The wife of former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández says he has been released from prison following a pardon from President Donald Trump. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has confirmed his release from a penitentiary in West Virginia on Monday. Hernández was sentenced last year to 45 years for aiding drug traffickers. His wife thanked Trump for the pardon, saying it ends nearly four years of hardship. Hernández was arrested in 2022 at U.S. request and convicted in New York. Trump, speaking Sunday on Air Force One, said he believed Hernández was set up and that Hondurans had asked for his release.

One of the sons of imprisoned Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo” has pleaded guilty to U.S. drug trafficking charges. He is the second of El Chapo’s sons facing similar charges to enter a plea deal. Prosecutors allege Joaquín Guzmán López Joaquin, along with his brother, Ovidio Guzmán López ran a faction of the Sinaloa cartel that illegally trafficked large quantities of fentanyl and other drugs into the United States. Joaquín Guzmán López previously pleaded not guilty, but on Monday pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and continuing criminal enterprise. With the plea deal, he is expected to avoid life in prison.

Vice President JD Vance’s memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” has a storied history as a New York Times bestseller, as his introduction to the nation as a “Trump whisperer,” and as a Ron Howard-directed movie. Its latest role is secretly transporting drugs into an Ohio prison. Court documents say the book was one of three items whose pages 30-year-old Austin Siebert soaked in narcotics and shipped to Grafton Correctional Institution disguised as Amazon orders. Siebert, of Maumee southwest of Toledo, was sentenced last week to more than a decade in prison for his role in the scheme.

President Donald Trump says the U.S. “may be having some discussions” with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. It's a potential diplomatic avenue as the U.S. further builds up its military presence near the South American country with the arrival of its most advanced aircraft carrier. Trump didn’t offer details Sunday evening about the possible discussions with Maduro, but he said “Venezuela would like to talk.” The development comes as the Trump administration has carried out a series of military strikes against vessels suspected of transporting drugs.

President Donald Trump has justified American military strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs by saying the longtime U.S. strategy of interdicting such vessels has been a major failure. Trump’s comments came around the same time that the U.S. Coast Guard announced a record year for cocaine seizures. That milestone, however, hasn't stopped the Republican president from upending decades of U.S. counternarcotics policy with a series of military strikes in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Veterans of the drug war say U.S. resources would be better spent doubling down on the traditional approach of interdicting drug boats.

The United States’ most advanced aircraft carrier is expected to reach the waters off Venezuela in days. It's a stark flex of American military power not seen in Latin America for generations. Some experts foresee warplanes catapulting off the USS Gerald R Ford to strike targets in Venezuela unless authoritarian President Nicholas Maduro resigns. But whatever happens, experts say the Trump administration is sending a message to the Western Hemisphere. The Ford is being deployed after the Trump administration said the U.S. is an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. Since September, the U.S. has killed 76 people in 19 strikes against alleged drug boats.