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Venezuela Faces Two Earthquakes & A Massive Debt Problem

Venezuela Faces Two Earthquakes & A Massive Debt Problem

Trump Killed A Bipartisan Housing Bill & A Heat Wave Melts Europe

Marcus Gee-Lim
June 25, 2026

Hi readers, happy Thursday! Today we’re covering the earthquake in Venezuela (and its massive bailout plan), a bipartisan bill frozen by Trump, Europe’s record-breaking heat wave, more U.S.-Iran negotiations, New York’s primaries, Trump’s election plans getting binned, and Meta’s employee-tracking snafu.

“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” ― Shel Silverstein

A Terrible, Tragic Day In Venezuela

via X

Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that Venezuela is planning to restructure the debts it’s amassed since oil prices plummeted in the mid-2010’s, which sent the country’s economy into freefall. As part of the restructuring plan, Caracas is set to acknowledge that the country is holding $240 billion in debts, well above the $150-200 billion debt pile that economists have been assuming, and also reveal that the country’s GDP has shrunk to just $100 billion (almost a quarter of its $370 billion GDP in 2012).

The restructuring move will easily eclipse Greece’s $200 billion default, which occurred in 2012 in the wake of the Great Recession. The strange thing about Venezuela’s plan, though, is that it doesn’t involve the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which usually oversees countries’ debt problems. “This is one of the first ever big restructurings where the IMF is not the author of the debt sustainability analysis,” said one investor. “It needs to be an IMF-orchestrated discussion between creditors . . . [and] a proper perimeter of debt that is audited.” According to the FT, though, the IMF has been in touch with Caracas in regards to its economic data, and the restructuring plan will follow an IMF template. It’s unclear whether the lack of IMF involvement will weaken Caracas’ ability to renegotiate terms with its creditors, or if the sheer shock from the massive pile of debt will push those creditors to soften their stances in the hopes of getting a bit more money back from Venezuela.

Later in the day, two massive earthquakes rocked Venezuela, leveling buildings around Caracas and prompting the government to declare a state of emergency. The first quake was a magnitude 7.2 “foreshock,” which was quickly followed by a magnitude 7.5 “mainshock” just 39 seconds later. Currently, the government is reporting at least 32 dead and 700 others injured, but the U.S. Geological Survey has stated there’s a 44% chance that there will be over 10,000 fatalities once the dust settles, and a 30% chance that quakes will cause more than 100,000 fatalities.

Congress Gets To Work, Immediately Hits Road Block

In a rare bipartisan effort, Congress passed a bill aimed at making housing more affordable across the country. The bill, named the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, is designed to increase housing stock in the U.S. by making it easier for developers to build new houses while also incentivising communities to build new residences via new federal grants for states and counties. The idea is that – combined with another piece of legislation blocking large investors from scooping up single-family residences – an increase in housing stock will drive down housing prices across the board, allowing more Americans to own their own homes.

Unfortunately, that bipartisan effort – supported by groups representing low-income renters and large housing developers alike – was torpedoed at the finish line by President Trump. On Wednesday, the president suddenly canceled a scheduled signing of the housing bill, stating he would only pass the legislation if Congress acts on his controversial election bill first. “Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” Trump wrote via TruthSocial. The bill would require voters to bring a photo ID to vote on election day, and would effectively end widespread mail-in voting. For some reason, the president has also expressed a desire to add a clause blocking transgender athletes from competing in sports to the legislation.

Technically, the ROAD to Housing Act could be passed without Trump’s signature – once Congress sends it to his desk, the president will have 10 days to sign the bill or veto it; if he does neither, it automatically becomes law. But House Republicans haven’t sent the bill to the White House as of yet (they’re probably scared of pissing off the president by pressuring him into action), meaning the bill has essentially been taken hostage by Trump.

Old World, New Temperatures

Europe… so hot right now. This week, the continent is suffering through a massive heat wave, bringing record-breaking temperatures to both France and Britain. On Tuesday, temperatures across France averaged out to roughly 86 F (almost 30 C), breaking the record for the highest average nationwide temperature, regardless of the month. On Wednesday, the U.K.’s Hampshire county recorded a temperature of 96.8 F (36 C), marking the highest temperature ever recorded in the nation in June.
To some American readers, those temperatures might not seem too extreme. But in the context of Europe, climate change is a serious issue. Over the past few years, temperatures in Europe have been warming faster than anywhere else on the planet, and most of the continent’s buildings aren’t equipped with air conditioning to deal with the heat. The Louvre was even forced to close its doors to the public due to the heat – the museum stated that its historic buildings are “not sufficiently adapted to climate change,” and added that the “build-up of heat is at its highest at the end of the day, and intensified by the volume of visitors.”

