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The atrocities and the fury mount. Astoundingly, after a murderous thug shot a mother of three in the face in broad daylight - "He didn't kill her because he was scared, he killed her because she wasn't" - state terror has ramped up with more lies, goons, attacks on "gangs of wine moms," brutish agitprop literally echoing the Nazis'. So when mini-Bovino went to take a leak at a store, the people's wrath, a bittersweet splendor, erupted. Their/our edict: "Get the fuck out."
For now, Trump's America keeps getting scarier and uglier. He's threatened to (illegally) withdraw the US from the world’s most vital climate treaty and 65 other agencies doing useful work. He's trashing a once-thriving economy because he doesn't know how it works, scapegoating longtime Fed chair Jerome Powell, who's (startlingly fighting back, flipping off autoworkers, admiring non-existent ballrooms. After (illegally) killing over 100 Venezuelans and abducting their president - Chris Hedges: "Empires, when they are dying, worship the idol of war" - he called oil executives to a dementia-ridden meeting where in a reality check one brave skeptic argued Venezuela is historically "uninvestable." He ordered invasion plans for Greenland - wait what - that joint chiefs are resisting as "crazy and illegal": “It’s like dealing with a five-year-old.” And in a supreme irony overload, he's menacing U.S. protesters while warning Iran's killers of protesters they'll "pay a big price" and urging Iran's people to "take over your institutions." We can't even.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, he's sending yet more thugs, persisting in calling Renée Good "a professional agitator" - Professional Agitators 'R Us! - and warning a besieged, traumatized community, "THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!" Up is down and MAGA minions dutifully follow suit. Tom Homan: "We've got to stop the hateful rhetoric. Saying this officer is a murderer is dangerous. It’s ridiculous. It’s just gonna infuriate people more." Newsmax and GOP Rep. Pete Sessions agree: Dems have to quiet their "rhetoric," cease "honking of horns," and stop "putting an iPhone on your face." "STOP THE MADNESS," shrieks David Marcus on Fox, blasting "organized gangs of wine moms" across the country - Wine Moms 'R Us! - using Antifa tactics to "harass and impede" ICE: "It's not civil disobedience. It isn’t even protest. It’s just crime." Here, Renée Good was "a trained member" of groups "executing missions that put law enforcement and the public in harm’s way," probably all part of "criminal conspiracies."
To support the insane narrative that the brazen murder of a mother of three in her car in public constitutes "an attack on our brave law enforcement," DHS released crude, "pathological," Goebbels-worthy propaganda that repeats the first day's lies and includes footage of when Good "weaponized her vehicle” by “speeding across the road" while failing to mention it was when "she had just been shot in the fucking face and her dead foot hit the pedal." No wonder the mindless carnage goes on. A thug leers to a cuffed protester she should've "learned her lesson," she asks what lesson, he snarls, "Why we killed that fucking bitch." And gangs of goons rampage door-to-door, barging into households of kids with guns and tasers ready. One brave, calm woman records it all, demands a warrant, barks get your hands off me, mocks how big and bad they are flashing a light in her face and sneers that, on the street, "You're all some pussies without that shit on your chest...Your mamas raised a bitch if you can wear that outfit proudly."
Last week both Illinois and Minnesota, and each state's targeted cities, filed federal lawsuits to end their invasions by thousands of armed, masked, violent goons racially harassing, terrorizing and assaulting their communities. The courts may yet halt the deadly mayhem; the regime sure as shit won't. In the wake of the DOJ's predictable, outlandish announcement they won't investigate Good's murder, multiple attorneys in the civil rights division - for decades "America’s last line of accountability when federal agents kill" - have resigned, the latest in a flood of departures totaling over 250, a 70% reduction. In their stead, the FBI seized control of the "investigation" after blocking local law enforcement's access to evidence. Kash's Keystone Cops are now looking into, not Jonathan Ross, but Good and her "possible connections to activist groups" - also, because there truly is no low, her widow's. "This isn’t a cover-up," said one former DOJ attorney. "It’s the end of civil rights enforcement as we've known it."
