On Jan. 3, 2026, the United States launched a devastating military strike against Venezuela, destroying key military infrastructure and capturing the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, along with his wife Cilia Flores. Maduro was brought to the United States, where he was arraigned on federal charges of narco-terrorism and mass scale corruption, charges first levied in 2020. With nearly two months having elapsed and the current state of Venezuela having largely fallen out of the news cycle, it’s worth looking back at the Venezuela story and seeing how things have progressed.

Maduro’s court case

The first few days after Maduro’s capture were a flurry of court activity, with his official arraignment taking place on January 5^th, less than three days after his capture. The Department of Justice alleges that Maduro has engaged in a cocaine-trafficking conspiracy, including working with several cartels that the Trump administration designated as foreign terrorist organizations. The charges also include weapons-related charges around Maduro’s alleged use of illicitly obtained weaponry. The indictment also charged four other members of the Venezuelan government, none of whom were apprehended during the strike on Jan. 3.

Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty on all counts, with Maduro claiming that he is “a decent man” who is still the Venezuelan president (a position that the Venezuelan government has not yet revoked) and that he is a “prisoner of war.” Lawyers for the couple acknowledged that Maduro and Flores were in good spirits given the circumstances and that there was a long way to go in the case.

However, now that legal proceedings are underway, progress on the case has slowed. After their initial arraignment, their next hearing is set for March 17^th, and neither Maduro nor his wife has tried to set bail. The most noteworthy development in recent weeks is that Argentina has requested Maduro’s extradition, with Argentinian authorities hoping to try Maduro on charges of crimes against humanity and human rights violations. While Argentina and the US have an extradition treaty, it’s unlikely that an extradition will happen, especially with Maduro already awaiting a trial in the United States.

Venezuela’s political developments

With Maduro de facto removed from power, leadership in Venezuela has passed to his second-in-command Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in as acting president on Jan. 5. The Venezuelan government remains under the control of Maduro’s United Socialist Party, and notable opposition leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Marina Corina Machado, remain either in exile or out of power despite attempts to curry favor with the Trump administration.

On the American side, the operation to remove Maduro was spearheaded by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio has long desired the removal of several left-wing authoritarian regimes from Latin America, including that of Maduro. Since Maduro’s removal, Rubio has overseen building American relations with Rodríguez and steering the Venezuelan government towards friendlier relations with America and American business interests. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has likewise played a key role in developing a plan around Venezuela’s oil industry, attempting to coordinate new investment from major firms such as Chevron and ExxonMobil.

Maduro’s removal has not changed much about the leadership of Venezuela, but new political pressures from the United States have produced some movement in Venezuelan policy, including a new amnesty law for political prisoners. Pushed through by Rodríguez, the amnesty law would release prisoners jailed for political crimes, though not those imprisoned on charges of homicide, corruption or drug offenses. The President of Venezuela’s National Assembly confirmed that over fifteen hundred applications for amnesty have been received under the new law, while critics of the law argue that the exceptions for certain offenses, particularly corruption, permit the Venezuelan state to keep key opposition figures jailed.

Following the Oil Money

In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 3 raid, the fate of Venezuela’s massive oil reserves became a key question. Trump rapidly declared that the United States would be seizing Venezuelan oil reserves, with Venezuela turning over 50 million barrels of oil to the US. Trump asserted on a Truth Social post that he would control any proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan oil, and that he would use it to “benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States.” 

According to numerous reports, the Trump administration sent half a billion dollars in proceeds from oil sales into a Qatari bank account controlled by the US government. This proposal generated significant backlash, and the administration has since pivoted. Secretary Wright announced at a press conference on Feb. 13 that the money from the Venezuelan oil sales will now be sent to a newly formed account at the U.S. Treasury. Wright, speaking from Venezuela at a joint conference with interim president Rodríguez, further announced that sales of Venezuelan oil had exceeded $1 billion since Maduro’s abduction, and that an additional $5 billion of sales are expected in the coming months.Democrats and outside observers have been sharply critical of the handling of both Venezuelan oil reserves and the proceeds from their sale. Democratic lawmakers have pressured the Trump administration to provide more information on how oil proceeds, particularly those that have been routed through Qatar, have been used. The administration’s own handling of the funds has been largely unexplained, and this lack of transparency is a significant worry for the future both of Venezuela and of trust in the US government.

This article initially appeared in a print issue of the Monitor released Oct. 31, 2025.

For as long as cars have existed, there have been people trying to race them. The history of motorsports is long and storied on both sides of the Atlantic, with the Indianapolis 500 defining the very early days of American racing while Le Mans defined European racing. However, the best-known forms of motorsport on each side of the ocean only began in the post-war years. Formula One (F1) began with the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) releasing an official rulebook (or “formula”) for competition in 1946, with the first proper F1 championship taking place in 1950.

