Early Edition: January 16, 2026

A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the last 24 hours. Here’s today’s news:

MINNEAPOLIS 

On Thursday, President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and send active-duty troops into Minneapolis, MN, where widespread demonstrations continue against the aggressive tactics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Gregory Svirnovskiy, Kyle Cheney, and Myah Ward report for POLITICO. 

The Editorial Board of the Minnesota Star Tribune said the situation in Minneapolis feels like “a military occupation.” The city is “under siege,” the paper said, with “battalions of armed federal agents … moving through neighborhoods, transit hubs, malls and parking lots and staging near churches, mosques and schools. Strangers with guns have metastasized in spaces where daily life should be routine and safe.” The paper urged public protest and civil disobedience to remain peaceful, but wrote “The occupation of Minnesota by ICE cannot stand.”

Minneapolis police and fire departments released new records Thursday night about the killing of Renee Good including the location of gunshot  wounds. The New York Times reports. 

Some Minnesota school districts are offering students the option to do remote learning as fear spreads through the state’s immigrant communities. Sarah Mervosh reports for the New York Times. 

Several Native Americans are being swept up by ICE in Minneapolis. “Tribal leaders and members who live in the greater Minneapolis area say Indigenous family members, friends and neighbors have been stopped, questioned, harassed and, in some cases, detained solely on the basis of their skin color or their names,” Mariana Alfaro reports for the Washington Post. 

The ACLU of Minnesota is filing a class action lawsuit against the U.S. government for constitutional rights violations by federal agents. The violations include racially profiling residents, conducting illegal search and seizures, and making arrests without warrants. Stephen Swanson reports for CBS News. 

ICE

The Office of the Medical Examiner in El Paso County believes that the death of a man at a Texas detention camp was homicide, according to a recording shared with the Washington Post. When ICE announced the death of  Geraldo Lunas Campos on Jan. 3, it gave no cause of death. But “according to an eyewitness account and an internal ICE document reviewed by The Post,” Lunas Campos died following a struggle with detention staff. The new recording suggests he died from “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression.” 

ICE relied on AI to process thousands of new applications but an error caused the agency to wrongly categorize many of the new applicants as having law enforcement experience when they’d actually had none. “A DHS spokesperson called it a ‘technological snag’ that was quickly rectified,” Julia Ainsley reports for NBC News. 

The deputy director of ICE announced on Thursday that she’s stepping down to run for office in Ohio. Madison Sheahan, 28, said she would enter the Republican primary race to oppose Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptur. Reid J. Epstein and Madeleine Ngo report for the New York Times. 

ICE’s principal legal adviser will replace Sheahan as the No. 2 at ICE. Charles Wall, who began his career with ICE as an assistant chief counsel in Louisiana in 2012, will become the new deputy director, Reuters reports. 

Maine officials told residents on Wednesday that they were expecting federal immigration authorities to arrive in the state in the coming days. ICE agents are expected in the cities of Lewiston and Portland, according to the mayors there. Ashleigh Fields report for The Hill.

IRAN 

After encouraging Iranians to take to the streets and declaring “help is on its way” on Wednesday, Trump appears to have backed off the idea of striking Iran. On Thursday, he said “very important sources on the other side” had told him the killing inside the country had stopped, surprising some of his own officials. His statement prompted speculation that the president could be attempting misdirection, similar to the lead up to U.S. strikes against Iranian nuclear sites in June. Kevin Liptak, Zachary Cohen, Alayna Treene, Kristen Holmes report for CNN.

On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Trump to postpone any plans for an American military attack. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt also asked the administration to hold off on any U.S. military operation, saying it could cause wider regional conflict. Edward Wong, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt report for the New York Times.

On Thursday, Iran reopened its airspace after Trump’s comments about the killing having stopped. However, European airlines are still choosing not to fly over the country. Reuters reports. 

Iran’s judiciary said it “had not issued a death sentence for Erfan Soltani, 26, a protester whose execution had been widely reported as imminent and had drawn intense international attention,” Abdi Latif Dahir and Sanam Mahoozi report for the New York Times. 

The director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency is in the United States to discuss the situation in Iran. David Barnea is expected to “meet in Miami with White House envoy Steve Witkoff, who is managing the direct channel of communication between the U.S. and Iran,” Barak Ravid reports for Axios. 

VENEZUELA

María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s opposition leader, met with Trump at the White House on Thursday and gave him her Nobel Peace Prize, which she won last year. After a large-scale U.S. military operation removed Venezuela’s longtime leader Nicolás Maduro from power earlier this month, Trump declined to replace him with Machado. Instead, he elevated other members of the Maduro regime into leadership positions. “It is unclear what Ms. Machado gained out of her meeting with Mr. Trump,” Max Bearak and Henrik Pryser Libell report for the New York Times. 

While Machado met with Trump, CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Caracas meeting with Delcy Rodríguez, the interim president of Venezuela. A U.S. official told the New York Times Ratcliffe’s meeting with Rodríguez was at Trump’s direction and it was meant “to deliver the message that the United States looks forward to an improved working relationship.” 

On Thursday, U.S. forces in the Caribbean seized a sixth sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration said has ties to Venezuela. The U.S. military said the ship was seized “without incident.” Konstantin Toropin and Michael Biesecker report for the AP. 

