Venezuela experienced devastating earthquakes over a month ago, and to this day the nation is rebuilding while coping with a multitude of developing environmental and health risks.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
Seth Meyers made his return to the Late Night desk after the holiday season this week. On Martin Luther King Jr Day in the US, Meyers came back to the screens to talk about where we’re at as a country as we make it through the first month of 2026.
Meyers began by breaking down a list of updates from the White House including president Donald Trump’s secondhand Nobel peace prize and consistent line of thinking for taking over Greenland.
“In the past few days, Trump threatened to invade Greenland, which is a part of Denmark, because he didn’t win the Nobel peace prize, which he thinks is decided by Norway, which it’s not,” Meyers stated.
“The news has once again gotten dumber and more exhausting. Just another day living in Donald Trump’s snow globe, where the snow is cocaine and it never stops shaking,” he added.
“America’s been through a lot over the years, but the one thing we’ve mercifully never had to deal with was a president who had a boner for winning awards.
You’re the president of the United States – that should be reward enough! This guy gets elected, and his next thought is ‘better make room in the trophy case.’”
Meyers continued by stating how Trump showed a “desperate craving for awards,” particularly the Nobel peace prize which he connected to Greenland. The Nobel committee exists in Norway but has nothing to do with the semi-autonomous territory managed by Denmark.
“It shouldn’t be this hard to make sense of what the president says and does on a daily basis.”
“Following Trump’s logic is like getting way too high and staring at a magic eye poster. But then it turns out it’s not even a magic eye poster, there’s no hidden image, it’s just a bunch of random letters. Turns out it’s an eye chart and you’re just totally baked at Warby Parker again,” Meyers joked.
Trump claimed in an open letter to the Norwegian prime minister that he should have won the peace prize because he “stopped 8 wars PLUS” and used his losing of the prize as a justification for his threats to take over Greenland: “The world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland.”
Meyers responded: “Also, ‘you don’t give me the Nobel peace prize, so now I have to invade another country’ is an insane thing to say.”
“That’s like if I said to my kids, ‘You didn’t get me a World’s #1 Dad coffee mug, so I’m moving to Thailand to blow your inheritance, Sam Rockwell in White Lotus style.’”
On Friday, the actual recipient of the Nobel peace prize, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, gave her medal to Trump in an attempt to gain an advantage with him for authorizing the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro. The Nobel committee is not happy over this decision, with political leaders in Norway condemning Machado’s decision as “absurd,” and accusing Trump of being a “classic showoff” who takes credit for other people’s work.
The Nobel Peace Center also took to social media to state that “a medal can change owners, but the title of a Nobel peace prize laureate cannot. When Machado initially revealed her plan, both the Norwegian Nobel Committee and the Norwegian Nobel Institute said that the prize “cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred.”
Kristi Bergstø, the leader of Norway’s Socialist Left party and its foreign policy spokesperson, stated that “this is, above all, absurd. The peace prize cannot be given away.
Trump will no doubt claim that he has now received it, but it cannot be transferred, and Trump’s repeated threats toward Greenland clearly demonstrate why it would have been madness to award him the prize.”
Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, the leader of the Centre Party, said: “Whoever has received the prize has received the prize. The fact that Trump accepted the medal says something about him as a type of person: a classic showoff who wants to adorn himself with other people’s honors and work.”
“He actually accepted a secondhand Nobel peace prize – with someone else’s name on it,” Meyers joked. “That’s like if John Oliver offered me one of his Last Week Tonight Emmys and I accepted it.”
“We used to be a country of laws and norms and independent agencies, co-equal branches of government. It was imperfect, it was flawed, but the president had to operate within a system.”
“His impulses were constrained. Now we live in a cocaine snow globe that shakes with the arbitrary whims of one man,” Meyers concluded.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
Following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by US forces, tourists have found themselves stranded across the Caribbean. Even though the Federal Aviation Administration has reopened Eastern Caribbean airspace, many are struggling for answers regarding coming home or to their next destination.
Airlines have been scrambling since Sunday in order to add flights and get people back home from the Caribbean.
Nydia Han, an anchor and reporter for ABC News Philadelphia station WPVI, stated that her and her family were supposed to fly from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Philadelphia on Sunday night. Now, however, she’s been told by multiple airlines that she won’t be able to get a flight home until Friday.
“Unfortunately, because of Maduro’s capture and airspace being closed, we are stuck here in Vieques,” Han said in a video with ABC News.
The FAA issued a notice to airmen (NOTAM) to airlines early on Saturday that they would be banning flights from entering the Eastern Caribbean airspace “due to safety-of-flight risk associated with ongoing military activity.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that “the Caribbean airspace ban would expire at midnight Eastern time on Sunday.”
Major US air carriers such as JetBlue, American, Delta, and Southwest all canceled hundreds of flights during the airspace ban and some are struggling to add additional flights to the Caribbean region to accommodate impacted travelers.
On Monday, Delta stated that they added 2,600 seats through extra flights and that they’re working to re-accommodate all customers by Tuesday.
Delta also said that delays could occur in the Caribbean on Monday due to the increased airline capacity and has recommended that customers with confirmed/rebooked tickets on Monday arrive at least three hours early to allow for crowded airports. Customers who don’t have rebooked tickets should not go to the airport until they’ve officially rebooked in order to avoid overcrowding, the airline said.
American Airlines added 7,000 more seats and 43 extra flights, and for the first time in over a decade, the airline will be operating interisland flights in the Eastern Caribbean with two flights connecting Anguilla Wallblake, Anguilla and Beef Island, BVI to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Flights throughout the Caribbean including popular destinations such as Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, St. Martin and St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands were also canceled. Some airports are now getting back to normal as of Monday.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.