Revelers chanted “liberty” and draped Venezuelan flags over their shoulders in South Florida on Saturday to celebrate the American military attack that toppled Nicolás Maduro’s government — a stunning outcome they had longed for but left them wondering what comes next in their troubled homeland.
People gathered for a rally in Doral, Florida — the Miami suburb where President Donald Trump has a golf resort and where roughly half the population is of Venezuelan descent — as word spread that Venezuela’s president had been captured and flown out of the country.
Outside the El Arepazo restaurant, a hub of the Venezuelan culture of Doral, one man held a piece of cardboard with “Libertad” scrawled with a black marker. It was a sentiment expressed by other native Venezuelans hoping for a new beginning for their home country as they chanted “Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!”
“We’re like everybody — it’s a combination of feelings, of course,” said Alejandra Arrieta, who came to the U.S. in 1997. “There’s fears. There’s excitement. There’s so many years that we’ve been waiting for this. Something had to happen in Venezuela. We all need the freedom.”
Trump insisted Saturday that the U.S. government would run the country at least temporarily and was already doing so. The action marked the culmination of an escalating Trump administration pressure campaign on the oil-rich South American nation as well as weeks of planning that tracked Maduro’s behavioral habits.
About 8 million people have fled Venezuela since 2014, settling first in neighboring countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. After the COVID-19 pandemic, they increasingly set their sights on the United States, walking through the jungle in Colombia and Panama or flying to the U.S. on humanitarian parole with a financial sponsor.
In Doral, upper-middle-class professionals and entrepreneurs came to invest in property and businesses when socialist Hugo Chávez won the presidency in the late 1990s. They were followed by political opponents and entrepreneurs who set up small businesses. In recent years, more lower-income Venezuelans have come for work in service industries.
They are doctors, lawyers, beauticians, construction workers and house cleaners. Some are naturalized U.S. citizens or live in the country illegally with U.S.-born children. Others overstay tourist visas, seek asylum or have some form of temporary status.
Niurka Meléndez, who fled her native Venezuela in 2015, said Saturday she’s hopeful that Maduro’s ouster will improve life in her homeland. Meléndez immigrated to New York City, where she co-founded Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid, a group striving to empower the lives of immigrants. She became a steadfast advocate for change in her home country, where she said her countrymen were “facing a humanitarian crisis.”
She hopes those hardships will end as a result of American intervention.
“For us, it’s just the start of the justice we need to see,” Meléndez said in a phone interview.
Her homeland had reached a “breaking point” due to forced displacements, repression, hunger and fear, she said. She called for international humanitarian support to help in Venezuela’s recovery.
“Removing an authoritarian system responsible for these crimes creates the possibility, not a guarantee, but a possibility, for recovery,” she said. “A future without criminal control over institutions is the minimum condition for rebuilding a country based on justice, rule of law, and democratic safeguards.”
A destroyed anti-aircraft unit at La Carlota military air base
US President Donald Trump says the US is going to “run” Venezuela “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition”.
It comes after US forces captured the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro following strikes on the country.
Maduro was flown out of Venezuela with his wife and has been indicted on drug charges in New York.
The strikes inside Venezuela come after a US pressure campaign against the Maduro government, which the Trump administration accuses of flooding the US with drugs and gang members.
Here what has led up to this moment.
Trump on Venezuela: “We are going to run the country”
Why has Trump targeted Venezuela?
Trump blames Nicolás Maduro for the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants in the US.
They are among close to eight million Venezuelans estimated to have fled the country’s economic crisis and repression since 2013.
Without providing evidence, Trump has accused Maduro of “emptying his prisons and insane asylums” and “forcing” its inmates to migrate to the US.
Trump has also focused on fighting the influx of drugs – especially fentanyl and cocaine – into the US.
He has designated two Venezuelan criminal groups – Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles – as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) and has alleged that the latter is led by Maduro himself.
Analysts have pointed out that Cartel de los Soles is not a hierarchical group but a term used to describe corrupt officials who have allowed cocaine to transit through Venezuela.
Trump had also doubled the reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture and has announced that he would designate the Maduro government as an FTO.
Maduro has vehemently denied being a cartel leader and has accused the US of using its “war on drugs” as an excuse to try to depose him and get its hands on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
How has the US ramped up pressure on Venezuela?
There has been a build up of pressure on the Maduro government since Trump began his second term in office last January.
First, the Trump administration doubled the reward it offered for information leading to the capture of Maduro.