Experts say the escalating malfeasance and accompanying thuggery are the logical culmination of a longtime "culture of violence" within border control agencies. Ryan Goodman of Just Security describes a scathing 2013 report, commissioned but then buried, that specifically cites agents' proclivity for standing in front of blocked vehicles as a pretext to open fire on drivers attempting to flee a tense encounter. Thank God we don't see that anymore. Nor do we have to see Stephen Miller's nightmare vision of Dems in power making "every city into Mogadishu or Kabul or Port-au-Prince," complete with roaming convoys of masked, armed, hefty hoodlums snatching people off the streets, dragging them out of their cars, beating them up, kneeling on their necks (illegal under post-George-Floyd Minnesota law), and brutalizing them for unknown offenses until they go limp, fate unknown, like in this video by Ford Fischer last week. For MAGA, ICE proudly represents "the fearsome power of the American state." But don't call them fascists.
It was sick Greg Bovino's knee on that neck. Then he went on Sean Hannity's show to praise Jonathan Ross for shooting Renée Good three times in the face - "Hats off to that ICE agent" - because "a 4,000-pound missile is not something anyone wants to face." Hannity readily agreed it was "not even a close call...There is no ambiguity for anyone with eyes to see that (Good) had been taunting officers," which is not true, also definitely a death penalty offense. Later, Bovino claimed that 90% of the public "are happy to see us." Last week, a YouGov poll disagreed, finding a majority of Americans disapproved of the murderous job ICE is doing, and almost half support abolishing it entirely. That may be why, when Bovino went to take a piss last week at a Target in St. Paul, accompanied by a phalanx of surly stormtroopers with itchy trigger fingers and nervous cameras held aloft, they were met by pure, gut-level fury, and a crowd of we the people with no fucks left to give. More video from Ford Fischer of News2Share.
A handy transcript: "You’re a fucking bum. you’re a bitch. and if your wife’s got a problem, fuck her, too. you guys are all bitches. you can’t do shit to me. you can’t do a thing. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out. nobody wants you here. right. get the fuck out. walk the fuck, you stupid bitches. get the fuck out of here. coward. you’re a fucking coward, bitch. you’re a fucking bitch. fuck you. hold on, babe, I’m on the phone with these bitch-ass niggas. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out of here, you stupid bitches. you’re a fucking coward piece of shit. fuck you. and if you didn’t have a gun or a vest, I would beat the shit out of you. take that fucking badge off, and that fucking gun, and see what happens to you. you shut the fuck up, you’re not fucking tough. you’re a bitch and get the fuck out, you fucking pussy. you fucking bitch-ass white boys. I’ll fucking spit on you. fucking get out of here. get the fuck out. shut the fuck up. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out of here. get the fuck out. nobody wants you here."
Among Minnesota's ICE victims was a Marine veteran who said she was following agents "at a safe distance" when they rammed the car, broke the window, dragged her out by the neck, slammed her face into the ground, tightly cuffed her and snarled, per their memo, "This is why we killed that lesbian bitch." Shaken, she told a reporter, "I took an oath, and they're spitting on it. They're Nazis. They're Gestapo. This isn't Germany." Not yet. But close, says James Fell's Sweary History: "Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says 'fuck' a lot." When ICE Barbie, "this puppy-killing, plasticized bag of fascism" called Good a domestic terrorist, he notes, her podium read, "One of Ours, All of Yours" - the phrase Nazis used when the Resistance killed "murderous motherfucker" Reinhard Heydrich, and Nazis retaliated by killing thousands of Czechs and most of the village of Lidice, where they (wrongly) thought the assassins came from. Kill one of ours, we murder all of yours: "This is what DHS is threatening should people dare to resist the American Gestapo."
