What the ‘Federal Invasion’ of Minneapolis Looks Like on the Ground: Photos

Journalists and photographers are doing invaluable work documenting scenes from the chaos. Many, including  Tim Evans, David Guttenfelder and Jack Califano, are posting that work to social media, where it has traveled far and wide. 

Talking Points Memo

Trump pardon of former Puerto Rico governor failed to include a relevant criminal case

The White House said an additional document pardoning Wanda Vázquez Garced will be signed out of an abundance of caution.

NBC News

Minneapolis man says ICE agents took ‘trophy’ photos, locked him in overcrowded cell

Prokosch said that his client’s immigration status falls into a gray area. Authorities handed Gibson a removal order in 2009 based on a now-expunged minor marijuana conviction, but the government has allowed him to live and work in the United States provided that he check in regularly with ICE. Prokosch said that Gibson followed the rules to a T. 

“We have the sheet that says he goes in every three months or six months or whatever and they say ‘OK, is your address correct?’ Yes. ‘Is your phone number correct?’ Yes. ‘Have you done anything else bad?’ No. OK, we’ll see you again in three or six months.” 

MPR News

ICE deports 5-year-old US citizen from Texas to Honduras, group says

Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos and her mom were arrested in Austin on January 5.

MySA

Abolishing ICE isn’t enough – it’s time to center people’s humanity

It’s far from radical to reject a system predicated on violence – despite what thinktanks might claim

The Guardian

DHS seeking to deport two men who said fellow ICE detainee was killed

The two men’s accounts of the Jan. 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos at a Texas detention camp differ from the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the incident.

The Washington Post

U.S. Military Command That Attacked Venezuela Gutted Its Civilian Harm Team

Complaints about civilians killed or injured in the U.S. attack on Venezuela are instead being handled by the Pentagon directly.

The Intercept

Trump Escalates His War on America as Dems Debate What Words They Can Say

The president is launching increasingly violent invasions of blue cities. Meanwhile, Democratic elites are concerned some might say: ‘Abolish ICE.’

Zeteo

Very Important Moment

We’re still hearing there’s a “debate” among Democrats on “abolish ICE.” It’s fine if people want to avoid the word “abolish.” It’s probably no accident Gallego said it should be “totally torn down.” It’s a tad latinate anyway if you’re still under the long hand of Strunk & White. But I think very few people are seeing ICE as any kind of police force that is protecting them or making any place they operate safer. Indeed, there’s been very clear polling on this recently. Big majorities think ICE makes areas where it operates less rather than more safe and is a source of chaos and violence rather than an answer to it. Even though they wouldn’t put it that way, I think even ICE’s most diehard supporters get that.

Talking Points Memo

‘Staring over the edge’: South Carolina measles outbreak doubles in a week

More than 500 people are in a 21-day quarantine and about 200 are “actively infected.” The largest outbreak currently in the U.S. has spread to at least three other states.

NBC News

Allegations of racial profiling of U.S. citizens on the rise as ICE surge expands in Minnesota

People of color describe being stopped, questioned or detained by immigration agents despite being U.S. citizens, raising civil liberties concerns.

The Minnesota Star Tribune

NYC landlord clashes with Mamdani administration in 9-hour bankruptcy hearing

What might have been a routine hearing to confirm a real estate sale morphed into a nearly nine-hour marathon Thursday as attorneys for tenants and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration attempted to win financial guarantees from the international real estate firm set to purchase more than 5,100 rent-stabilized New York City apartments.

Gothamist

The day that CBS News became literally ‘fake news’ for America

An unverified, unlikely story about the Minneapolis ICE shooter exposes the new CBS News team as Trump’s state media.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Progressive effort to primary Sen. John Fetterman ramps up

The Working Families Party launched a website where, among other efforts, voters can request refunds from Fetterman’s campaign.

NBC News

FBI, Pentagon Ready Possible Minnesota Surge to Back ICE

The Pentagon has ordered 1,500 US troops based in Alaska to prepare to deploy to Minnesota as a precautionary measure in case the administration decides to send them, a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The unit of the 11th Airborne Division is a cold-weather unit nicknamed “The Arctic Angels.”

