Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a televised address Thursday said he blocked the country’s border with Brazil to interrupt plans to bring aid into the country on Saturday. Maduro said the blockade was to “protect the people” from what he repeatedly called a military invasion. He also shut down the country’s air and sea connections with the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.

Egyptian lawmakers last week approved constitutional amendments that could see President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stay in power for another 15 years, raising concern about the country’s stability.

The revisions, which 485 of 596 members of Parliament voted for, extend the presidential term from four to six years, but it would still retain the two-term limit. But a special “transitional article” would allow al-Sisi to be elected for two more terms after his second term ends in 2022. His first term began in 2014 after his army led the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi.

Conservatives love to lampoon California, the state I’ve been calling home for almost 10 years. This blue state has wasted time and money on silly laws restricting plastic straws, regulating cow farts, providing “mouth-to-snout” resuscitation for endangered pets, and replacing Columbus Day with “Indigenous People’s Day.” We’re the home of Big Taxes and Big Government and Big Compassion and Big Ideas, and conservatives have rightly criticized Californians for dreaming up idealistic programs and policies without considering things such as budgets and the average civilian’s needs.

Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said on Friday that his foreign minister held secret meetings with a U.S. official on Jan. 26 and Feb. 11 in New York. In an interview, Maduro said his administration could succeed if U.S. President Donald Trump would remove his “infected hand” from the country. The United States has not denied the talks—allegedly between Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and U.S. special envoy Elliot Abrams—but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed back Friday on Maduro’s insinuation that he could remain in power.

Who might have guessed that already, right here in the U.S. of A., we’d be at a point where a growing number of candidates for public office seem to think it’s advantageous to refer to themselves as socialists?

For all of my lifetime, that’s been a putdown. Call someone a socialist, and you mean nothing good. You’re deliberately putting your opponent on the defensive.

But apparently we’ve now reached the place where so many voters have become so smart and sophisticated that you can offer them a real-life socialist—and be rewarded with a victory on Election Day. 

Venezuelan National Assembly Leader Juan Guaidó promised at a rally Tuesday in Caracas that more humanitarian aid will arrive Feb. 23 and urged the military to allow entry. Guaidó said he will mobilize caravans of supporters to transport food and medicine into the country from the bordering Colombian city of Cúcuta. He also said a second batch of aid will come from across the Brazilian border. The opposition leader, who is serving as interim president since invoking a clause in the Venezuelan Constitution, issued a “direct order” for the armed forces not to block the aid.

UPDATE: President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was unhappy with the tentative budget deal that congressional negotiators proposed, but he still wants to avoid another partial government shutdown if possible. “I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled,” he said at the White House. But one way or another, he added, “the wall’s getting built.”