Dark echoes keep coming. In more Goebbels-worthy agit-prop, the Dept. of Labor just posted a bizarre musical photo montage captioned, "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage," which even X's AI chatbot Grok noted is just like the Nazi slogan, "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" - One People, One Realm, One Leader. Huh, said many: "Sounds familiar," "Sounds better in the original German," "I didn't have DOL dropping race-baiting propaganda with moody techno music on my 2026 Bingo card," "I remember this one from history books," "Can't wait for the sequel! Labor Creates Liberty!" and, "That 1930s retro energy really matches the new vibe." The video added, "Remember who you are, American." Rob Kelner responded, "I remember who I am. I am the grandchild of immigrants, in a nation that welcomed all four of my grandparents, dirt poor...fleeing tyranny." We have fallen so far, and lost so much. But some truths remain: "There is no world in which these are the good guys. None."
"Get it all on record now. Get the films. Get the witnesses. Because somewhere down the road of history, some bastard will get up and say that this never happened." - Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander of the Allied Forces, on atrocities committed by the German Nazis.

The massive energy needs of artificial intelligence data centers became a major political controversy in 2025, and new reporting suggests that it will grow even further in 2026.
CNBC reported on Thursday that data center projects have become political lightning rods among politicians ranging from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the left to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the right.
However, objections to data centers aren't just coming from politicians but from ordinary citizens who are worried about the impact such projects will have on their local environment and their utility bills.
CNBC noted that data centers' energy needs are so great that PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator that serves over 65 million people across 13 states, projects that it will be a full six gigawatts short of its reliability requirements in 2027.
Joe Bowring, president of independent market monitor Monitoring Analytics, told CNBC that he's never seen the grid under such projected strain.
"It’s at a crisis stage right now," Bowring said. "PJM has never been this short."
Rob Gramlich, president of power consulting firm Grid Strategies, told CNBC that he expects the debate over data centers to become even more intense this year once Americans start getting socked with even higher utility bills.
"I don't think we’ve seen the end of the political repercussions,” Gramlich said. “And with a lot more elections in 2026 than 2025, we’ll see a lot of implications. Every politician is going to be saying that they have the answer to affordability and their opponents’ policies would raise rates."
Concerns about data centers' impact on electric grids are rising in both red and blue states.
The Austin American-Statesman reported on Thursday that a new analysis written by the office of Austin City Manager TC Broadnax found that data centers have the potential to overwhelm the city's system given they are projected to need more power than can possibly be delivered with current infrastructure.
"The speed in which AI is trying to be deployed creates tremendous strain on the already tight resources in both design and construction," says the analysis, which noted that some proposed data centers are seeking more than five gigawatts, which is more than the peak load for the entire city.
In New York, local station News 10 reported last year that the New York Independent System Operator is estimating that the state's grid could be 1.6 gigawatts short of reliability requirements by 2030 thanks in large part to data centers.
Anger over proposed data centers has even spread to President Donald Trump's primary residential home of Palm Beach County, Florida, where local residents successfully postponed the construction of a proposed 200-acre data center complex.
According to public news station WLRN, locals opposed to the project cited "expected noise from cooling towers, servers, and diesel generators, along with heavy water use, pollution concerns, and higher utility costs" when petitioning Palm Beach County commissioners to scrap the proposal.
Corey Kanterman, a local opponent of the proposed data center, told WLRN that his goal is to shut the project down entirely.
"No good comes of having an AI data center near you," Kanterman said. "Put them in the location of least impact to the environment and people. This location is not it."
The US labor market appears to be running on fumes under President Donald Trump, as the latest jobs report revealed that the American economy added just 50,000 jobs in December, below economists' consensus estimate of 55,000 jobs.
The report, released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), also found that the US economy as a whole created just 584,000 jobs in 2025, which is less than a third of the 2 million jobs created in 2024 during the last year of former President Joe Biden's term.
The 2025 figure also marked the lowest number of annual jobs created since 2020, when the economy was shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fox Business anchor Cheryl Casone couldn't put a happy spin on the jobs report after its release, as she noted that the gains of just 37,000 private-sector jobs on the month were "much weaker than expected."
