Minnesota sues Trump administration over surge of federal immigration agents
Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, state attorney general Keith Ellison said on Monday, asking a federal court to halt the ramped-up immigration crackdown in the state.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the surge unconstitutional and unlawful, with officials claiming the crackdown has led to racial profiling and disruptions to everyday life.
“The unlawful deployment of thousands of armed, masked, and poorly trained federal agents is hurting Minnesota,” said Ellison. “People are being racially profiled, harassed, terrorized, and assaulted. Schools have gone into lockdown. Businesses have been forced to close. Minnesota police are spending countless hours dealing with the chaos ICE is causing.”
The lawsuit comes just days after the death of Renee Nicole Good, the woman shot to death by an Ice agent in Minneapolis, which has led to heated demonstrations in Minnesota.
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President Donald Trump called New York City’s congestion pricing program “a disaster”, claiming “it’s never worked before, and it will never work now”. In a post on Truth Social, he said it should be ended “immediately”.
However, data have shown that the policy, which began in January 2025, has reduced traffic, increased transit ridership, and decreased pollution over the course of a year.
After New York’s congestion pricing was installed, most drivers were charged $9 during peak travel times to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.
The move led to about 73,000 fewer vehicles entering the central business district each day, according to a New York Times analysis. That adds up to about 27 million fewer vehicles entering Manhattan south of 60th Street, resulting in an 11 percent reduction in traffic.
According to a Cornell University study, the city’s program led to a drop in pollution in parts of the city.
“Our overall conclusion is that congestion pricing in New York City, like many other cities in the world that have implemented it, helped not only improve traffic, but also helped reduce air pollutant concentration, improve air quality and should be good for public health,” said the study’s senior author and director of Cornell’s Center for Transportation, Environment and Community Health, Oliver Gao, in a statement.
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Chris Stein
Count Louisiana senator John Kennedy among the Republican skeptics of the justice department’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell.
“We don’t need this,” the senator told reporters at the Capitol on Monday evening.
Kennedy serves on the Senate banking committee, where fellow Republican Thom Tillis has vowed to oppose any Fed nominees that come before the committee as long as the investigation remains open.
Kennedy declined to say if he would endorse a similar step.
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said any country doing business with Iran will face a 25% tariff “on any and all business being done with the United States of America”.
That new tariff is “effective immediately”. Further details remained unclear.
Updated at 17.46 EST
Minnesota sues Trump administration over surge of federal immigration agents
Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, state attorney general Keith Ellison said on Monday, asking a federal court to halt the ramped-up immigration crackdown in the state.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the surge unconstitutional and unlawful, with officials claiming the crackdown has led to racial profiling and disruptions to everyday life.
“The unlawful deployment of thousands of armed, masked, and poorly trained federal agents is hurting Minnesota,” said Ellison. “People are being racially profiled, harassed, terrorized, and assaulted. Schools have gone into lockdown. Businesses have been forced to close. Minnesota police are spending countless hours dealing with the chaos ICE is causing.”
The lawsuit comes just days after the death of Renee Nicole Good, the woman shot to death by an Ice agent in Minneapolis, which has led to heated demonstrations in Minnesota.
A US judge ruled that Ørsted, a European offshore wind developer, can continue development of a windfarm project off the coast of Rhode Island after the Trump administration had suspended work along with several other projects.
Last month, officials from the Department of the Interior halted the leases for five large offshore wind projects that are under construction in US waters over “national security risks”, which were unclear. Earlier this month, Ørsted announced it had filed a legal challenge against the administration’s decision to suspend the lease for its Revolution Wind site.
Today’s ruling marks the latest move in an ongoing clash between the renewable energy industry and Donald Trump, whose administration has sought to block offshore wind projects since he returned to office.
Updated at 16.47 EST
Illinois sues Trump administration over immigration crackdown
The state of Illinois sued the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security, with officials alleging that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents used “unlawful and dangerous tactics” across the state.
The lawsuit, filed by Illinois attorney general Kwame Raoul and backed by governor JB Pritzker, argues that federal agents exceeded their authority under US law by making arrests without warrants or probable cause, indiscriminately deploying teargas, and carrying out other enforcement actions not authorized by Congress.
“We have watched in horror as unchecked federal agents have aggressively assaulted and terrorized our communities and neighborhoods in Illinois, undermining constitutional rights and threatening public safety,” said Pritzker. “In the face of the Trump administration’s cruelty and intimidation, Illinois is standing up against the attacks on our people.”
More than 4,300 people were arrested in “Operation Midway Blitz” in 2025, according to the AP.
Updated at 16.30 EST
Senator Coons to lead congressional delegation to Copenhagen amid Trump threats to annex Greenland
Democratic senator Chris Coons will lead a congressional delegation of at least nine lawmakers to the Danish capital this week, according to a source familiar with the trip. Republican senator Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, will also be on the trip to Copenhagen, the source confirmed.
