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Episode Date: January 5, 2026

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Live from NPR News in Washington, on Korova Coleman, the deposed leader of Venezuela has been moved to the federal courthouse in New York City. And Pierre's Kerry Johnson reports, Nicholas Maduro will make his first U.S. court appearance later today. Maduro faces four charges, including narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States. The grand jury in New York also charged his wife, the former Attorney General of Venezuela. Maduro's expected to challenge the extraordinary way he was. captured inside his own nation's capital. But the Trump administration appears to be relying on Supreme Court precedent suggesting the capture itself may not matter. Former GOP Attorney General Bill Barr likens the Maduro arrest to how the U.S. government handled Panama's leader Manuel Noriega

more than 35 years ago. An American jury eventually convicted Noriega after a long legal battle. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington. Some oil industry analysts are weighing in about President Trump's decision to arrest Maduro and his wife, Trump has made it clear that part of the U.S. operation is about control of Venezuela's oil. And P.R.'s Julius Simon has more on Venezuelan oil deposits. Venezuela has massive oil resources. And U.S. oil companies first started drilling there a century ago. But around 2007, then President Hugo Chavez forcibly renegotiated oil contracts.

ExxonMobil and Conoco Phillips left and took Venezuela to core. The courts ordered Venezuela pay the companies over $11 billion combined. Oil experts tell NPR that for some oil companies, coming back, could be a way to recoup money owed. Next door to Venezuela is Guyana, a key emerging oil player with a big ExxonMobil presence. For years, Guyana and Venezuela have had territorial disputes, also related to oil. Oil experts tell NPR with President Maduro gone, U.S. oil investments in Guyana are more secure. Julia Simon, NPR News. Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol building by pro-Trump supporters.

Some of the rioters were peaceful, others were violent. The Trump administration has worked to erase all government records of the January 6th insurrection. NPR's Tom Dreisbach says NPR is preserving that evidence. We've tracked every single January 6 case from the very beginning in a public and searchable database. It's more than 1,500 cases in total. And now that the administration has deleted the government's database, this really is the most comprehensive resource on those cases out there. Since the beginning, we've been focused on the facts. Evidence presented and evaluated in court, not just political rhetoric.

And January 6th is probably the most videotaped crime in history. So we systematically reviewed thousands of videos. We added hundreds to the database so people can look at them. And we created a visual timeline of that day's events. NPR's Tom Dreisbach reporting. You're listening to NPR. Police in Switzerland say they've identified all the injured victims from last week's deadly barfire that killed 40 people. Swiss police say 83 of the injured are still in the hospital.

Switzerland plans to hold a day of morning on Friday for all of the barfire victims. Modern Christmas may be long over, but a holiday known as Epiphany or Old Christmas is fast approaching. From member station WETS, Chad Barrett reports. on how early settlers in the U.S. celebrated Christmastime. Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park in Elizabethan, Tennessee, has celebrated the holiday known as Old Christmas for almost 20 years. It was a big tradition to fire muskets off at Christmastime, kind of the equivalent of fireworks today. That's Chad Bogart, Museum Curatorial Assistant at the Park. In the 18th century, Christmas was celebrated as a 12-day holiday from December 25th until January 5th.

The next day, January 6th, was Epiphany, traditional day that the Magi visited the Christ Child. Bogart says the phrase Old Christmas came about because of a calendar change in the 1500s from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, where 12 days were removed to get everything back in sync. For NPR News, I'm Chad Barrett in Elizabethan, Tennessee. The smash South Korean boy band, BTS, has announced its comeback. The K-pop group says it will return March 20th after a nearly four-year break. All seven members of the band paused. musical careers to fulfill South Korea's requirement that all able males serve for a period of time in the country's military.

BTS is also going to release a new album, their fifth. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News, in Washington.