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OMG. We have landed in an inane, insane, bombastic Monty Python skit, slap-dash improvised by a sick vengeful child king churning through endless hissy fits. He wants to invade Greenland, occupy Minnesota, whitewash America, attack allies, bomb everyone, be Hitler with a shiny Peace Prize so his daddy will like him, and Jeffrey who? Still, there are heroes, often unlikely, among us. MLK Jr., surely spinning in his grave: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Who would've thought: Despite so much winning, polls show almost 60% of Americans say Trump's year in office has been "a failure," 71% say the country is "out of control," he has a lame 37% approval and 65% say a deranged, ignorant old man who spends his time pointing at random countries on a map squealing "mine" - and/or abducting their leaders - is "not someone they are proud to have as president." He probs hasn't won over many more with his rage-posting we really have to invade Greenland - "World Peace is at stake!" - because it only has "two dogsleds as protection" and his "very brilliant" imaginary Golden Dome system can only work at its full potential "because of angles, metes, and bounds" if Greenland is included, though just 4% of Americans agree, so "thank you for your attention to this matter, DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," also Biden's autopen.
In the face of "the ramblings of a man who has lost touch with reality" - and whose "stunningly vindictive," "extraordinarily dangerous" hallucinations could “incinerate the NATO alliance" and world peace with it - eight E.U. countries "united in our resolve" have pledged military support for Greenland; meanwhile, that country's sardonic populace have designed cool new MAGA hats - Make America Go Away - and gathered over 200,000 signatures on a petition to buy California from us. Undeterred and Adderalled-up, Trump has also announced a vague new Board of Peace, "the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled," whose inchoate mission would be doing...something about peace, especially if as yet unnamed countries - Orbán's in! Putin's invited! - pay a billion dollars for permanent membership in his secret club, and, again, "thank you for your attention to this matter!"
In other world news, we got the pathetic spectacle of the ever-needy boy giddily accepting a re-gifted, illegitimate Nobel Peace and Participation Prize - like Goebbels! - from Venezuela's Maria Corina Machado "for the work I have done," like bombing nine countries, more than any former president, killing 100 fishermen and turning this country into a war zone. He gave Machado some crappy MAGA swag but evidently stayed so miffed he wrote a juvenile, "beyond precedent, parody and reality" letter" to Norway's Prime Minister - whose government has nothing to do with the Nobel Committee and neither of them is Denmark - to whine because they didn't give him the real prize "though I stopped 8 Wars PLUS" and he's "done more for NATO than any other person" he no longer feels he has to "think purely of peace" so he might as well invade Greenland. Media felt obliged to note: "This story is actually not a parody.”
Equally terrifyingly and less entertainingly, he's also embracing his longtime urge to play dictator by invading Minnesota with thousands more ICE thugs after the murder of Renee Good, play dictator, subpoenaing Walz, Frey and other state officials and threatening to send in the military to subdue his stubbornly diverse, decent, welcoming new enemy - "a nice place, filled with nice people." Lydia Polgreen, a foreign correspondent who's covered civil wars in multiple countries, describes being stunned by "the size, scope and lawlessness of the federal onslaught (in) my once placid home state" - shops closed, empty desks in classrooms, ICE agents lurking in idling SUVs, the "quiet, yet pervasive fear" one resident deems, "fucking close to civil war." Its "true mission": To stage "a spectacle of cruelty," an occupation designed to "terrorize anyone who dares defy this incursion and, by extension, (Trump’s) power to wield limitless force against any enemy he wishes."
"We don’t have to speculate what American fascism looks like," says A.G. Keith Ellison. "It’s right outside the door." Somali American journalist Mukhtar Ibrahim echoes him: "Minnesota represents everything the administration hates. It's ground zero. If Minnesota falls, the country will fall." With ICE/CBP stormtroopers outnumbering local police 3,000 to 600, Stephen 'Goebbels' Miller gloats, "Only federal officers are upholding the law. Local and state police have been ordered to stand down and surrender." His lies and hubris reflect the feds' sense they can get away with "just being pure evil": Detaining an older, underwear-clad, U.S citizen Hmong man, CIA allies in Laos; tear-gassing a couple "human-trafficking their six kids home in their weaponized assault-SUV" so severely their six-month-old stopped breathing before her mother performed CPR; partly blinding two peaceful protesters with "non-lethal" munitions; and brutally gassing and tackling photographers, who get back up: "The world needs to see it."