In September, US forces began targeting vessels it accused of carrying drugs from South America to the US.
There have been more than 30 strikes on such vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific since then, killing more than 110 people.
The Trump administration argues that it is involved in a non-international armed conflict with the alleged drug traffickers, whom it accuses of conducting irregular warfare against the US.
Many legal experts say the strikes are not against “lawful military targets”. The first attack – on 2 September – has drawn particular scrutiny as there was not one but two strikes, with survivors of the first hit killed in the second.
In response, the White House said it had acted in line with the laws of armed conflict to protect the US from cartels “trying to bring poison to our shores… destroying American lives”.
Back in October, Trump said he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela.
He also threatened strikes on land against what he described as “narco-terrorists”.
He said that the first of such strikes had been carried out on 24 December, though he gave little detail, just stating that it had targeted a “dock area” where boats alleged to carry drugs where being loaded.
Prior to Maduro’s capture, Trump repeatedly said that Maduro “is no friend of the US” and that it would be “smart for him to go”.
He also increased the financial pressure on Maduro by declaring a “total naval blockade” on all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. Oil is the main source of foreign revenue for the Maduro government.
The US has also deployed a huge military force in the Caribbean, whose stated aim is to stop the flow of fentanyl and cocaine to the US.
As well as targeting vessels they accuse of smuggling drugs, the force has also played a key role in the US naval blockade.
Is Venezuela flooding the US with drugs?
Counternarcotic experts say that Venezuela is a relatively minor player in global drug trafficking, acting as a transit country through which drugs produced elsewhere are smuggled.
Its neighbour, Colombia, is the world’s largest producer of cocaine but most of it is thought to enter the US by other routes, not via Venezuela.
According to a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report from 2020, almost three quarters of the cocaine reaching the US is estimated to be trafficked via the Pacific with just a small percentage coming via fast boats in the Caribbean.
While most of the early strikes the US has carried out were in the Caribbean, more recent ones have focused on the Pacific.
In September, Trump told US military leaders that the boats targeted “are stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly fentanyl and other drugs, too”.
Fentanyl is a synthetic drug which is 50 times more potent than heroin and has become the main drug responsible for opioid overdose deaths in the US.
On 15 December, Trump signed an executive order designating fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction”, arguing that it was “closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic”.
However, fentanyl is produced mainly in Mexico and reaches the US almost exclusively via land through its southern border.
Nicolás Maduro rose to prominence under the leadership of left-wing President Hugo Chávez and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, succeeded Chávez and has been president since 2013.
During the 26 years that Chávez and Maduro have been in power, their party has gained control of key institutions including the National Assembly, much of the judiciary, and the electoral council.
In 2024, Maduro was declared winner of the presidential election, even though voting tallies collected by the opposition suggested that its candidate, Edmundo González, had won by a landslide.
González had replaced the main opposition leader, María Corina Machado, on the ballot after she was barred from running for office.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October for “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy”.
She said that she planned to return to Venezuela, a move which would put her at risk of arrest by the Venezuelan authorities, who have declared her a “fugitive”.
How big is the force the US has deployed in the Caribbean?
US Navy/Reuters
The USS Gerald Ford played a key role when the US seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast
The US has deployed 15,000 troops and a range of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers, and amphibious assault ships to the Caribbean.
Among the US flotilla is the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier.
US helicopters reportedly took off from it before US forces seized an oil tanker off Venezuela on 10 December.
The US said the tanker had been “used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran”. Venezuela described the action as an act of “international piracy”.
Since then, the US has targeted two more tankers in waters off Venezuela.
Trump said after Saturday’s strikes that the “American armada remains poised in position”.
How much oil does Venezuela export, and who buys it?
Maduro has long accused the Trump administration of attempting to depose him so the US could gain control of Venezuela’s oil riches, pointing to a remark Trump made after the US seized the first oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.
When quizzed by reporters as to what would happen with the tanker and its cargo, he said: “I assume we’re going to keep the oil.”
However, US officials have previously denied Venezuela’s allegations that moves against Maduro’s government were an attempt to secure access to the country’s untapped reserves.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves and profits from the oil sector finance more than half of the its government budget.
However, its exports have been hit by sanctions and a lack of investment and mismanagement within Venezuela’s state-ruin oil company.
In 2023, Venezuela produced only 0.8% of global crude oil, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
It currently exports about 900,000 barrels per day and China is by far its biggest buyer.