The delegation will meet with Danish officials, as Donald Trump repeats his threats to seize Greenland, the semiautonomous territory of Denmark.
Chris Coons speaks during a Senate judiciary committee hearing, 20 April 2021. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/AP
The White House has called the annexation of Greenland a “national security priority”, and the president has warned that if the US doesn’t acquire the territory it will open the door for Russia and China to act first.
Updated at 16.00 EST
Senator Kelly sues defense secretary over attempts to reduce military rank and pension
Richard Luscombe
Democratic US senator Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to nullify the “chilling” attempt by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to reduce the military veteran’s rank and pension as punishment for speaking out against the Trump administration.
Hegseth had previously issued a formal censure to Kelly, a decorated retired navy captain and Nasa astronaut, for alleged “seditious statements” he made urging service members to resist unlawful orders. It began a process that could lead to Kelly, a senator for Arizona since 2021, being demoted and having his pension cut.
Mark Kelly walks to the Senate Chamber to vote in the U.S. Capitol, 7 January 2026. Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock
The lawsuit, filed in Washington DC federal court, argues that comments made by Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers – all military or intelligence veterans – in a short video to service members in November were protected free speech.
The 46-page court filing accuses Hegseth, the Department of Defense, the US navy, and John Phelan, the navy secretary, of “trampling” on constitutional protections “essential to legislative independence”. The filing said the defense secretary was attempting to dismantle the “bedrock principles of our democracy”, freedom of speech and the separation of powers.
“His unconstitutional crusade against me sends a chilling message to every retired member of the military: if you speak out and say something that the president or secretary of defense doesn’t like, you will be censured, threatened with demotion, or even prosecuted,” Kelly said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
ShareTreasury secretary told Trump that Powell investigation ‘made a mess’ – report
Treasure secretary Scott Bessent told Donald Trump on Sunday that the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell “made a mess” and could be bad for financial markets, according to a report from Axios, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the call.
One of the sources said that Bessent “isn’t happy, and he let the president know”.
A reminder that earlier today, Karoline Leavitt said that Trump did not instruct the justice department to launch an investigation into Powell, but “the president has every right to criticize the Fed chair”.
Sources told Axios that the office of the US attorney for Washington DC, Jeanine Pirro, launched the investigation “without giving a heads-up to treasury, top White House officials or the main justice department”.
My colleagues report that economists also have warned that Trump’s attempts to influence the Fed risk plunging the US into a period of 1970s-style inflation, and triggering a global backlash in financial markets.
Updated at 15.23 EST
Sam Levine
The number two prosecutor in the US attorney’s office for the eastern district of Virginia has been fired, according to two people familiar with the matter.
It’s the he latest in a series of dismissals in an office that is leading controversial criminal prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James.
Robert McBride, a former federal prosecutor in Kentucky, was brought in late last year to serve as the deputy to Lindsey Halligan, a Trump ally who the president installed as the acting US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia in September. McBride was dismissed after declining to lead the Comey prosecution, which a judge threw out in November after ruling Halligan was unlawfully appointed, one of the people said. (The justice department is appealing the ruling.)
McBride refused to take on important cases in the district, another person familiar with the matter said, and had met privately with judges in the district with the goal of being appointed himself to the top prosecutor job. The person said top justice department officials supported McBride’s firing.
Natalie Baldassarre, a justice department spokeswoman, referred a request for comment to the US attorney’s office for the eastern district of Virginia. That office did not immediately return a request for comment.
Earlier, we reported on Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren’s speech about the future of the party, and particularly the need to focus on economic policy and messaging for working-class Americans.
She noted that after her speech – in which she criticized the Trump administration for raising the cost of living for families, the ongoing criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good and federal immigration agents’ response to protesters in Minneapolis – that the president called her.
“I delivered this same message on affordability to him directly. I told him that Congress can pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he will actually fight for it,” she said in a statement. “I also urged him to get House Republicans to pass the bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act, which passed the Senate with unanimous support and would build more housing and lower costs.”
On Capitol Hill today, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson replied with “of course not” when asked by a reporter whether the justice department was being weaponized against Fed chair Jerome Powell.
He also told reporters that he would let the investigation into Powell “play out”.
Leavitt once again praised federal immigration agents in Minneapolis today, while speaking to reporters.
“ICE is doing an incredibly important job that’s not just important to our homeland security, but our national security,” she said.
Leavitt added that the administration continues to support Jonathan E Ross – the officer who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good. The press secretary repeated, without evidence, that Ross was “absolutely justified in using self-defense against a lunatic who is part of a group, an organized group, to interject and to impede on law enforcement operations”.