Meanwhile, deaths mount at the $1.24 billion Texas detention center where many Minnesotans are sent. A medical examiner just classified the death of Geraldo Campos, the third in 44 days, as a homicide, days after a 55-year-old Cuban died of "asphyxia due to neck and chest compression" by guards and a 49-year-old Guatemalan died of "liver and kidney failure." Still, robotic regime mouthpiece Press Barbie insists, ICE is "doing everything correctly," though she utterly lost it when a reporter for center-right The Hill dared to note 32 people have died in ICE custody, 170 U.S. citizens have been detained and Renee Good was shot in the head. He's "a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion," a "left-wing hack," "a left-wing activist posing as a journalist," she shrieked. "Shame on people like you." Pot/kettle. Ditto strutting Il Ducette Bovino leading the charge - hilariously, to shouts of "Coward chicken shit fuck!" and "Brown shirts!"
The Bovino hecklers stand in fine, bountiful company in Minnesota, with its "exceptionally broad solidarity" forged in the wake of George Floyd's murder. So many people have been galvanized to protest, including many who hadn't before, the city was moved to announce that vehicles abandoned "due to an ICE detention" and subsequently towed would be released at no cost to patriotic owners. Their resolve is powerfully noted by Robert Arnold, who salutes the 6,000 marchers in cold rain, "and not the cinematic kind," representing "a people who showed up when staying home would have been so much easier." Also emblematic is the teenager insisting that, though he's white, "I'm not going to not care just because it’s not going to happen to me." Such callousness - see Trump's vileness on those from Somalia, "filthy, dirty, disgusting...I don't want them in our country" - would be "irresponsible, disrespectful, actually sinful."
As usual, judges have largely been on the right side of history. Most recently, a federal judge ruled thugs in Minnesota cannot "retaliate against, detain or attack (people) engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity"; one plaintiff testified of the "terrifying violence" that she asked a single question - "Are you ICE?" - before goons "rushed me, grabbed me, and slammed me face-first into the snow" as other DHS louts filmed the assault for their "ongoing production of political theater." In the face of state terror - sequentially, Good's clearly documented murder as she was shot three, possibly four times, the appalling lies and smears from Noem, Vance, Miller et al, the despicable failures of accountability by DHS and FBI, which found a new low by then targeting Good's widow, and the mindless, ongoing escalation - we're left to take solace, in part, from the savage, stalwart wise guys of tragi-comedy who've seen us through other dark times.
On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart has offered both helpful geography lessons to moronic imperialists - "Dibs on Greenland" - and Don't Join ICE videos to aspiring thugs: "Are you the type of guy who wants to go join ICE because it looks like playing Halo? Here's a better idea: Don't join ICE, stay home in your basement where it's warm, and play Halo! Whatever void in your life is making you respond to those ICE ads, we'll fill it! Stay home! It's better for everyone! Brought to you by everyone who just wants to go outside without getting shot." Andy Borowitz announced Greenland, along with the EU, has begun construction of a maximum-security prison for pedophiles that will house "the worst of the worst." A Greenlandic spokesperson said the construction “should not be seen as an act of provocation, adding, "The only person who could be offended would be a pedophile.”
Trump's fake Peace Prize - "Local man receives giant gold-framed second-hand soother" - led Jimmy Kimmel to suggest pacifier analogies; he also offered his own bribes - his 1999 Emmy for Best Game Show Host and his 2015 Soul Train Award for "White Person of the Year" - if Trump would pull ICE out of Minnesota. Jimmy Fallon, meanwhile, claimed he'd gotten audio from the meeting with Machado, which mostly consisted of, "Gimme, gimme," "Mine," and, "Me wanty." Along with "what a view" GIFS, many others posited additional awards that Trump by all rights should receive. They include the Ten Commandments (from Moses), the All Valley Karate Championship, the Wimbledon Women's Singles, the 4H Biggest Pig, Best In Show from Westminster Kennel Club, the Award for Unusually Quickly Healed Ear, and the 1936 Olympic Gold from his hero, Hitler. It remains to be seen if, as suggested, he'll ask Taylor Swift for one of her Grammys.

By way of resistance, others have just done their (jury) duty. Jacob Winkler, a 33-year-old homeless man in D.C., was arrested in September on a felony charge after allegedly shining a toy laser beam at Trump's helicopter as he left the White House. As with Sandwich Guy, fake US Attorney Jeanine Winebox Pirro was eager to prosecute another lowly perp "to the fullest extent of the law." A Statement of Probable Cause described the gritty crime: A cop shone a flashlight at Winkler, who shone a beam at the cop, then "in the direction of" the helicopter. The cop "immediately identified" the action as a lethal danger. Winkler said he didn't know he couldn't point the laser there: "He points it all kinds of things," like stop signs. Last week, a jury deliberated 35 minutes before finding him not guilty. His public defender noted the feds "spent scarce resources to make a felon out of a homeless man (with) a cat toy keychain...We need to stop policing poverty and start investing in dignity.”