At the same time, the FBI is sending messages to its agents nationwide seeking volunteers to temporarily transfer to Minneapolis. It wasn’t immediately clear what the FBI would ask agents who volunteered to travel to Minneapolis to do. FBI agents have traditionally focused on national security-related tasks such as counter-terrorism, organized crime and high-profile violent offenses, not street patrols or immigration-related enforcement.

Bloomberg

The Biggest Takeaways From Our Investigation Into Grazing on Public Lands

Livestock grazing is allowed across 240 million acres of federal land. Our investigation revealed the subsidies propping up ranching, its impact on the environment and the politics underpinning the system.

ProPublica

Minneapolis duo details their ICE detention, including pressure to rat on protest organizers

Two Minneapolis residents who have been monitoring immigration officers’ actions during the Trump administration’s latest crackdown say they were detained without charge for several hours in distressing conditions, denied phone calls, and pressured to rat out protest organizers and people living in the country illegally.

ABC News

“Abolish ICE” Is More Popular Than Ever. How Will Democrats Drop the Ball This Time?

Establishment Democrats are rejecting an increasingly popular position by refusing to take a bold stance that happens to be good politics.

The Intercept

Seven Legal Questions That Will Shape Democracy in 2026

Courts are set to decide a host of cases that will determine the fate of the VRA, confront the latest restrictions on direct democracy, and affect ballot access and redistricting.

Bolts

Explaining Trump’s Oil Grab

There’s a reason why countries don’t go to war over oil. The Trump administration miscalculated the costs.

Lawfare

US military has a long history in Greenland, from mining during WWII to a nuclear-powered Army base built into the ice

Although Americans have long pursued policies in Greenland that U.S. leaders considered strategic and economic imperatives, Trump’s approach is more agressive than any previous president. As I recounted in my 2024 book, “When the Ice is Gone,” about Greenland’s environmental, military and scientific history, some prior American ideas for Greenland were little more than engineering fantasies, while others reflected unfettered military bravado.

The Conversation

Iran report says 16,500 dead in ‘genocide under digital darkness’

Witnesses tell of the brutality inflicted on those taking part in anti-regime protests

The Times

AP obtains documents showing Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez has been on DEA’s radar for years

The DEA has amassed a detailed intelligence file on Rodríguez dating to at least 2018, the records show, cataloging her known associates and allegations ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling. One confidential informant told the DEA in early 2021 that Rodríguez was using hotels in the Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita “as a front to launder money,” the records show. As recently as last year she was linked to Maduro’s alleged bag man, Alex Saab, whom U.S. authorities arrested in 2020 on money laundering charges.

AP News

EU readies €93bn tariffs in retaliation for Trump’s Greenland threat

Europe could also threaten to restrict US companies’ market access in run-up to crunch talks at Davos

Financial Times

‘Yankee, Go Home’: Greenlanders Protest Trump’s Takeover Plans

Protests erupted in several Greenlandic cites and in Denmark as President Trump intensified his efforts to take control of the Arctic island.

The New York Times

Venezuela: Maduro’s enforcer Cabello still central to power

Like Maduro, Cabello has been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking and narco‑terrorism charges, and named alongside Maduro, his wife Cilia Flores, and other associates in the same indictment.

NPR

Why Afro-Venezuelans Oppose U.S. Intervention in Venezuela

More than half of Venezuelans identify as having African ancestry, the highest rate of the world’s Spanish-speaking nations.

Capital B

Venezuelan Oil Industry Is Running on WhatsApp After Cyberattack

A Dec. 15 attack shut down PDVSA’s system, leaving the company to run its business outside its own technological networks, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation who were not authorized to speak publicly. That’s slowed payments to contractors and employees, and information on production data, three of the people said.

Bloomberg

Canada agrees to cut tariff on Chinese EVs in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products

Breaking with the United States, Canada has agreed to cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday.

AP News

Too dirty, too late? Why the economics of Venezuela’s oil don’t pencil out

Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves—a staggering 300 billion barrels—but there’s a vast distance between theoretical wealth and actual profit, says UC Berkeley Haas labor economist David Levine.

UC Berkley Haas

I’m the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. This Is Something I Thought I’d Never Have to Write.

Democracy, multilateralism and accountability once defined the postwar order. These words are increasingly dismissed as elitist, woke or dead. We need to ask ourselves, on both sides of the Atlantic, if we want to live in a world where democracy is recast as weakness, truth as opinion and justice as an option.

The New York Times