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As bitter adversaries, the Trump administration and Maduro regime didn’t agree on, well, anything. Except for the fact that the US government wanted Maduro gone.

After that UN meeting, the Trump administration amped up its efforts around the world to isolate and depose the Venezuelan leader, including by levying additional punishing sanctions against his regime. Much of that diplomatic maneuvering played out in public. But the administration also put into motion another, very much secret prong to the US’s regime-change campaign: a covert CIA-run initiative to help overthrow the Venezuelan strongman.

That campaign would pull off at least one disruptive digital sabotage operation against the Maduro regime in 2019. But the CIA-led initiative—alongside the Trump administration’s wider efforts to get rid of Maduro—would fall well short of its ultimate goal. The story of that secret anti-Maduro effort also lays bare the tensions between an administration with hardliners laser-focused on deposing the Venezuelan autocrat and a CIA deeply reluctant, yet nevertheless obligated, to follow White House orders. It shows the limitations of covert, CIA-assisted regime change schemes, particularly when they are not aligned with larger US foreign policy objectives. And it provides new insights into how a second Trump administration—or a Harris presidency—might still try to dislodge the Venezuelan strongman, whose latest sham reelection in July 2024 has again thrust his country into chaos.

The details of that covert CIA-assisted campaign, told exclusively to WIRED by eight Trump administration and former agency officials with knowledge of the anti-Maduro operation, are reported here for the first time.

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They haven’t come close to fulfilling Gov. Kathy Hochul’s goal of helping 150 people victimized by the state’s old, racially biased drug laws enter the legal cannabis business — and some they have assisted fear their dispensary dreams are collapsing.

But the three managers of a public-private loan fund established to carry out the primary social mission of New York’s sweeping cannabis legalization program are doing just fine.

Records obtained by THE CITY show that they earned $1.7 million over the most recently tallied 12-month period and stand to make millions more in years to come, even though the New York Cannabis Social Equity Investment Fund has faced charges of predatory lending, secrecy and mission failure. By a conservative estimate computed by THE CITY, the managers’ longterm haul could easily come to $15 million over a decade.

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The Vessel in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards will officially begin welcoming visitors again Monday with enhanced safety measures, three years after it closed to the public in response to several suicides.

The 150-foot beehive-like structure now features floor-to-ceiling steel mesh barriers encasing several of its stairways and platforms, and the top level will remain closed. The barriers were designed to be cut-proof and weather-resistant, according to a spokesperson.

Built in 2019 for $200 million, the Vessel was a popular tourist attraction and photo spot in the center of Hudson Yards, until four people jumped to their deaths from its upper floors.

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How would you imagine the greatest individual season in NWSL history? Our hypothetical player would need to score a lot of goals, obviously. Breaking Sam Kerr's single-season scoring record (18) would certainly get plenty of attention, so let's put that at the top of the list. How about assists? Assists are important, too. Let's say this player has ... five of those. Five sounds good.

Let's go back to the goals for a second. We know that all goals aren't created equal, and that poachers and penalty specialists can often sneak their way to the top of the leaderboard. That just won't do—we're talking about the best season in history, here—so let's make sure our player didn't score any of her goals from the spot, and is out-performing her expected goals tally by two. We need more, though. Let's get crazy and say that this player is an NWSL rookie, and arrived from Chinese Women's Super League at age 25 to blitz the NWSL with the league's first 20-goal season. We'll need a fun, quirky statistic, too, so let's say this player became the first in league history to score a goal against every team. And we need moments. Like, what if the record-breaking goal happened to be a 25-yard strike that makes a convincing case for being the hardest a soccer ball has ever been struck by a woman in a professional match? What if that goal looked something like this:

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NEW YORK — At long last, the New York Liberty are WNBA champions.

Sunday’s Game 5 between the Liberty and Minnesota Lynx was far from New York’s most aesthetically pleasing game of the season, but style points aren’t awarded in winner-take-all affairs. Instead, the only number that matters is the final margin — a 67-62 Liberty overtime win — in crowning a champion.

“One more (point) than the other team,” star New York guard Sabrina Ionescu said of what stat would be most important Sunday.

Jonquel Jones led the Liberty with 17 points en route to being crowned the finals MVP. Breanna Stewart added 13 points and 15 rebounds in a grinding affair and reserve center Nyara Sabally provided the most unexpected but necessary boost of all, playing a playoff career-high 17 minutes, scoring 13 points and hauling in seven rebounds.

With it all coming together just enough, New York took home its first-ever title, having lost its five prior appearances in the WNBA Finals.

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Days before the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen made a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence about her alleged affair with the Republican presidential candidate. It did not quite go as planned. When Trump was in the White House, Daniels’s claims about their relationship (which Trump denies) went public. Years later, in May 2024, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the payoff.

Trump has been trying to get his conviction thrown out or at least delay his sentencing (maybe forever). But we’ve already learned plenty of lurid details about the alleged relationship. So why would Trump make a second attempt to silence Daniels ahead of the 2024 election?

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported on Wednesday that Trump’s attorney recently made another offer to Daniels. In 2018, years before the Manhattan DA brought charges against Trump, Daniels filed a defamation suit over a Trump tweet attacking her for claiming that she was threatened by a stranger to stay quiet about their affair. A federal judge dismissed the suit months later, and Daniels was ordered to pay Trump’s legal fees. As of this summer, the two camps were still haggling over the final amount: Team Trump had asked for $652,000 at one point, while Team Daniels said it should be closer to $600,000, per Maddow. Then in July, Trump’s lawyer sent a letter to Daniels’s representative saying that a payment of $620,000 was too low, but that they would agree to it if Daniels signed a nondisclosure agreement. According to MSNBC, the letter said this:

We disagree that a payment of $620,000.00 would be in full satisfaction of the three judgement. However, we can agree to settle these matters for $620,000.00, provided that your client agrees in writing to make no public or private statements related to any alleged past interactions with president Trump, or defamatory or disparaging statements about him, his businesses and/or any affiliates or his suitability as a candidate for President.

Daniels’s lawyer rejected the offer. Eventually, Trump’s attorney said that after speaking to “my client and co-counsel,” they would agree to $635,000 — with no mention of Daniels remaining silent. Daniels’s attorney said they eventually settled on $627,500 with no NDA.

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