Target, Delta and Hilton targeted with actions leading up to economic blackout of no work, shopping or schoolSome of the US's biggest companies are coming under increasing pressure to speak out about the Trump administration's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)'s operations in Minnesota.Workers throughout Minnesota have been pressuring their employers to act following the death of Renee Good, an unarmed woman killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis earlier this month. Continue reading...
Alex Pretti's death could be a moment of reckoning for Democrats to call time on Trump waging war on his peopleWearing helmets, gas masks and camouflage fatigues, the federal agents took aim and prepared to open fire. It's like Call of Duty," one could be heard saying via a TV mic, referring to a first-person shooter military video game. So cool, huh?"This was the scene on the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday after armed agents, wearing masks and tactical vests, wrestled 37-year-old Alex Pretti to the ground and shot him dead. The killing took place just over a mile from where Renee Good was fatally shot on 7 January, a scene that itself was less than a mile from where police murdered George Floyd in May 2020. Continue reading...
Maxwell Alejandro Frost says attacker told me Trump was going to deport me' as police say suspect arrestedThe Florida congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost said he was assaulted by a man who said Donald Trump would deport him at a party during the Sundance film festival in Utah.Last night, I was assaulted by a man at Sundance Festival who told me that Trump was going to deport me before he punched me in the face," Frost said in a Saturday post on X. He was heard screaming racist remarks as he drunkenly ran off. The individual was arrested and I am okay." Continue reading...
by Kira Lerner in Washington and Lauren Gambino in Lo on (#732XR)
Announcement comes as anger toward DHS - which oversees ICE - intensifies after Alex Pretti fatally shotIn the wake of another fatal shooting of a US citizen in Minnesota by a federal officer, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said his party would block a funding package next week if it includes money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).The announcement, which dramatically escalates the potential for another partial government shutdown, comes as anger towards homeland security, which oversees ICE, intensifies among the party after a group of federal agents violently restrained and then fatally shot 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Continue reading...
Pair testify that Pretti did not hold weapon and was trying to help woman federal agents had shoved to the groundTwo witnesses to the killing of Alex Pretti have said in sworn testimony that the 37-year-old intensive care nurse was not brandishing a weapon when he approached federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, contradicting a claim made by Trump administration officials as they sought to cast the shooting of a prone man as an act of self-defense.Their accounts came in sworn affidavits that were filed in federal court in Minnesota late Saturday, just hours after Pretti's killing, as part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of Minneapolis protesters against Kristi Noem and other homeland security officials directing the immigration crackdown in the city. Continue reading...
Protests erupt across US after American citizen Alex Pretti shot dead, as video shows he had been holding a phone and not a gun, contradicting federal claims - key US politics stories from 24 JanuaryUS federal law enforcement officers fatally shot an American citizen in Minneapolis in the second such killing in less than three weeks, sparking major protests in cities across the country.Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old registered nurse living in Minneapolis, was shot dead after being sprayed with a chemical agent and wrestled to the ground by federal agents when he appeared to come to the aid of a person being shoved to the ground by an officer. Continue reading...
by Jenna Amatulli and Charlotte Simmonds on (#732WY)
Wave of demonstrations comes a day after thousands marched through Minneapolis streets to protest ICELarge protests spread across US cities on Saturday - including Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island - after 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a registered nurse living in Minneapolis, was shot dead by federal agents.The wave of demonstrations come just one day after thousands marched through the streets of Minneapolis to protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Protesters again braved the extreme cold to speak out against the agency and show support for Pretti and others who have been harmed by the surge of immigration agents who have flooded the city in recent week. Continue reading...
