Minnesota gears up for anti-immigration enforcement protest Friday despite dangerous cold
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A vast network of labor unions, progressive organizations and clergy has been urging Minnesotans to stay away from work, school and stores Friday to protest against immigration enforcement in the state.
“We really, really want I.C.E. to leave Minnesota, and they’re not going to leave Minnesota unless there’s a ton of pressure on them,” said Kate Havelin of Indivisible Twin Cities, one of the more than 100 groups that is mobilizing. “They shouldn’t be roaming any streets in our country just the way they are now.”
The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have seen daily protests since Renee Good was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during an operation on Jan. 7. Federal law enforcement officers have surged in the area for weeks and have repeatedly squared off with community members and activists who track their movements online and in streets.
On Thursday, a prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people involved in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a Sunday service at a Minnesota church were arrested.
Vice President JD Vance visited Minneapolis to meet with ICE officials. He said repeatedly that he believed the fraught situation in Minneapolis would improve upon better cooperation from state and local officials, and he encouraged protests to remain peaceful.
Immigrants often don't open the door to ICE, but that may no longer stop officers
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Since coming to the United States 30 years ago from Mexico, Fernando Perez said U.S. immigration officers have stopped by his home numerous times, but he has never once answered the door.
“There are rules and I know them,” said Perez, speaking in a mix of English and Spanish in a Home Depot parking lot where he has routinely sought work as a day laborer from contractors and people renovating their homes.
Over the decades it has become common knowledge in immigrant communities across the country to not open the door for federal immigration officers unless they show a warrant signed by a judge. The Supreme Court has long held that the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure prohibits the government’s forced entry into someone’s home.
As a result, immigration officers have been forced to adapt by making arrests in public, which often requires long hours of surveillance outside homes as they wait to nab someone walking to the street.
But an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press states immigration officers can forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, marking a dramatic shift that could upend the legal advice given to immigrants for decades.
Putin meets Trump's envoys as Kremlin says Ukraine settlement hinges on territory
Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the settlement in Ukraine with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys during marathon overnight talks, and the Kremlin insisted that the territorial issue needs to be resolved to reach a peace deal.
The Kremlin meeting, which lasted past 3 a.m. Friday, came hours after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sharply criticized his European allies Thursday for what he cast as their slow and fragmented response to Russia’s nearly four-year full-scale invasion that he said has left Ukraine at the mercy of Putin amid an ongoing U.S. push for a peace settlement.
Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, who participated in Putin’s meeting with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, said "it was reaffirmed that reaching a long-term settlement can’t be expected without solving the territorial issue,” a reference to Moscow’s demand that Kyiv withdraws its troops from the areas in the east that Russia illegally annexed but never fully captured.
Zelenskyy said after meeting Thursday with Trump in Davos, Switzerland, that the future status of land in eastern Ukraine currently occupied by Russia is unresolved but that peace proposals are “nearly ready.”
On a positive note, Ushakov told reporters that it was agreed that Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. officials will hold talks on security issues related to a prospective peace deal in the United Arab Emirates on Friday.
People in Gaza dig through garbage for things to burn to keep warm — a far cry from Trump's vision
CAIRO (AP) — Desperate Palestinians at a garbage dump in a Gaza neighborhood dug with their bare hands for plastic items to burn to fend off the cold and damp winter in the enclave, battered by two years of the Israel-Hamas war.
The scene in the Muwasi area of the city of Khan Younis contrasted starkly with the vision of the territory projected by world leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland, where they inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump's Board of Peace that will oversee Gaza.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump claimed that “record levels” of humanitarian aid had entered Gaza since the October start of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal. His son-in law, Jared Kushner, and envoy Steve Witkoff triumphantly touted the devastated territory's development potential.
In Gaza, months into the truce, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still languish in displacement camps, sheltering in tents and war-ravaged buildings, unable to protect them from the chilly nighttime temperatures.
Despite the ceasefire, there are still recurring deadly strikes. Israeli tank shelling on Thursday killed four Palestinians east of Gaza City, according to Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of the Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were taken. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
Iranian prosecutor denies Trump's claim 800 prisoners were spared execution
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s top prosecutor on Friday called U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that he halted the hangings of 800 detained protesters there “completely false.” Meanwhile, the overall death toll from a bloody crackdown on nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 5,002, activists said.
Activists fear many more are dead. They struggle to confirm information as the most comprehensive internet blackout in Iran's history has crossed the two-week mark.
Tensions remain high between the United States and Iran as an American aircraft carrier group moves closer to the Middle East, something Trump likened to an “armada” in comments to journalists late Thursday.
Analysts say a military buildup could give Trump the option to carry out strikes, though so far he's avoided that despite repeated warnings to Tehran. The mass execution of prisoners had been one of his red lines for military force — the other being the killing of peaceful demonstrators.
