Independent Media

Democracy Now! speaks with a former colleague of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse shot dead by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday. Dr. Aasma Shaukat, who hired Pretti for a research job over a decade ago, says he lived with “kindness, compassion and a strong sense of civic duty to help his fellow citizens.”

Protests have intensified in Minnesota after federal immigration agents killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who worked in the Minneapolis Veterans Health Care System, on Saturday. Democracy Now!'s John Hamilton reports from the scene of Pretti's killing, where protesters clashed with federal agents. “We’ve seen everything from people that are unconscious, that have fainted, tear-gassed, bruised, bloody noses, can’t breathe,” said Melissa, a local resident. State Senator Omar Fateh responded to the killing with outrage: “He had a camera on his hand. He was tackled, he was pummeled, and he was executed.”

• Federal Immigration Agents Fatally Shoot 37-Year-Old ICU Nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis
• Attorney General Bondi Demands Access to Minnesota's Voter Rolls and Welfare Data
• FBI Agent Resigns After Unsuccessfully Trying to Probe ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good
• Israel Kills Three Palestinians in Gaza, Violating U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire
• U.K. Authorities Arrest 86 Protesters Demanding the Release of Palestine Action Prisoners
• Venezuela Releases Dozens of Political Prisoners
• Vaccine Panel Chair Says Polio and Measles Shots Should Be Optional
• Marxist Scholar Michael Parenti Dies at 92

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Paul Robeson’s death on January 23, 1976. The actor, singer, athlete and scholar was once famous around the world, but he was attacked, blacklisted and hounded by the government for his political beliefs. Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers star who had integrated the all-white major baseball leagues, was hailed as a national hero in 1949 for testifying against Robeson before the House Un-American Activities Committee associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy. For more, we speak with sports journalist Howard Bryant, author of the new book Kings and Pawns that looks at how Robeson and Robinson’s paths intertwined at the height of the McCarthy era.

“History writes people out of the story, and it’s our job to write them back in,” Bryant says. Fifty years after Paul Robeson’s death, “it’s time for a reappraisal of one of the great Americans.”

Hundreds of businesses in Minnesota have closed for the day as part of an economic blackout to protest the surge of ICE agents into the state. Organizers of the strike include faith leaders and unions, who are encouraging people to stay home from work, school and shopping.

Kieran Knutson, president of the Communications Workers of America Local 7250, says the strike comes “after weeks of living under the heavy weight of this racist campaign of terror by ICE agents” in the Twin Cities area. “Nothing runs without the working class in this country, and today we’re going to show our power.”

The Justice Department said Thursday that it had arrested three people in Minnesota who interrupted a church service in St. Paul to protest a pastor’s role as a local ICE official. The activists involved in the protest now face charges under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law written to protect abortion clinics.

One of the arrestees, civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, had her appearance digitally altered in a photo posted online by the White House to make it look like she was crying while handcuffed. Her attorney, Jordan Kushner, tells Democracy Now! that Justice Department officials refused to let Levy Armstrong turn herself in, instead demanding an arrest at the hotel where she was staying. “This was their trophy,” says Kushner, who adds that the government “used more manipulative tactics to keep her in jail” even though “no one is detained in a case like this.”

As President Donald Trump formally inaugurated his so-called Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, his son-in-law Jared Kushner presented his vision of turning the Gaza Strip into an upscale seaside resort with gleaming skyscrapers and entirely new cities. The proposal is said to require an investment of at least $25 billion, and Kushner’s presentation showed a map of the besieged territory divided into different zones. This all comes as Palestinians in Gaza struggle to survive with little food or shelter amid ongoing Israeli restrictions on aid.

“It’s hard to take these people seriously. I mean, they’re buffoonish. But the problem is, is that they control the largest military and economy in the world,” says Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the Middle East and North Africa editor at Drop Site News. He calls the Board of Peace “a parody of a colonial body” and says the plan for Gaza will result in “ultimate control and subjugation” of the Palestinian population.

