The Morning Sixpack - 01/29/2026 ICE retreats in Maine, Walz warns of rupture, Trump rages at the Fed, metals soar, China grounds Japan flights

The Morning Sixpack - 01/29/2026 ICE retreats in Maine, Walz warns of rupture, Trump rages at the Fed, metals soar, China grounds Japan flights

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady Wednesday, as expected, despite pressure from President Trump for much lower borrowing costs. The central bank has already cut its benchmark interest rate three times since September, making it cheaper to borrow money to buy a car, expand a business or carry a balance on a credit card. But with inflation still above target, most Fed policymakers voted to hold their target rate unchanged, in a range between 3.5 and 3.75%. "The unemployment rate has shown some signs of stabilization," policymakers said in a statement. "Inflation remains somewhat elevated." Fed governors Chris Waller and Stephen Miran dissented, saying they would have preferred to cut the benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point. President Trump wants much lower interest rates, and he's waged an unusually aggressive campaign to push the Fed in that direction, even though the central bank is designed to be insulated from political interference. Trump has tried to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, which would allow him to replace her with someone who would support bigger rate cuts. So far, that effort has been blocked by the Supreme Court. Fed also targets Powell Trump has also threatened to fire Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. While Powell has generally tried to avoid getting dragged into a conflict with the president, he pushed back earlier this month after the Justice Department served the central bank with subpoenas, as part of an investigation of cost overruns at the Fed's headquarters. "Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats," Powell said in an unusually combative video statement. "This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation." Powell's term as Fed chair ends in May, so he will likely preside over two more rate-setting meetings. Trump is expected to nominate a new Fed leader soon. Powell has the option to remain on the Fed's governing board for two more years, which would limit the president's opportunities to install more malleable policymakers on the board. Concern about a softening job market led the central bank to cut its benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point at each of its last three meetings in September, October and December. Job growth has slowed sharply over the last year, and the unemployment rate has inched up to 4.4%. A report from the Conference Board Tuesday showed that concerns about job security are weighing on consumer confidence. But Fed policymakers have to balance their worries about slower job growth with a watchful eye on inflation. Although price hikes have slowed, inflation remains well above the Fed's target of 2%.

Jan 28 (Reuters) - Gold prices jumped 4% on Wednesday, closing in on $5,400 per ounce for the first time as this month's sharp rally showed no signs of fading, fueled by investors seeking safety amid mounting economic and geopolitical uncertainty. The market showed little reaction to the U.S. Federal Reserve decision to leave rates unchanged, as widely expected, or to comments after the announcement by Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The Reuters Inside Track newsletter is your essential guide to the biggest events in global sport. Sign up here. Spot gold was up 4% at $5,393.19 an ounce at 4:08 p.m. ET (2108 GMT). U.S. gold futures for February settled 4.3% higher at $5,303.60. "The rally in the precious metals has kind of taken on a life of its own at this point," said Peter Grant, vice president and senior metals strategist at Zaner Metals. Gold remains overbought and vulnerable to a correction, Grant said, but strong buying interest during dips continues to favor the upside, with the next target projected at $5,400.The Fed held interest rates steady, citing still-elevated inflation alongside solid economic growth, but gave little indication in its latest policy statement of when borrowing costs might fall again. Item 1 of 2 A saleswoman sits inside a Senco Gold & Diamonds jewellery showroom in Kolkata, India, January 28, 2026. REUTERS/Sahiba Chawdhary [1/2]A saleswoman sits inside a Senco Gold & Diamonds jewellery showroom in Kolkata, India, January 28, 2026. REUTERS/Sahiba Chawdhary Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Both Governor Christopher Waller, a contender to replace Powell when his term as central bank chief ends in May, and Governor Stephen Miran, on leave from his job as an economic adviser at the White House, dissented in favor of a quarter-percentage-point rate cut. "Precious metals simply don't care that the Fed is clearly in hiatus mode, rather than pause, with the complex as a whole trading higher throughout the press conference," said Tai Wong, an independent metals trader.Powell said inflation in December was likely still well above the central bank's 2% target. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would soon announce his pick to replace Powell. Gold is considered a safe-haven asset and typically performs well during periods of low rates. It has gained more than 25% since the start of the year, building on last year's record gains.Crypto group Tether plans to allocate 10%–15% of its investment portfolio to physical gold, its CEO Paolo Ardoino said, adding to the bullion which it says already backs some of its products. Spot silver rose 3.3% to $116.69 an ounce after hitting a record high of $117.69 on Monday. Prices have gained more than 60% so far this year. "A number of silver indicators suggest prices may be due a correction in the short term," analysts at Standard Chartered said in a note. Spot platinum rose 2.5% to $2,707.67 an ounce, after hitting a record $2,918.80 on Monday, while palladium rose 7.2% to $2,073.50 an ounce. Reporting by Anmol Choubey and Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Leroy Leo and Edmund Klamann Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Anmol reports on commodities markets, focusing on metals, energy, and agriculture. Beyond journalism, he has a keen interest in geopolitics and enjoys exploring global power dynamics through geopolitical strategy books and political thriller movies. Ashitha covers the commodity landscape, with increased focus on precious metals, minor metals, and agricultural commodities.

