US warships in the region, the green light for covert operations, and deadly strikes on what the Trump administration claims are “narco terrorists” – could America’s next move be to strike Venezuela?

President Donald Trump has accused President Nicolas Maduro of leading an organised crime gang (without providing evidence) and declined to answer when questioned if the CIA has the authority to assassinate him.

In return, the Venezuelan leader has accused Mr Trump of seeking regime change and of “fabricating a new eternal war” against his country, as he appealed to the American people for peace.

The rhetoric coming out of the White House, coupled with the presence of military ships in the region, has raised questions about a possible armed conflict between the US and Venezuela.

The question in the air is: Will the US actually attack Venezuela?

What are US warships doing?

The docking of the USS Gravely guided missile destroyer in the capital of Trinidad and Tobago – just 25 miles from the coast of Venezuela – is the latest incident to escalate tensions.

Venezuela’s government condemned the arrival and called it a provocation by Trinidad and Tobago and the US.

The USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier – the largest warship in the world – is also moving closer to Venezuela.

It comes as the US has acknowledged carrying out at least seven strikes since September on vessels near Venezuela that it claims were transporting drugs, killing at least 32 people.

Venezuela’s government says the strikes are illegal, amount to murder, and are acts of aggression.

Earlier this month, Trump confirmed he has authorised the CIA to carry out covert operations – including lethal operations – in Venezuela.

The CIA has a long history of operations in Latin America, with actions varying widely from direct paramilitary engagement to intelligence gathering and support roles with little to no physical footprint.

What could happen?

To get an idea of what could happen next, Sky News spoke to Dr Carlos Solar, an expert on Latin American security at the RUSI defence thinktank.

He says the level of military strategy the US is applying around Venezuela seems “unproportionate” for the task of tackling drug trafficking.

“A build-up this size can only suggest there’s a strategic military goal,” he added.

Dr Solar says the role of the CIA is “not surprising”, as the US often deploys spying capabilities in countries deemed adversarial.

“With the chances of a military conflict looming, having the most intelligence capable on the ground would be reasonable.”

Asked what could happen next, Dr Solar told Sky News: “One scenario is Trump authorises a round of long-range precision attacks in Venezuela’s territory linked to drug trafficking operations, eventually forcing Maduro to reciprocate later.

“We saw this early in the year when the US attacked Iran’s nuclear facilitates and Tehran returned missiles to US bases in Qatar.

“If the US decides to move more strongly, destroying all critical military targets from the Venezuelan forces, then the US could have Maduro surrender and leave the country immediately.

“This would be the least disruptive without causing greater destabilisation of the country.”

What does Trump say about Venezuela?

Trump said his reasons for the strikes on vessels were the migration of Venezuelans, allegedly including former prisoners, to the US – and drug trafficking.

“I authorised for two reasons really,” he said. “Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America…they came in through the border. They came in because we had an open border,” he told reporters. “And the other thing are drugs.”

He has accused Venezuela of trafficking huge amounts of cocaine into the US, and alleged Mr Maduro is the leader of the Tren de Aragua gang – a claim most of his own intelligence agencies do not support.

The US leader has not provided evidence for the claim about prisoners, and Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay pointed out the fentanyl drug that is causing destruction in America is largely manufactured in Mexico, not Venezuela.

“We are looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” Mr Trump added. It is not clear what actions this could entail.

The Pentagon recently disclosed to US Congress that the president has determined the US is engaged in “a non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels.

When asked if the CIA has the authority to execute Maduro, which would be a massive intervention, Trump declined to answer. Instead, he said: “I think Venezuela is feeling heat.”

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What does Venezuela’s leader say?

Maduro has been in power since 2013, including re-elections in contests marred by accusations of fraud.

The last decade has seen his country gripped by spiralling hyperinflation and a humanitarian crisis that has seen an estimated eight million Venezuelans flee the country.

As the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier moved closer to Venezuela, Maduro accused the US government of “fabricating a new eternal war” against his country.