There's also the unnamed hero in Florida who registered the domain nazis.us and redirected it to the DHS website. It still works. Go there. It shrieks "Become a homeland defender," "America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out," and "New Year, New Dirtbags," which announces 5,000 more "criminal illegal aliens added to wow.dhs.gov, “Worst of the Worst” and the arrest of "over 10,000 criminal illegal aliens who were killing Americans, hurting children and reigning terror (sic) in Minneapolis." No, wait, ICE Barbie says "brave" Gestapo have arrested 3,000 "criminal illegal aliens including vicious murderers, rapists, child pedophiles and incredibly dangerous individuals." They name three "criminals." No word on the other 2,997. This week their shock troops swarmed into coastal Maine in "Operation Catch of the Day." Just what the fucking fuck. Childish sociopaths are running our government.
Also safeguarding the worst pedophile in modern history. The DOJ has again stonewalled on releasing files legally mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) to have been released by Dec. 19, a month ago. Instead, Pam Bondi, hours after posting, "No one is above the law!" filed a motion to block an effort by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie to compel her to...follow the law. Autoworker T.J. Sabula wants that too, which is why he just yelled "Pedophile protector!" at Trump as he toured a Ford plant; ever stately Trump screamed "FUCK YOU!" and flipped him off before launching into a vile racist speech that blamed high living costs on....Somalis in Minnesota. Sabula was suspended - "Know your place" - the union vowed to fight for him, a GoFundMe - "TJ Sabula is a patriot!!" - raised almost half a million dollars before shutting down to make room for other causes, and Sabula had "definitely no regrets whatsoever...I don't feel as though fate looks upon you often."
On Tuesday, in the same spirit, the members of Secret Handshake marked what would have been Epstein's 73rd birthday with a new "participatory public artwork" on the National Mall. Following up on their faux-bronze besties holding hands, they installed a massive, 10-foot-tall replica of the infamous, obscene birthday card Trump sent Epstein. One side reads, "Happy Birthday to A Terrific Guy!", the other reproduces the drawing of a naked woman, or, chillingly, girl. Next to it are mock boxes of redacted files, Sharpies, and an invitation for visitors to write "your own message" to salute the birthday of Trump's "closest friend." Read one, "RAPISTS LOVE RAPISTS.” Their art, the group says, provides a vital, life-affirming "voice in dark times.” So did Springsteen the other night when he appeared unannounced at a New Jersey benefit to dedicate his song The Promised Land, "an ode to American possibility," to Renee Good - "if you believe that truth still matters, and it's worth speaking out."
- YouTube www.youtube.com
President Donald Trump's withdrawal of the United States from dozens of international treaties and organizations and his administration's cuts to climate research and emergency response come as the frequency, lethality, and cost of major extreme weather disasters grow, according to an analysis published Thursday.
The Climate Central analysis of billion-dollar US weather and climate disasters revealed that 2025 saw the third-highest annual number of such events, trailing only the two previous years. At least 276 deaths and $115 billion in damages are attributable to such disasters.
This analysis also came as California observed the one-year anniversary of wildfires that killed 31 people and caused billions of dollars in damages, making them among the most expensive wildfires on record.
The new research is the first update of Climate Central's US Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database, which was launched last October. The resource will help fill an information void caused by the Trump administration's move in May ending updates to the government's own database that tracked climate disasters causing more than $1 billion in damage.
After the US admin cancelled the $B Climate + Weather Disaster dataset, @climatecentral.org hired the scientists who ran it and set it back up. Now the 2025 numbers are in: it's 3rd highest year on record and highest year w/o land-falling hurricanes. More: www.climatecentral.org/climate-serv...
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— Katharine Hayhoe (@katharinehayhoe.com) January 8, 2026 at 9:33 AM
Key findings of Climate Central's update include:
"This trend of increasingly deadly and expensive disasters is occurring as the Trump administration continues to defund and cut staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the nation’s foremost science agency whose mission includes tracking and studying weather and climate, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that prepares for, responds to, and helps communities recover from disasters," the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) said Thursday in response to the new research.