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new video loaded: United States Captures Maduro in Strikes on Venezuela, Trump Says
President Trump said the United States had captured Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, and were flying him and his wife out after a “large-scale” attack on the country.
Unless Terence Crawford changes his mind on retirement, Canelo Alvarez will forever be known as his final opponent in a boxing ring.
The two men met at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas back in September, where Canelo was defending his undisputed super-middleweight status in the bout.
That win saw Crawford earn undisputed honours in a third weight division, having already managed it at super-lightweight and welterweight, whilst he also had world title reigns at lightweight and super-welterweight.
Following that win, attention turned to what ‘Bud’ may look to do next, with suggestions of a drop down to middleweight in search of becoming a six-weight world champion, while a rematch with Canelo was also touted.
Instead it was a surprise third option that transpired, as Crawford announced an abrupt retirement from the sport back in December, hanging up the gloves with a perfect 42-0 record.
With Canelo set to be the final opponent that Crawford will ever face, the Mexican superstar revealed in their post-fight press conference back in September exactly what he made of his rival’s ability, declaring that his former rival ‘has everything’.
“Everything [gave me trouble]. He has everything.
We knew Crawford is a great fighter. I did what I was supposed to do, right? I tried for every way. I trained very hard. He deserves all the credit. I tried my best. I couldn’t figure out the style.”
Along with the win over Canelo, Crawford also defeated the likes of Errol Spence Jr and Shawn Porter, and will go down as one of the greatest boxers in recent memory.
In 1995, divers first noticed a group of bizarre sandy “crop circles” on the seabed around Amami Oshima Island, southwest Japan. But it took decades for scientists to identify the marine artists behind them – and why they were building such geometrically precise structures every year.
These circles can reach two metres (6.6 feet) in diameter and are etched into otherwise featureless sandy seabed. But they’re not just circular mounds of sand – they feature ridges and grooves that fan out from a central zone like the spokes of a wheel, appearing deliberate and well built. And for years, researchers had them down as simply one of those ocean mysteries.
The stages of the build, engineered by a small fish and its fins
However, when scientists did find out what was causing them, the answer was almost as strange. These were the impressive work of a small male pufferfish, around 10-cm (3.4-in) long, belonging to the genus Torquigener, who painstakingly used their fins as tools to construct these underwater megastructures in an effort to attract a female – and to engineer a safe, calm environment for eggs to develop. It’s such an impressive feat that Sir David Attenborough has even described this fish as “probably nature’s greatest artist.”
“The circle consists of radially arranged deep ditches in the outer ring region, and maze-like shallow ditches in the central region,” researchers wrote in the breakthrough Nature: Scientific Reports paper. “During construction, the pufferfish repeatedly excavates ditches from the outside in. Generally, excavation starts at lower positions, and occurs in straight lines. The entry position, the length, and the direction of each ditch were recorded. A simulation program based on these data successfully reproduced the circle pattern, suggesting that the complex circle structure can be created by the repetition of simple actions by the pufferfish.
“The nest structure is much more geometrically ordered than any known nests built by other fish,” they added.
Torquigener albomaculosus in Kaikyokan, Japan
タウナギ/CC0/Wikimedia Commons
While we don’t know if every pufferfish is capable of such elaborate builds, scientists repeatedly observed it among the white-spotted pufferfish Torquigener albomaculosus species in Japan. To begin construction, the male pushes its belly on the sandy seabed to make a central spot in the future circle. It then repeatedly excavates sand with its fins and body, leaving hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of marks. During this process, radial ditches in the outer ring that forms the distinct circle shape begins to emerge. Once this takes shape, the fish heads back into the middle of the “nest” and further reshapes the surface to form a maze-like structure. The circles are visible from above the water, even though they’re built on the seabed at depths of between 10 m (33 ft) and 30 m (66 ft).
Overall, the structure features large circular “outer ring” with many radially arranged peaks and valleys, and a central zone that’s relatively flattened but etched with a finer, maze-like pattern. The circle’s center also becomes enriched in fine sand grains, and the ridges may be decorated with shell/coral fragments.
Why go to such effort for just a temporary structure at the mercy of the currents? Well, they play a key role in reproduction and female choice. The scientists found that once the male has completed his work, females inspect its nest and others, before choosing the most appealing structure for spawning near the center of the circle. One preference the females seem to have is fine sand – this is also the first to degrade in the circle, meaning the male won’t reuse his masterpiece but build from scratch when another mating event requires it.