The new leadership in Venezuela promised last week to release an “important number” of political prisoners, but their families say they are still waiting. The Venezuelan government claims several hundred have been released, but “Foro Penal, a leading rights organization that tracks and advocates for Venezuelan prisoners, says 79 had been released as of Wednesday night. An estimated 800 to 900 political prisoners were believed to have been incarcerated in Venezuela at the time of Maduro’s capture.” Mariana Zuñiga and Carmen Sesin report for NBC News.

The first U.S. sale of Venezuelan oil was to Vitol, “a company whose senior oil trader donated to Trump’s re-election campaign and attended a White House meeting with the president last week.” Malcolm Moore and Jamie Smyth report for the Financial Times. 

GREENLAND 

European troops arrived in Greenland on Thursday as Trump continued to threaten U.S. annexation of the Danish territory. “Small numbers of military personnel from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Sweden were arriving in the Arctic island early Thursday,” Yuliya Talmazan reports for NBC News. 

Two new polls show that most Americans oppose Trump’s threats to take over Greenland. “Eighty-six percent of voters nationwide questioned in a Quinnipiac University poll said they would oppose military action to take over Greenland.” And “three-quarters of Americans questioned in a CNN poll conducted at the same time said they opposed a U.S. takeover of Greenland.” Paul Steinhauser reports for FOX News. 

A bipartisan group of lawmakers were set to introduce a resolution on Thursday that would repudiate Trump’s threats to seize Greenland. The effort was led by Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Don Bacon (R-NE). Joe Gould reports for POLITICO. 

CHINA

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is on a landmark state visit to Beijing, where on Friday it was announced that “Canada will lower tariffs on some Chinese electric vehicles and China will do the same for Canadian canola products.” Carney announced on X that “Canada and China are forging a new strategic partnership.” Canada’s shift in trade policy comes after Trump has repeatedly threatened Canadian sovereignty. “The tariff changes Mr. Carney announced were modest, but they signal an important break with the United States as Canada seeks to urgently diversify its trading partners and reduce its reliance on the United States,” Matina Stevis-Gridneff reports for the New York Times. 

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

The U.S. Commerce Department announced on Thursday that Taiwan will invest $250 billion in U.S. chipmaking under a new trade deal. In exchange, the United States will lower its tariff rate on Taiwan, bringing it down to 15 percent. It will also commit to zero “reciprocal” tariffs on certain goods, including generic pharmaceuticals. Kif Leswing reports for CNBC. 

The United States is stepping up its pressure on Mexico to allow U.S. forces, either Special Operation troops or C.I.A. officers, to conduct joint operations to dismantle fentanyl labs inside the country. The country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, opposes the idea of sending U.S. troops across the border. ​​Maria Abi-Habib, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt, and Tyler Pager report for the New York Times. 

U.S. PRESS DEVELOPMENTS

The Pentagon announced on Thursday that it is overhauling the historically editorially independent newspaper Stars and Stripes. “The statement appears to challenge the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes, which while a part of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Activity has long retained independence from editorial oversight from the Pentagon under a congressional mandate that it be governed by First Amendment principles.” Corey Dickstein reports for Stars and Stripes.

After the FBI raided a Washington Post reporter’s home on Wednesday, journalists from multiple outlets are taking new precautions to protect their reporting. “Many journalists said they saw the FBI raid as a jarring new step aimed at limiting news organizations’ ability to gather information that the government does not want to be made public.” Sarah Ellison, Patrick Marley and Colby Itkowitz report for the Washington Post. 

Staffers at CBS News expressed their concern and skepticism when the newsroom cited two anonymous “U.S. officials” on Wednesday to report that the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis “suffered internal bleeding to the torso” after the incident. Jeremy Barr reports for the Guardian. 

TECH DEVELOPMENTS

Elon Musk’s company X said it had disabled, “in some locations, a controversial Grok tool that allows users to digitally undress photos of real people,” but the tool remains functional on the stand-alone Grok app. Karla Adam, Faiz Siddiqui, and Tatum Hunter report for the Washington Post. 

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION 

A federal judge said on Thursday that Trump Cabinet secretaries had conspired to violate the Constitution. “In remarks laced with outrage and disbelief, U.S. District Judge William Young said Donald Trump and top officials have a ‘fearful approach’ to freedom of speech that would seek to ‘exclude from participation everyone who doesn’t agree with them.’” Young was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan. Joanna Slater reports for the Washington Post. 

At a different court hearing, the Trump administration admitted it had made a mistake when it deported Any Lucia López Belloza, 19, a freshman at Babson College, when she was flying home for Thanksgiving. Still, the government has not moved to drop the case, Adam Sella reports for the New York Times. 

A federal appeals panel on Thursday reversed a lower court decision that released Mahmoud Khalil from an immigration jail. “In a 2-1 decision, the panel ruled that federal immigration laws require deportation challenges to be made by filing a petition for review of a final order of removal with a federal appeals court — not a lower-level district court.” The Associated Press reports. 

The Trump administration was blocked on Thursday from obtaining California voter data. A federal district judge dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit. “A district judge in Oregon also said in court Wednesday that he was tentatively planning to do the same there.” Miles Parks reports for NPR.