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January 28, 2026, 9:25 PM ET Minnesota Governor Tim Walz worries that the violence in his state could produce a national rupture. “I mean, is this a Fort Sumter?” he mused today in an interview in his office at the state capitol. The island fortification near Charleston, South Carolina, is where Confederate forces fired the first shots of the Civil War in 1861. Now it’s federal forces that are risking a breach. “It’s a physical assault,” Walz told me. “It’s an armed force that’s assaulting, that’s killing my constituents, my citizens.” He let his question about Fort Sumter hang without an answer. Walz bowed out of his reelection race earlier this month. The 2024 vice-presidential candidate said that he didn’t want politics to interfere with his work amid an intensifying federal probe into welfare fraud in his state. Two days later, his phone rang, and it was Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis. Renee Good had been shot and killed by an ICE officer, one of thousands of federal agents deployed to Minnesota as part of what the Trump administration declared the largest immigration-enforcement operation in history. “Get yourself prepared,” was the mayor’s message, Walz recalled to me. He had understood instantly that the kind of unrest not seen since the summer of 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, could be returning to Minneapolis. Barely two weeks later, federal agents shot and killed a second Minneapolis resident. Walz still doesn’t know the names of the agents who unloaded their firearms into Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse. State authorities were blocked from investigating both killings. Instead, the governor was placed under federal investigation along with other Democratic officials. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is demanding access to Minnesota’s voter rolls, couching the extraordinary election-year request as a quid pro quo for restoring “law and order.” This looks to Walz like an all-out federal assault on his state. When I asked him explicitly if he thought the United States was barreling toward an armed internal struggle, he hedged. “Well, I don’t want to alarm people,” he said. He switched into the third person, saying that some of his constituents think “Governor Walz should call in the National Guard and arrest ICE.” The governor isn’t inclined to do this. He mobilized his state’s National Guard, but to deliver doughnuts and hot chocolate to observers and protesters who have sought to document and contest ICE’s presence. He saluted their commitment to nonviolence, saying that the restraint exercised by the vast majority of his constituents may be what averts an even deeper crisis. After invoking Fort Sumter, he brought up John Brown, the abolitionist who stormed a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in 1859, fueling violent conflict over slavery that erupted in the Civil War. “Guns pointed, American at American,” he said, “is certainly not where we want to go.” President Trump called Walz “seriously retarded” in a Thanksgiving post on social media. Yet the president reported having a “very good call” with the governor on Monday, saying the two were “on a similar wavelength.” By the time of their conversation, senior advisers to the president had smeared Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin.” Trump declined to echo those characterizations in interviews and other comments this week. But in their phone call, Walz told me, the president didn’t say Pretti’s name, didn’t express condolences for his family, and didn’t ask how residents of the state were doing. Instead, Walz said, the president complained. “I just don’t understand you Minnesotans,” he said, arguing that ICE raids had “worked fine” in other places, including New Orleans and Louisville, Kentucky. The president pressed him to cooperate with immigration authorities, according to Walz. The governor told me that he would comply with federal law, but outlined strict limits on his cooperation. “I’m not sure I can do much more,” the governor said. “I’m not going to send my police in to search preschools. I’m not going to have them walk down the street and ask brown people for their papers. I’m not going to do that, because that’s not my job and I don’t think it’s constitutional.” He gave the president two conditions for their working more closely together: removing federal agents and allowing the state to take part in probes into the two killings. The president, meanwhile, promoted a change in his approach to Minnesota, saying that he was sending Tom Homan, his “border czar,” to replace Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who had become a public face of the administration’s most confrontational tactics. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. Read: Greg Bovino loses his job Homan arrived and called the governor right away, Walz said. “At least Tom Homan understood, ‘Look, this is a mess. This was wrong,’” the governor told me. He and Homan have disagreements, Walz said, but the border czar made clear in their conversations that he understands how local law enforcement operates and how it responds to written requests to hold inmates for ICE to consider removal processes, known as “detainers.” Bovino never even called, Walz said. Neither did Kristi Noem, the homeland-security secretary. Walz said that he wants to see a major drawdown of federal agents and dramatically different tactics. He said he gave Homan a window of several days to reorient the operation. That window closes tomorrow. “If we don’t see a massive change here,” Walz told Homan, “I have no choice but to go back and tell my folks that you’re not doing it.” “And look,” the governor added, “the folks on the street are skeptical.” Walz is also skeptical. When we spoke, he couldn’t yet determine whether there had been a significant change in ICE tactics in his state. Activists I asked couldn’t say for sure either. One thing the governor said he did know was that the damage had already been profound. “The disruption and the moral harm that they have done to our state is unimaginable,” he said. He saw the fear up close recently when residents mistook the SUVs in his security detail for ICE vehicles and fled on foot. Children are staying home from school, he said. Families are fearful of going out for groceries. For people watching from outside Minnesota, the governor said, “it’s worse than you think.” Minnesota may offer a glimpse of what’s in store for other states. “That assault will come to your state soon,” Walz warned. This is why he has been encouraged to see some red-state governors speak out. Kevin Stitt, the Republican governor of Oklahoma and the chair of the National Governors Association, joined his Democratic vice chair, Wes Moore of Maryland, in calling for a “reset” in immigration enforcement. Governor Phil Scott, a Republican from Vermont, called on Trump to pause the operations, saying simply, “Enough.” Walz wondered aloud if “there’s a Republican governor who could look you in the eye and say, ‘Would you have been okay with Joe Biden doing this?’” Walz said. “And I think that’s where you get a governor like Kevin Stitt saying, ‘No way in hell.’” Read: Police and ICE agents are on a collision course But there is something particular about Trump’s vendetta against Minnesota, a state he falsely claims to have won three times only to have been bested by fraud. Members of his Cabinet have piled on. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is from Minnesota, wrote on X, “ICE > MN.” Walz called the post “absolutely despicable.” Walz won’t be on the ballot in November’s election, but he thinks the contest is at the heart of the administration’s tactics. The Justice Department’s demand for Minnesota’s voter rolls, he said, was the giveaway. The president’s party, he predicted, will be “wiped out” in a free and fair vote—assuming there is one. “But I hear Americans on this,” he added. What they say is, “‘What makes you think we can get to November?’”