Outer-ring construction by a male pufferfish. (A) Photo image of a pufferfish nest (final-stage). (B) The trajectories of first 20 (of 229) consecutive excavations by a male pufferfish in the early stage, obtained by tracing the location of the dorsal fin in every 0.5 seconds. (C,D) The simplified trajectories of the same pufferfish
All up, construction takes about seven to nine days, during which the male maintains the geometry by swimming along the sand and fanning its fins, creating straight-line segments. A later Scientific Reports study revealed more about the important details of the circle – such as where the female enters, depth of each ditch and the rigid directional order in which the male works on the design.
A study in Fishes documented in more detail how the circles get built, starting with numerous irregular depressions, forming a primitive circle with radially aligned ditches and a central depression by around day two. Over the next week, the fish increases the amount of ridges and valleys, until it’s complete and the circle’s outer peaks are decorated. Researchers have also analyzed fish movements and found that the elegance of the final structure isn’t due to complex cognition, but from the repetition of simple actions – a phenomenon known as “emergent complexity.”
Male Torquigener sp. pufferfish digging a valley with its fins and body
And this design also plays a key function in sorting the circle’s sediment, making it extremely functional and built for purpose. Fascinatingly, the circular nests aren’t built to “trap” eggs laid by the female, but the design is specifically focused on encouraging retainment of a certain type of sand grain. The circular ridges don’t act like a physical wall to hold the eggs in place, but they reshape how water moves across the seabed, and what grains of sand accumulate inside it.
As currents pass over the structure, the peaks and valleys redirect flow sideways and around the circle rather than straight through its center. This breaks up the current and creates a calmer zone in the middle, where fine sand grains gather. The effect provides enough movement to keep the central region oxygenated, without the stronger current that would otherwise disturb it. Experiments and field observations showed that fine sand particles get carried inward and settle in this central zone, providing a soft, safe patch for females to use as a spawning site.
The circles are built for function, changing how currents flow
When a female arrives, she inspects the circle, swimming along its ridges and over the center before deciding whether to spawn there. If she likes what she sees, eggs are laid in the fine sand in the middle. Once spawning is complete, with the eggs safely deposited in the fine-sand calm micro-environment, the circle begins to degrade and ultimately vanishes faster than it took to build. While the male sticks around to keep watch over the developing eggs, the fish makes no attempt to maintain the circle – and when the next breeding cycle arrives, it’ll once again build an entirely new nest somewhere else.
“After spawning, males remained in the circular structure for six days to care for the eggs,” the scientists observed in that landmark study. “They did not perform digging or other maintenance behaviour of the radially aligned peaks or valleys during this period. As a result, the structure gradually collapsed and was smoothed to become almost flat by water currents. Furthermore, the fine sand particles were dispersed and replaced by coarser sand particles, which covered the nest site. After the eggs hatched, males left the nest site and soon reappeared in the observation area for the next reproductive cycle. However, they never returned to an old nest site but instead began to construct a new circular structure at a separate site.”
While much of what we know of these circles comes from the work of the T. albomaculosus, which had led scientists to believe this species might be unique in building their elaborate sand castles, a 2020 study upended that when researchers discovered that an unidentified pufferfish was also constructing these circles at greater depths off the coast of northwest Australia. In the study, a hybrid autonomous underwater vehicle (HAUV) recorded a high-resolution video and bathymetric data of 21 circular formations that looked eerily similar to those observed near Japan. The first to be seen in Australian waters, the circles were constructed at a depth of at least 129 m (423 ft) – and more than 5,500 km (3,418 miles) from those observed near Japan.
It’s still unknown whether other pufferfish species, likeTorquigener flavimaculosus, are building such elaborate nest sites
Martijn Klijnstra/Wikimedia Commons
“Such a discovery not only generates intrigue and wonder among scientists and the general public but also provides an insight into the reproductive behaviour and evolution of pufferfish globally,” the researchers noted.
Specimens are still needed to confirm if the Australian builders are a population of T. albomaculosus or one of the pufferfish living in waters at that depth – T. parcuspinus, T. tuberculiferus and T. pallimaculatus, specifically – so we don’t know if these intricate displays of love are widespread in the genus or just the work of one talented species.
In 2022, scientists built a 3D model of the famous original “mystery circle,” detailing the incredible work of the male pufferfish that use physics and nature to reproduce in the challenging underwater environment.
