The charm of Star Trek as a concept is that the franchise offers a relatively positive vision of humanity’s future rather than the predictable doomsday scenarios that have saturated television for decades.  Setting aside the show’s strange ties to the RAND Corporation and Gene Rodenberry’s pandering to the United Nations, Star Trek essentially imagines a civilization in which the politics of today have become irrelevant and humans have moved on to the stars.

It would be fair to say that the show has always been “liberal”, but certainly never “woke.”  Wokeness requires that today’s far left ideologies remain central to every discussion.  Nothing is ever subtle.  Nothing is ever represented in allegory or symbolism – The audience must be bashed over the head with blatant propaganda 24/7.

One would think any Hollywood writer with an IQ above 80 would realize that they can’t use the politics and vernacular of 2026 activism in a show set over 1000 years in the future.  The problem is, most of Hollywood is operating on an IQ closer to tap water and their egos are so inflated they actually believe that their beliefs will be the same beliefs celebrated centuries from now.

Paramount’s latest foray into Star Trek, called “Starfleet Academy”, definitely does not boldly go where no man has gone before.  Rather, it goes where every other far-left vehicle has gone before, into the proverbial dumpster.  Audiences are not watching or buying, but Hollywood refuses to learn. 

The show is now being referred to as “Dawson’s Creek in space”, with audience reviews largely negative.  IMDB has the series at a 4.3 and the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is sitting at stinking 43%. 

The first episode of the series was released by Paramount for free on YouTube which led to an embarrassingly low live viewer count of only 1300 people.  The video has limped to 230,000 views in 11 days; a dismal showing for a major studio production costing up to $10 million per episode, and these numbers don’t even account for the people viewing the show simply to make fun of it.

Paramount+ does not release detailed streaming data (out of a sense of self preservation), but the information that’s available indicates the series is a bomb. 

Starfleet features many predictable woke themes, including an insufferable white liberal girl-boss (played by Holly Hunter) taking in a poor lost minority orphan and preaching to a perfect pie chart classroom full of DEI students about feelings and progressive values.  There are, of course, multiple LGBT themes (very rarely touched on in previous Star Trek series) including lots of fat lesbians and a gay Klingon.  Starfleet proudly showcases its obese cast as if Ozempic doesn’t exist in the 32nd Century. 

Another fixture of the series common in modern TV is the overt inclusion of annoying autistic people, as if autism is an identity to be celebrated rather than a growing health crisis that needs to be solved.  

Finally, the dialogue is cited by many fans as painfully adolescent; as if it was written by children for Reddit fan fiction, or generated by a bargain-bin AI program.  

Keep in mind, it’s now 2026 and woke entertainment has been dead for a few years – Long enough for Paramount to know better than to release this kind of series into the wild.  Perhaps they are gluttons for punishment, or perhaps the woke mafia in Hollywood simply refuses to accept defeat. 

If the goal is to force the public to consume woke propaganda then they have failed because no one is watching this show.  If the goal was to make money then they have failed because, again, no one is watching this show.  It is unfortunate, however, that yet another popular franchise once beloved by millions of fans has been relegated to the media dustbin.  It has been murdered by the woke hubris of low talent hacks motivated by ideology and activism rather than merit and imagination.      

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The postwar trading order is taking on an entirely new shape.

We can put brackets around the old one, like a tombstone: 1944–2025.

Having known some of the economists and statesmen who put together the old order, I’m in a position to explain what they had in mind and also what went wrong with it. What will replace it is still very much in flux but the outlines are being drawn daily.

Let’s go back in time to Oct. 29, 1929 when the stock market crashed. There was panic in the air and great confusion about what to do and what not to do. However, absent any serious action by government, the financial markets began to recover over six months, even as downward price pressure on commodities began to show.

Congress responded with a very large increase in tariffs. The reason was partially a holdover from what had happened two decades earlier. The income tax had replaced reliance on tariff revenue, and many members of Congress had their doubts about this change. Indeed, resentment against the income tax was growing. Reverting to tariffs and away from a drive to free trade seemed like a possibility.

Many economists at the time warned about this tariff act. The concern was that this would shatter relationships with foreign markets when they were most fragile. The entire financial and industrial world at the time, including many small farmers, were concerned that this action was ill-advised. There was no love for the income tax but bringing back the tariff was deeply unpopular within professional circles.