President Donald Trump hammered an early morning screed attacking Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The central bank held interest rates steady on Wednesday despite Trump's public pressure on Powell – who claims a criminal probe against him by Trump ally Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, is part of that pressure campaign – and the 79-year-old president raged against the chairman in a 284-word rant. "Jerome 'Too Late' Powell again refused to cut interest rates, even though he has absolutely no reason to keep them so high," Trump posted Thursday morning on Truth Social. "He is hurting our Country, and its National Security. We should have a substantially lower rate now that even this moron admits inflation is no longer a problem or threat." Trump declared this week that inflation was "solved," but Powell said that interest rates would remain steady to "finish the job of getting inflation back down to 2 percent," after hovering between 3 percent in September and 2.7 percent in November and December. "He is costing America Hundreds of Billions of Dollar a year in totally unnecessary and uncalled for INTEREST EXPENSE," Trump posted. "Because of the vast amounts of money flowing into our Country because of Tariffs, we should be paying the LOWEST INTEREST RATE OF ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. Most of these countries are low interest rate paying cash machines, thought of as elegant, solid, and prime, only because the U.S.A. allows them to be." Powell said "a lot" of the tariffs that might have driven inflation have already worked their way through the economy, which he called "good news," but he said that could possibly signal other problems with the U.S. economy. "The Tariffs being charged to them, while bringing in $BILLIONS to us, still allows most of them to have a significant trade surplus, though much smaller, with our beautiful, formerly abused Country," Trump posted. "In other words, I have been very nice, kind, and gentle to countries all over the World. With a mere flip of the pen, $BILLIONS more would come into the U.S.A., and these countries would have to go back to making money the old fashioned way, not on the back of America." "I hope they all appreciate, although many don’t, what our great Country has done for them," the president added. "The Fed should substantially lower interest rates, NOW! Tariffs have made America strong and powerful again, far stronger and more powerful than any other Nation. Commensurate with this strength, both financial and otherwise, WE SHOULD BE PAYING LOWER INTEREST RATES THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP."

Powerful, world-transforming AI could be two years away, and humanity must get through the technology’s “adolescence” unscathed, Anthropic’s CEO argued. Dario Amodei’s 19,000-word essay warned against both “doomerism” about AI and dismissiveness of its risks, saying that judging by current improvements, soon AI will be “better than humans at essentially everything.” It is not inevitable that that will lead to disaster, but it is plausible, because AI is unpredictable, he said. That could mean the AI itself seizing power, autocratic states using it for repression, or individuals creating bioweapons. Democracies, Amodei wrote, must move fast to outpace autocracies yet carefully to avoid catastrophe; China chip export controls, research into safe AI, and regulations on AI transparency will be vital.

Powerful, world-transforming AI could be two years away, and humanity must get through the technology’s “adolescence” unscathed, Anthropic’s CEO argued. Dario Amodei’s 19,000-word essay warned against both “doomerism” about AI and dismissiveness of its risks, saying that judging by current improvements, soon AI will be “better than humans at essentially everything.” It is not inevitable that that will lead to disaster, but it is plausible, because AI is unpredictable, he said. That could mean the AI itself seizing power, autocratic states using it for repression, or individuals creating bioweapons. Democracies, Amodei wrote, must move fast to outpace autocracies yet carefully to avoid catastrophe; China chip export controls, research into safe AI, and regulations on AI transparency will be vital.

