By LORNE COOK

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO will hold its major annual nuclear exercise next week, the alliance’s chief announced Friday, with an important part of the drill to focus on protecting the weapons before they’re ever used.

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The long-planned “Steadfast Noon” exercise, which starts on Monday, is taking place amid heightened security around military facilities in Europe due to a series of mysterious drone incidents, some of them blamed on Russia.

Steadfast Noon will run for about two weeks. It will be led by the Netherlands and involve 71 aircraft from 14 NATO countries. The exercise has been held at roughly the same time each year for over a decade.

“We need to do this because it helps us to make sure that our nuclear deterrent remains as credible, and as safe, and as secure, and as effective as possible,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in a video statement.

“It also sends a clear signal to any potential adversary that we will and can protect and defend all allies against all threats,” he said.

Bomber aircraft and fighter jets that can carry nuclear warheads are taking part, but no nuclear weapons or live munitions will be used. The bulk of the exercise is being held in the North Sea, far from Russia and Ukraine.

It will involve military bases in Belgium, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands.

The United States and Britain, with their nuclear forces, are key to NATO’s strategic deterrence. France also has nuclear weapons but is not a part of the organization’s nuclear planning group.

NATO officials would not say what kind of scenarios will be used to test the 32-nation alliance’s nuclear readiness, but they insisted that it is not directed toward any particular country, nor does it relate to current international events.

The United States is providing F-35 jets capable of carrying conventional or nuclear weapons, refueling planes and other support aircraft. Finland and Poland are sending fighter jets. Electronic warfare equipment and reconnaissance and intelligence systems will also be used.

A big part of the exercise will focus on protecting nuclear weapons on the ground, said Col. Daniel Bunch, Chief of NATO Nuclear Operations at the alliance’s military headquarters in Mons, Belgium.

Bunch said there are “a variety of different threats that we assess and that we must defend against because these are highly protected assets that require the utmost security and safety.”

Asked whether drones are a particular concern given the recent incidents, notably near military facilities in Belgium and Denmark, he said: “Drones are not a new threat to us. Drones are something we understand.”

“The more frequent incursions are something we’re obviously keeping an eye on,” Bunch acknowledged, but he added: “Ultimately, we’re going to stay one step ahead of the adversary.”

The Washington Summit declaration agreed by the alliance’s leaders last year states that “the fundamental purpose of NATO’s nuclear capability is to preserve peace, prevent coercion and deter aggression.”

“As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance,” it said.

James Stokes, the head of NATO’s Nuclear Policy Directorate told reporters that despite the Kremlin’s continued and heated rhetoric the allies “haven’t seen any change in Russia’s nuclear posture” recently.

He underlined that Russia is not a focus of the exercise, but said that NATO continues to monitor Russian military activities, including its use of dual-capable missiles in Ukraine, which could be fitted to carry nuclear warheads.

“New York has the chance to build the most inclusive cannabis industry in the country—an industry where small businesses thrive alongside larger players, where local communities benefit directly, and where justice is not only acknowledged but enacted.”

Products for sale at a cannabis dispensary in Manhattan. (John McCarten NYC Council Media Unit)

New York’s cannabis market may have surpassed $2 billion in total sales, but the small businesses that were supposed to be its backbone aren’t all sharing in that prosperity. The state must act swiftly, starting with appointing permanent leadership at the industry’s regulatory agency. 

The vision of legalization was clear: repair the harms of prohibition, open the doors of opportunity to entrepreneurs shut out of traditional industries, and build a market rooted in equity and inclusion. Instead, the system we have today is leaving too many behind. Licensing delays, confusing regulations, and the absence of promised support are squeezing out small operators while those with the deepest pockets position themselves to dominate.

What we’re seeing is an industry built on the language of equity but sustained by barriers that block the very entrepreneurs it was designed to help. Take the rollout of BioTrack, the state’s first seed-to-sale tracking system that’s supposed to root out product illegally trafficked into the state and introduced into the legal market. The implementation was riddled with delays that left operators in limbo—unable to properly log inventory or complete required compliance steps. 

