Juan P. Villasmil

Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in as Mexico’s new president in Mexico City’s San Lázaro Legislative Palace this Tuesday. In her inauguration, she underscored the historic significance of electing the first woman president, while promising to adhere closely to her predecessor’s political agenda.  Wearing her presidential sash, she began her speech by thanking foreign dignitaries, but she saved the most thanks to former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), whose coattails she rode into the National Palace.

Viral footage showing armed Venezuelan gang members taking over an apartment complex in a Denver suburb has shocked thousands, especially after Mayor Mike Coffman of Aurora, Colorado joined Fox News’s Sandra Smith on Thursday to explain how failed border policies are affecting his city — which is around 700 miles away from the US-Mexico border. In the interview, Coffman confirmed that at least two apartment buildings in Aurora were taken by what some suspect are members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang.  All of this is not quite surprising for those who are familiar with Venezuela. “Invasiones” (invasions, as Venezuelans call it) have been a recurrent phenomenon throughout the oil-rich South American country in the last twenty years.

Nicolás Maduro’s rival Edmundo González and opposition leader María Corina Machado told reporters at around 6:30 p.m. Monday that with more than 70 percent of votes counted, González is more than doubling Maduro’s votes. During the press conference, both candidates emphasized peaceful protests, especially as thousands began taking to the streets the day before, when the country’s electoral council declared that Maduro had won with 51 percent of the vote. They called on voters to gather at 11 a.m. Tuesday. “I speak to you with the calmness of the truth,” González said to his cheering supporters from outside his campaign’s headquarters in Caracas. “We have in our hands the tally sheets that demonstrate our categorical and mathematically irreversible victory.

Sunday night was a long one in Venezuela. At midnight, the much anticipated yet dubious results came in for the South American country's election. The head of the National Electoral Council, Elvis Amoroso — a close ally of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro who has served as a deputy for his party — said that with 80 percent of ballots counted, Maduro had won with 51 percent of the vote. His rival, Maria Corina Machado’s replacement, Edmundo González, ended with 44 percent. The opposition has a different story. “Venezuela has a new president and his name is Edmundo González Urrutia. We won! And everyone knows it,” Machado said from a press conference following some silence after Maduro’s announced win.

At 3:45 a.m., the sun was not yet out in the Venezuelan valley of Caracas, but Andrés, a twenty-two-year old who lives in the outskirts, woke up and with the Gloria Al Bravo Pueblo national anthem at maximum volume, roused his family too. From deep in the valley, Natalia showed up to the polls at 7 a.m. She then headed back to pick her elderly parents; “they can skip the line now,” she tells me.  Like them, thousands of others got up Sunday morning with a mission: make the Venezuelan presidential election — the most consequential one in twenty-five-years — fraud-proof. The logic: the world has to see what Venezuelans see, eyes don’t lie.  “It's 5 a.m. and we have work!,” said the face of the opposition, María Corina Machado.

Two Russian ships docked Tuesday in Venezuela’s La Guaira port, twenty miles away from Caracas. The stop comes after military exercises were conducted in the Atlantic, with four vessels stopping in Havana late last month. This is all part of a decades-long “look-at-us” operation, also known as a “show the flag” move, as Russia’s defense ministry puts it. While Russia’s presence in Cuba and Venezuela is not a new phenomenon, conflict in the East has only accelerated their muscle-flexing in the West. These movements mark Russia’s first extensive military exercises in the hemisphere in five years, as well as their first deployment of a nuclear submarine in close proximity to the US since the Cold War.

My grandma loves to joke about how she got a tooth knocked out by a motorizado (biker) in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. “¡Dame el aro!” (Gimme the hoop!) exclaimed what looked like an off-duty bodyguard. “My hoop? What the hell?” Grandma thought to herself, before realizing the man was talking about her wedding ring.  “I never wear it when we go to church; I must’ve forgotten that day,” she tells us, in what feels like a skit. “I don’t know what got into me, but after the man pointed at his pocket and said he had a revolver, I said, ‘I have one too!’” “Show me,” the motorizado inquired as my frozen grandpa thought to himself, “What the hell is she talking about?