Additionally, Trump on Wednesday signed a legally dubious executive order under which the US will become the first country to ever quit the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parent treaty serving as the foundation for international accords including the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement.
Trump's order also pulls the US from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), International Renewable Energy Agency & International Solar Alliance, International Union for Conservation of Nature, and numerous other agreements and organizations, even as the human-caused climate emergency worsens.
Experts stress that this is the opposite of what governments should be doing amid a worsening planetary crisis.
“As a nation, we must invest much more in resilience measures as well as sharply cut the heat-trapping emissions driving climate change," UCS Climate and Energy program senior policy director Rachel Cleetus said Thursday. "This administration has instead clawed back funding for climate resilience projects, politicized disaster aid, and is doing its utmost to boost fossil fuels and worsen the climate crisis. Congress must step up to oppose these harmful actions and help keep people safe.”
Basav Sen, a climate leader at the Institute for Policy Studies, on Thursday noted that the US is "the world’s largest cumulative greenhouse gas emitter, and the largest producer and exporter of oil and gas today."
"By walking away from the UNFCCC and the IPCC," Sen added, "the Trump regime is sending a clear message to the world that the US refuses to take responsibility for its own actions."
President Donald Trump has long insisted, in the face of decades of research by economists, that foreign producers are the only ones who are paying for his tariffs on imported goods.
However, a major new study released Monday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an economic think tank based in Germany, shows that US businesses and consumers are shouldering the burden for the vast majority of Trump's tariffs.
After examining more than 25 million shipment records of goods imported to the US last year, the institute found that foreign exporters only absorbed 4% of the $200 billion in tariff payments, with the remaining 96% being passed on to US importers and consumers.
"This finding has profound implications," the study explains. "If foreign exporters do not reduce their prices in response to tariffs, then the entire burden of the tariff falls on US buyers. The tariff functions not as a tax on foreign producers, but as a consumption tax on Americans. Every dollar of tariff revenue represents a dollar extracted from American businesses and households."
The study identifies several factors to explain why exporters did not slash their prices to remain competitive in the lucrative US market, including exporters shifting their sales to other markets where they will not face such high tariffs; firms not being able to shoulder the high price cut that would be needed to overcome the tariff rates set by the president; and companies not wanting to give Trump an incentive for further tariffs by rewarding US consumers with lower prices.
Julian Hinz, research director at the Kiel Institute and an author of the study, described the Trump tariffs as an "own goal" that has harmed Americans far more than it has harmed foreigners.
"The claim that foreign countries pay these tariffs is a myth," explained Hinz. "The data show the opposite: Americans are footing the bill."
The Kiel Institute study came out two days after Trump vowed to slap even more tariffs on European countries opposed to his efforts to take over Greenland.
In an analysis published Monday, economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) said that the latest Trump tariffs on Europe amounted to a "$75 billion tax increase" in an attempt to fulfill the president's "demented dreams" of taking over the self-governing Danish territory.
"Well over 90% of the cost of a Trump tariff is borne by consumers or importers in the United States, not by the exporting countries," Baker contended. "When Trump starts yelling 'tariff, tariff, tariff,' he is yelling 'tax, tax, tax,' and we’re the ones paying it. And $75 billion is not trivial. It’s 1% of the budget, more than twice the cost of the enhanced premiums for Obamacare policies that Trump says we can’t afford."
The Trump administration, quietly and with no public input, voted Thursday to scrap federal guidance aimed at clarifying and bolstering anti-harassment protections on the job, a move that rights advocates condemned as yet another destructive attack on workers.
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which President Donald Trump targeted last year by firing two of its Democratic commissioners before their terms were up, voted 2-1 to rescind the anti-harassment guidance approved under the Biden administration.
Unlike the approval process, which garnered tens of thousands of public comments, the decision by Republicans on the EEOC to completely scrap the guidance was made without any feedback from the American public.
Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), said in a statement that the Trump administration is "abandoning millions of workers who face harassment on the job and sending a clear message that this administration will not lift a finger to protect them."
"Trump-installed Chair Andrea Lucas orchestrated this rescission through the back door, refusing to issue the opportunity for public comment," said Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA). "Requests for meetings to discuss the rescission, including ERA’s request, were canceled. This administration does not want to hear from the workers it is abandoning."
"The Trump administration’s rescission of the EEOC workplace harassment guidance is about weaponizing a civil rights agency against the very people it was created to protect," Farrell added.
