troops Postwar (Bloomberg)
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European leaders and US officials aim to finalize an agreement on security guarantees that include the possibility of American boots on the ground in postwar Ukraine in a bid to ensure that any peace deal endures.
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Today's talks in Paris will focus on how to integrate capabilities recently proposed by Washington with plans drawn up by the so-called coalition of the willing that’s made up of Ukraine’s allies, according to people familiar with the matter.
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French President Emmanuel Macron will host the meeting, which comes after a series of discussions between national security advisers over the last month. The US will be represented by President Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the people added.
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, other European leaders, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and top NATO military official Alexus Grynkewich, who also leads US forces in Europe, will also be in attendance.

Manufacturing Slump: US Factory Malaise Continues as Gauge Drops to One-Year Low (Bloomberg)

US manufacturing activity shrank in December by the most since 2024, capping a rough year for American factories.

The decline in the measure reflected producers drawing down their raw materials inventories at the fastest rate since October 2024. That indicates many firms are relying on existing stockpiles to satisfy tepid demand.

Minnesota Fallout: Governor Walz Won’t Seek Reelection After Scandal (Bloomberg)

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he won’t seek reelection after a scandal involving alleged fraud in state programs, with many of the defendants Somali immigrants.

Walz, 61, who ran on the Democratic ticket with former Vice President Kamala Harris, was twice elected governor of the state. He’s increasingly become a target of the Trump administration, which has highlighted the fraud scandal and withheld federal childcare payments to Minnesota.

Public Health Overhaul: US Changes Child Vaccine Schedule to Call for Fewer Shots (Bloomberg)

The US Department of Health and Human Services is changing its childhood vaccine recommendations, no longer broadly endorsing influenza, Covid-19, and other once-routine immunizations, in what Politico Playbook describes as Health Secretary RFK Jr.’s most sweeping anti-vaccine move yet.

The change follows a year of RFK Jr.’s overhaul of American vaccine policy that’s resulted in dismantling trust in vaccines and increased confusion over access, coverage and effectiveness in the long-standing shots.

Outbreak Spike: Flu Infections Hit Highest Level in US Since Covid Pandemic (Bloomberg)

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🎧 Now Streaming! Tune in to the newest Daily Read Podcast—your AI-powered deep dive into today’s top stories. Go beyond the newsletter with added context, insights, and analysis you won’t want to miss. Listen today on Spotify or  Apple Podcasts. 

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Wearable Wave: Smart Rings Poised to Go Mainstream After a Blockbuster 2025 (Bloomberg)
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Smart rings, popularized by the Finnish brand Oura Health Oy, are on track for a 49% jump in shipments in 2025, according to IDC data shared with Bloomberg, far outpacing an estimated 6% gain by smartwatches. And the segment is about to get more crowded in the new year.

Once considered niche, smart rings have lately been catching on with consumers, offering many of the same sleep and wellness insights as smartwatches but with a more discreet design.

A mix of startups and established tech giants are expected to debut new models this year, with several scheduled to show off their latest offerings at the CES consumer technology conference in Las Vegas this week.

Box Office High: Disney Says ‘Zootopia 2’ Is China’s Top Hollywood Film Ever (Bloomberg)
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Walt Disney Co. said Zootopia 2 has overtaken 2019’s Avengers: Endgame to become the biggest Hollywood film ever released in China when measured in local currency.
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The animated sequel has grossed about 4.25 billion yuan, the company said in a statement Monday. That translates into $610 million. It was released in theaters on Nov. 26 in China, the world’s second-largest movie market.

Winter Planner: 24 Things to Do in NYC in January, Spanning Mixed-Reality Theater at The Shed to History Lectures on Mondays (New York Times)

Welcome to a new year. It promises pop-up art shows, fresh jazz, free exhibitions, restored films and comedy with latkes.

The Oscar nominee Ian McKellen, mixed-reality glasses and a 47-minute show — “An Ark” is a “radically intimate reimagining of live theater” from the Tony Award-winning playwright Simon Stephens. The show begins its seven-week run at the Shed at Hudson Yards on Jan. 9.

Among the headliners set to tear up this year’s Winter Jazzfest (Jan. 8-13) is the drummer Marcus Gilmore, whose “Journey to the New” was named one of the best jazz albums of 2025. A Jazzfest pass lets you indulge in show after show at clubs in Manhattan (Jan. 9) and Brooklyn (Jan. 10).

View the full list of hot spots here. 

Best of Late Night

On the US military action in Venezuela:

“Oh, so this country and Venezuela? Evidently, when he says ‘America first,’ he means alphabetically.”
-- Stephen Colbert

“Is running the United States not enough? I mean, if you’re looking for a challenge, try a sit-up.” 
-- Jimmy Kimmel

“For 10 years, he’s been promising this plan for health care. Now he’s running another country that I guarantee you he could not find on a map.”
-- Jimmy Kimmel
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And from The Daily Show: Jon Stewart dives into the Trump administration’s abduction of Venezuelan President Maduro, Trump's collusion with oil companies to exploit Venezuela’s resources, and the emergence of the “Donroe Doctrine" as Trump threatens more international takeovers. Click the photo below to watch. 
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