“They promised they would never again get involved in a war, and they are fabricating a war that we will avoid,” he said in a national address.

“They are fabricating an extravagant narrative, a vulgar, criminal and totally fake one,” he added, perhaps a reference to Trump’s claim that he is the leader of the Tren de Aragua gang and that his country trafficks cocaine into the US.

“Venezuela is a country that does not produce cocaine leaves.”

Tren de Aragua, which traces its roots to a Venezuelan prison, is not known for having a big role in global drug trafficking but instead for its involvement in contract killings, extortion, and people smuggling.

Venezuela has raised a complaint to the UN Security Council and demanded accountability from the US.

An estimated 1.2 million people a week have conversations with ChatGPT that indicate they are planning to take their own lives.

The figure comes from its parent company OpenAI, which revealed 0.15% of users send messages including “explicit indicators of potential suicide planning or intent”.

Earlier this month, the company’s chief executive Sam Altman estimated that ChatGPT now has more than 800 million weekly active users.

While the tech giant does aim to direct vulnerable people to crisis helplines, it admitted “in some rare cases, the model may not behave as intended in these sensitive situations”.

OpenAI evaluated over 1,000 “challenging self-harm and suicide conversations” with its latest model GPT-5 and found it was compliant with “desired behaviours” 91% of the time.

But this would potentially mean that tens of thousands of people are being exposed to AI content that could exacerbate mental health problems.

The company has previously warned that safeguards designed to protect users can be weakened in longer conversations – and work is under way to address this.

“ChatGPT may correctly point to a suicide hotline when someone first mentions intent, but after many messages over a long period of time, it might eventually offer an answer that goes against our safeguards,” OpenAI explained.

OpenAI’s blog post added: “Mental health symptoms and emotional distress are universally present in human societies, and an increasing user base means that some portion of ChatGPT conversations include these situations.”

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A grieving family is currently in the process of suing OpenAI – and allege ChatGPT was to blame for their 16-year-old boy’s death.

Adam Raine’s parents claim the tool “actively helped him explore suicide methods” and offered to draft a note to his relatives.

Court filings suggest that, hours before he died, the teenager uploaded a photo that appeared to show his suicide plan – and when he asked whether it would work, ChatGPT offered to help him “upgrade” it.

Last week, the Raines updated their lawsuit and accused OpenAI of weakening the safeguards to prevent self-harm in the weeks before his death in April this year.

In a statement, the company said: “Our deepest sympathies are with the Raine family for their unthinkable loss. Teen wellbeing is a top priority for us – minors deserve strong protections, especially in sensitive moments.”

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

“That smell of maggots, rotting food and maggots, my house smells like that.”

For Louise, not her real name, home has become a hell she cannot escape.

“We just couldn’t move for flies, and then we noticed an increase in rats,” she says.

Louise lives near Bolton House Road in Wigan. At the end of a row of terraced houses sits a former scrapyard, which has been transformed into an industrial-scale illegal dump site.

The wagons started coming last winter, “20, maybe 30 times a day,” Louise remembers.

“Eighteen-tonne wagons. Full of all sorts; nappies, black bin rubbish, chemicals, plastic.”

Within a few weeks, she and her neighbours realised the waste was just being dumped, not sorted or managed. It piled up, higher and higher.

They contacted the council, the Environment Agency and the police – but Louise claims no one did anything to stop the lorries.

Her retired neighbour, Tom, says it felt like the authorities “didn’t want to know”.

Though he does remember someone from the council asking him if he could go and “have a look for them” and “report back” information about what sort of waste was being dumped.

Louise and Tom are both so worried about who could be behind this that they are only comfortable speaking anonymously.

The fire which lasted nine days

By July’s heatwave, the site had long been full. The wagons had stopped months earlier, so 25,000 tonnes of waste, several storeys high, sat festering in the sun.

Lorries and vehicles in the former scrapyard lay buried, unseen, beneath the shredded and rotting filth – and then the fire started.

For nine days, dozens of firefighters from across Greater Manchester fought to bring the fire under control.