Ahead of Thursday's vote, Lucas was vocal in her opposition to the portions of the 2024 guidance that clarified the illegality of workplace harassment based on gender identity. Under Lucas' leadership, the EEOC last year moved to drop virtually every lawsuit the agency had filed in the previous year over discrimination against transgender workers.
Late last year, Lucas reportedly received a green light from the Trump White House to pursue the complete rescission of the 2024 guidance—not just the sections related to sexual orientation and gender identity, which had already been vacated by a federal court.
Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the EEOC's only Democrat and the lone vote against rescinding the guidance, lamented that "instead of adopting a thoughtful and surgical approach to excise the sections the majority disagrees with or suggest an alternative, the commission is throwing out the baby with the bathwater."
"Worse, it is doing so without public input," Kotagal added.
"This move will leave the commission enforcing guidance from a time when gay marriage was illegal and most people didn’t have internet at home."
US Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in a statement that the guidance rescission "is a senseless betrayal from an administration doing everything it can to make working people’s lives harder at every turn."
"While this move doesn’t change the underlying law, this administration is turning back the clock decades by abandoning robust enforcement of sexual harassment in the workplace—this hurts everyone and helps no one," said Murray. "Andrea Lucas is openly waging war on the independence and basic mission of the EEOC—and this move will leave the commission enforcing guidance from a time when gay marriage was illegal and most people didn’t have internet at home."
“Whether it’s protecting sexual predators in the Epstein files, promoting alleged abusers to the highest offices in government, or getting rid of basic standards to protect workers against harassment, this administration has proven time and again that they couldn’t care less about workers, women, or victims of abuse," the senator added. "Under Trump, the EEOC is taking the side of abusers over working people just trying to do their jobs. We can’t let this get swept under the rug."
A masked federal immigration enforcement agent was caught on camera this week telling a legal observer in Maine that she was being put in a database for purported "domestic terrorists."
At the start of a video that spread across social media on Friday, the masked agent appears to be scanning a license plate number before walking toward the woman recording him.
The woman informs the agent that it's legal for her to record and then asks him why he's trying to gather information on her.
"Because we have a nice little database, and now you're considered a domestic terrorist," the agent responds.
At this point the woman starts laughing incredulously at him.
"For videotaping you?!" she asks him. "Are you crazy?!"
ICE agent in Portland, Maine tells legal observer she is a domestic terrorist for peacefully recording him, adds her to "nice little database" pic.twitter.com/6miHpXUdT7
— Nathan Bernard (@nathanTbernard) January 23, 2026
Democrats on the US House Homeland Security Committee were quick to denounce the actions of the agent on the video.
"Big government Republicans have unleashed a secret police state on peaceful American citizens," they wrote in a social media post. "This should shake every American to their core."
Other critics, however, noted that it isn't just Republicans who have been supporting the right-wing police state. Seven US House Democrats, including Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), voted with the vast majority of Republicans on Thursday to give US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) an additional $10 billion.
"Corporate Democrats are complicit with the full breakdown of our constitutional rights," commented Sunrise Movement.
Greg Krieg, media director at political consulting firm Slingshot Strategies, took particular aim at Golden for shoveling more money to ICE despite documented evidence of agents violating Americans' civil liberties.
"Thank you Jared Golden, special man who understands Maine better than anyone on the planet, for telling us how much people actually like this horseshit," he wrote sarcastically.
Nico Perrino, executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said the agent's behavior crossed a line that should be condemned by Americans of all political persuasions.
"I hope the vast majority of freedom-loving Americans are uncomfortable with the idea," he wrote, "that masked police are now telling people engaged in First Amendment-protected activity that they are 'domestic terrorists' who will be added to a secret government database."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, predicted that federal agents' aggressive taunts against legal observers would backfire politically against the Trump administration.
"Ironically these kinds of threats do more to radicalize opposition to ICE tactics than they do to stop people from recording ICE," he observed.
Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News, also thought the optics of the Maine video were terrible for Republicans.
"It's hard to overstate how unpopular this crap is with normie Americans," Saul wrote. "On top of the gross civil rights violations, that Trump is letting these goons loose in Maine, a state where Democrats could actually pick up a Senate seat in nine months, it's political malpractice."
Israeli authorities' demolition of the headquarters of the United Nations agency that has for decades provided aid and civil services to Palestinians in territories illegally occupied by Israel was about "more than destroying walls," said one journalist and rights advocate in the region.