"Private sector payrolls coming in much weaker than expected" -- Maria Bartiromo and company cope with an underwhelming December jobs report (wait for Stephen Moore's bonkers commentary at the end) pic.twitter.com/C5D8qu5h8f
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 9, 2026
Digging further into the report, Bloomberg economic analyst Joe Weisenthal observed on X that manufacturing employment has been hit particularly hard in recent months, despite Trump's vow that his tariffs would lead to a manufacturing revival in the US.
"It's not just that total manufacturing employment is shrinking," he explained. "The number of manufacturing sub-sectors that are adding jobs is rapidly shrinking. Of the 72 different types of manufacturing tracked by the BLS, just 38.2% are still adding jobs. A year ago it was 47.2%."
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, noted that the weakness in the labor market extends beyond the manufacturing sector, as there has been "almost no hiring outside of healthcare and hospitality" since the start of Trump's second term.
Richardson also observed that "there was almost no hiring since April" of last year, when Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs that sent shockwaves through the global economy.
Economist Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, zeroed in on downward revisions in prior jobs reports, reinforcing that the current labor market is anemic.
"With the revisions, the average for the last three months was a fall of 22,000 [jobs]," Baker explained. "The healthcare and social assistance sector added an average of 49,000 jobs over this period, which means that outside of healthcare the economy lost an average of 71,000 jobs in the last three months."
Alex Jacquez, chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, said the jobs report reflected a "lifeless economy," and he pinned the blame on Trump and his trade policies as a top reason.
"Working families face sluggish wage growth, fewer job opportunities, and never-ending price hikes on groceries, household essentials, and utilities," said Jacquez. "Despite the president's endless attempts to deflect and distract from the bleak economic reality, workers and job seekers know their budgets feel tighter than ever thanks to Trump’s disastrous economic mismanagement."
Economist Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute took a look at the jobs numbers and concluded the US labor market now is far weaker than the one Biden left Trump nearly one year ago.
"The slowdown in job growth this year is stark compared to 2024," Gould wrote on Bluesky. "The average monthly gain was only 49,000 in 2025 compared to 168,000 in 2024. Over the last three months, average job growth was actually negative, meaning there are fewer jobs now than in September."
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Navy Federal Credit Union's chief economist. That error has been corrected.
Americans across the country are protesting federal agents' violent crackdown on immigrant communities and on dissent, support for doing away with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement entirely is at an all-time high in the wake of an officer's killing of a legal observer, and the outrage is intensifying just as the Democratic Party has negotiating power ahead of a January 30 deadline for funding the government.
A number of Democrats, however, are hesitant to leverage their position in the appropriations fight to rein in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the agencies it controls, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which oversees Border Patrol.
That reluctance, said journalist Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo, should result in primary challenges for "every Democrat who wants to fund and still support ICE."
As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which includes nearly 100 Democratic members of the US House of Representatives, said clearly that it would "oppose all funding" for federal immigration enforcement agencies in the upcoming appropriations bills unless, as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said, "meaningful reforms are enacted to end militarized policing practices.”
The House and Senate are currently negotiating a dozen spending bills to keep the government running past the January 30 deadline, and each bill must garner at least 60 votes to pass in the Senate.
A DHS funding bill was already excluded from a spending package earlier this week amid outcry over the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis and the agency's violent treatment of demonstrators, bystanders, and even residents who are not involved in protests against President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign.
But at the Bulwark, Joe Perticone reported Tuesday that a number of Democrats in the Senate expressed doubt that they would treat ICE funding in appropriations bills as a red line to force the administration to drastically change its approach to immigration enforcement.
“I certainly don’t want see funding increases,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told the Bulwark. “We’re going through these negotiations right now. I don’t want see that funding... I don’t ever make predictions about where my vote’s coming down on, but what I will say is that I’m certainly gonna fight to stop it.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) told the Bulwark that she would not want to increase ICE's budget, which includes $75 billion it was given in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) last year, but said Republicans were "taking the lead on these [appropriation bills]."
“Is this what they want to rubber-stamp for residential neighborhoods across this country?" she asked. "Thousands of masked, armed agents coming into their communities?”