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement is leveraging Palantir’s generative artificial intelligence tools to sort and summarize immigration enforcement tips from its public submission form, according to an inventory released Wednesday of all use cases the Department of Homeland Security had for AI in 2025. The AI Enhanced ICE Tip Processing service is intended to help ICE investigators “to more quickly identify and action tips” for urgent cases, as well as translate submissions not made in English, according to the inventory. It also provides a “BLUF,” defined as a “high-level summary of the tip,” produced using at least one large language model. BLUF, or “bottom line up front,” is a military term that’s also used internally by some Palantir employees. DHS says that the software is “being actively authorized” in support of ICE operations, adding that the tool helps reduce the “time-consuming manual effort required to review and categorize incoming tips.” The date when the AI-enhanced tip processing “became operational” is listed in the inventory as May 2, 2025. The DHS inventory does not provide many details about the large language models Palantir uses to generate the BLUFs; however, it does note that ICE uses “commercially available large language models” that were “trained on the public domain data by their providers.” "There was no additional training using agency data on top of what is available in the models’ base set of capabilities,” the inventory also notes. “During operation, the AI models interact with tip submissions." The “2025 DHS AI Use Case Inventory,” published Wednesday on DHS’s website, has been published for every year since 2022. The 2024 version of the inventory does not mention using AI to process tip line submissions. Palantir has been a major ICE contractor since 2011, and it provides a sweeping set of analytical tools for the agency. Until now, however, almost nothing has been known about Palantir’s work processing tips for ICE. This work was mentioned once in the description of a $1.96 million Palantir payment that ICE made in September 2025. The payment was to modify the Investigative Case Management System (ICM)—a version of Palantir’s off-the-shelf law enforcement product, Gotham, which stores information about current or former ICE investigations—to include the “Tipline and Investigative Leads Suite.” The description includes no other details about Palantir’s work on this “Tipline” integration. However, the “AI Enhanced ICE Tip Processing” tool may be an update to the “FALCON Tipline,” which replaced ICE’s previous tip-processing system around 2012. Palantir, ICE, and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. According to a DHS document last updated in 2021, the FALCON Tipline processes tips submitted by the public or law enforcement agencies about “suspected illegal activity” or “suspicious activity” to ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Tipline Unit. ICE appears to have only one tip line, but submissions can be made online or over the phone. An entry to a federal register in December 2025 notes that when HSI receives a tip, investigators within its Tipline Unit conduct “queries” across various “DHS, law enforcement, and immigration databases.” After analyzing these results, HSI agents write “investigative reports” and then refer tips to the appropriate offices within DHS. It’s unclear exactly how much of this workflow may be assisted by the newly AI-enhanced processing. Data from the FALCON Tipline, Palantir’s ICM, and several other databases are ingested and made searchable by the FALCON Search & Analysis System, a separate but similarly named tool also developed by Palantir. After federal agents shot and killed Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday, Palantir workers pressed leadership for answers on the company’s work with ICE. In Slack messages, reviewed by WIRED this week, workers asked whether Palantir could “put any pressure on ICE at all.” One worker wrote, “Our involvement with ice has been internally swept under the rug under Trump2 too much. We need an understanding of our involvement here.” Responding to this pressure, leadership updated Palantir’s internal wiki detailing its ongoing work with ICE. In a post from January 24, Akash Jain, whose LinkedIn profile lists him as chief technology officer and president of Palantir USG, defended the company’s work with ICE, writing that Palantir’s services improve “ICE’s operational effectiveness.” “There have been increasing, and increasingly visible, field operations focused on interior immigration enforcement that continue to attract attention to Palantir’s involvement with ICE,” the wiki says. “We believe that our work could have a real and positive impact on ICE enforcement operations by providing officers and agents with the data to make more precise, informed decisions. We are committed to giving our partners the best software for the job, while acknowledging the reputational risk we face when supporting immigration enforcement operations.” The updated wiki describes Palantir’s work with ICE as focusing on three major areas: “Enforcement Operations Prioritization and Targeting,” “Self-Deportation Tracking,” and “Immigration Lifestyle Operations focused on logistics planning and execution.” But it does not mention any use of AI to help immigration enforcement officials sort through potential tips. The inventory released by ICE on Wednesday also references another Palantir-developed tool called Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) which was first reported by 404 Media earlier this month. ELITE creates maps outlining potential deportation targets and presents information dossiers on each person. The tool pulls data from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to identify addresses for potential targets. The tool became operational in June, according to the inventory, and 404 Media reports that it has been used in Oregon. “While ELITE provides actionable data to ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) officers, its outputs are limited to normalized address data and do not serve as a principal basis for decisions or actions with legal, material, binding, or significant effects on individuals,” the inventory reads. “ICE data was not used during the design, development, or training phases of the AI models. During operation, the AI models interact with ICE production data from multiple sources, including data from ICE’s Enforcement Integrated Database (EID).” ICE and the White House have repeatedly linked out to the agency’s webform for tips over the past year, calling on the public—not just law enforcement—to submit possible leads. “Help ICE officers make your community safer by reporting suspicious activity,” said one ICE post on X from February.