ShareWhite House says Trump did not instruct DoJ to investigate Powell
Speaking to reporters outside the White House today, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the Donald Trump did not instruct the justice department to investigate Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell.
“The president has every right to criticize the Fed chair. He has a first amendment right, just like all of you do,” Leavitt said. “And one thing’s for sure, the president has made it quite clear, Jerome Powell is bad at his job. As for whether or not Jerome Powell if a criminal, that’s an answer for the Department of Justice.”
A Republican congressman, French Hill, who chairs the House financial services committee, has said that Jerome Powell is “a person of the highest integrity”.
While Hill noted that he’s shared policy disagreements with the head of the central bank, he said that any pursuit of criminal charges against him is “an unnecessary distraction”.
“This action could undermine this and future Administrations’ ability to make sound monetary policy decisions,” he said in a statement. “We must stay focused on our work to foster more opportunities with higher wages and faster economic growth for the American people.”
Updated at 14.22 EST
Richard Luscombe
Donald Trump’s threat to annex Greenland represents an existential crisis for Nato, the senior Democratic US senator Chris Murphy has warned, with the demise of the decades-old alliance of western nations certain to follow any American military intervention.
“It would be the end of Nato, right? Nato would have an obligation to defend Greenland,” the Connecticut senator and member of the chamber’s foreign relations committee said on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. Murphy added that it would mean “clearly … we would be at war with Europe, with England, with France”.
Murphy’s comments came as Trump ramped up his fixation with the Arctic territory, with the US president telling reporters on Air Force One yesterday that “one way or the other, we are going to have Greenland”.
Trump had ordered a plan to be drawn up for an invasion of Greenland, the Mail on Sunday reported, adding that “it is being resisted” by military leaders on grounds of illegality.
A bipartisan group of US senators, including the Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, is planning to visit Copenhagen to meet politicians from the Danish parliament’s Greenland committee, it was announced yesterday.
More on this story here:
Updated at 12.51 EST
Trump to meet Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado at White House on Thursday
CNN is reporting that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel peace prize winner, is scheduled to meet with Donald Trump on Thursday, citing a senior White House official.
Since the US’s capture Nicolás Maduro on 3 January the future governance of Venezuela has been an open question, with Trump dismissing the idea of working with Machado, saying “she doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country”.
But in a Fox News interview on Thursday, he said that Machado was “coming in next week sometime”, adding: “I look forward to saying hello to her.”
Asked whether he would accept Machado’s Nobel peace prize if she gave it to him (an idea which the organizers of the prize have since rejected), Trump said: “I’ve heard that she wants to do that. That’d be a great honour.”
This will be the pair’s first meeting, and Machado said last week that she had not spoken to the US president since she won the prize in October.
Trump hasn’t publicly made the same offer to Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president, although he told the New York Times on Thursday that the US was “getting along very well” with her government and that they were “giving us everything that we feel is necessary”.
Updated at 12.58 EST
Greenland can’t ‘under any circumstances’ accept US takeover and is boosting defences
Jon Henley, and Miranda Bryant in Nuuk
Greenland’s government has said it “cannot under any circumstances accept” Donald Trump’s desire to take control of Greenland, as Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said the organisation was working on ways to bolster Arctic security.
At the start of a critical week for the vast Arctic island, a largely self-governing part of Denmark, the US president restated his interest in the strategically located, mineral-rich territory, saying the US would take it “one way or the other”.
Trump has rocked the EU and Nato by refusing to rule out military force to seize Greenland, which is covered by many of their protections since Denmark belongs to both.
Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, and her Danish counterpart, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, are due to meet the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in Washington on Wednesday.
Trump says US will do ‘something on Greenland, whether they like it or not’ – video
Greenland’s government said today that the island was “part of the kingdom of Denmark” and “as part of the Danish commonwealth, a member of Nato”. It would increase its efforts to ensure its defence took place “in the Nato framework”, it said.
The statement added that the territory’s ruling coalition “believes Greenland will for ever be part of the western defence alliance”, and that “all Nato member states, including the US, have a common interest” in the island’s defence.
Trump has said the US needs to control Greenland to increase Arctic security in the face of an alleged threat from China and Russia. Rutte said today that Nato was “working on the next steps to make sure that we collectively protect what is at stake”.
Read my colleagues’ full report here:
Joining the chorus of lawmakers who have criticized the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation into Jerome Powell is Republican senator Kevin Cramer.
The North Dakota lawmaker also sits on the Senate banking committee, responsible for confirming any future Federal Reserve chair.
Cramer said that while he considers Powell a “bad” leader of the central bank, “I do not believe however, he is a criminal.”
In a statement today, Cramer joined his Senate colleagues Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski in urging the end of the investigation into Powell.
“We need to restore confidence in the Fed,” he added.
Updated at 12.03 EST