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CARACAS, Venezuela Dj vu? Feels like it.

Assassination plots, arrest warrants for journalists and human rights defenders, attacks against adversariesfrom the belittling kind to the judicial type and other associated government actions have marked the start of 2024 for Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro and his allies. Add international condemnation and economic sanctions, and the reality of a presidential election year in the South American country becomes clear.

Opposition coalition presidential hopeful Maria Corina Machado speaks to supporters at a campaign event Jan. 23 in Caracas, Venezuela. Condemnation against the government is growing after her candidacy was blocked.

And, once again, the question is: How democratic will the election be?

Venezuelans were promised a presidential election in the second half of 2024 after Maduro and the faction of the opposition backed by the United States government reached an agreement in October. The opposing sides also agreed to recognize and respect a partys right to choose a candidate freely; take steps that would reverse government decisions blocking politicians from running for office; and invite international electoral observers.

The government over the past three months has shown it is willing to test the limits of the agreement, discrediting the opposition's presidential primary, arresting numerous perceived or actual adversaries, and repeatedly characterizing members of the opposition as hate-spewing criminals.

But the biggest test came recently when Venezuelas highest court aligned with Maduros government blocked the presidential candidacy of Mara Corina Machado by upholding an administrative decision that bans her on running for office for 15 years.

I dont think we have any evidence that Maduro plans to allow a competitive election so far, said Geoff Ramsey, senior analyst on Venezuela at the Atlantic Council think tank. What we are seeing is the government making clear that they dont plan on going anywhere any time soon.

Supporters of opposition coalition presidential hopeful Maria Corina Machado attend her campaign event Jan. 23 in Caracas, Venezuela.

The ban has not sidelined Machado so far. The former lawmaker on Monday told supporters and reporters that Venezuela will have a presidential election in 2024 in which she will defeat Nicols Maduro. A date for the vote has not been set.

But Jorge Rodrguez, Maduros chief negotiator and the leader of the countrys National Assembly, quickly dismissed the challenge.

How can a human being who is one of 30 million Venezuelans going to say that Without me, there will be no elections, Rodrguez said. That matter has been settled.

Thats also how the government saw similar disputes in the leadup to the last presidential election, which resulted in Maduros reelection.

At the time, Maduro and the opposition had also agreed to work on electoral conditions. But the talks ended in February 2018 after the government was not willing to commit to free and fair conditions and its opponents refused to recognize a parallel congress devised by the ruling party after it lost the majority of the National Assembly during the 2015 election.

President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores stand before government supporters during a Jan. 23 event marking the anniversary of the 1958 coup that overthrew dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez in Caracas, Venezuela.

Shortly after, the government scheduled the election for May 20, and major parties chose to boycott the contest as prominent leaders were barred from office or forced into exile after authorities opened judicial proceedings against them following a deadly protest movement seeking the presidents removal.

That election is widely considered a sham by the international community. It further alienated Maduro and drew economic sanctions against his government.

Years went by until Maduro and the U.S.-backed faction of the opposition, known as the Unitary Platform, appeared to have finally had a breakthrough, reaching a deal in October to work toward leveling the playing field for the 2024 election. Such was the progress that the U.S. granted Maduro some of his much-sought sanctions relief, and the opposition's negotiating bloc held its primary election days later.

Machado, the clear frontrunner for months, unsurprisingly won the contest. But the participation of more than 2.4 million voters stunned opposition adversaries and allies, who had expected roughly about a million people to cast ballots due to organizational challenges and government obstacles.

Machado's victory, with more than 90% of the vote, came despite the government announcing a 15-year ban on her running for office in June. She was able to participate in the primary because the effort was organized by a commission independent of Venezuelas electoral body, the National Electoral Council.

Machado in December filed a claim with Venezuelas Supreme Tribunal of Justice arguing the ban was null and void and seeking an injunction to protect her political rights. The court on Friday upheld the ban, which alleges fraud and tax violations and accuses her of seeking the economic sanctions the U.S. imposed on Venezuela over the past decade.

The U.S. responded to to the recent court ruling by revoking the relief it granted in October to Venezuela's state-owned mining company, Compaa General de Minera de Venezuela, C.A, known as Minerven. It also gave Maduro until April to meet conditions of the electoral agreement to avoid losing additional relief.

The moves by the Biden administration drew the rage of Rodrguez and prompted the government to warn the Biden administration that it will stop accepting deportation flights Feb. 13, the deadline for U.S. mining companies to wind down operations tied to Minerven.