Yale University announced Tuesday it will make tuition free for newly admitted students whose families make less than $200,000 a year, starting in the 2027-2027 academic year. The new policy will "eliminate all expected costs for families with typical assets and annual incomes below $100,000 while also ensuring that families with typical assets and annual incomes below $200,000 receive need-based scholarships that meet or exceed the cost of tuition." The program covers tuition, room and board for those who are fully eligible. By Yale's calculations, close to half of U.S. households would be eligible for full coverage, while as much as 80% of households would have at least their tuition costs covered. The offer is an expansion of Yale's existing "zero parent share" program, which since 2010 covered all school expenses for students from families making $65,000 or less. The program was boosted to a $75,000 threshold in 2020. The catch, of course, is getting admitted to Yale. The school says in 2025, it received more than 50,000 applications for admission. Of those, it admitted 2,388 students, or 4.8% of applicants. RELATED NEWS | Federal student loan repayment rules are changing in 2026: What borrowers need to know The changes come as the U.S. Education Department prepares to make significant changes to how federal student loans are repaid. Beginning July 1, 2026, all new federal student loans will be placed under a new system called the Repayment Assistance Program, which is income-driven and designed to simplify repayment and reduce the risk of overwhelming debt. The department also announced in January it will temporarily delay forced collections on federal student loans. The pause applies to collection efforts such as Administrative Wage Garnishment and the Treasury Offset Program.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is investigating actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Eagle County, Colorado, following reports that agents left ace of spades playing cards inside the vehicles of people they detained. The ace of spades playing card has long been associated with racism and death, dating back to the Vietnam War. The ace of spades card reads “ICE Denver Field Office,” according to Alex Sánchez, president and CEO of the nonprofit Voces Unidas. He said the cards were left inside at least two vehicles last Wednesday. RELATED STORY | Police arrest protesters outside Minnesota hotel believed to house ICE agents “Voces Unidas is a nonprofit based in the Western Slope. We have physical offices in Frisco, Avon, and Glenwood Springs, and soon in Grand Junction. We have been operating in the 15 counties of the traditional Western Slope since January 2025. We have been operating a 24/7 hotline. It is fully staffed with paid employees, and we are providing services and support for families and individuals who are detained at the Aurora Detention Center. Last week, on Wednesday, we had an uptick in activity in the Eagle-Vail valley,” Sánchez said. Sánchez said they received several calls from the family members of people who ICE agents detained. “We did independently verify that at least nine individuals were detained that Wednesday by ICE in the Eagle-Vail Valley. There are eight individuals who were detained in what we refer to as fake traffic stops, and one individual who was detained as he was walking to a bus stop,” Sánchez said. “We started to hear from at least two families in two different vehicles, suggesting that they had found this card, and they wanted to know the significance of it." Sánchez said ICE agents’ decision to leave those cards inside the vehicles of those they detained constitutes psychological harassment. “This is disgusting. This is sickening. This is not law enforcement. This is not dignified public servants doing their job on behalf of the American people as federal law enforcement agents; we absolutely call on our congressional delegation for accountability. We want our Colorado congressional delegation to use their powers as members of Congress to demand accountability from the federal government,” Sánchez said. “Is this a practice of the Denver field office? Is this a policy of the Department of Homeland Security? Is this just rogue agents who happen to have extreme views that probably don't belong in law enforcement?” RELATED STORY | Federal judge threatens contempt against ICE director over detention case DHS condemned the alleged actions in a statement to the Scripps News Group. They released the following statement: “ICE is investigating this situation but unequivocally condemns this type of action and/or officer conduct. Once notified, ICE supervisors acted swiftly to address the issue.The ICE Office of Professional Responsibility will conduct a thorough investigation and will take appropriate and swift action. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE is held to the highest professional standard. As our brave law enforcement arrests and removes dangerous criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, and gang members from our communities, America can be proud of the professionalism our officers bring the job day-in and day-out.” Sanchez said Voces Unidas has not been contacted by DHS, but they hope to speak with the department about the investigation. DHS investigates 'death cards' ICE agents reportedly left inside detainees' cars in Colorado This article was written by Micah Smith for the Scripps News Group in Denver.

