Venezuela Police Break Up Student Protest Camps, Arresting Scores

"Military troops stormed four tent cities set up by antigovernment protesters Thursday, arresting scores of people, as U.S. lawmakers debated leveling sanctions against Venezuelan officials accused of human-rights abuses...The tent raids were aimed at stamping out the last vestiges of a three-month-old protest movement that has resulted in at least 42 deaths and shaken the populist government that has ruled Venezuela for 15 years. Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres told reporters 243 demonstrators were taken into custody in an operation that began before dawn Thursday. The camps, he said, were sheltering 'the most violent groups that would commit terrorist acts.'...Since the protests erupted in early February, officials have accused participants of being violent mercenaries out to topple the state with U.S. assistance. The government hasn't offered evidence of its claims, and the U.S. had denied involvement in the unrest."