The day that President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was June 17, 1930. That very day, the stock market stopped its trajectory toward recovery and reversed. Over the course of the several weeks surrounding this act, financial markets fell fully 20 percent. Lacking another explanation, all eyes turned toward the tariff bill as the cause. A few years later, those tariffs started to fall.

This prompted two huge commitments on the part of the upper echelon of opinion makers, economists, and statesmen. They blamed the decline on the tariff, deploying the crude analytical tool “After this, therefore, because of this.” Therefore, first, they committed themselves to a long-term plan to restore the downward trajectory of tariffs. Second, they decided to remove discretion over tariffs from Congress and put it entirely in the hands of the executive.

That’s where matters stood as the Depression went on and on and economic conditions continued to decay. The New Deal did not work to end the economic crisis, despite what they say. Even as the nation marched forward to yet another war, the economic problems persisted.

After the war, the forces for freer trade and against tariffs got their chance. The Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 was all-encompassing: finance, monetary rules, and trade. The trade piece of this was to be the International Trade Organization but it was never ratified. Instead, we got the much milder General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. As a separate agreement, a new version of the gold standard was revived. In the new iterations, nations would stop promising domestic convertibility of money. Rather, accounts between nations would be settled by physical shipments of gold.

This was called the gold-exchange standard. It established dollar supremacy for the main parts of the world economy. There was always a problem with the plan, one known from the start. Nations using the same monetary standard also need to coordinate fiscal and monetary policies, a scheme that was impossible to deploy among all sovereign nations. A second problem is that without such settlements, wages and business costs across nations could remain permanently divergent, giving exporting nations an advantage over importing ones. With the dollar as the world standard, the United States stood to lose all manufacturing advantages should the agreement ever break down.

By the late 1960s, with huge pressures from war and welfare piling up in all nations, the Bretton Woods agreement did indeed break down. The United States became a net importer of goods, meaning that its outward gold shipments would only increase, depleting stockpiles that secured the soundness of the currency. Financial managers, bankers, and economic planners were powerless to stop this simply because the international agreement required that international accounts be settled in gold.

President Richard Nixon (2nd-L) poses at the White House in Washington, with four government officials he named as his economic “Quadriad” on Jan. 23, 1969. (L-R) Chairman William M. Chesney Martin Jr., of the Federal Reserve Board; Nixon; Secretary of the Treasury David M. Kennedy; Budget Director Robert Mayor and Chairman Paul McCracken of the Council of Economic Advisers. AP Photo/ Harvey Georges

Richard Nixon was the president who had to deal with the crisis once the gold outflows became near terminal. On Aug. 15, 1971, Nixon broke the whole international monetary order by suspending gold convertibility. The United States would no longer ship its gold in exchange for goods. This move shocked the world. Improvising, a new agreement was reached 18 months later. With the Smithsonian Agreement, a new global system of fiat money was born. There would be a market for currencies to trade against each other but with absolutely no tether to gold.

The dollar retained its global supremacy. Any economist schooled in both trade theory and monetary theory (fewer and fewer are) could have predicted what would happen. The U.S. industrial base would be gradually dismantled as nations discovered how their lesser-valued currencies gave them an advantage as exporters. The United States would retain its exporter status on natural resources but manufacturing was surely doomed.

It was also easily predictable that the United States would begin running trade deficits with essentially everyone because the market for dollars was international and settlement was no longer a necessary feature of the system. Japan and then China figured out the new metrics of international trade, and policymakers sat by and watched with astonishment how one American industry after another evaporated: pianos, watches, household electronics, apparel, textiles, steel, cars, tools, ships, and on it goes.

The math of the situation made this inevitable. International trade in the days of the gold standard tended to yield what David Ricardo called the Law of One Price. Gold settlement equilibrated prices and wages internationally in the same way they did domestically. With the Smithsonian Agreement, the disequilibration would be permanent and further worsening to the disadvantage of the country hosting the world’s most valuable and most-used currency.

It should have been obvious that such a situation was not sustainable. It was Donald Trump who called it out alongside his suggested remedy of old-world tariffs. The theory was that by adding an import tax, the manufacturing disadvantage of the dominant nation would be remedied—a prescription that had never been deployed before simply because these conditions have never before prevailed.