But while criticizing the agency's practices, she told the Bulwark that discussions about reforming ICE's enforcement should be separate from the appropriations debate.
“That’s obviously—I don’t wanna get in the weeds—that’s obviously an authorizing committee issue,” she said. “When we’re talking about appropriations, I call on my Republicans... Do they wanna rubber-stamp this or what?”
Organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg compared the comments—which echoed earlier remarks from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)—to saying: "We are the resistance. We are also negotiating furiously to figure out how to fully fund the Gestapo."
Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, both Democrats from Nevada, announced their own proposal on Thursday to redirect some of the OBBBA funding to local law enforcement agencies—many of which work with ICE.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, did not make any specific policy commitments regarding what changes ICE and DHS would need to make to ensure funding for immigration enforcement continues, but has suggested that Border Patrol agents should return to the border instead of being unleashed in communities with ICE, agents should be banned from wearing masks and required to wear identification, and federal officers must obtain warrants for immigration arrests.
“You should demand that we make sure that this appropriations process is used to make ICE comply with the law,” Murphy told Time magazine. “And I see a lot of signs out there—not one additional dime for ICE in this budget.”
Murphy also told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that Republicans must decide if they are "willing to shut down the government simply to endorse the most lawless Department of Homeland Security in the history of the country."
Last fall, the federal government saw its longest shutdown in US history, with funding lapsing for 43 days after Democrats refused to approve a spending package that would have allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire and threatened healthcare for millions. Ultimately, some Democrats caved, and the subsidies lapsed.
Journalist Aaron Rupar said that ahead of the January 30 deadline, "Senate Democrats absolutely have to shut the government down to stop this ICE insanity in the Twin Cities."
"This is not sustainable and cannot be normalized," said Rupar. "Any Democratic vote to provide money to the thugs who are brutalizing this community is a grave betrayal to the people here. Accountability can't wait."
With public support plummeting for President Donald Trump's deployment of masked, armed federal immigration agents as the administration is expected to next target Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collins issued a brief statement to the Bangor Daily News saying she didn't "see the rationale" for the expected arrival of US immigration and Customs Enforcement, but had little else to say about what she would do to protect people in her state.
"The difference between Sen. Collins and me is that I would do something about it," said Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate who is running to challenge the six-term senator in this year's election.
Platner is currently out of the country on a brief hiatus from his Senate campaign as he and his wife pursue in vitro fertilization in Norway, a topic he's discussed openly with voters as he's brought attention to the exorbitant cost of IVF in the US compared to Europe and called for the Medicare program to be expanded to everyone in the US.
As reports mounted of an impending major ICE deployment in Maine, Platner called on constituents to "protect our neighbors from authoritarian overreach, however we can."
"As many of you already know, it sounds like ICE is coming to Maine... This means that us Mainers are going to have to rise to this moment and protect our communities and our neighbors from the authoritarian overreach that we just saw bring about the tragedy in Minneapolis," said Platner in a video posted on social media, referring to an ICE agent's fatal shooting of Renee Good last week.
We have all heard the disturbing news: ICE is very likely coming for Maine.
We must protect our neighbors from authoritarian overreach, however we can. pic.twitter.com/PBYL63jgJ1
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) January 15, 2026
Platner has spoken out on the campaign trail about his vehement opposition to Trump's deployment of federal agents to cities including Chicago, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. He said in October at an event that as a senator, once Democrats win back control of Congress, he would "haul all of these people and the ones that made them do it in front of a Senate subcommittee, make them take their masks off."
Last month, Platner spoke at a rally in Lewiston, Maine, where hundreds of people gathered to express solidarity with the state's growing Somali population. The event was held after Trump referred to Somali people in the US as "garbage." Somali community members in Minnesota have been a primary target of ICE and other federal agents in the state in recent weeks, following a fraud scandal in which some people within the diaspora were charged and convicted.