The bulldozing of the complex on Monday attacks the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East's (UNRWA) "very mission since 1949, violates the rights of Palestinian refugees, and aims to erase the support system they rely on," said Maha Hussaini, head of media and public engagement at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
Hussaini was among those who spoke out as Israeli forces stormed the complex with bulldozers and began destroying buildings at the site after having sealed off the surrounding streets in East Jerusalem, the occupied city that Palestinians consider the capital of a future Palestinian state.
The Israel Defense Forces and demolition workers were also accompanied by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said the destruction of the compound, which has operated at the site for decades, marked a "historic day."
UN officials and other rights advocates, such as Jonathan Whittall—formerly the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories—said Israeli authorities were once again broadcasting their "contravention of their obligations under international law."
This morning, Israeli authorities are demolishing #UnitedNations property in #EastJerusalem, yet another live-streamed contravention of their obligations under international law. Just months ago, the ICJ reaffirmed that Israel "may not obstruct the functions of UNRWA in the OPT". pic.twitter.com/wqXvKzcKkH
— Jonathan Whittall (@_jwhittall) January 20, 2026
Whittall emphasized that Israel's destruction of UN property came months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) "reaffirmed that Israel 'may not obstruct the functions of UNRWA.'"
UNRWA released a statement accusing Israel of "a new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law," noting that the country is obligated "to protect and respect the inviolability of UN premises."
Ben-Gvir led the destruction of the headquarters more than a year after Israeli lawmakers passed a law banning UNRWA, and weeks after the country banned dozens of international aid groups from operating in Gaza. Israeli officials claimed in 2024 that a small fraction of UNRWA's 13,000 staffers in Gaza had been involved in a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, but an independent investigation found that they had not backed up their claims with evidence.
UNRWA noted that last week, Israeli forces stormed an UNRWA health center in East Jerusalem and ordered it closed, and water and power supplies to the agency's health and education buildings across the region are scheduled to be cut in the coming weeks.
"These actions, together with previous arson attacks and a large-scale disinformation campaign, fly in the face of the ruling in October by the International Court of Justice, which restated that Israel is obliged under international law to facilitate UNRWA’s operations, not hinder or prevent them," said UNRWA. "The court also stressed that Israel has no jurisdiction over East Jerusalem."
"There can be no exceptions. This must be a wake-up call," the agency added. "What happens today to UNRWA will happen tomorrow to any other international organization or diplomatic mission, whether in the occupied Palestinian territory or anywhere around the world. International law has come under increasing attack for too long and is risking irrelevancy in the absence of response by member states.”
In the UK, member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn spoke to his fellow lawmakers about the destruction of the UNRWA compound—on top of Israel's continued slaughter of Palestinians despite a "ceasefire" deal that was reached in October and settler attacks in the West Bank—and demanded to know: "When is the British government going to impose sanctions on Israel for its endless violations of international law?"
Israel has begun bulldozing the UNRWA headquarters in occupied Jerusalem.
When is the British government going to impose sanctions on Israel for its endless violations of international law? pic.twitter.com/YADND8varu
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) January 20, 2026
International law advocate and UN representative Mohamad Safa noted that Israeli authorities violated Article 52 of Additional Protocol (I) Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter when they took over UNRWA's headquarters and raised the Israeli flag there.
"Another violation of international law being broadcast live. Israel's impunity must end!" he said.
Last week, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the UN could take Israel before the ICJ over its laws targeting UNRWA.
The UN, said Guterres, cannot remain indifferent to "actions taken by Israel, which are in direct contravention of the obligations of Israel under international law. They must be reversed without delay.”
Vance claimed he never said agents had "absolute immunity," that the government was investigating the shooting of Renee Good, and that ICE agents weren't entering homes without judges' warrants. None of it was true.
Vice President JD Vance is being called out by legal experts and other critics who say he lied voluminously on Thursday in response to questions about his past claims that immigration agents enjoyed “absolute immunity,” about whether they are now illegally entering residences without warrants, and about the shooting of Renee Good.
Vance was peppered with questions during a press conference after meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis, where their conduct has been met with growing backlash in recent weeks, following the shooting of Good on January 7 by agent Jonathan Ross and other violent and unconstitutional actions that have been documented since.
Shortly after the shooting, in a rush to clear Ross of any wrongdoing, Vance made the highly dubious claim that because Ross was "a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action,” he is therefore "protected by absolute immunity."
Legal scholars immediately called out the concept of "absolute immunity" as a fiction that does not refer to any recognized statute.
But despite those remarks having been widely publicized just weeks ago, when asked about them again on Thursday, Vance pretended he never made such a claim.