The FBI would not clarify whether the action is tied to the 2020 election, but last month the Department of Justice announced it's suing Fulton County for records related to the election. (Image credit: John Bazemore)

Album · 2026 · 1 Song

January 28, 2026 at 9:44 pm ESTJanuary 28, 2026 at 9:45 pm EST ICE officers in Minnesota were directed to avoid engaging with “agitators” as they carry out President Trump’s immigration crackdown, Reuters reports. The new guidance, offering the most detailed look so… January 28, 2026 at 9:09 pm EST “The Trump administration’s immigration agenda is under scrutiny, and so are the officials overseeing it. That now includes Stephen Miller,” NOTUS reports. “Miller, the architect behind President Donald Trump’s hard-line… January 28, 2026 at 9:07 pm EST Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said that in his view, Vice President JD Vance has “offered comfort” to people on the right who espouse anti-Jewish views, as the Republican Party navigates… January 28, 2026 at 6:07 pm ESTJanuary 28, 2026 at 6:07 pm EST “The Senate is on a collision course for the second shutdown since October as the two parties clash over the future of ICE,” Punchbowl News reports. “Senate Democrats unveiled a… January 28, 2026 at 4:44 pm EST “When Republicans muscled President Trump’s signature domestic policy bill through Congress last year, they gave a windfall to the Department of Homeland Security — including for Immigration and Customs Enforcement… January 28, 2026 at 4:42 pm ESTJanuary 28, 2026 at 4:58 pm EST “The FBI executed a search warrant on the elections warehouse of Georgia’s most populous county Wednesday seeking ballots from the 2020 election, the latest apparent move in President Donald Trump’s… January 28, 2026 at 4:38 pm ESTJanuary 28, 2026 at 4:45 pm EST Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says he has “nothing for you” on whether he will leave the Fed board when his term as chair is up in May, Bloomberg reports…. January 28, 2026 at 3:20 pm EST Washington Post: “In Europe, there’s a growing clamor from some corners to boycott the World Cup — and questioning of the fitness of the U.S. to host the tournament.” Save… January 28, 2026 at 2:13 pm EST “The Federal Reserve on Wednesday voted to take a break from a recent run of interest rate cuts, as the central bank navigates questions about its independence and awaits a… January 28, 2026 at 1:27 pm EST “The two federal agents who opened fire on a Veterans Affairs nurse in Minneapolis have been placed on leave, as more voices, including some in the Republican Party, broke with… January 28, 2026 at 1:25 pm EST House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN that Democrats are likely to introduce a privileged impeachment resolution on the House floor targeting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Said Jeffries: “Well,… January 28, 2026 at 1:18 pm EST FBI agents were executing a search warrant at the Fulton County elections office near Atlanta on Wednesday, the AP reports. Save to Favorites January 28, 2026 at 1:17 pm ESTJanuary 28, 2026 at 1:20 pm EST “If I nominate Ted Cruz for the Supreme Court, the Democrats will vote for him because they want to get him the hell out. And the Republicans will vote for… January 28, 2026 at 1:11 pm EST Financial Times: “Close ties between business and previous administrations have long fuelled a sense that America’s free market tilts towards well-connected elites. But this administration has normalised case-by-case dealmaking as… January 28, 2026 at 1:01 pm EST “President Trump sharply intensified his threats against Iran on Wednesday, suggesting that if it did not agree to a set of demands the administration had made of the country’s leaders,… January 28, 2026 at 12:42 pm EST “Nine progressive prosecutors from cities around the country are launching a coalition to assist in prosecuting federal law enforcement officers who violate state laws,” the New York Times reports. “The… January 28, 2026 at 12:39 pm EST “This is moral injury that we’re living through. They still have an active federal investigation into the wife of Renee Good. And that is demented shit right there.” — Minnesota… January 28, 2026 at 12:36 pm EST CNN: “The earlier incident started when he stopped his car after observing ICE agents chasing what he described as a family on foot, and began shouting and blowing his whistle,… January 28, 2026 at 12:26 pm EST “The South Carolina measles outbreak has surpassed the recorded case count in Texas’ 2025 outbreak, as health officials have logged almost 600 new cases in just over a month,” the… January 28, 2026 at 12:23 pm EST The Federal Reserve has not yet complied with grand jury subpoenas issued as part of a criminal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell by federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., CNBC…

