Minnesota protests, Machado-Trump and Lebanon's holy DJ
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Hi, I'm Sharon Reich-Garson in New Jersey. It's Saturday, January 17th. Today, Minnesotans rally in Sub-Zero cold as federal agents surge into the Twin Cities. Machado courts Trump in Washington as the CIA chief holds quiet talks in Caracas. Plus, meet the holy DJ packing a Beirut nightclub. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week.
What are the recent developments in the Minnesota protests?
The sound of Minnesota residents bundled up against Sub-Zero wind on Friday to protest the massive surge of federal immigration agents in the Twin Cities. For nearly two weeks, the Trump administration has flooded the Minneapolis region with almost 3,000 federal officers, a deployment larger than the city's own police force. The move followed the fatal shooting of Renee Good on January 7, and then another ICE shooting just this past Thursday, when an officer wounded a Venezuelan man during an attempted vehicle stop. On Friday, a U.S. judge in Minnesota issued a major injunction restricting what immigration officers can do during these protests. The judge's order blocks ICE and Border Patrol from arresting peaceful protesters or using tear gas or pepper spray on people who aren't interfering, saying the government hadn't shown why force against peaceful observers was necessary.
At the same time, the Justice Department has launched a probe into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over alleged interference with immigration operations. Accusations both reject. Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado met with President Donald Trump in Washington this week, even presenting him with her Nobel Peace Prize medal as she tried to sway him to give the opposition a role in determining Venezuela's future. But her visit hasn't clarified how much influence she actually has. We spoke to Reuters correspondent Graham Slattery, who explains why her priorities may not line up with Washington's.
Given what we know, it's very clear that Machado and the Venezuelan opposition in general have very different priorities than Trump and his administration. Machado is understandably very interested in a political transition, free and fair elections, the end of human rights abuses in Venezuela. That's not a top priority for the Trump administration, and they've been clear about that.
And while Machado was touring Washington, D.C., Trump's CIA director, John Ratcliffe, was in Caracas, sitting down with Venezuela's interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez.
It's pretty common for a CIA director to take action. sensitive meetings. We can certainly expect them to have talked about what the administration considers designated terrorist organizations, drug trafficking. There's a lot of concerns within the Trump administration about drug flows through Venezuela. There's also a lot of concerns in the Trump administration about the influence of hostile nations in Venezuela, specifically Cuba and Iran, and affiliated groups like Hezbollah.
After the U.S. raid in Venezuela, world leaders are no longer laughing off President Trump's vow to buy or take Greenland against its will. Because we need Greenland for national security, so I may do that. And the administration's military threats are testing the patience of America's allies and the strength of the NATO alliance. On this week's On Assignment, host Jonah Green calls up correspondent Jacob Gronholdt-Peterson, who traveled to the Arctic island to see how this tug of war with the U.S. is playing out on the ground.
Many people have told me they're afraid they don't sleep well at night. It's the first thing they think of when they wake up in the morning and the last thing they think about when going to bed at night. And this has traditionally been a quiet place, not much goes on here. And now all of a sudden you have journalists around, you have the global attention in Greenland, and you have a real threat to your country. So this is unlike anything people have experienced before.
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