"No, I didn't say—and I don't think any other official within the Trump administration said that officers who engaged in wrongdoing would enjoy immunity. That's absurd," he said. "What I did say is that when federal law enforcement officers violate the law, that is typically something that federal officials would look into."
"But of course we're going to investigate these things," Vance continued. "We're investigating the Renee Good shooting. But we're investigating them in a way that respects people's rights and ensures that if somebody did something wrong, yes, they're going to face disciplinary action. But we're not going to judge them in the court of public opinion."
In reality, the administration repeatedly said it is not pursuing a criminal investigation into Ross. According to a report from the Washington Post earlier this week, the FBI opened an initial probe into the shooting, and an agent in Minnesota found that "sufficient grounds" existed to open a civil rights probe into Ross, but DOJ officials chose not to pursue it.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed last week that the DOJ was not investigating the case. “We don’t just go out and investigate every time an officer is forced to defend himself against somebody putting his life in danger. We never do,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration's officials have repeatedly "judged" the case in the court of public opinion by routinely making statements justifying the shooting, with Vance himself praising Ross for "doing his job" and others in the administration referring to Good as a "domestic terrorist."
While it is not investigating Ross for shooting Good, the DOJ is reportedly investigating Good's widow, Becca Good, over the couple's involvement in monitoring and protesting ICE's actions in Minneapolis, which prompted six federal prosecutors with the DOJ to resign in outrage last week.
Xochitl Hinojosa, a former head of public affairs at the DOJ, found Vance's claim that the shooting was being investigated to be in total contradiction to everything else the administration has said about the case.
"Todd Blanche says no criminal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Renee Good. Vance says today they are investigating the incident," she said. "So who exactly is investigating the incident? Because this would normally be the DOJ or the FBI."
While those claims were self-evidently false, legal scholars noted a more "pernicious" lie by Vance in response to a question about a report earlier this week that ICE had issued a memo allowing agents to forcibly enter homes without a judge's warrant, which has been described as a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.
Asked if the memo, which was first reported on by the Associated Press, violated the Constitution, Vance responded that the story was "missing a whole lot of context" and that what ICE and other agencies proposed was that "we can get administrative warrants to enforce administrative immigration law."
"Nobody is talking about doing immigration enforcement without a warrant. We're talking about different types of warrants that exist in our system," Vance went on. "Typically, in the immigration system, those are handled by administrative law judges. So we're talking about getting warrants from those administrative law judges... That's very consistent with the practice of American law."
Rob Doar, a Minnesota-based criminal defense and civil rights attorney, said that Vance had gotten "just about everything wrong" in his explanation.
"Immigration judges are not [administrative law judges]. They don’t issue warrants," Doar said. "ICE 'administrative warrants' are signed by ICE officers, not judges. They do not authorize home entry. Only a judicial warrant does."
Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University and the co-editor-in-chief of Just Security said it was a case of "pernicious wordplay by Vance."
The Department of Homeland Security "is doing immigration enforcement in people's homes without a judicial warrant," he said. "Our system—the Fourth Amendment—requires a judicial warrant."
Joe Mastrosimone, a law professor at Washburn University in Kansas, was amazed that a lawyer of Vance's pedigree could be so inaccurate.
"Good Lord," he wrote on social media. "Did JD Vance actually attend and graduate from Yale Law School? He seems to be a really bad lawyer... This is really basic stuff."
Parents who are legally applying for US asylum were prevented from getting emergency medical care for their 7-year-old daughter.
Advocates sounded the alarm Friday over federal agents' arrest last week of a family of legal asylum-seekers apprehended just outside a Portland, Oregon hospital where they had rushed their 7-year-old daughter for emergency medical treatment.
Yohendry De Jesus Crespo and his wife Darianny Liseth González de Crespo—Venezuelans with pending asylum claims living in Gresham, Oregon—were rushing their daughter Diana to Adventist Hospital in Portland on January 16 as the child suffered an unstoppable nosebleed.
According to the Oregonian, Diana never got to see a doctor, as three unmarked vehicles and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surrounded their family car in the emergency room parking lot.
"The parents pleaded to let their 7-year-old daughter... be released so she could receive urgently needed medical care, but that request was denied," Oregon state Rep. Ricki Ruiz (D-50) said on Facebook.
Absolutely endless monster behavior from ICE & CBP. Detaining parents seeking urgent healthcare for their kids and who, in this case, had petitioned for asylum. All at the same hospital where they shot two people earlier this month.www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...