Video evidence reviewed by Guardian shows Alex Pretti, killed by agents in Minneapolis, held a phone, not a gunVideo recorded by witnesses to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday shows that the 37-year-old registered nurse was holding a phone, not a gun, when he was tackled and shot, directly contradicting the claims of senior Trump administration officials that he threatened to massacre" officers.In the aftermath of the killing, which was recorded by multiple witnesses, the Department of Homeland Security released an image of a handgun, which Donald Trump referred to as the gunman's gun" in a social media post. Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, said at a briefing that Pretti had approached US border patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun", though she later declined to say whether or not Pretti pulled the gun out. Continue reading...
Nurse Alex Pretti, 37, shot dead as heartbroken' parents condemn administration's sickening lies' about killingUS federal law enforcement officers on Saturday fatally shot an American citizen in Minneapolis, the second such killing in less than three weeks.The killing of US citizen Alex Pretti, 37, comes after Renee Good, also a 37-year-old American citizen, was shot dead on 7 January by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis, with video showing her trying to drive away from a confrontation, sparking protests nationwide. Continue reading...
Dangerous weather engulfing large area of country as 16 states plus DC declare states of emergencyA powerful winter storm with more than 140 million Americans in its crosshairs started sweeping across much of the US on Saturday, packing heavy snow and sleet as well as freezing rain and causing widespread power outages.Snowfall was already being reported on Saturday morning across parts of the plains, the south and the midwest, including in areas of Oklahoma, Iowa, Tennessee, Kansas, Texas and Missouri. Continue reading...
Video provided to the Guardian appears to show the moments before the fatal shooting of a man by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday. At a news briefing, the Minneapolis police chief, Brian O'Hara, said the person who was shot is believed to be a 37-year-old man who lived in Minneapolis and was an American citizen. Continue reading...
Eyewitness video appears to show the incident during which a man was shotby fedral law enforcement officers in Minneapolis.At a news briefing, the Minneapolis police chief, Brian O'Hara, said the person who was shot is believed to be a 37-year-old man who lived in Minneapolis and was an American citizen.In a statement, the assistant homeland security secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, said the shooting occurred as ... officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis" against a person they said was present in the country illegally and wanted for assault. McLaughlin's statement said an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun", and that officers attempted to disarm" him. The statement accused the man shot of having resisted" Continue reading...
The rules-based global order is rapidly disintegrating. It's time for middle powers to stand togetherThe French president Emmanuel Macron borrowed some lines from Hugh Grant about bullies at the World Economic Forum in Davos. His target was Donald Trump, who had leaked a conciliatory text message from Macron who, evidently, was trying to get the US president to the table to shore up the rapidly disintegrating global order.In the love-it-or-hate-it Christmas film, Love Actually, Grant - playing the foppish British prime minister of the day - confronts the US president, saying: A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend, and since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger."Zoe Daniel is a three-time ABC foreign correspondent and the former independent member for Goldstein. She is the chair of Mental Health Victoria Continue reading...
A jury in San Francisco found Antoine Watson guilty of manslaughter and assault - rather than murder and elder abuseThe 2021 killing of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee sent shockwaves through San Francisco and brought national attention to violence against Asian Americans during the pandemic.This month, five years on, the case has returned to the headlines, sparking renewed controversy. Last week, a jury declined to convict the perpetrator in the attack on charges of murder and elder abuse. Instead, Antoine Watson, 24, was found guilty of manslaughter and assault. Continue reading...
Hated by All the Right People is the first book to reckon critically with arguably the most dangerous media personality of the Trump ageTucker Carlson, the podcaster and former Fox News host, once told a hostile conservative crowd that rightwing media needed to be more responsible. In a 2009 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he argued that publications on the right should hold themselves to a higher standard.This is the hard truth," Carlson said. If you create a news organization whose primary objective is not to deliver accurate news, you will fail." Conservatives loved to complain about the New York Times, he added, when what they really needed was their own New York Times. The crowd jeered and booed at him. Continue reading...