To describe the United States as "breathtaking" would be putting it mildly. There's an enormous variety of natural and human-made wonders alike contained within the country's borders. But those borders span some 3.8 million square miles, and unless you have a few months to spare for a serious road trip, it can be tough to see as much of the U.S. of A. as you might like.

With that in mind, travelers tend to choose carefully, prioritizing states where they can get the most out of a short jaunt, and a few states consistently top the ranks in terms of things to see and do. As a result, these locations tend to draw the highest percentages of international visitors every year, and it's not hard to see why. With unique terrains, one-of-a-kind cultural landscapes, delicious eats, and much more, these states represent some of the most diverse and fascinating parts of the country.

Airalo sorted through data collected by the International Trade Administration to learn which states were most visited by international travelers in 2022. For additional context, data on how much of the international travel market each state makes up was also included, plus how much these numbers have changed since the previous year.

From Texas to Florida, the top five states to visit for international travelers account for a whopping 90.8% of all international travel to the U.S. Whether you're visiting from abroad or from within the country, these states should be on just about everyone's travel radar.

- International visitors: 1,289,000

- Market share: 5.4%

- Volume change since 2021: 107.5%

Everything is bigger in Texas, as they say, and that includes the number of international visitors in 2022, up more than 100% since 2021. Within its 268,597 square miles, the Lone Star State encompasses everything from dense forests to deserts and prairies, as well as thriving metropolises like Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.

Visitors come for attractions like the Alamo and Space Center Houston, but Texas has so much more to explore. You can canoe the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park, swim in the Gulf of Mexico, and venture deep belowground in natural caverns, all while getting a true taste of the American West. Just don't forget to grab a few slices of Texas brisket along the way (with some white bread, pickles, and onions on the side, if you want to blend in with the locals).

- International visitors: 4,455,000

- Market share: 18.6%

- Volume change since 2021: 300.3%

In 2022, California drew close to 4.5 million international visitors (a roughly 300% increase from 2021) looking to explore the state's beaches, rugged mountains, and bustling cities. From iconic parks like Yosemite to major urban hubs like Los Angeles and San Francisco, California will more than satisfy visitors seeking a balance of scenery and city life.

With so many different things to do all over the Golden State, most travelers will need to spend a significant amount of time here to see the best of California. Whether you want to hike the great outdoors or ride roller coasters at Disneyland, you'll have no shortage of different areas worth visiting. Since the state receives an average of 258 clear days per year, it's almost always sunny and warm, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to go out and about.

- International visitors: 7,133,000

- Market share: 29.8%

- Volume change since 2021: 239.8%

In 2022, just over 7 million international travelers came to New York, and almost all of them stopped by New York City. In fact, NYC had the most overseas visitors out of any city in the country. This sprawling metropolis sees so many international tourists thanks to its world-famous dining scene, cultural sites like the Statue of Liberty, and so much more.

The public transportation system here is also considered among the best in the country, so you can get around quite easily without needing to drive a car (unlike most destinations in the rest of the U.S.). Beyond the Big Apple, visitors to New York also flocked to Niagara Falls. These famous cascades lie on the state's northern border with Canada and receive upwards of 20 million visitors each year.

- International visitors: 7,145,000

- Market share: 29.8%

- Volume change since 2021: 74.6%

Florida saw just a nearly 75% increase in overseas travelers between 2021 and 2022, but it consistently ranks as one of the most popular states in the U.S. for international visitors. That's mostly due to the cities of Miami and Orlando, the latter of which hosts both Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. Featuring thrilling rides, food, and other attractions, these globally renowned theme parks typically get tens of thousands of visitors per day.

Outside of Orlando and Miami, Florida also has the major tourist draws of Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, as well as 825 miles of sandy coastline. The weather can get humid during the summer months, but in the winter, visitors are more than happy to soak up Florida's famous warmth and sunshine.

Data reporting by Luke Hicks. Story editing by Carren Jao. Copy editing by Tim Bruns. Photo selection by Lacy Kerrick.

This story originally appeared on Airalo and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.

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Violence-plagued Venezuela race tests limits of democracy - Ravalli Republic

This March, former President Donald Trump is scheduled to begin standing trial on three federal conspiracy charges and one federal obstruction charge in connection with efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

The federal indictment alleges that, while carrying out a criminal conspiracy to defraud the U.S., Trump worked to interfere with the federal governments counting of votes; that he obstructed the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of Bidens win; and that he worked to deny voters the right to have their votes counted.

Central to the criminal case, which is being led by special counsel Jack Smith, are firsthand accounts from unlikely sources: A number of Trumps fellow Republicans, who testified in 2022 before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack about their direct experiences with Trump as he attempted to remain in power.