• Economic Blackout: Businesses Close for Day in Minnesota to Protest ICE Crackdown
• Minnesota Activists Arrested for Anti-ICE Church Protest; White House Posts Doctored Photo
• Outrage Grows over ICE Detaining 5-Year-Old Liam Ramos
• Seven Democrats Back Spending Bill to Fund DHS & ICE
• Israel Kills 4 in Gaza as Kushner Lays Out Plan for Turning Gaza into Seaside Resort
• Russia, Ukraine & U.S. Negotiators Hold Trilateral Talks in Abu Dhabi
• WSJ: U.S. Seeks Cuban Collaborators to Help Topple Government
• Public Health Advocates Decry U.S. Leaving World Health Organization
• Trump Orders Review of All Federal Funding Going to Democratic-Led States
• Ex-Special Counsel Jack Smith: Not Holding Trump Accountable for Trying to Steal Election Could Be "Catastrophic"
• Larry Ellison's Oracle Part of New Deal to Own U.S. Version of TikTok
• Filipino Radio Journalist Sentenced to Up to 18 Years in Prison

Deadly anti-government protests continue to rock Iran in the midst of the country’s spiraling economic crisis. Thousands of civilians are believed to have been shot dead by government forces in the past few weeks. Meanwhile, President Trump continues to threaten military intervention in addition to a harsh new set of economic sanctions that the U.S. introduced this week. Although a government-instituted communications blackout has made it difficult to assess exactly how many people have been killed, we sit down with Iranian author Sahar Delijani to discuss the “working-class uprising” against Iran’s “capitalist regime.” Delijani was born in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison — where her leftist activist parents were detained in the 1980s — just a few years before her uncle was executed during the 1988 massacres of Iranian political prisoners. “This is part of a long struggle of Iranian people to oust this regime, against tyranny, against dictatorship, against an authoritarian, theocratic regime, a military state,” she says. “This has been happening, partly due to sanctions, but also partly to this rampant corruption and mismanagement.”

Trump’s deportation machine has touched down in Maine. As the state, home to a significant share of the Somali American community, faces a surge of ICE activity, we’re joined by Safiya Khalid, the first-ever Somali American city councilmember for Lewiston, Maine’s second-largest city. Lewiston’s “streets are completely empty” as residents of all immigration statuses fear harassment and violence from unchecked federal agents. “If a white woman was shot in the face, none of us are safe,” warns Khalid, referring to the recent killing of Renee Good by ICE in Minneapolis. She advises “people to stay home and do not leave your home.”

We speak to Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis about the United States under Donald Trump and its attempts to reshape the post-World War II international consensus. “Trump has all his work done for him by placid European centrists who went along with the policy of trashing international law and creating the circumstances for him to create his private company and say, 'Right, I'm taking over the world,’” laments Varoufakis as he draws a connection between Trump’s pay-to-play diplomacy and the mercantalist policies of European colonial powers. Varoufakis comments on plans for the reoccupation of Gaza by the U.S.-led “Board of Peace,” which signed its founding charter this week; Trump’s designs on the Danish territory of Greenland; and European leaders’ ineffectual, largely symbolic resistance to Trump’s assertion of U.S. supremacy on the world stage.

• Trump Backs Down on Threats to Take Greenland — at Least for Now
• Trump Launches Board of Peace; Critics Warn It Could Undermine U.N.
• Israel Kills Three Journalists in Gaza Working with Egyptian Humanitarian Group
• ICE Claims Right to Forcibly Enter Homes Without Warrant: Leaked Memo
• Federal Agents Detain 5-Year-Old Coming Home from Preschool in Minnesota
• U.S. Moves to Deport 2 Men Who Witnessed Cuban Man Killed Inside ICE Facility in Texas
• Trump Administration Launches New Immigration Crackdown Targeting Somali Communities in Maine
• Supreme Court Appears to Oppose Trump Efforts to Fire Lisa Cook from Federal Reserve
• House Committee Votes to Hold Bill & Hillary Clinton in Contempt in Epstein Probe
• Uvalde Officer Acquitted in Trial over Response to 2022 School Shooting
• Chile's Far Fight President-Elect Names Two Pinochet Lawyers to Cabinet

The largest nurses’ strike in New York City history has reached its 10th day, as negotiations stall. Nearly 15,000 New York City nurses are fighting for a contract that includes higher pay, a staffing increase to manage patients, improved benefits and workplace protections against violence. Senator Bernie Sanders and Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined the picket line at Mount Sinai West Tuesday with the New York State Nurses Association. “This is a fight for our patients,” says Michelle Gonzalez, a nurse at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, who notes one of the nurses’ priorities in contract negotiations “is to have ICE officers not be allowed into our facilities.”