This week, Trump denigrated Somali people in Maine, saying they have perpetrated "scams" in the state. The Maine Monitor reported that immigration authorities were seen in Lewiston last month at Gateway Community Services, a healthcare provider that serves immigrants for which the state suspended payments after it alleged interpreter fraud had taken place there.
On Thursday, Platner directed Mainers to the Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition, which has a hotline for people to report ICE sightings and has compiled information about residents' rights when they are approached by ICE agents, ways to support detainees, how people can prepare their families for potential detention or deportation efforts by the government, and how to record ICE arrests and actions safely.
Portland, Maine Mayor Mark Dion and Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline had been scheduled to hold a press conference Friday morning but it was canceled due to safety concerns. Both Democratic mayors issued statements on Wednesday warning Maine residents to know their rights in the event that they are stopped by ICE and called on people to look out for their neighbors.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who is also running in the US Senate primary, also said state police had been directed to coordinate with local law enforcement in cities including Portland and Lewiston, where police do not work with ICE.
Collins' only other comment to the Bangor Daily News on Thursday was that she supports "the deportation of individuals who have criminal charges against them." Department of Homeland Security data has shown that a large majority of people detained by ICE in recent months have had no criminal convictions.
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to hire private military contractors—including possibly the notorious mercenary Erik Prince—to provide security as the US works to plunder Venezuela's massive oil reserves.
CNN reported Thursday that "multiple private security companies are already jockeying to get involved in the US presence in Venezuela" as American oil giants push for physical security guarantees before they back President Donald Trump's push for $100 billion in investment in the country.
"Interest is high given the potential payday; during the Iraq War, the US spent some $138 billion on private security, logistics, and reconstruction contractors," the outlet noted. "One source suggested that Erik Prince, the former Blackwater founder and controversial Trump ally, could also be tapped for help. Prince’s Blackwater played an outsized role in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion, providing security, logistics, and support for oil infrastructure. But the firm came under intense scrutiny following the 2007 deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians."
Prince is currently operating in the region, having partnered with Ecuador's right-wing government as part of a crackdown on organized crime that has been replete with human rights abuses.
News of the Trump administration's potential use of private mercenaries in Venezuela came after the US officially completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil. The sale, valued at $500 million, came days after Trump met with top oil executives at the White House to discuss efforts to exploit Venezuela's oil reserves following the illegal US abduction of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, said his company would need "durable investment protections" before making any commitments in Venezuela.
CNN reported Thursday that the Pentagon has "put out a Request for Information to contractors about their ability to support possible US military operations in Venezuela."
"Contractors are also in touch with the State Department’s overseas building operations office to cite interest in providing security if and when the US embassy in Venezuela reopens," according to CNN.
"No, imperialists, we have absolutely no fear of you... and we don't like to be threatened," said Cuba's president.
A day after receiving the remains of the 32 Cubans killed during the Trump administration's invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its leader, Cuba's president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, addressed thousands gathered outside the US Embassy in Havana on Friday.
"The current US administration has opened the door to an era of barbarism, plunder, and neo-fascism," Díaz-Canel declared to a massive crowd protesting the recent killings and demanding the US release Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Participants in the "anti-imperialist" action, including members of the armed forces, waved Cuban and Venezuelan flags, and held signs honoring the 32 people who were killed while carrying out missions representing Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior.
"No one here surrenders," the Cuban leader said Friday, according to the Associated Press. "The current emperor of the White House and his infamous secretary of state haven't stopped threatening me."
While the Biden administration aimed to remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, President Donald Trump reversed that decision after returning to office last January and restored a list of "restricted entities" created during his first term. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, also expanded a visa restriction policy that targets Cuba's medical missions around the world.
Since US forces slaughtered dozens of Cubans while seizing Maduro, Trump and Rubio have warned that Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia could also be targeted by the US military. Trump has also urged the Cuban government to make a deal with him and pledged to prevent oil and other resources from reaching the island nation, which has been subjected to US sanctions for decades.