Many of those Republicans speak out further in the new documentary Democracy on Trial, a 2.5-hour FRONTLINE special investigating the roots of the federal criminal case against Trump, his defense including the pursuit of absolute immunity and the implications for democracy.

Watch the Full Documentary: Democracy on Trial

In the above excerpt, Rusty Bowers, a longtime Arizona Republican who supported Trumps 2020 re-election campaign, shares a candid account of being on the receiving end of one prong of Trumps alleged multilayered effort to subvert the 2020 election: a pressure campaign on local officials following his loss.

Bowers, who was then speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, describes a phone call before his states certification of Bidens victory in which Trump and his then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani asked Bowers to swap in electors for Trump, citing cases of voter fraud for which they could provide no evidence.

Well. For them to say to me, Yeah, we just want you to throw out those electors and put in Trumps, Im thinking, Have I gone to another planet? I mean, its like, What? Im not gonna do that! Bowers tells FRONTLINE. I wanted him to win, okay, so what? Im not gonna cheat to win.

I flat-out said, Youre asking me to break my oath. I swore an oath Im not gonna break it, period, not gonna break it, Bowers says.

Read & Watch: FRONTLINEs Extended Interview with Rusty Bowers

As the documentary reports, that call is now part of the criminal conspiracy outlined in the federal indictment.

If you are calling a state official, and youre asking them to nullify lawful votes, and to replace them with unlawful votes, that is squarely within federal statutes regarding election conspiracy, David French, a conservative columnist at The New York Times and a former attorney, tells FRONTLINE.

As the excerpt goes on to recount, soon after the call, Giuliani and his associates arrived in Arizona and met with Bowers in person. When Bowers pressed them to provide proof of their voter fraud claims, Bowers told FRONTLINE Giuliani grew frustrated.

In what Bowers describes as a rockets red glare moment, he recalls Giuliani saying, You know, weve got a lot of theories, we just dont have the evidence.

Bowers was incredulous: Like, wow, you gotta be kidding, he says. This is the clown show theyre out hunting, theyre trying to find something, and theyre wanting us to participate in this, and he says that? Holy moly, we cant do this stuff, you know?

Giuliani refused to answer questions about his conversations with Bowers before the Jan. 6 committee. Trump, who is now the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has claimed that the cases against him are politically motivated, and pleaded not guilty to the four federal criminal charges in the 2020 election case. In their filings, Trumps lawyers have argued that hes absolutely immune from prosecution because he was doing his job as president when he worked to change the election results. An appeals court is now considering the immunity question.

The pressure campaign Bowers described is just one of the actions by Trump that are cited in the federal indictment and explored throughout the documentary. In the big picture, the documentary reports, the federal governments case isnt about the legality or illegality of the individual actions themselves, but what prosecutors allege those actions were done in support of: a conspiracy to defraud the U.S.

Whether or not a particular act that the president is alleged to have engaged in is in and of itself a crime isnt really going to be the question at that trial. Its going to be whether that act was in furtherance of a criminal objective, former senior investigative counsel for the House Jan. 6 Committee Marc Harris tells FRONTLINE in the documentary. All of the things that weve been talking about, they dont have to be illegal in and of themselves the crime is a conspiracy to defraud the United States.

For the full story, watch Democracy on Trial, the newest film from FRONTLINEs award-winning political team, Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Vanessa Fica. The documentary traces the road to this uncharted moment, and examines the implications of the historic criminal case unfolding in the midst of a presidential election year.

It is unavoidably going to be tainted with the appearance of politics at play, says Robert Ray, a former independent counsel who investigated Bill Clinton and helped Trump get acquitted in his first Senate impeachment trial. Obviously, thats the card that Donald Trump will play.

Donald Trump is going to be the defendant and the candidate all wrapped into one, New Yorker journalist Susan Glasser says in the film. Its just unprecedented.

Democracy on Trial is available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline, in the PBS App, on FRONTLINEs YouTube channel and on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. Democracy on Trial is a FRONTLINE production with the Kirk Documentary Group. The director is Michael Kirk. The producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Vanessa Fica. The writers are Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser. The reporters are Vanessa Fica and Brooke Nelson Alexander. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

This story has been updated.

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Rusty Bowers, Witness on a Central Charge of Trump Indictment, Speaks Out - PBS

East Havens celebration for receiving the esteemed Democracy Cup an award given to municipalities with the highest percentage of voter turnout proved short-lived as the town had to forfeit the honor due to inaccuracies in reported voter turnout.

The town reported a 68.71% voter turnout and according to a statement from the East Haven Office of the Registrar of Voters, as part of the celebration, Secretary of the State (SOTS) Stephanie Thomas was set to visit East Haven on Tuesday (Jan. 30) at 9:00 am to present the award.

