CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP) —An anx­ious qui­et fell over Venezuela’s cap­i­tal yes­ter­day, as trep­i­da­tion mixed with joy while a na­tion wait­ed to see what comes next.

Ed­ward “Ed­die” Hart, for­mer Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Tu­na­puna, long-stand­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ac­tivist, and na­tion­al­ly recog­nised sports and com­mu­ni­ty leader, passed away yes­ter­day morn­ing, draw­ing trib­utes from across the po­lit­i­cal, civic, and sport­ing land­scape.

Since the es­tab­lish­ment of the Chil­dren’s Life Fund in 2010, more than $400 mil­lion has been in­ject­ed in­to the char­i­ta­ble ini­tia­tive by the gov­ern­ment to pro­vide fi­nan­cial sup­port for chil­dren with life-threat­en­ing and life-lim­it­ing med­ical con­di­tions.

Va­len­cia record­ed its first mur­der for 2026 on Sat­ur­day night, af­ter a woman was shot and killed dur­ing a gun at­tack on a ve­hi­cle she was in.The vic­tim has been iden­ti­fied as 50-year-old Nan­cy Al­mar­ales, of Daniel Trace, Va­len­cia. She was shot sev­er­al times about the body and died at the scene.An­oth­er man was al­so in­jured in the in­ci­dent. He has been iden­ti­fied as 50-year-old Ken­rick Charles, of Daniel Trace. He was shot in the chest and re­mains ward­ed at the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he is be­ing treat­ed and kept un­der ob­ser­va­tion.Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, at around 11.55 pm on Sat­ur­day, PC Ear­le was on sen­try du­ty at the front of the Va­len­cia Po­lice Post when he ob­served a white Nis­san AD Wag­on, reg­is­tra­tion num­ber PCP 6622, dri­ve along the foot­path in front of the sta­tion and come to a stop.PC Ear­le saw a man ex­it the dri­ver’s seat, walk to­wards the po­lice post and col­lapse. He im­me­di­ate­ly called for as­sis­tance, and PC Rat­tans­ingh and WPC Gon­za­les re­spond­ed.The of­fi­cers found the man ly­ing on the pave­ment, suf­fer­ing from what ap­peared to be gun­shot in­juries to his chest. A check of the ve­hi­cle al­so re­vealed a woman slumped over in the front pas­sen­ger seat. She showed no signs of life.The in­jured man was iden­ti­fied as Charles, the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle. He was rushed to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he was med­ical­ly ex­am­ined and placed un­der ob­ser­va­tion.Charles lat­er told po­lice that at around 11.30 pm, he picked up the woman at Va­len­cia Junc­tion, af­ter she hired him to take her to her home at Clarence Trace, Va­len­cia, to col­lect mon­ey and then re­turn her to the junc­tion.He said he dropped her off at her home and drove a short dis­tance away to turn around. As he re­turned and the woman en­tered the ve­hi­cle, sev­er­al loud ex­plo­sions were heard.In an at­tempt to es­cape the gun­fire, Charles sped off and drove out of Clarence Trace. Up­on reach­ing near Va­len­cia Junc­tion, he felt a burn­ing sen­sa­tion in his chest. He then drove di­rect­ly to the Va­len­cia Po­lice Post, where he ex­it­ed the ve­hi­cle and col­lapsed.A dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer viewed the woman’s body and or­dered its re­moval to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal pend­ing a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion.The scene was processed by of­fi­cers from the Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tion Unit, and en­quiries are con­tin­u­ing by the Arou­ca Homi­cide Bu­reau.

An un­cle of teenag­er Em­manuel Williams, who drowned at Clifton Hill Beach on Fri­day, is urg­ing sea bathers to ex­er­cise cau­tion when vis­it­ing the na­tion’s beach­es.

An ear­ly-morn­ing at­tack left a La Ro­maine woman with se­ri­ous burns af­ter she was al­leged­ly doused with Pun­cheon rum and set on fire by her ex-boyfriend in­side her home yes­ter­day.

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath says wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion and in­creas­ing pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty na­tion­wide re­main per­sis­tent chal­lenges for the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) in 2026.

A for­mer man­ag­er at a com­put­er re­tail­er, who was abrupt­ly dis­missed af­ter near­ly three decades with the com­pa­ny, has filed a wrong­ful dis­missal law­suit.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is not sur­prised that the Unit­ed States’ in­dict­ment of Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro con­tains al­le­ga­tions that Caribbean politi­cians were com­plic­it in the co­caine traf­fick­ing trade.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has de­fend­ed the gov­ern­ment’s cau­tious pos­ture on Venezuela, in­sist­ing it is fo­cused on sta­bil­i­ty and a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion, even as ques­tions mount over the Unit­ed States’ role in the dra­mat­ic ouster of Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio sug­gest­ed Sun­day that the Unit­ed States would not take a day-to-day role in gov­ern­ing Venezuela oth­er than en­forc­ing an ex­ist­ing “oil quar­an­tine” on the coun­try, a turn­around af­ter Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced a day ear­li­er that the U.S. would be run­ning Venezuela fol­low­ing its ouster of leader Nicolás Maduro.

Nan­cy Al­mar­ales, a 50-year-old moth­er from Daniel Trace, Va­len­cia, was shot and killed last night.