No such easy development happened for NASCAR. Where the leading European racing series was built from a history of sports car racing events, the leading American series has its roots in criminal enterprise, smuggling and prohibition. What’s more, NASCAR celebrates this legacy, with a display case at their Hall of Fame containing a whiskey still built by NASCAR legend Junior Johnson. This is the story of how a Constitutional amendment, a few well-designed cars, and some small-town Southerners with a chip on their shoulder produced America’s most popular form of auto racing.

Prohibition

In 1919, the United States passed the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of” alcoholic beverages. The American temperance movement believed that a ban on the sale of alcohol would improve social relations and public health, and decades of pressure from temperance organizations such as the Anti-Saloon League finally pressured the government into passing the amendment. 

With the 18th Amendment coming into effect at the very start of the Roaring Twenties, people across the US immediately started to find ways around the amendment, which proved highly unpopular. The demand for illegal alcohol produced a massively profitable black market. In the North, gangsters like Al Capone grew rich on alcohol smuggling, but the South proved a difficult market for large-scale organized crime to conquer. Instead, the South would find its own source of illicit alcohol in the form of the Moonshiners, and their exploits would become the stuff of legend across an entire region.

Moonshiners and their cars

With alcohol rendered illegal and serious federal effort put towards enforcement, small-time alcohol producers moved their businesses underground, producing whiskey and other spirits at small distillation facilities (or “stills”) under the cover of darkness. This illicit booze, or “moonshine,” would need to be distributed across the county or the state, and for that job the distillers enlisted the help of bootleggers. Often local country boys with plenty of mechanical experience, bootleggers would drive cars full of alcohol from the secret stills down to the towns where it could be quietly sold.

Arguably the most famous bootlegger turned racing star was Robert Glen “Junior” Johnson, who won 50 races as a driver and 132 races as a team owner. Back in 2005, he and his moonshining partner Willie Clay Call were interviewed by Hot Rod magazine, where they described their extensive collection of cars modified for bootlegging exploits. Among this collection were twenty 1940 V8 Ford Coupes, cars that were the backbone of both the late moonshine era and the early days of American stock car racing. Among the most capable small-frame cars of their era, they were sturdy, easy to modify, and most importantly, cheap. 

Since bootleggers could easily collect pre-war cars, they could devote their time and resources to upgrading their fleets. The Ford coupe’s V8 engine had plenty of kick, but Johnson and other bootleggers would swap in the most powerful motors they could find, often taken from ambulances. The cars would have their extra seats removed, their floorboards lowered, and their suspensions reinforced, all to carry as much moonshine as possible. With every facet of their cars tuned for performance, and drivers who knew every turn of the country roads and every inch of their car’s abilities, the leading bootleggers made a mockery of the police. Many of them, including Junior Johnson, would view it as a badge of honor that they were never once caught while driving.

Organization and Legalization

National prohibition ended in 1933 with the 21^st Amendment, and those states that had their own prohibition laws gradually repealed and restricted them over the coming years. While whiskey-running remained a viable enterprise, especially as it evaded taxes, most moonshiners moved on from the business, and those that did found themselves with a pile of heavily modified and incredibly fast cars and not much to do with them. With no police cars to race against, many of them turned to the next best thing: racing each other.

Moonshiners had already been racing against one another since their inception, but after Prohibition, and especially after World War II, those races went from quiet back-alley affairs to public shows. The abundance of pre-modded cars already tuned for speed meant that racing was cheap and easy entertainment, and communities such as Wilkes County in North Carolina, the home of Junior Johnson, knew about and took pride in the exploits of their local moonshiners. Soon enough, they found themselves racing not for survival or liquor but for profit and bragging rights.

With auto racing booming, an engineer named Bill France seized on the opportunity to not only standardize these races but turn the sport into an empire. France, who ran the Daytona Beach circuit that hosted many of the early stock car races in the post-war era, would hold several meetings with other racing promoters, venue owners, and racers. The result of these meetings would be the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, or NASCAR. Under the unified NASCAR banner, tracks and rules underwent standardization, and the scattered races attended by local bootleggers transformed into a legitimate sport.

Even after Bill France created NASCAR and defined the rules of stock car racing, the rebellious instincts that led the bootleggers to break the law in the first place led them to find every possible exploit in the rulebook. Junior Johnson once again led the charge on this front, with his most famous rule-breaker being the infamous “Banana Car”. NASCAR gave Johnson permission to effectively bring whatever car he wanted to help get Ford to return to NASCAR, and Johnson took full advantage, effectively custom-crafting a car from the ground up. The Banana Car would go on to lead for much of its only race before a mechanical failure ended its day, but Junior Johnson’s point was proven.

That same rule-breaking spirit has lived on into modern day NASCAR. Crew chiefs still work tirelessly to find minor rules that they can bend to their advantage, while NASCAR’s inspection process desperately tries to keep a crowd of unruly vagabonds in line. At its core, NASCAR remains a sport of bootleggers pushing their cars to the limit, and the sport’s willingness to celebrate its legally shadowed past is part of what makes it so fascinating.