Caracas

Inauguration boycott: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was due to be sworn in this week for a second six-year term, following elections last May that were widely condemned as rigged. Most major countries in the hemisphere—including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Argentina—refused to send dignitaries to the ceremony and said they would not recognize Maduro’s presidency as legitimate. Days before the inauguration, Venezuelan Supreme Court Justice Christian Zerpa defected to the U.S. The former Maduro loyalist called the leftist president ignorant and incompetent and said his rule was a dictatorship. Venezuela’s economic collapse has caused 3 million people to flee the country in search of jobs and food, and the IMF predicts that the inflation rate will hit 10 million percent this year.