Minneapolis protests have transfixed the US, but Kaohly Her's city, home to a large immigrant population, has been targeted by ICE for half a yearKaohly Her has one of the most striking background stories in US politics - a Hmong refugee born in a bamboo hut in the mountains of Laos who came to the US at age three as part of a Vietnam-war era resettlement program.Now, as the newly installed mayor of Saint Paul, the city twinned with Minneapolis, she has emerged as an important figure in Minnesota, the solidly Democratic state targeted by the Trump administration's exercise of controversial immigration policies. Continue reading...
Activists say the retailer has met with clergy but not spoken out against ICE or safeguarded employees and customersWhile thousands of protesters marched through downtown Minneapolis yesterday to demand that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents leave the city, a smaller group of activists set their sights on a specific destination: the downtown headquarters of national retailer Target.Dozens of clergy members and their supporters planted themselves in the atrium of the store. Say it loud and say it clear, immigrants are welcome here," the group chanted. Something 'bout this isn't right - why does Target work for ICE?" Continue reading...
As Trump-deployed agents pervade the region, students struggle to carry on with lessons while carrying grief and fear that they or their loved ones will be takenIn south Minneapolis, a special education student logged on for their online class from the basement. They were hiding because immigration agents were banging at the door.A second grader started having a panic attack in the middle of art class because agents had arrested his dad. His teacher had to ask a colleague to watch the other students, bring him outside, and hold him for half an hour to help calm him. Continue reading...
Ryan Wedding, a Canadian Olympic snowboarder accused of becoming a cocaine smuggling kingpin linked to multiple murders, arrived handcuffed at Ontario international airport in California on Friday.Wedding, escorted by FBI agents, was flown to the US from Mexico to face charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy to murder, witness tampering and money laundering.Kash Patel, the FBI director, said Wedding was arrested on Thursday night in Mexico City after years on the run.Patel said Wedding was the 'largest narco-trafficker in modern times', akin to the drug lords Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman and Pablo Escobar
Novak Djokovic and Iga Swiatek were among the winners while Naomi Osaka withdrew on a heat-disrupted dayVan de Zandschulp has only been broken once in the tournament himself, so Djokovic is unlikely to get anything for free there.*Van de Zandschulp 0-1 Djokovic (*denotes next server) Continue reading...
It has become difficult to feel shock at the actions of the Trump administration. But this useless cruelty is shamelessLiam Ramos is five. In photographs of his arrest on Tuesday, released by the school district where he is enrolled as a preschooler, he is wearing a large blue hat with a bunny face and ears. According to the superintendent, Liam had just arrived home from school with his father when ICE agents apprehended the two and arrested them. Allegedly, one of Liam's relatives, who was outside at the time, begged for the little boy to be allowed to stay there in their care; instead, both father and son were captured by the federal agents and quickly transported to a detention camp in Dilley, Texas. Liam's father has no apparent criminal record; he has a pending asylum case. Does it need to be said that the child does not have a criminal record, either? In one picture, a white man's hand clutches, claw-like, on to the back of Liam's Spider-Man backpack. In another, a masked man stands behind Liam, stooping slightly to reach the small child, as the boy stands at the front door of his home. According to school officials, the agent instructed Liam to knock on the door and ask to be let into the house in order to see if anyone else was home - essentially using a five-year-old as bait".Liam is the fourth child from his Minneapolis-area school district to be seized by ICE agents since the surge of federal immigration forces in the city. According to school officials, two 17-year olds were also taken - one snatched alone from their car, another captured at home with her mother. Another child, a 10-year-old girl in the fourth grade, was allegedly also taken by the federal forces - while on her way to school with her mother.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
The deadline for Trump's justice department to release the files came and went, but experts say there are still optionsFor months, the 2025 news cycle was dominated by the disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.Public outrage over the continued secrecy surrounding Epstein investigative files - which Donald Trump failed to release fully early in his second term, despite campaign promises - was growing. Continue reading...