The nearby primary school had to shut due to the acrid smoke.

The sheer amount of water needed by fire engines to tackle the blaze left residents without any – while many were forced to keep their windows and doors shut in the 30C-plus heat.

Some were left with chest infections, others were hospitalised.

“I think it’s awful to let people live with that toxic rubbish right next to our house after us all asking for help and nothing’s materialised,” Louise says.

‘Absolutely soul-destroying’

The residents of Bolton House Road are not the only victims of this toxic dump.

Last winter, Neil Hardwick rented out three diggers to an individual, unaware of the growing illegal dump site in Wigan.

By March of this year, he had not received several rental payments and had received a call from the Environment Agency warning him about what was happening at the site.

With his daughter Carla, he went to Bolton House Road in an attempt to retrieve the machinery, worth approximately £300,000 in total.

At the site, Carla says a group of men slapped her, as well as spat at her. The men allegedly told her father: “We want you to give us £100,000, and we’ll allow you to take your diggers back, or we can cut your throat.”

Carla and Neil say an officer from Greater Manchester Police dismissed their report, and claimed their machinery was not stolen.

That officer also threatened to arrest the pair if they did not leave the area, they say.

“I just wanted us to get those machines back. But the fact that a man can spit in a woman’s face and get away with it, and the police are not interested, well, it is maddening,” Carla said.

The Hardwicks returned to the site 10 days later with officers from the National Crime Agency but found their machines smashed up and destroyed.

Mr Hardwick said the ordeal was “absolutely soul-destroying”.

“It’s caused us so much grief, damage to business, just absolutely brought us to our knees,” he said.

Greater Manchester Police told Sky News there is an ongoing complaint relating to the incident involving Neil and Carla Hardwick at Bolton House Road, and “this process will take time”.

“As part of this complaint, our Professional Standards Directorate are assessing all elements of the investigation including all crimes and reviewing bodyworn footage,” a spokesperson said.

The £4.5m bill

Finding out how the illegal dump in Wigan happened, and who’s responsible, is hugely challenging.

The landowner has not responded to Sky, nor have the companies which allegedly own the lorries seen by residents transporting the waste.

They appear to be either refuse or haulage companies that boast of their environmentally friendly credentials.

One company’s website claims it diverts most of its waste away from landfill, and advertises its “innovative approach” to waste management.

“We’re passionate about the environment,” the website says.

Josh Simons, the local Labour MP, has been outraged by the case.

Speaking before his promotion to the Cabinet Office, he said it is “buck-passing” between Wigan Council, the police, and the Environment Agency.

Mr Simons says he was told at the start of the year that there was a criminal investigation, “and therefore no action can be taken to prevent people from dumping more on the site or intervening”.

“That just doesn’t seem right to me,” he says.

He also says information and financial support from the Environment Agency to Wigan Council has been poor.

“The number [the council] have come up with is about £4.5m to clear the waste.

“Anybody who knows local authority budgets at the moment knows they don’t have nearly five million pounds stashed behind the sofa. So what’s supposed to happen?”

The land itself is not worth £4.5m – and Mr Simons thinks this makes working-class areas uniquely vulnerable to this kind of crime.

Paul Barton, director for environment at Wigan Council, said: “Our top priority is to ensure those residents feel heard and safe while the Environment Agency carries out their investigation with our full cooperation.

“We want the site to be cleared as a matter of urgency and are continuing to work with the Environment Agency to survey and sample the waste so polluters/landowners – who are the responsible parties – can progress this as soon as possible.”

Paul Clements, director of operations at the Environment Agency, said: “We are prioritising local people, businesses and the nearby school as we work… to deal with this illegal waste site as quickly as possible.

“Our staff continue to visit the site and at the forefront of our minds is the impact the illegal waste is having on the local community.

“We are continuing to progress our criminal investigation as a priority. This includes actively pursuing many lines of enquiry, interviewing under caution and using the enforcement tools available to us.”

Additional reporting by Adam Parker, OSINT editor, and Niamh Lynch, planning producer