Charles Victor Thompson was executed by lethal injection in Texas on Wednesday, the first execution in the United States of 2026. Photo courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Texas on Wednesday evening conducted the United States' first execution of the year, putting a 55-year-old man to death for the 1998 double murder of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. Charles Victor Thompson was executed by lethal injection at the penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. He was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST, the state's Department of Criminal Justice told UPI in an emailed statement. In his last statement, Thompson asked the families of his victims for forgiveness, while stating he hopes they can "begin to heal" and move on. "There is no winners in this situation, it creates more victims and traumatizes more people 28 years later," he said. Related "I'm sorry for what I did, I'm sorry for what happened and I want to tell all of y'all, I love you and that keep Jesus in your life, keep Jesus first." Thompson was convicted in April 1999 of fatally shooting Dennis Hayslip, 39, and Darren Cain, 30, the morning of April 30, 1998. According to court records, a 27-year-old Thompson killed Hayslip and Cain, who were dating, following an altercation at Hayslip's Houston apartment early April 30. Prosecutors said a neighbor called the police at around 3 a.m. An officer arrived at the scene to find Thompson' face swollen from a fight, but learned he had started it. As no one wanted to file charges, the officer escorted Thompson from the property and warned him that he would be charged with criminal trespass if he returned. At about 6 a.m., Thompson returned and shot both Hayslip and Cain. Cain died at the scene. Hayslip was transported to a hospital, where she died a week after the shooting. Thompson was executed after the Supreme Court on Wednesday denied is final application for a stay. Thompson' defense had asked the high court to review the case on the grounds that their client's Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses was violated. During his trial, Thompson' attorneys were denied the ability to cross-examine the medical examiner who determined that Hayslip died as a result of the gunshot wound to the face. His lawyers had argued during the trial that her death was the result of improper medical care at the hospital. They said Hayslip became brain dead due to a lack of oxygen while receiving medical care, which is the reason why her family took her off life support. Texas prosecutors responded with a filing stating that his claims had already been rejected by previous courts on the grounds that Hayslip would not have died at the hospital if Thompson never shot her. "Even assuming, arguendo, that the conduct of the doctors was clearly sufficient to cause Hayslip's death, the conduct of [Thompson] was no 'clearly insufficient' so as to absolve him of criminal responsibility," the prosecutors said. After Thompson was convicted by jury and sentenced to death in 1999, a retrial of the punishment phase was ordered by the court after the defense successfully argued that the state's use of an undercover police officer to obtain incriminating statements violated his Sixth Amendment rights. However, he was again sentenced to death in 2005. Days later, he escaped county jail while awaiting transfer to prison. A manhunt was launched, and Thompson was arrested in Shreveport, La., drunk and talking on a pay phone. Thompson is the first person to be executed in the United States in 2026, and follows a year in which executions surged. In 2025, 47 death row inmates were killed in 11 states, up from 25 executions the year before and the most since 52 were killed in 2009. Last year, Texas executed five people. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Texas has scheduled four more executions through May 15.

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon said this week that it was closing almost all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations within days as it narrows its focus on food delivery and its grocery chain, Whole Foods Market. Some of the shuttered stores will be converted into Whole Foods locations, the Seattle company said in a blog post. The announcement arrived shortly before Amazon said Wednesday that it was cutting about 16,000 corporate jobs, its second round of mass layoffs in three months. Late last year, CEO Andy Jassy said job cuts weren’t driven by company finances or AI, but by changes in Amazon's priorities, including the types of businesses it pursues. “While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company said Tuesday about closing Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations. The last day of operation for Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores is Sunday, with the exception of its California locations, which will remain open longer to comply with state requirements, Amazon said. Since Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods Market in 2017, it's seen a more than 40% sales growth and expansion to more than 550 locations, it said. It plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years. Shoppers are also increasingly turning to online delivery, Amazon said. The online retailer now delivers groceries to 5,000 U.S. cities and towns and in many of them, customers can get same-day delivery of fresh produce and other perishables. Based on strong customer feedback, it said it plans to expand its same-day delivery to more places this year. The company also said Tuesday that plans to open “supercenter” locations that would carry groceries and more. The company didn’t provide any other details. Amazon opened its first Amazon Go location eight years ago in Seattle, letting shoppers take milk, potato chips or ready-to-eat salads off its shelves and just walk out, rather than stopping at a register. Customers are charged after they leave the store. The company said that the Amazon Go locations served as “innovation hubs” and the “just walk out” technology is being used in more than 360 third-party locations in five countries. It said it is expanding the use of that technology within its own operations, with more than 40 North American fulfillment centers using it in breakrooms, helping employees grab meals without checkout delays. More are planned this year. Amazon introduced its first Amazon Fresh stores in 2020.

