From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take.

I'm your host for today, Tangles Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, and today's topic is the Minnesota fraud cases.

We cover this topic previously in December, but it's been picking up steam again nationally,

so we're covering it again today. Before we get started, and I throw it to John for our quick hits,

I wanted to ask you all for a small favor. Over the holiday break, we sent out an end-of-year survey

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Thank you very much. Now, I'm going to pass it over to John for our quick hits and today's main

topic, and I'll be back for my take.

Thanks, Ari, and welcome, everybody.

Here are your quick hits for today.

First up, Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism, gun,

and drug charges at his first court appearance in New York City.

Maduro said that he was unlawfully kidnapped

by the United States and that he was still the leader of Venezuela. Separately, many members of the

United Nations Security Council criticized the U.S. for its operation to capture Maduro, suggesting

the operation violated international law. Number two, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention

...