The Headlines
Trump Administration Tries to Control Minneapolis Shooting Narrative, and Winter Storm Shatters Records
26 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Monday, January 26th. Here's what we're covering. The second fatal shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis has kicked off what's become a new pattern from the Trump administration, of officials immediately going on the offensive, demonizing the victim, and often distorting the facts of what happened.
On Saturday morning, Alex Preddy, a Minneapolis resident who worked as an ICU nurse at the VA, had gathered with a small group of protesters near where federal agents were operating. These kinds of scenes have become common in Minneapolis and across the country. Demonstrators opposed to the administration's aggressive immigration enforcement come to blow whistles or record on their phones.
Videos show Preddy stepped between a woman and an agent who was pepper spraying her. He was then pepper sprayed, and a group of agents piled onto him. They pinned him down and appeared to pull a handgun off of Preddy's hip before agents opened fire, killing him. Videos show Preddy, who had a permit to carry a firearm, never drew his weapon.
This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem immediately claimed Preddy assaulted the officers.
You do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without any repercussions.
That was echoed by the head of the FBI, Kash Patel.
The suspect put himself in that situation. The victims are the Border Patrol agents there.
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Chapter 2: What happened in the Minneapolis shooting involving Alex Preddy?
At least one Republican senator has also raised concerns about the shooting. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said it was incredibly disturbing and called for a joint federal-state investigation, saying, quote, the credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. The gigantic winter storm that crossed over much of the U.S.
this weekend brought record-breaking low temperatures, dumped more than a foot of snow in 17 states, and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of people.
It's getting a lot worse. There's snow coming down at a much heavier pace compared to earlier.
The National Weather Service said Bonita Lake, New Mexico, got the most snow of anywhere in the country, recording 31 inches.
Again, it's just waves of snow.
The heavy snow, combined with ice in the south, caused chaos for travelers. Yesterday, nearly 40 percent of all flights in the country were canceled. The storm also turned deadly in some states. At least 11 people from Texas to New York died amid the bitter cold. Forecasters are now warning that those dangerous conditions could remain for days.
About 80 percent of Americans will see freezing temperatures in the next week, and many cities have been rushing to open warming centers for those affected by the cold. About a decade ago, genetic researchers started recruiting kids across the U.S. for an ambitious study to track brain development.
They did MRIs, clinical tests, and took DNA samples, telling parents that it could help lead to breakthrough discoveries. They also told the families that all that sensitive data would be closely guarded by the National Institutes of Health. That is not what happened. Instead, a group of fringe researchers got around the NIH's safeguards and accessed data from over 20,000 kids.
They used it to churn out at least 16 papers, arguing things like white people are intellectually superior or ranking ethnicities by IQ scores. Those conclusions, which mainstream scientists have rejected as biased and unscientific, have become fodder for racist posts that have gone viral on social media. And some of the papers are being cited by AI bots like ChatGPT and Grok.
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