Published: 15:56 EST, 28 January 2026 | Updated: 15:57 EST, 28 January 2026 Latino Republican lawmakers are warning that the GOP could lose the midterms as Hispanics flee over President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. A trio of Florida Republicans have piped up since Tuesday, with one state lawmaker calling out Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, even tussling on X with his wife, Katie Miller. 'I do think that he will lose the midterms because of Stephen Miller,' state Senator Ileana Garcia, who stands to lose reelection in her swing district, told the New York Times in an interview Tuesday. She later claimed on X that her criticism of Miller - an architect of the mass deportation policy - had gotten her 'doxxed.' 'Why have we become everything we've criticized? I’m not afraid of you, Stephen Miller,' Garcia said. Representatives Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar haven't called for Miller or Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's head, but did warn the party was in political hot water. 'I warned about this months ago, before the headlines caught up. Today we are watching it unfold in real time,' Salazar posted to X Tuesday night. 'Hispanics are leaving the GOP in large numbers, and pretending otherwise won't fix it.' She implored her party to 'reverse course and act now.' Florida state Senator Ileana Garcia (left) whacked around White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (right) for his role in crafting President Donald Trump's mass deportation plan, placing blame on the immigration hardliner for the GOP potentially losing the midterms Gimenez didn't specifically cite concerns about losing Latino voters when speaking to Newsmax Tuesday, but did say he was worried about the November races, which historically could turn the House of Representatives over to the Democrats. Gimenez said he's expressed to the Trump administration, 'there has to be a better way to do this.' 'And also, this is politically, it's hurting our chances at the midterm. And I'm just being frank about it,' Gimenez said. Trump made huge gains with Latino voters in the 2024 race. He lost them by 38 points in 2016 to Democrat Hillary Clinton. Eight years later, Trump lost Latinos by just three points to the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris - and won Latino men. But during the 2025 off-year elections, Latino voters headed back to the Democratic column in droves, helping elect Democratic governors in both Virginia and New Jersey. Salazar first spoke out then. Representatives Maria Elvia Salazar (left) and Carlos Gimenez (right) voiced concerns about how President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement could impact the Republicans' ability to hang on to their House majority in the 2026 midterm elections 'I've said it before, the Hispanic vote is not guaranteed,' she said in a video post on November 5, the day after the election. 'Hispanics married President Trump, they're only dating the GOP.' She said that while Latino voters wanted to get rid of the 'bad Hombres,' they also wanted to 'give dignity to those who have been here for years, and do not have a criminal record, people that may not have a legality, but who have been here contributing to the economy and to the country.' Things on the immigration front have only gotten more heated since then, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents descending on Minneapolis, killing two American citizens and detaining a 5-year-old child. In the latest Daily Mail/J.L. Partners poll, which was conducted Monday, 51 percent of Latino voters said they disapproved of the Trump administration's record on immigration - higher than the 44 percent of white voters who held the same sentiment. Fifty-eight percent of Latino voters disapproved of ICE specifically, compared to 50 percent of white registered voters. And 57 percent of Latino voters said they believed that ICE should pull out of U.S. cities, with 50 percent of white voters in agreement. Another 48 percent of Latino voters said that Noem should be fired, and 49 percent said she should be impeached by Congress. Pollsters did not ask about the fate of Miller, an immigration hardliner who worked for Trump during his first administration as well. However, one sliver of good news for Trump is that his numbers haven't cratered with Latinos despite strong feelings on immigration enforcement. He's currently holding at 42 percent approval, 58 percent disapproval with the important voting bloc. 'Trump's numbers with Hispanics are actually holding up relatively well,' J.L. Partners pollster James Johnson told the Daily Mail. The only problem for November - Trump won't be on the ballot.

FIRST ON FOX: FBI agents were seen Wednesday carrying out a search at an election hub in Fulton County, Georgia, a location that became ground zero for concerns and complaints about voter fraud beginning in 2020. Agents were seen entering the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, a new facility that state officials opened in 2023 that was designed to streamline their election processes. It was not immediately clear what the FBI agents were investigating, but Fox News Digital is told the probe is related to the 2020 election. The bureau said in a statement that FBI Atlanta was executing a "court authorized law enforcement action at 5600 [Campbellton] Fairburn Rd." "Our investigation into this matter is ongoing so there are no details that we can provide at the moment," the bureau said. JUDGE DISMISSES 2020 ELECTION INTERFERENCE CASE AGAINST TRUMP The Department of Justice did not provide comment. President Donald Trump lost the election in Georgia in 2020 by a wafer-thin margin and claimed various instances of fraud had tainted the results. Those claims did not survive court scrutiny. Fulton, which includes Atlanta and is the state's most populous county, drew significant attention at the time. A machine count and two recounts confirmed that former President Joe Biden had won the state, leading Trump to feud with Georgia's leaders for years. The DOJ sued Fulton County last month seeking access to ballots related to the 2020 election. The county is fighting the lawsuit, saying the DOJ has not made a valid argument for accessing them. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Trump's grievances in Georgia were compounded when he and numerous co-conspirators were indicted by a grand jury in Fulton County Superior Court in 2023 over allegations that they engaged in a racketeering scheme involving illegally attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. The case never made it to trial as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from prosecuting it. An independent entity called the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council decided to dismiss the indictment last year, saying it would not be in the interest of the state to continue with the case.

Minneapolis protests escalate as ICE faces accusations of using sonic weapons, Trump officials backpedal, and federal enforcement is reshuffled.

Minneapolis protests escalate as ICE faces accusations of using sonic weapons, Trump officials backpedal, and federal enforcement is reshuffled.

Five agents tackled him and one leaned on his back – an encounter that left him with a broken rib the week before they murdered him.

Five agents tackled him and one leaned on his back – an encounter that left him with a broken rib the week before they murdered him.