"No, imperialists, we have absolutely no fear of you... and we don't like to be threatened," Díaz-Canel said Friday, waving his finger at the embassy, according to Reuters. "You will not intimidate us."
"Cuba does not have to make any political concessions, and that will never be on the table for negotiations aimed at reaching an understanding between Cuba and the United States," he asserted. "It is important that they understand this. We will always be open to dialogue and improving relations between our two countries, but only on equal terms and based on mutual respect."
The demonstration in Havana came a day after Venezuelan workers led a march through Caracas, chanting, "Free Maduro!"
"He is our president and we want him back, we are in the streets, and we will not rest," said labor leader Anais Herrera. "The president prepared us for this, and that is why we are in combat, in the streets with the Venezuelan working class."
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were brought to New York City after their abduction. They were arraigned last week, and both pleaded not guilty to federal narco-terrorism charges. At the time, Maduro said in Spanish that "I am the president of Venezuela, and I consider myself a prisoner of war."
At the arraignment, Maduro's lawyer, Barry Pollack, said that he "is the head of a sovereign state and is entitled to the privileges and immunities that go with that office... In addition, there are issues about the legality of his military abduction."
Federal prosecutors and Trump have given no indications that they are willing to free Maduro or Flores. The US administration is also continuing its efforts to take control of Venezuela's oil resources.
One campaigner said the hunger strike "will be remembered as a landmark moment of pure defiance; an embarrassment for the British state."
Three British activists jailed for alleged involvement with the banned anti-genocide group Palestine Action ended their monthslong hunger strike late Wednesday after the UK government rejected a $2.7 billion contract for a subsidiary of Israel's largest weapons maker, Elbit Systems.
Prisoners for Palestine (P4P), which represents the hunger strikers, said that Hamran Ahmed, Heba Muraisi, and Lewie Chiaramello would accept food again. Muraisi hadn't eaten in 73 days, while Ahmed refused food for 66 days and Chiaramello, who has Type 1 diabetes, fasted every other day for 44 days.
"It is definitely a time for celebration," Chiaramello said Thursday. "A time to rejoice and to embrace our joy as revolution and as liberation."
P4P spokesperson Francesca Nadin told the New Arab that the hunger strike "will be remembered as a landmark moment of pure defiance; an embarrassment for the British state."
"Banning a group and imprisoning our comrades has backfired on the British state, direct action is alive, and the people will drive Elbit out of Britain for good," P4P added. "This is just the beginning. Even though the people who have just finished their hunger strike will have some time to recover, they’re also really motivated and want to continue doing as many things as possible."
P4P said other hunger-striking members of the "Filton 24"—Teuta Hoxha, Jon Cink, Qesser Zuhrah, and Amu Gib—were also accepting food following the UK government's announcement that it would not award a military training contract to Elbit Systems' British subsidiary.
The end of the strike came as Ahmed, Muraisi, and Chiaramello suffered deteriorating health, with Muraisi telling a friend earlier this week that she was "dying."
Two dozen alleged Palestine Action activists are accused of breaking into Elbit Systems' research and development facility in Filton in 2024. Alleged members of the group also staged direct action protests targeting other UK weapons factories that export arms to Israel as it wages a genocidal war in Gaza.
P4P hailed the contract cancellation as "a resounding victory for the hunger strikers, who resisted with their incarcerated bodies to shed light on the role of Elbit Systems, Israel's largest weapons manufacturer, in the colonization and occupation of Palestine."
British lawmakers voted last year to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist group after some of its members allegedly vandalized aircraft at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire. Members of the group also allegedly vandalized US President Donald Trump’s golf course in Turnberry, Scotland. Because of the vote, the nonviolent group is on the same legal footing in Britain as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Joining or supporting Palestine Action is punishable by up to 14 years behind bars.
Since Palestine Action was banned, more than 2,000 people have been arrested for supporting the group, often while simply holding signs.
"It’s not safe to be an OB-GYN in red states, so they are turning to robots to care for pregnant woman. This is not an innovation success story."