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— Aubrey Gordon (@yrfatfriend.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 9:18 AM
Friend Ana Linares said the family was arrested, driven to a facility in Tacoma, Washington, and then sent to Texas, where they are being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center near San Antonio.
The facility, which is run by ICE and private prison profiteer CoreCivic, is accused of providing inadequate medical care for children, as well as poor sanitary and health conditions. Detainees also report being served moldy or worm-infested food.
Ruiz said the child "remains ill, reportedly suffering from a fever, and has not received basic medical care."
The family's arrest—which took place less than 1,000 feet from where a US Border Patrol agent shot a Venezuelan couple earlier this month—appears to be the first time in Oregon that immigration enforcers have detained an entire family unit.
Heather Pease, a spokesperson for Adventist Hospital, told the Oregonian that “no law enforcement agency contacted us" about arresting the family, "and we did not coordinate with any agency."
“Adventist Health Portland is here for our community, open, available, and ready to provide care when it’s needed most," Pease added. "Patient care remains our priority, regardless of circumstances.”
It is unclear why the family was arrested. Neither parent has any known criminal record. Linares said the couple—who met in the Panamanian jungle while making their way to the United States—waited to enter the US legally and applied for an appointment. They were assigned a 2028 immigration court date to plead their asylum cases.
“They are good people, not criminals,” Linares told the Oregonian. “They were looking for stability. They wanted to help their families in Venezuela.”
The Trump administration's deadly mass deportation blitz has targeted children—among them US citizens, including a 3-year-old cancer patient—for detention and deportation.
As Common Dreams reported Thursday, federal agents seized at least four children from Minnesota public schools over the past two weeks, including a 5-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl, who were sent to the Dilley lockup.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, a record 73,000 people facing deportation are currently being jailed by ICE, including 6,000 family units.
Some of the nearly 5,000 children who were separated from their parents or other relatives during Trump's first term have also yet to be reunited with their families.
Child welfare advocates worry that Trump administration pressure to increase arrests and the commodification of migrants by for-profit prisons and other private profiteers is incentivizing the arrest and detention of immigrants, including children.
Asserting that "the immediate health and well-being" of Diana Crespo "must be the top priority," Ruiz said on Facebook, "We urgently call for the child to receive appropriate medical care without delay and for the family to be afforded due process and access to legal counsel."
"Situations involving children require heightened care, compassion, and coordination," he added, "and we expect all responsible agencies to act swiftly and humanely to ensure this child's health and safety are protected."
"The impact of an unqualified army of ICE agents being unleashed across the country has been severe," wrote Reps. Becca Balint and Pramila Jayapal.
A pair of House Democrats on Thursday demanded that the tech behemoths Google and Meta stop allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use their platforms to bolster the Trump administration's efforts to recruit agents for its mass deportation campaign and lawless assault on communities across the United States.
In letters to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Reps. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote that they are "alarmed by recent reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has partnered" with the tech giants "as part of a large-scale campaign that uses white nationalist-inspired propaganda to recruit immigration enforcement agents."
ICE, the lawmakers wrote, has "taken to Google’s platforms to draw in more applicants using advertisements that use white nationalist themes." As for Meta, Balint and Jayapal pointed to a recent Washington Post story showing that DHS "spent $2.8 million on recruitment ads across Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram" last year.
"Since August, the agency has paid Meta an additional $500,000 to run recruitment advertisements on its platforms," the House Democrats wrote. "In the first three weeks of the government shutdown last year alone, ICE spent an astounding $4.5 million on paid media campaigns."
DHS, which oversees ICE, has repeatedly used white nationalist-linked rhetoric in social media posts and recruitment ads. Investigative journalist Austin Campbell reported for The Intercept earlier this month that "the Department of Homeland Security’s official Instagram account made a recruitment post proclaiming, 'We'll Have Our Home Again,' attaching a song of the same name by Pine Tree Riots."
"Popularized in neo-Nazi spaces, the track features lines about reclaiming 'our home' by 'blood or sweat,' language often used in white nationalist calls for race war," Campbell noted. "It isn’t new to see extremist right-wing ideology perpetuated in online culture. What is new is seeing it echoed in official messaging from a federal law enforcement agency with the power to detain, deport, and use lethal force."
In their letters on Thursday, Balint and Jayapal demanded that Meta and Google "cease further enabling this conduct," arguing the companies are "complicit" in the Trump administration's dangerous onslaught against US communities.
"The impact of an unqualified army of ICE agents being unleashed across the country has been severe," they wrote.