Good evening. I'm Nick Schifrin. Jeff Bennett and Omnan of Oz are away.

On the news hour tonight, the U.S. increases pressure on the Maduro regime with a strike inside Venezuela.

Federal agents intensify investigations of alleged fraud of taxpayer money in Minnesota.

And the U.S. announces a new way to deliver humanitarian aid around the world,

with a much lower, at least initial, contribution in the past.

If this $2 billion is the end of the story,

and it's all the U.S. is going to provide, that is catastrophic, frankly.

Welcome to the News Hour. It is exceedingly rare that a U.S. President would announce covert action publicly. But that is what

President Trump did yesterday when he acknowledged a strike on a port facility in Venezuela. And today,

media outlets reported it was the CIA that launched the drone strike on an alleged drug facility.

It comes as the Trump administration is targeting not only drug smugglers across the region,

but also Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, himself.

For months, the U.S. has built up the Caribbean's largest armada in half a century.

30 strikes in what the U.S. calls narco-terrorist drug boats, the latest in the Eastern Pacific

just last night.

The capture of two sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers and the chasing of a third tanker

that today reportedly requested Russian protection.

And today, news the CIA reportedly launched a drone strike along the Venezuelan coast.

The reported target, a storage facility operated by the transnational gang,

Trend de Aragua, which the Trump administration connects without public evidence to

Venezuelan president, Nikolas Maduro.

There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.

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