The 46th president largely exists as Trump's foil, with his successor blaming him for the country's woesIn bitter cold beneath the US Capitol dome, he walked to a marine helicopter and shared parting words with Donald Trump. Then, arriving at Joint Base Andrews, Joe Biden offered farewell remarks to his loyal staff. We're leaving office," he said, We're not leaving the fight."But, one year later, Washington, and the world, have mostly moved on from the 46th president. Biden, 83, has been writing a lucrative memoir, planning a presidential library and fighting prostate cancer. He was once the most powerful man on the planet, but now Biden's public appearances have been scarce and his influence has palpably diminished. Continue reading...
The Philadelphia Union product has added end product to his trademark hustle - can he keep the good form going?Timing is everything in a World Cup year, and Brenden Aaronson's has been pretty much perfect.Scoring a goal and putting in a top performance against your team's biggest rival is something all players dream of. To do so when your family is watching in the stands and a reporter from your home town newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, is in the press box makes it all the better. Aaronson did all of the above at Elland Road for Leeds United against Manchester United earlier this month. Continue reading...
While the threat of retaliatory measures to stop the annexation of Greenland worked, it remains to be seen if Europe has the unity to follow throughThe past couple of weeks have seen the most spectacular crisis escalation in the transatlantic relationship, over the US threat to annex Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark. It risked becoming a major conflict among the members of Nato, the most powerful security alliance in world history - until now.On Wednesday, after a meeting with Nato's secretary general, Mark Rutte, the US president, Donald Trump, backtracked on his threats to slap tariffs on countries that got in the way of his annexation project. As European leaders huddled together over dinner for a post-crisis debrief in Brussels on 22 January, they congratulated themselves on their unity and appreciated the intervention of Rutte, or Daddy diplomacy". If these really were the conclusions of the latest debacle in transatlantic relations, they are missing important parts of the story.Rosa Balfour is director of Carnegie Europe Continue reading...
Once dismissed as a basement game, table tennis is enjoying an unlikely US revival as the Oscar-tipped biopic Marty Supreme collides with a wave of new playersFor decades in the US, table tennis has lived a double life: one of the most widely played sports in the country, yet still dismissed by many as a basement pursuit. Now, unexpectedly, it is having a cultural moment.The release of Marty Supreme, a film steeped in obsession and myth, and loosely based on postwar American table tennis champion Marty Reisman, has pushed ping-pong into the pop-culture mainstream - just as US Major League Table Tennis sells out matches, clubs report growing interest, and younger players pick up paddles for the first time. Continue reading...
In the US, comedy has long filled the space vacated by partisan news media. Now France is following its leadSometimes the freedom and openness of comedy means it is better able to respond to world events than news media. Take South Park's raucous, unhinged and visually disturbing depictions of Donald Trump - most recently, cheating on Satan (who is carrying his spawn) with JD Vance in the White House. Fair enough: Trey Parker and Matt Stone very much own this terrain.But there's no reason why satirical TV programmes such as The Daily Show should have to take on the role of news provider, investigative journalist and critic. And yet, over the past three decades, the failings of the US corporate media to adequately cover the country's dilapidated politics has pushed people such as Jon Stewart into filling the void.
As the two cartoonists set out to draw on the same theme - Trump and a world in turmoil' - to the same deadline, Guardian photographer David Levene visited them in their studios
Martin Rowson has been drawing for the Guardian since the 1980s; Ella Baron since 2022. In paint and pixels, each is tasked with capturing the chaos and absurdity of our political momentPhotographs and video by David Levene
by Robert Mackey, Shrai Popat, Lucy Campbell and Tom on (#731SQ)
This live blog is now closed.Talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States have begun in Abu Dhabi, according to the United Arab Emirates' ministry of foreign affairs.The UAE is hosting a rare set of trilateral talks, bringing together negotiators from Russia, Ukraine, and the US. The talks have started today, and are scheduled to continue over the next two days. Continue reading...