You can see the pufferfish in action, creating his elaborate nesting site, from a BBC Earth episode, narrated by Attenborough.
Pufferfish ‘crop circles’ – Life Story: Episode 5 preview – BBC
United States President Donald Trump has kicked off the new year with a typically deranged bang by conducting massive air strikes on Venezuela and reportedly capturing the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, who has apparently been spirited off to an undisclosed location.
The attack does not come entirely as a surprise, given Trump’s track record of doing whatever the hell he wants with no regard for the law – or for his own promise to, you know, stop waging war abroad.
Indeed, Trump has been chattering for months about the possibility of enhanced US military action against Venezuela, as the US has gone about bombing boats willy-nilly off the country’s coast, supposedly in the name of combatting drug trafficking.
This has entailed numerous extrajudicial killings and rampant accusations of war crimes. But, hey, it’s all in a day’s work for an administration that couldn’t care less about legal justification for its behaviour, much less human rights and other such silly concepts.
The US has also hijacked various oil tankers, with Trump unleashing blissfully ludicrous allegations that Venezuela is guilty of stealing US oil, land and assets.
This latest bout of US aggression comes on the heels of decades of US sanctions, which have crippled the Venezuelan economy and which have constituted a form of warfare unto themselves. As of 2020, former UN special rapporteur Alfred de Zayas calculated that 100,000 Venezuelans had already perished as a direct result of coercive economic measures.
According to a post earlier today on X by US Senator Mike Lee of Utah, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed him that Maduro has been arrested to stand trial in the United States on criminal charges, and that the air strikes on Venezuela were necessary to protect the US military personnel who were carrying out the arrest warrant.
And while the Trump administration has converted Maduro into the latest international bogeyman and existential menace, this narrative leaves much to be desired. Objectively speaking, the US itself is guilty of far more extensive and comprehensively criminal behaviour than the bumbling Maduro.
Ditto for top US ally Israel, whose leader Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeatedly feted by US presidents over the past two-plus years of Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Of course, no one in Washington would ever suggest that Netanyahu be bundled off to stand trial in the US, which prefers instead to fling billions of dollars at the Israeli military in order to aid in the mass slaughter.
Oil-rich Venezuela, on the other hand, has long been a thorn in the side of the US empire, starting with Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who propagated such dangerous anti-capitalist ideas as universal healthcare.
Now, the Trump administration accuses Maduro of serving as a ringleader for “narcoterrorism”, which would be laughable if it didn’t result in such large-scale destruction and the flagrant violation of international law.
Obviously, Trump is hardly the only US president in recent history to engage in blatantly illegal action abroad – although he does manage to add a certain dramatic layer of dementedness to everything he does.
One recalls the case of the late Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, who remained on the CIA payroll for years, despite the US government’s full knowledge of his drug trafficking activities.
When Noriega ceased to be regarded as a valuable anti-communist ally in the 1980s, the US turned on him, spontaneously converting him into the face of evil.
In December 1989, President George H W Bush launched a patently insane attack on Panama, where up to several thousand civilians were killed in the impoverished Panama City neighbourhood of El Chorrillo.
Noriega was eventually captured by US forces in 1990, after his brief stay at the Vatican embassy in the Panamanian capital was rendered unsustainable by the US tanks parked outside. The armoured vehicles’ speakers subjected him to a continuous playlist of musical torture, including singer Jon Bon Jovi’s song Wanted Dead or Alive and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
The Panamanian was carted off to stand trial in – where else? – the United States, where the government apparently detected zero hypocrisy in holding its former buddy to judicial account for activities it had previously signed off on.
There was also the war on Iraq in 2003, which was waged on the basis of lies fabricated by Bush’s son President George W Bush and his administration. The US invaded the country, alleging it possessed weapons of mass destruction. Those were naturally nowhere to be found, but the US army nonetheless pulverised various parts of the country and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured, tried and summarily executed by the US-appointed interim Iraqi government.
Indeed, wherever the US has intervened militarily, nothing good has tended to follow. This latest attack on Venezuela will hardly be the end of the story, contrary to Senator Lee’s contention that Rubio anticipates “no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in US custody”.