Just as businesses were beginning to adapt, the state abruptly announced a shift to a new platform, Metrc, forcing operators to retool their systems and retrain staff. For small businesses already running on razor-thin margins, the confusion from the state along with the disruption has meant lost time, lost money, and yet another roadblock to competing in a market where every day counts. 

Then there was also the state’s confusing approach when it declared more than 100 dispensaries to be closer to schools than the law allows, creating chaos for retailers who had already invested heavily in their locations. These missteps have left operators uncertain whether the rules of the game can be trusted, or whether they’ll change again tomorrow.

To close that gap, New York must act with urgency. That begins with permanent leadership at the Office of Cannabis Management. Without stable, experienced leadership, the agency responsible for shaping this market cannot provide the clarity and consistency small businesses need to plan, invest, and grow. 

The legislature also has to lead. It was lawmakers who put equity at the center of legalization, and it must be lawmakers who now step in to make sure that promise is honored with real reforms.

And the state must finally deliver the support it promised. Social equity designations and reinvestment funds only mean something if they translate into real, tangible assistance—technical help, fair financing, reduced fees, and a licensing process that doesn’t punish smaller operators. Without these, “equity” risks becoming a slogan, not a reality.

The stakes are enormous. New York has the chance to build the most inclusive cannabis industry in the country—an industry where small businesses thrive alongside larger players, where local communities benefit directly, and where justice is not only acknowledged but enacted. 

But if the state doesn’t act now, we risk watching legalization turn into another broken promise, another market dominated by a powerful few while the entrepreneurs who believed in this vision are left out. The cannabis industry can be a driver of jobs, investment, and wealth across New York. It can also be proof that legalization was about more than revenue—it was about fairness, justice, and opportunity. 

But that future is only possible if the state provides the leadership, legislative action, and support that small businesses need to succeed. The opportunity is still here. The question is whether New York has the will to seize it.

Damien Cornwell is president of the Cannabis Association of New York.

The post Opinion: Ensuring New York’s Cannabis Industry Lives Up to its Promises appeared first on City Limits.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting late Friday at Venezuela’s request on U.S. military actions in recent weeks in the waters off the South American country against what Washington calls drug traffickers.

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Venezuela made the request in a letter addressed to Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, the current council president, accusing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump of seeking to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and threatening “peace, security and stability regionally and internationally.”

The council scheduled the meeting at 3 p.m. EDT.

Maduro’s government also expressed its expectation of an “armed attack” against Venezuela in “a very short time.”

The request came a day after members of Congress voted down legislation that would have put a check on Trump’s ability to use deadly military force against drug traffickers. So far, the U.S. military has carried four deadly strikes in the Caribbean since it increased its maritime forces for what for what Trump has declared an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Maduro’s government, however, maintains that the White House is using drug trafficking only as an excuse for the operation.

“The ulterior motive remains the same as that which has characterized the United States of America’s actions toward Venezuela for more than 26 years: to advance its ‘regime change’ policies in order to seize control of the vast natural resources found in Venezuelan territory,” Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.N., wrote in the letter.

Venezuela’s request does not mention the nationalities of the 21 people killed in the four strikes on boats that the U.S. has claimed to have been carrying drugs. But in mentioning the four strikes, Venezuela’s government offered the clearest acknowledgment yet of the first attack. Initially it doubted the report of the attack, arguing that a video Trump released had been created with artificial intelligence.

The Trump administration has said three of the targeted boats set out to sea from Venezuela.

Russia has long been an ally of Venezuela.

By MIKE PESOLI and MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday despite jockeying from his fellow Republicans, various world leaders and — most vocally — himself.

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Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was honoring Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Machado, however, said she wanted to dedicate the win to Trump, along with the people of her country, as she praised the president for support of her cause.

The White House responded bitterly to the news of the award Friday, with communications director Steven Cheung saying members of “the Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace” because they didn’t recognize Trump, especially after the Gaza ceasefire deal his administration helped strike this week.

“He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will,” Cheung wrote on social media.

The White House did not comment on Machado’s recognition, but Trump on social media shared Machado’s post praising him.