The War Of Words Isn’t Over

While the war between the U.S. and Iran – and the constant confusing back-and-forth accompanying it – is over for now. But as the two countries negotiate an end to the war, that familiar haze of conflicting claims is coming back in. On Tuesday, Trump claimed that Iran had agreed to allow the “highest level Nuclear Inspections long into the future (Infinity!!!),” just hours after Iranian diplomats said they’d held “no detailed discussions on the nuclear issue.” So what’s actually happening here?
“There's a war or words here. Some say ‘yes’, the others say ‘no’,” said International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Grossi on Wednesday. “I can understand political statements. They are part of the reality. But the fundamental thing... is that there has been a memorandum of understanding signed by both presidents. [It] says explicitly that the nuclear activities that are going to be carried out, with regards to nuclear material, facilities, will be supervised by the IAEA, in bold letters. This is going to happen.”
But Iran responded to that statement, with Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi declaring that it wouldn’t agree to inspections unless the U.S. took concrete steps to lift its back-breaking sanctions on Iran. “Media noise cannot be used to impose facts on the ground,” he said. So that’s where we stand – Iran won’t allow nuclear inspections until the U.S. budges on its sanctions regime.

Additional World News

Mamdani Makes His Mark

Tuesday saw New York hold its primary elections for the upcoming midterms. Given the state’s leftward leanings, most eyes were on the Democratic primaries – in those races, an upstart group of progressive candidates aligned with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America gained a surprising amount of ground, snatching Democratic nominations out of the hands of more moderate establishment candidates.
Heading into the primaries, Mamdani chose to throw his weight between three House candidates: Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Brad Lander. Valdez, a democratic socialist state assemblywoman, cleanly won the race for New York’s 7th District (over the hand-picked successor of the district’s current representative); Avila Chevalier, another democratic socialist, also upset an establishment Democrat in a close victory for New York’s 13th District. The last Mamdani-backed candidate, former New York City comptroller Brad Lander, won the race for the 10th District in a landslide after hammering his opponent for taking money from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups. If Valdez and Avila Chevalier win their November races, the number of democratic socialists in Congress will double – Lander, while affiliated with Mamdani, doesn’t share the mayor’s exact political beliefs.

Trump Has No Power Here

Yesterday, a federal judge permanently blocked (most of) a Trump executive order on elections. The judge ruled that the main part of the order – stating that people must show proof of citizenship when registering to vote – was not constitutional, and extended a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago into a permanent block of the executive order. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Denise Casper stated that the Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” meaning the proof of citizenship requirement oversteps the president’s powers.
Besides requiring people to offer proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, Trump’s order also would have blocked mail-in ballots from being counted if they were received after Election Day, and would also cut off federal funding to any states found violating the rule. “While we are proud of this result, we are clear-eyed that President Trump’s attacks on voting rights and our elections show no signs of slowing down,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose state was the lead plaintiff in the case against the executive order. “So let me be clear: we will keep fighting back every step of the way.”

Additional USA News

Did They Vibe Code Their AI Trainer?

Yesterday, Meta announced that it would be pausing – but not ending – its use of a controversial employee-tracking tool. The program, named the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), tracked employees’ keyboard and mouse inputs on top of reading the content displayed on their computer screens; this data was (supposedly) just used to train Meta’s AI models.
Earlier this week, Wired reported that data from MCI was actually leaked internally, meaning any Meta employee could access the “full prompts and transcriptions, private conversations, people and performance data” collected by the tool. In response, a group of over 1,600 Meta employees signed a petition opposing the use of the tool. In their words, “Collecting and repurposing this kind of data raises serious concerns around privacy, consent, and trust in the workplace.”
Meta responded by announcing that the program was paused. “While we have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees,” the company stated, “We’re pausing it while we investigate.” During its rollout, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, reportedly told employees that the company was using the tool to train its models because “the average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks,” and “watching really smart people do things” would be good training for its AI.

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