Rest assured that, as US impunity rages on, the deadly spectacle is far from over.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
The remote work wars are largely over by 2025, but not everywhere. The pandemic-era of white-collar workers logging on from home and staying there all week largely ended in 2024, as bosses decided to call them back in to work as many as 5 days a week. (Amazon was a notable company leading the charge, while Elon Musk famously said remote workers were “pretending” to do their jobs.) But commercial real-estate giant JLL found something new in its September 2025 report on the future of hybrid work: a new remote renegade workplace archetype.
This is not the disengaged quiet quitters of the pandemic era, nor is it a staunch traditionalist. This is what JLL called an empowered “non-compliers”: high-value, highly skilled employees who simply ignore office attendance rules when it doesn’t suit them—and they have the leverage to get away with it.
According to the JLL Workforce Preference Barometer 2025, which surveyed 8,700 office workers globally, a significant disconnect has opened between policy acceptance and actual practice. While 72% of the global workforce views office attendance policies positively, that sentiment does not guarantee they actually show up.
Who are the Non-Compliers?
The report paints a vivid demographic profile of this group. Unlike “compliers,” who tend to be older and value stability, the empowered non-complier is typically younger—often between 30 and 34 years old. They are frequently found in the tech sector, particularly in North America, and often hold managerial roles.
“They are highly trained, recent hires and often managers,” JLL wrote. “Strikingly, they tend to work at companies offering more perks,” such as high-quality offices, childcare, concierge services, free meals, and wellbeing programs. For these workers, JLL continued, non-compliance is often driven by personal constraints rather than a dislike of the office itself (or a disregard for all the free food). Many are caregivers who feel their time constraints are “poorly understood and supported at work,” and commuting is a major factor, too.
High performers, with a skill set to navigate job changes, are a higher flight risk because they know they’re valuable on the open market. “Their non-compliance is less a rejection than a calculated decision based on their sense of empowerment,” JLL concludes, adding that this could change if there’s “turbulence” in the labor market. (Certainly, the emergence of what Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell called a “low-hire, low-fire” jobs market would qualify as precisely that kind of turbulence.) The report notes that while compliance with mandates is as high as 90% in France and Italy, it drops to 74% in the U.S., where this “empowered” demographic is concentrated.
The broken psychological contract
The rise of the non-complier signals a broader fracture in the “psychological contract” between employer and employee. The report highlights that burnout has become a serious threat to operations, with nearly 40% of global office workers feeling overwhelmed.
When this implicit contract of being valued is broken, the relationship becomes transactional. Employees stop seeking engagement and start seeking compensation, demanding increased commuting stipends or strictly flexible hours. If the office experience feels “commute-worthy”—offering better technology and amenities than home—acceptance of policies rises. However, almost 40% of global respondents believe their office experience needs improvement, citing issues ranging from noise to a lack of nutritious food.
Two management professors, Peter Cappelli and Ranya Nehmeh, told Fortune in October that they had found a similarly broken contract while researching their recent book on remote work, In Praise of the Office. Nehmeh said they found Gen Z’s behavior in the workplace showed signs of a broken contract between worker and management, as it’s a “very transactional” attitude, which she described as “I show up, I do my job, I get out. I don’t want to be part of anything else.”
Both Cappelli and Nehmeh recommended ending remote work, ironically, because of Gen Z, who are lacking a specific type of mentorship at a crucial point in their careers. “I don’t need to be in the office,” Cappelli said, so he often works remotely. “But I can also see how much worse the place is, because people like me are not in the office, and because we’re not in, the junior people aren’t there either, and so nobody’s there, right?” He described the dynamic as “fine for me … but bad for everyone else.” His findings aligned with JLL’s finding that the empowered non-complier, precisely the sort of high-performing colleague who would be an excellent mentor, that young workers could learn from, are probably not in the office that much themselves.
Ultimately, the empowered non-complier is signaling a shift in what “flexibility” means. It is no longer just about where work happens, but when. Work-life balance has overtaken salary as the top priority for employees globally, cited by 65% of office workers.
The report suggests that successful organizations will stop relying on blanket mandates and instead “personalize the approach.” For the empowered non-complier, retention hinges on autonomy, and JLL recommends that employers move beyond counting days in the office and focus on “management of time over place,” recognizing that for this valuable cohort, flexibility is the new currency of loyalty.
But as Cappelli told Fortune in October, this won’t be an easy thing, because the problems with remote work are really reflective of wider failures on the part of managers. “Management’s just gotten worse,” he said. Commenting on his finding that remote work has resulted in so many meetings that managers are holding post-meeting meetings to make sure the message got through, he added: “It’s a mess. Those things could be fixed, right? But they’re not being fixed.”