Alabama is among the states that have seen a significant drop in the number of obstetrician-gynecologists working there since Roe v. Wade was overturned and cleared the way for states to ban abortion, resulting in doctors being unable to provide standard care and in a number of cases, placing patients in serious and even deadly danger.
On Friday, at a White House roundtable on healthcare in rural areas—some of the hardest-hit by the lack of OB-GYN care in states with abortion bans—one of President Donald Trump's top health officials suggested the exodus of doctors from Alabama and other crises in healthcare access have resulted in positive innovations as care is outsourced to "robots."
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said that since Alabama "has no OB-GYNs in many of their counties," the state is "doing something pretty cool."
"They're actually having robots do ultrasounds on these pregnant moms," said Oz.
Dr Oz: "Alabama has no OBGYNs in many of their counties, so they're doing something pretty cool. They're actually having robots do ultrasounds on these pregnant moms." pic.twitter.com/sEwd4OJss9
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 16, 2026
CMS, which oversees the new Office of Rural Health Transformation, recently highlighted in a report about rural healthcare Alabama's Maternal and Fetal Health Initiative, which it said "provides digital maternity care by using telerobotic ultrasound devices and labor and delivery carts to rural hospitals."
Oz asserted that robotic ultrasounds will help to reduce Alabama's maternal mortality rate, which is the highest in the United States, as medical centers will be able to detect health issues and abnormalities.
But observers said that praising an outcome of the dearth of maternal healthcare in the state—which has been at least partially caused by Trump's push to overturn Roe and Republicans' efforts to ban abortion—was "horrific."
"The severe lack of OB-GYNs," said the labor-focused media group More Perfect Union, "is a crisis, especially in rural America."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, added: "It’s not safe to be an OB-GYN in red states, so they are turning to robots to care for pregnant woman. This is not an innovation success story. It’s a dystopian horror story."
A 2024 analysis by the Association of American Medical Colleges found that in the year following the US Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, applicants for OB-GYN residency programs plummeted 21.2%.
The ruling allowed Alabama's near-total abortion ban—which has only one ostensible "exception" for cases in which a pregnant person faces a serious health risk—to go into effect. Rights groups said that the law, one of the most extreme bans in the US, had been passed by the state's Republican legislature as part of an effort to force the court to reconsider Roe.
Robin Marty, executive director of WAWC Healthcare in the state, told the Alabama Reflector in 2024 that "when it comes to, especially, OB-GYN residencies, nobody wants to come out here because we can’t fulfill all of the requirements, which include being able to do abortions and manage miscarriage."
There had also been a 13.1% drop in applicants for OB-GYN programs in 2019-20 after the approval of the state's Sanctity of Life Act, which recognized “the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life."
“Legislative interference that imposes restrictions on full-scope reproductive healthcare, including abortion care, discourages medical students from pursuing residency training in states with restrictions, directly hurting patients by reducing the physician workforce in the communities that often need clinicians the most,” AnnaMarie Connolly, chief of education and academic affairs of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), told the Alabama Reflector.
In addition to the state's abortion ban, the worsening lack of prenatal care in rural Alabama has also driven the state's decision to turn to robotics to provide some aspects of healthcare.
Since 2020, more than 100 rural hospitals across the nation have stopped delivering babies; at least three of them have been in Alabama, where just 30% of rural health centers have labor and delivery units. Hospitals have cited staffing shortages and low Medicaid reimbursement payments—which were worsened by the Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act—as reasons for closing obstetric care units. Closures have left many families traveling an hour or more to receive prenatal care, and can worsen maternal mortality rates.
Regarding the robotic ultrasounds heralded by Oz, political analyst Drew Savicki said: "That is interesting but it represents a very small fraction of what an OB-GYN does. What is an ultrasound robot going to do for a woman who is coming in for her post-childbirth examination?"
In his comments, Oz unwittingly described the crisis the Trump administration has helped to make worse: "We have the best healthcare, if you can get to it."
One observer suggested Trump's healthcare officials "explain why no OB-GYNs want to work in Alabama, rather than bragging about robots."