World leaders are gathered in Davos, Switzerland, site of the World Economic Forum — which has turned into an emergency summit over President Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. This comes as Oxfam International has released a report finding economic inequality creates “fertile ground for increased authoritarianism.” Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, says “the entire multilateral structure seems not just fragile, it’s broken.”

We speak with activist, civil rights attorney and ordained minister Nekima Levy Armstrong about her role in a protest at a St. Paul church on Sunday, where one of the pastors, David Easterwood, also leads a local ICE field office in the Twin Cities area. “I believe that if someone professes to represent the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to preach it, that they should not be allowing ICE agents to drag people out of their homes,” Levy Armstrong tells Democracy Now! She spoke from an undisclosed location after Trump officials vowed to investigate and possibly arrest the demonstrators.

• Federal Prosecutors Issue Subpoenas to Five Democratic Officials in Minnesota
• "You'll Find Out": Trump Teases Takeover of Greenland
• U.S. Seizes Another Venezuelan Oil Tanker in the Caribbean
• Russian Attack on Kyiv Leaves Ukrainian Parliament Without Power
• UAE and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Commit to Joining Trump's "Board of Peace" in Gaza
• NYC Mayor Mamdani and Vermont Senator Sanders Join Striking Nurses
• Trump Admin Acknowledges DOGE Employees Accessed and Shared Social Security Data
• Public Health Groups Sue CDC and RFK Jr. over Vaccine Recommendations
• Trump Pardons California Woman After Commuting Her Sentence During His First Term
• Trump Asks Federal Judge to Block DOJ from Releasing Fmr. Special Counsel Jack Smith's Report
• Fed Chairman Powell Set to Attend SCOTUS Oral Arguments on Trump's Attempts to Fire Fed Governor Cook
• NYT Editorial Board: Trump Used Office to Make at Least $1.4 Billion
• Bruce Springsteen Dedicates Performance of Song "Promised Land" to Renee Good

Tensions are escalating between the United States and Europe after President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on eight European allies that oppose his push to take over Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. Thousands took part in protests in Greenland and Denmark over the weekend to oppose Trump’s annexation threats.

Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut, an organization for Greenlanders in Denmark, tells Democracy Now! that Trump’s rhetoric is a threat to everyone. “This is not only Greenland being attacked. This is democracy, freedom and the world order as we know it that’s being attacked.”

One month after the deadline set by Congress for the Justice Department to release all files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Trump administration has made available less than 1% of the files. This comes as President Trump has dramatically expanded immigration operations in Minnesota while attacking Venezuela, threatening to bomb Iran and maintaining that the United States will annex Greenland.

Trump’s campaign promised “that the files would be released, all of the files. Now, that’s not happened,” says legal expert Michele Goodwin, calling it a “travesty.”

Federal agents carrying out the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration actions in Minnesota have been widely accused of using excessive force, arresting U.S. citizens, denying people access to legal counsel and other violations. Now President Trump has put 1,500 U.S. military troops on standby for possible deployment to Minnesota under the Insurrection Act, which would mark another major escalation in his attack on dissent.

“The federal government is not above the law,” says legal expert Michele Goodwin, who says the administration’s violent crackdown in Minnesota marks a “reversal” of how federal force was used during the civil rights movement to protect peaceful protest. “It’s quite horrific.”

Democracy Now! producer John Hamilton reports from Minneapolis, where residents say ICE agents are violently targeting legal observers and community members as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants. Patty O’Keefe, who was arrested while monitoring ICE activity in her vehicle, said agents “broke our two front windows and dragged us out,” then taunted her in custody. She said one agent told her, “You guys got to stop obstructing us. That’s why that lesbian bitch is dead,” referring to Renee Good, the mother of three shot dead earlier this month by an ICE agent.

Indigenous residents have also been detained. “Nobody is more American than the American Indian,” Oglala Sioux attorney Chase Iron Eyes told Democracy Now!, adding ICE’s actions against Native Americans are “a legal impossibility.”

This comes as the Pentagon has placed 1,500 soldiers on standby for a possible deployment to Minnesota, just days after President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. The Trump administration has also reportedly opened criminal investigations into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, all while declining to investigate Good’s killing.