The architects of the Bretton Woods system are today likely rolling in their graves to see the global system of trading revert to walled gardens of tariffs, zones, and regional supply lines, alongside the inevitable tensions that such a system produces. But keep in mind: the system they set up could result in no other. By attempting to gamify a gold standard without the discipline that comes from domestic convertibility, they made the present world inevitable. That it took 70 years to get here makes it no less part of the logical and political trajectory any intelligent observer could have foreseen.

The fiat money system was the shepherd of the breakdown of world trade, in addition to fueling astonishing levels of leverage, debt, inflation, and financial irresponsibility all around. This sad story points to an eternal truth. You cannot ever trust governments with the production and management of money. When they are not abusing the system to serve themselves, they are mismanaging it to make it untrustworthy for everyone else to use.

A large mobile drilling rig known as “The Beast” tipped over Friday afternoon while being transported along a gravel road on Alaska’s North Slope, prompting an emergency response from local and company officials, according to Yahoo. 

The incident happened around 4:45 p.m. and involved the Doyon 26 rig, which was operating for ConocoPhillips. In a joint statement, ConocoPhillips Alaska and the North Slope Borough said all workers were accounted for and that no one suffered serious injuries.

ConocoPhillips later reported that eight people — including two who were on the rig and six early responders — were treated at nearby medical clinics and released.

After the rig overturned, a fire broke out, but officials said it was “contained and controlled” by Friday evening with emergency crews on site. Authorities also emphasized that “there was no damage to local community infrastructure and no impact to pipelines or fuel transportation.”

By Saturday afternoon, officials said the response had moved into “an environmental impact assessment and mitigation effort,” and traffic in the area had returned to normal.

🚨🇺🇸 NORTH AMERICA’S BIGGEST LAND RIG TIPS OVER IN ALASKA

Doyon 26 toppled while being moved on a gravel road near ConocoPhillips’ Alpine field yesterday. Small fire broke out, got put out fast.

At 9.5 million pounds and nicknamed “The Beast,” it’s the largest mobile land rig… pic.twitter.com/1SsRYBRQOk

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 24, 2026

Gov. Mike Dunleavy posted on social media that he had “been in contact with ConocoPhillips leadership” and that there “appears to be minimal damage to the environment” so far. He added that the company was “working on plans to recover the rig.”

The Doyon 26 rig, ordered by ConocoPhillips in 2016, is one of the largest mobile land rigs in North America. Weighing about 9.5 million pounds, it set a long-distance drilling record in Alaska in 2022 and played a key role in developing oil reserves in western North Slope fields. Its size allows it to cover roughly three times the area of traditional rigs.

The rig was constructed, owned, and operated by Doyon Drilling, a subsidiary of Doyon, an Alaska Native regional corporation.

ConocoPhillips said Saturday that Doyon Drilling “is leading response and recovery efforts under a Unified Command structure including representatives from the State of Alaska, the Federal Government and the North Slope Borough.”

Submitted by Criterion Research President James Bevan, 

Winter Storm Fern’s Arctic blast from January 21-26 provided clear data on generation dispatch patterns during extreme cold weather events. The storm stressed multiple U.S. power grids, such as PJM and ERCOT and demonstrated the operational characteristics of different generation types under peak winter demand conditions.

As the cold rolled in – Criterion’s pipeline data showed huge increases in deliveries to gas-fired power plants. That included dozens of active plants hitting all-time highs, along with a huge amount of peaking capacity firing online to help keep the grid stable.

We analyzed the top 20 interstate gas power meters by net change versus seven days ago to see what meter stations ramped up the most over that time.

Thirteen of the top 20 meters had zero or near-zero baselines 7 days ago, indicating these delivery points were barely being… pic.twitter.com/SMXwUtMu5L

— Criterion Research (@PipelineFlows) January 25, 2026

Gas & Coal Step Up Amidst High Demand

During peak demand periods in PJM – the nation’s largest grid operator – thermal and nuclear generation dominated the dispatch stack. As the cold conditions arrived, natural gas provided 43% of generation and coal contributed 23%, while wind and solar fell to a combined 3-4% of the total fuel mix.

PJM wind levels fell to month-to-date lows over the weekend as load intensified, fading to a mere 2,142 MW on Saturday as gas burns ramped to 55,655 MW (a seasonal high).

Solar is already a limited part of the PJM fuel mix, and its output of 2,372 MW on Saturday had limited impacts vs thermal, and solar dropped even further yesterday, with output at a low of 442 MW.