Starmer suggested Trump should apologise for claiming Nato troops stayed a little off the frontlines' - key US politics stories from 23 January at a glanceThe UK prime minister Keir Starmer has accused Donald Trump of diminishing" the sacrifice of fallen British soldiers, as the US president faced a fierce backlash from UK political leaders and families of veterans over his comments about Nato troops.In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Trump said: [Nato will] say they sent some troops to Afghanistan ... and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines." Continue reading...
DHS detain a toddler and her father on Thursday and fly them to Texas before returning child on judge's orderFederal immigration agents detained a two-year-old girl and her father in Minneapolis on Thursday and transported them to Texas, according to court records and the family's lawyers.The father, identified in court filings as Elvis Joel TE, and his daughter were stopped and detained by officers around 1pm when they were returning home from the store. By the evening, a federal judge had ordered the girl be released by 9.30pm. But federal officials instead put both of them on a plane heading to a Texas detention center. Continue reading...
Release of third activist, William Kelly, also involved in the demonstrations was also ordered by a judgeNekima Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Allen, who were arrested and charged for their role in an anti-ICE demonstration that disrupted Sunday church services in St Paul, Minnesota, have been released.Video of the two women posted online showed them emerging from detention on Friday, raising their fists and embracing their loved ones. Thank you all for being here," Levy Armstrong said. Glory to God!" Continue reading...
The detention of Liam Conejo Ramos, age five, marks the turbocharging of a policy discontinued five years agoThis week, ICE's detention of a five-year-old boy wearing a Spider Man backpack in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights quickly became a defining image of the Trump administration's hardline immigration enforcement. Furious critics, including many local politicians, seized on Liam Ramos's ordeal as glaring evidence that Trump's mass deportation campaign has little to do with crime and a lot to do with terrorizing children and their families.A homeland security spokesperson said ICE officers took the boy into custody only after his father fled during an attempted arrest. The superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights said another adult living in the home was outside during the encounter and had pleaded to take care of Liam so the boy could avoid detention, but was denied. Continue reading...
Since September, military has carried out more than 30 strikes against boats that it alleges smuggle drugsThe US military said on Friday that it carried out a strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing two people.Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations," the US Southern Command said in a statement. Continue reading...
Snow, sleet and freezing temperatures are forecast for the south, midwest and east coast over the weekendThe dangerous monster storm threatening half of the US was on Friday bearing down, with 16 states and Washington DC already declaring emergencies and areas typically unused to prolonged Arctic temperatures bracing for power failures and supply shortages.At least 230 million people are likely to be affected by the huge winter weather system as it forms in parts of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains and surges across southern and midwestern areas from Friday, blowing up the east coast on Saturday and as far north as Maine by Sunday. Continue reading...
Review of case found problems with statements from police officer who claimed victim had identified her attackerNearly 70 years after a Texas Black man was executed in a case that prosecutors now say was based on false evidence and was riddled with racial bias, officials have declared that he was innocent of the killing of a white woman in Dallas.Tommy Lee Walker was executed in the electric chair in May 1956 for the rape and murder of 31-year-old Venice Parker. Continue reading...
Autopsy report concluded Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, died from asphyxia due to neck and torso compression'The death of a Cuban migrant inside a Texas immigration detention facility has been officially classified as a homicide, according to an El Paso county autopsy report.Wednesday's autopsy report from the El Paso county medical examiner's office concluded that Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, died from asphyxia due to neck and torso compression", according to Adam Gonzalez, a deputy medical examiner. Continue reading...
Gregory Bovino's outwear choice prompts German commentators to compare it to fascist aestheticA greatcoat worn by the senior US border patrol official Gregory Bovino, who has spearheaded aggressive immigration operations across the country, has raised eyebrows in German media with some commentators saying it resembled a fascist aesthetic.Bovino has been an increasingly recognisable figure during the raids in Minneapolis for the brass-buttoned, calf-length olive green coat, which is unlike the fatigues and body armor worn by many of the federal agents. Continue reading...
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