Her opposition to President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela aligns with the Trump administration’s own stance on Venezuela, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously praised her as “the personification of resilience, tenacity, and patriotism.”

Trump, who has long coveted the prestigious prize, has been outspoken about his desire for the honor during both of his presidential terms, particularly lately as he takes credit for ending conflicts around the world. The Republican president had expressed doubts that the Nobel committee would ever grant him the award.

“They’ll have to do what they do. Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for that. I did it because I saved a lot of lives,” Trump said Thursday.

Although Trump received nominations for the prize, many of them occurred after the Feb. 1 deadline for the 2025 award, which fell just a week and a half into his second term. His name was, however, put forward in December by Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York, her office said in a statement, for his brokering of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states in 2020.

A long history of lobbying for the prize

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the committee has seen various campaigns in its long history of awarding the peace prize.

FILE – Activists carry signs during a protest against President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of policing of the District of Columbia, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

“We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what for them leads to peace,” he said. “This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates, and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. So we base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel.”

The peace prize, first awarded in 1901, was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts. Alfred Nobel stipulated in his will that the prize should go to someone “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Three sitting U.S. presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and Barack Obama in 2009. Jimmy Carter won the prize in 2002, a full two decades after leaving office. Former Vice President Al Gore received the prize in 2007.

Obama, a Democrat who was a focus of Trump’s attacks well before the Republican was elected, won the prize early in his tenure as president.

“They gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country,” Trump said Thursday.

Wars in Gaza and elsewhere

As one of his reasons for deserving the award, Trump often says he has ended seven wars, though some of the conflicts the president claims to have resolved were merely tensions and his role in easing them is disputed.

But while there is hope for the end to Israel and Hamas’ war, with Israel saying a ceasefire agreement with Hamas came into effect Friday, much remains uncertain about the aspects of the broader plan, including whether and how Hamas will disarm and who will govern Gaza. And little progress seems to have been made in the Russia-Ukraine war, a conflict Trump claimed during the 2024 campaign that he could end in one day.

As Trump pushes for peaceful resolutions to conflicts abroad, the country he governs remains deeply divided and politically fraught. Trump has kicked off what he hopes to be the largest deportation program in American history to remove immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. He is using the levers of government, including the Justice Department, to go after his perceived political enemies. He has sent the military into U.S. cities over local opposition to stop crime and crack down on immigration enforcement.

He withdrew the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, dealing a blow to worldwide efforts to combat global warming. He touched off global trade wars with his on-again, off-again tariffs, which he wields as a threat to bend other countries and companies to his will. He asserted presidential war powers by declaring cartels to be unlawful combatants and launching lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean that he alleged were carrying drugs.

The full list of people nominated is secret, but anyone who submits a nomination is free to talk about it. Trump’s detractors say supporters, foreign leaders and others are submitting Trump’s name for nomination for the prize — and announcing it publicly — not because he deserves it but because they see it as a way to manipulate him and stay in his good graces.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who this summer said he was nominating Trump for the prize, on Friday reposted Cheung’s response with the comment: “The Nobel Committee talks about peace. President @realDonaldTrump makes it happen.”

“The facts speak for themselves,” Netanyahu’s office said on X. “President #Trump deserves it.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sent troops to Ukraine in 2022 and has sought to show alignment with Trump, told reporters in Taijikistan on Friday that it’s not up to him to judge whether Trump should have received the prize, but he praised the ceasefire deal for Gaza.

He also criticized the Nobel Committee’s prior decisions, saying it has in the past awarded the prize to those who have done little to advance global peace.

Putin’s remarks nearly echoed the comments Trump made about Obama, and the U.S. leader responded to his Russian counterpart’s praise by posting on social media: “Thank you to President Putin!”

Others who formally submitted a nomination for Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize — but after this year’s deadline — include Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Pakistan’s government, all citing his work in helping end conflicts in their regions.

Rubio, who has played a starring role in Trump’s peacemaking efforts this year, was among a group of U.S. officials who nominated Machado for the Nobel Peace Prize, according to a nominating letter released Friday by one of the other nominators, U.S. Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez, a Florida Republican.

Associated Press writers Chris Megerian in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.