However, a statement from the SOTS to Yankee Institute revealed a different story.

The SOTS asserts, Due to a human error during East Havens data entry process that follows an election, the mathematical output we used to select the Democracy Cup winner was incorrect. Once East Haven saw our talking points for the award ceremony, they investigated and quickly discovered the error. East Haven is not the winner in the Mid-Sized Town category.

Seeking further clarification, the East Haven registrars office replied to YI that they have since revised the percentage to 36.4% turnout, attributing the discrepancy to an error in the total number of electors.

According to an email response from East Haven Registrar Alberta Vitale, The total number of electors should have been based on the total for each district from all of the voter checklists (two checklists per district; one for streets A-L and another for M-Z; total electors needed to be manually added then input into the election database.) The numbers entered were from only one checklist for each district and therefore represented only about half of the quantity of electors.

Vitale also clarified that, the error does not affect the outcome of the elections in East Haven as votes per candidate is based on tabulator data and is correct.

In response to the unexpected turn of events, East Haven resident and poll volunteer Lorena Venegas shared her perspective on the situation, highlighting concerns about transparency and accountability in capturing and reporting local voter statistics.

Speaking to Yankee Institute, Venegas remarked, This is an example of the lack of transparency and accountability in capturing and reporting local voter statistics. The next step is for the result sheets to be updated at the local and Secretary of the State office.

Having been a poll volunteer in the last three elections, Venegas likes to follow the numbers and knew when [she] read that head moderator sheet, something was wrong.

Reflecting on the incident she stated, It matters to me to have integrity in voting processes.

Venegass insight sheds light on the importance of vigilance in maintaining the accuracy of election data and how a lack of transparency and accuracy disenfranchises voters from participating in the electoral process.

Regarding the announcement of the official winner, theSOTS office responded, stating, We have not formally announced it yet, but we have notified the town. We will be issuing an announcement when we can do a presentation to them with the Secretary.

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East Haven's Democracy Cup Win Reversed Due to Math Error - Yankee Institute

Democracy on Trial by Michael Kirk is a thorough documentary of the systematic and lengthy evolution and execution of the attempt to overthrow the government. It has deep roots in the mindset of the dictator wannabe way before he was elected. The coup attempt on January 6 was the tip of the iceberg.

Anyone who watches this 2 h 23 minute film will see the complete truth of what happened inside the White House and throughout America that lead to what we all saw that historical day. Some of the watchers may become a jurors in the Jack Smith and other trials.

What is very comforting and an inspiration of what should happen this year is how manydid the right thing all along. The film makes me optimistic that the MAGA mob will not succeed because of the courage of many Americans going forward .

It deserves an Oscar for best documentary. (Poll bellow, hopefully many watched it already)

This documentary by PBS will play a role in the political dynamics going forward. Lets do what we can to make it happen.

This 18 minute interview with Michael Kirk, before the release, gives you the why and how of his warning to all about the possible future based on the rationally explained past. It gives a clear picture of the thinking and goals behind the documentary.

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Democracy on Trial is a masterpiece documentary at the perfect time that should go viral. - Daily Kos

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the reelection of former President Trump would be the “end of democracy” in an interview released Saturday by The Guardian.

“It will be the end of democracy, functional democracy,” Sanders said in the interview. 

The Vermont senator also said in the interview that he thinks that another round of Trump as the president will be a lot more extreme than the first.

“He’s made that clear,” Sanders said. “There’s a lot of personal bitterness, he’s a bitter man, having gone through four indictments, humiliated, he’s going to take it out on his enemies. We’ve got to explain to the American people what that means to them — what the collapse of American democracy will mean to all of us.”

Sanders’s words echo those President Biden made in a recent campaign speech during which he said that Trump’s return to the presidency would risk American democracy. The president highlighted the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in an attempt to cement a point about Trump and other Republicans espousing a kind of extremism that was seen by the world on that day.

“Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice democracy to put himself in power,” Biden said in the speech that took place near Valley Forge and on the day before the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack.

Biden also said that Trump’s false claims about “the 2020 election never could stand up in court.”

“The legal path just took Trump back to the truth. That I’d won the election and he was a loser,” Biden said.

“Trump lost 60 court cases — 60. Trump lost the Republican-controlled states, Trump lost before a Trump-appointed judge and then judges. And Trump lost before the United States Supreme Court. All of them. He lost. Trump lost recount after recount after recount and state after state,” he said.

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Sanders says Trump reelection would be the end of democracy - The Hill