Trump's World Order: Bomb Cyclones, Closed Kennedy Center, Rights at Risk?

President Donald Trump continued to reshape the global landscape and domestic institutions this week, marked by actions ranging from international interventions to proposed cultural closures and responses to severe weather.

One month after U.S. forces seized Nicolás Maduro, Caracas was settling into an uneasy normal, according to NPR Politics. The situation presented major changes and lingering questions about the future.

Domestically, President Trump announced plans to close the Kennedy Center in Washington for two years starting in July for construction, the Associated Press reported. This move followed a wave of cancellations by leading performers and groups since Trump's return to the White House.

Meanwhile, a winter storm threatened the southern United States, potentially bringing snow to Florida's Gulf Coast for the first time in a decade, Time reported. Forecasters warned the storm could develop into a "bomb cyclone," a weather event characterized by a sharp drop in atmospheric pressure. By Saturday, approximately 240 million people were under cold weather advisories, and nearly 200,000 customers were without power, primarily in Tennessee and Mississippi, some still affected by the previous week's storm. The storm had already begun dropping snow on parts of eastern Tennessee, the Carolinas, and southern Virginia by Friday.

Vox reported that President Trump was actively attempting to shape a new world order, despite his "America First" promises. Recent weeks saw U.S. action in Venezuela, threats to Greenland, Europe, and Iran, and Trump's open solicitation of a Nobel Peace Prize. Trump also introduced the Board of Peace, a new body with a billion-dollar lifetime membership fee, which has been labeled a minor bid to replace the United Nations.

Time also addressed the broader implications of Trump's actions on human rights. The publication argued that the rules-based order that helped make human rights enforceable was fraying under pressure from the Trump administration, as well as from China and Russia. The article questioned whether human rights could survive without the established rules, suggesting that a new, durable human rights alliance was needed to defend core norms and make repression costly.