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores have been captured
The US has captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro after a large scale strike on the South American country, US President Donald Trump has said.
Trump said Venezuela’s left-wing president and his wife were flown out of the country in a military operation in conjunction with US law enforcement.
His comments came after explosions were reported across capital Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning, including at military bases.
The Venezuelan government has since demanded proof Maduro is alive. It has also deployed its armed forces and declared a national emergency.
Maduro’s capture comes after heightened tensions between the two countries, with Washington striking boats in the Caribbean it says are being used to carry drugs.
The US has accused the Venezuelan presidentof being personally involved in drug-smuggling and being an illegitimate leader, while Maduro has accused the US of intimidation.
Here is what we know so far.
What do we know about the operation?
AFP via Getty Images
Fuerte Tiuna, one of Venezuela’s largest military bases was hit in Caracas
There are few details about Maduro’s capture. Trump did not disclose how the Venezuelan presidentwas detained or where he has been taken.
Maduro was captured by the US army’s Delta force – the military’s top counter terrorism unit – according to the BBC’s US news partner CBS.
Trump is due to hold a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida at 11:00 EST (16:00 GMT) at which further details about the operation may be disclosed.
According to Republican Senator Mike Lee, who spoke to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Maduro will stand trial on criminal charges in the US.
“He [Rubio] anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in US custody,” Lee said, adding that the strikes were “deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant”.
Around 02:00 local time (06:00 GMT), loud explosions were heard in Caracas, while plumes of smoke were seen rising over the city.
Videos of explosions and helicopters flying overhead have been circulating on social media, but they have not been verified yet.
Reports of places hit by strikes include military airfield, La Carlota, in the centre of the capital and the main military base of Fuerte Tiuna.
Surrounding communities were also without power.
It is not known if there have been any casualties.
The Venezuelan government also said the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira were also hit.
How has Venezuela reacted?
Venezuela’s Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez said the government did not know where Maduro and his wife, First Lady Cilia Flores, were, and demanded “immediate proof of life” for them both.
The country’s defence minister Vladimir Padrino López claimed the strikes hit civilian areas and said the government was compiling information about dead and injured people.
He added that Venezuela would “resist” the presence of foreign troops.
Venezuela’s government issued an official statement denouncing the “extremely serious military aggression” by the US “against Venezuelan territory and population in civilian and military locations”.
It also accused the US of threatening international peace and stability and described the attack as an attempt to seize “Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals” in an attempt to “forcibly break the political independence of the nation”.
What has Donald Trump said?
Reuters
Immediately after the explosions, the White House declined to comment publicly.
But Trump later took to his Truth Social platform to confirm the US was behind the strikes.
“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” Trump wrote.
“This operation was done in conjunction with US Law Enforcement. Details to follow.”
The US president described it as a “brilliant operation” to the New York Times in a 50-second phone call.
Asked what he envisioned for Venezuela, he said: “You’re going to hear all about it 11 o’clock.”
Who is Maduro and why has he been captured?
Nicolás Maduro rose to prominence under the leadership of left-wing President Hugo Chávez and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). He succeeded Chávez as president in 2013.
In 2024, Maduro was declared winner of the presidential election, even though voting tallies collected by the opposition suggested that its candidate, Edmundo González, had won by a landslide.
He has been at odds with Trump over the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants in the US and the movement of drugs into the US, in particular fentanyl and cocaine.
Trump has designated two Venezuelan drug gangs – Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles – as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) and has alleged that the latter was led by Maduro himself.
The US had offered a $50m (£37m) reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.
Maduro has vehemently denied being a cartel leader and has accused the US of using its “war on drugs” as an excuse to try to depose him and get its hands on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
In recent months, US forces have also carried out more than two dozen strikes in international waters on boats it alleges have been used to traffick drugs into the US. More than 100 people have been killed.
How have other countries reacted?
News of the strikes prompted the strongest reaction from Venezuela’s long-term allies.
Russia accused the US of committing “an act of armed aggression” that was “deeply concerning and condemnable”.
Iran’sforeign ministry called the strikes a “flagrant violation of the country’s national sovereignty”.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the strikes an “assault on the sovereignty” of Latin America, while Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel described it as a “criminal attack”.
Meanwhile, the Spanish foreign ministry called for “de-escalation” and for action to always be taken in accordance with international law, while Germany and Italy said they were closely monitoring the situation.
