The murder of Renee Nicole Good: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: Jennifer Brooks writes: Renee Nicole Good. George Floyd. Different tragedies, but the same grief for a community betrayed by the people who were supposed to protect and serve. Crowds gathered again in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Jan. 7, marching through the same streets where some of them were protesting five and a half years ago after Floyd’s murder. The full force and fury of…
Politico reports: Grand juries — written off for decades as a pointless anachronism — are making a comeback under President Donald Trump. “They have been resurrected,” said Thaddeus Hoffmeister, a defense attorney and University of Dayton law professor. “For a long time, many people have been questioning why we even have grand juries. Like, what’s the purpose? …They don’t do anything. They don’t protect people. And then the last couple months, we start to see that, maybe the founding fathers…
The Wall Street Journal reports: Less than five hours before nighttime explosions rocked the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, an unknown trader doubled down on bets that Nicolás Maduro would soon be out as the country’s leader. The wagers on Polymarket, a popular crypto-based betting platform, netted the trader more than $400,000, a 12-fold return on investment—and fueled suspicions that someone used inside knowledge of the closely held U.S. operation to make a quick profit. Insider trading is illegal in the…
Rep. Jamie Raskin writes: Trump’s incoherent revisionist mythology of Jan. 6 has become an organizing policy commitment of his administration. On Inauguration Day, he pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of each of the nearly 1,600 rioters and seditionists (apparently no longer antifa fighters). This move bypassed the U.S. pardon attorney and discarded centuries of understanding that pardons should go to petitioners who have shown true remorse and contrition, rehabilitation and a lack of dangerousness. Consider just a few pardonees:…
Paul Rosenzweig writes: Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been forcibly taken from Venezuela and are being moved to the United States to face criminal drug-trafficking charges. Regardless of the international-law implications of this military action, the Trump administration’s description of what awaits Maduro and Flores has also transgressed basic principles of American domestic criminal law, as well as the underlying philosophical justification for punishment. Attorney General Pam Bondi has promised that Maduro and Flores “will soon face…
The Washington Post reports: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are planning to spend $100 million over a one-year period to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted advertising campaign, part of what the agency called a “wartime recruitment” strategy it said was critical to hiring thousands of new deportation officers nationwide, according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post. The spending would help President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation agenda dominate media networks and…
PYMNTS reports: American regulators collected 61% less in money laundering/sanction breach fines in 2025. That’s according to a report Wednesday (Dec. 31) by the Financial Times (FT), which ties this decline to a more lenient approach to financial regulation under the Trump administration. Total fines levied against companies for what the FT calls “dirty money” offenses came to a little less than $1.7 billion as of Dec. 19, the report said, citing data from compliance software provider Fenergo. Last year,…
The Wall Street Journal reports: Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just a frequent visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The club was also sending spa employees—usually young women—to Epstein’s nearby mansion for massages, manicures and other spa services, according to former Mar-a-Lago and Epstein employees. The house calls went on for years, even as spa employees warned each other about Epstein, who was known among staff for being sexually suggestive and exposing himself during the…
MS Now reports: In early January, several days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, a Justice Department lawyer passed an envelope across a wide desk to a top Trump transition official. Enclosed was a bombshell, typed up in a one-page summary, according to two people briefed on the meeting. As he read the contents of the envelope, the official, Emil Bove, closed his eyes and grimaced, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive case. It revealed that Tom…
Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge, writes: Untold numbers of ICE agents have appeared on America’s streets in recent months, and many of them have committed acts of aggression with seeming impunity. ICE agents have detained suspected illegal immigrants without cause—including U.S. citizens and lawful residents. They have, in effect, kidnapped people, breaking into cars to make arrests. They have used tear gas and pepper spray on nonviolent protesters. They have refused to identify themselves, wearing masks, using unmarked cars,…
Robert Draper writes: I have covered Greene, who is 51, extensively over the past five years, and it was evident during this recent visit that on one level nothing had changed. Just outside the front door of her office stood the familiar placard blaring, “There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.” One sign on the door warned visitors that “NO FOREIGN LOBBYING” was allowed; another featured the image of Charlie Kirk. Hanging on the wall inside the waiting area were…
Mike Masnick writes: The U.S. government just banned five people from entering the country because it doesn’t like their speech. This ban, according to the State Department, is necessary to protect free speech. If that sounds insane to you, congratulations on your reading comprehension. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s State Department announced the “Announcement of Actions to Combat the Global Censorship-Industrial Complex,” which will take “decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American…
The Wall Street Journal reports: President Trump had just awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom for Charlie Kirk in October when his son ushered friends toward the Oval Office. As a string ensemble played in the background, Donald Trump Jr. walked up with lobbyist Ches McDowell to chat with the president. Trump Jr. at one point pulled McDowell forward to shake the president’s hand, according to a livestream broadcast. After they went inside, McDowell took the president aside to…
Wired reports: When Donald Trump won a second term as US president a year ago, members of violent militias and far-right extremist groups who had spent years boosting the lie that the 2020 election was rigged were ready to assist the president with delivering on one of his main campaign promises: mass deportations. “I’m willing to help,” Richard Mack, a former sheriff who founded the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, told WIRED at the time, claiming he was…
Patrick Wintour writes: ‘The old world is dying,” Antonio Gramsci once wrote. “And the new world struggles to be born.” In such interregnums, the Italian Marxist philosopher suggested, “every act, even the smallest, may acquire decisive weight”. In 2025, western leaders appeared convinced they – and we – were living through one such transitional period, as the world of international relations established after the second world war crashed to a halt. During such eras, Gramsci more famously wrote, “morbid phenomena…
The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is widening efforts to screen visa applicants for online speech considered dangerous and “anti-American” as the government moves to restrict legal migration and remove people from places the president has called “garbage.” The State Department earlier this month expanded new regulations requiring foreign students and people on academic and cultural exchange programs to disclose five years of their social media histories and make all of their posts public. All applicants for H-1B employment…