In ERCOT, the grid maintained operating reserves above 11,000 MW throughout the event. The thousands of natural gas facilities that underwent weatherization and inspection protocols following Winter Storm Uri performed as designed, with minimal forced outages reported.

To meet peak load, ERCOT thermal assets have accelerated to record levels. That includes live readings of natural gas burns that surged to new 5YR highs in the morning – reaching 48,477 GW at one point.

Got Gas? ERCOT data showed gas burns pushing to record highs of >48 GW this morning to meet rising demand amidst a lack of wind and solar (its dark outside right now..)#natgas #ongt #ercot pic.twitter.com/8EtJfOwecr

— Criterion Research (@PipelineFlows) January 26, 2026

ERCOT coal burns lifted as well, nearing 10,400 MW early in the morning as peak load levels hit.

ERCOT wind and solar underperformed, falling well below the levels seen earlier this month. 

Forward Implications

The grid maintained an adequate supply-demand balance during this event due to existing thermal generation capacity. However, with data center load growth adding demand equivalent to major metropolitan areas and accelerating thermal retirements, winter reserve margins face increasing pressure in several regions.

The event highlights the case for incremental natural gas generation builds. With coal retirements reducing fuel-secure capacity and intermittent resources providing limited contribution during winter peaks, new gas-fired capacity will be essential to maintain reliability. Current interconnection queues show significant gas generation projects, but lead times for permitting and construction suggest a multi-year timeline to address emerging capacity deficits in key regions.

* * * 

A message from West Virginia coal miners… 

Sleep tight America. We got this. Thousands of coal miners, truck drivers, railroaders, river boat workers and power plant employees will make sure that you stay warm and safe on a cold winter night. Fuel Satisfaction. Affordable Power. Grid Reliability. All from American Coal. pic.twitter.com/io0dzRD6vu

— WV Coal Association (@WV_coal1) January 27, 2026

 “Affordable Power. Grid Reliability. All from American Coal,” WV Coal Association wrote on X. 

Authored by Francisco Rodrigues via CoinDesk.com,

In theory, bitcoin should thrive during times of uncertainty as it’s sound money that’s censorship-resistant. In practice, it’s becoming the first thing investors sell when push comes to shove.

As geopolitical tensions flared over the past week, following Trump’s threats of tariffs against NATO allies over Greenland and speculation of potential military action in the Arctic, markets pulled back, and volatility spiked.

Since Jan. 18, after Trump first threatened tariffs in his push for Greenland acquisition, bitcoin has lost 6.6% of its value, while gold has moved up 8.6% to new highs near $5,000.

The reason lies in how each asset fits into portfolios during times of stress.

Bitcoin’s always-on trading, deep liquidity, and instant settlement make it an easy asset to offload when investors need to raise cash quickly.

Gold, despite being less accessible, tends to be held rather than sold.

This makes bitcoin behave more like an “ATM” during periods of panic, undermining its reputation as digital gold, according to NYDIG’s Global Head of Research, Greg Cipolaro.

“Under periods of stress and uncertainty, liquidity preference dominates, and this dynamic hurts bitcoin far more than gold,” Cipolaro wrote.

“Despite being liquid for its size, bitcoin remains more volatile and reflexively sold as leverage is unwound. As a result, in risk-off environments, it is frequently used to raise cash, reduce VAR, and de-risk portfolios regardless of its long-term narrative, while gold continues to function as a true liquidity sink,” he added.

Large holders aren’t helping either.

Central banks have been buying gold at record levels, creating strong structural demand. Meanwhile, long-term bitcoin holders are selling according ot NYDIG’s report.

Onchain data shows that vintage coins are continuing to move toward exchanges, suggesting a steady stream of selling. This “seller overhang” dampens price support. “The opposite dynamic is playing out in gold. Large holders, particularly central banks, continue to accumulate the metal,” Cipolaro added.

Adding to the mismatch is how markets are pricing risk. The current turbulence is seen as episodic, driven by tariffs, policy threats, and short-term shocks. Gold has long served as a hedge for that kind of uncertainty.

Bitcoin, by contrast, is better suited to longer-term concerns, like fiat debasement or sovereign debt crises.

“Gold excels in moments of immediate confidence loss, war risk, and fiat debasement that does not involve a full system break,” Cipolaro added.

“Bitcoin, by contrast, is better suited to hedging long-run monetary and geopolitical disorder and slow-moving trust erosion that unfolds over years, not weeks. As long as markets believe the present risks are dangerous but not yet foundational, gold remains the preferred hedge.”