“While President Trump now appears to have backtracked, likely under pressure from regional leaders and cognizant that airstrikes alone would be insufficient to implode the regime, military assets continue to be moved into the region, indicating kinetic action may still happen,” New York-based think tank the Soufan Center said in an analysis Friday.
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Japan will hold an early election next month as Takaichi aims to capitalize on her popularity
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi dissolved the lower house of parliament on Friday, paving the way for an early election on Feb. 8.
The move is an attempt to capitalize on her popularity to help the governing party regain ground after major losses in recent years, but it will delay parliamentary approval for a budget that aims at boosting a struggling economy and addressing soaring prices.
Takaichi, elected in October as Japan’s first female leader, has been in office only three months, but she has seen strong approval ratings of about 70%.
Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party could still face some challenges as it reels from a series of scandals about corruption and the party's past ties to the Unification Church. But it's not clear if the new opposition Centrist Reform Alliance can attract moderate voters, while opposition parties are still too splintered to a pose a serious threat to the LDP.
Takaichi is also seeing rising animosity with China, since making remarks on Taiwan. And U.S. President Donald Trump wants her to spend more on weapons, as Washington and Beijing pursue military superiority in the region.
Texas and Oklahoma brace for snow and ice as winter storm barrels toward eastern two-thirds of US
DALLAS (AP) — Texas and Oklahoma braced for heavy snow and ice that could make roadways treacherous Friday in what forecasters predict will be some of the initial effects of a huge, dayslong winter storm threatening catastrophic damage, extensive power outages and bitterly cold weather to the eastern two-thirds of the U.S.
In the Houston area, a utility company had 3,300 employees ready to work the winter storm, while Oklahoma's Department of Transportation pretreated highways and interstates with salt brine. Freezing rain and sleet were also expected in New Mexico as early as Friday.
The massive storm system is expected to bring a crippling ice storm from Texas through parts of the South, potentially around a foot (30 centimeters) of snow from Oklahoma through Washington, D.C., New York and Boston, and then a final punch of bitterly cold air that could drop wind chills to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 46 Celsius) in parts of Minnesota and North Dakota.
Forecasters are warning the damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival a hurricane. About 160 million people were under winter storm or cold weather watches or warnings — and in many places both.
Cold air streaming down from Canada caused Chicago Public Schools and Des Moines Public Schools in Iowa to cancel classes Friday. Wind chills predicted to be as low as minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 37 Celsius) could cause frostbite within 10 minutes, making it too dangerous to walk to school or wait for the bus.
TikTok finalizes a deal to form a new American entity
TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States that has been in discussion for years on the platform now used by more than 200 million Americans.
The social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX to form the new TikTok U.S. joint venture. The new version will operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users,” the company said in a statement Thursday. American TikTok users can continue using the same app.
President Donald Trump praised the deal in a Truth Social post, thanking Chinese leader Xi Jinping specifically “for working with us and, ultimately, approving the Deal.” Trump add that he hopes “that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok.”
Adam Presser, who previously worked as TikTok's head of operations and trust and safety, will lead the new venture as its CEO. He will work alongside a seven-member, majority-American board of directors that includes TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew.
The deal ends years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration sought an agreement for the sale of the company.
US futures slip and world shares are mixed as Japan keeps its key interest rate unchanged
European shares were mixed after Asian markets advanced Friday as calm was restored after a tumultuous week.
U.S. futures turned lower, with the contracts for the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials down 0.1%.
Germany's DAX was little changed at 24,852.07, while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.2% to 8,129.68. Britain's FTSE 100 edged 0.1% higher.
In Asian trading, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 picked up 0.3% to 53,846.87 after the Bank of Japan kept its key interest rate unchanged, as expected. The central bank just raised the policy rate to 0.75% in December. Wrapping up its policy meeting, it also slightly upgraded its estimates for future inflation and economic growth.
The Japanese yen rose against the U.S. dollar, which was trading at 158.15 yen, up from 158.42 yen.
Smith defends his Trump investigations at a House hearing. 'No one should be above the law,' he says
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith defended his investigations of President Donald Trump at a congressional hearing Thursday in which he insisted that he had acted without regard to politics and had no second thoughts about the criminal charges he brought.
“No one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said of Trump.
Smith testified behind closed doors last month but returned to the House Judiciary Committee for a public hearing that provided the prosecutor with a forum to address Congress and the country more generally about the breadth of evidence he collected during investigations that shadowed Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign and resulted in indictments. The hourslong hearing immediately split along partisan lines as Republican lawmakers sought to undermine the former Justice Department official while Democrats tried to elicit damaging testimony about Trump's conduct and accused their GOP counterparts of attempting to rewrite history.
“It was always about politics,” said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committee's Republican chairman.
“Maybe for them,” retorted Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, referring to Republicans. “But, for us, it’s all about the rule of law.”
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