Shares of major health insurers – including UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health dropped like a rock on Monday following a Wall Street Journal report that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) plan to increase payments to insurance companies by just 0.09% on average next year – falling far short of analyst expectations of a 4% increase. For reference, insurers received a 5.06% increase for this year. 

And while retail investors and other plebes are getting their mustaches punched off, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), who sits on the House Subcommittee on Health (which works hand-in-glove with CMS on Medicare payment policy), had the amazing fortune to have sold his entire position in UnitedHealth on Dec. 23, valued between $250,000 and $500,000.

The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health is the House’s primary lawmaking body for federal health-care financing policy. In practice, it decides how the federal government pays for health care, who is eligible, and under what rules. One of its primary roles is oversight and legislation related to Medicare – governing payment policies for Medicare Parts A, B, C (Medicare Advantage), and D, including reimbursement rates for hospitals, physicians, insurers, and prescription drug plans.

To be clear, CMS proposes the annual rate proposals, while the House Ways and Means Committee and its Subcommittee on Health sets policy surrounding this. What typically happens is;

• Senior CMS and HHS officials brief key committee staff (especially Ways and Means and Senate Finance) shortly before release.
• These are staff-level or leadership-level heads-ups, not public meetings.
• The purpose is political and institutional management, not authorization.

CMS would have likely briefed political leadership just before holiday recess so members aren’t blindsided in January – particularly members of Ways & Means. 

UNITEDHEALTH SINKS MORE THAN 9% ON MEDICARE RATES REPORT

WHITE HOUSE PLANS FLAT RATES FOR MEDICARE INSURERS IN 2027: WSJ

Good sale Kevin Hern, who sits on the House Subcommittee on Health https://t.co/D2dSoBf8ul

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 26, 2026

What a lucky duck! 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

There is a notable torts verdict in Maryland where a jury handed down a multi-million dollar verdict against Walmart for selling a shotgun to an employee who used it to commit suicide.

The verdict raises difficult questions over Walmart’s responsibility for the suicide of Jacob Mace, who lied to store employees, under common law torts.

The family of Mace brought the lawsuit, alleging that Walmart employees knew that he was suicidal and struggling with mental health issues. They focused on his communications with a co-worker Christina O’Shea in which he wrote about feeling “broken” and “nothing helps. I just want it to end. Goodbye.” He also wrote that he intended to “Slit wrists. Buy a gun.”

O’Shea told assistant manager, Brennan Jones, about her concerns. Jones said that police should be called and, when Mace returned to work, spoke to Mace about the company’s counseling services and asked him how he was doing. He told him that “You know, we were worried about you,” but Mace assured him that he was fine.

Neither Jones nor O’Shea was involved in selling the gun to Mace. The sale was made by Eric McLaughlin, who testified that he had no idea of Mace’s mental health struggles. Mace told McLaughlin that the gun would be a present for his wife.

The family argued that Jones should have alerted other store managers about the conversation between O’Shea and himself. Moreover, the awareness of employees like Jones was then attributed to the company as a whole.

I find the verdict concerning on a number of levels.

First, employers have to straddle a difficult line between protecting employees’ privacy and addressing threats to employees or the public. In this case, Mace insisted that he was doing fine and Jones had taken steps to confirm his status.

Second, Mace lied to the Walmart employee. There was no reason why McLaughlin would refuse the sale.

The case reminds me of Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, which I teach in my torts class. In the 1974 case, Prosinjit Podder, an Indian Graduate student at Berkeley, fell in love with Tatiana Tarasoff. When she stated that she wanted to date other men, Podder went to counseling at the University Health Service and was treated by psychologist, Dr. Lawrence Moore. When he told Moore that he wanted to get a gun and kill Tarasoff, Moore sent a letter to campus police, who interviewed Podder and decided that he was not a risk. Podder then went ahead and murdered Tarasoff.

Justice Mathew O. Tobriner held that “… the confidential character of patient-psychotherapist communications must yield to the extent that disclosure is essential to avert danger to others. The protective privilege ends where the public peril begins.”

As a result, the hospital was held liable for the criminal actions of a third party — something that usually (but not always) cuts off proximate causation. It also rejects strong arguments made by doctors that such liability would create a chilling effect on counseling. A large number of patients often express their anger by focusing it on individuals and stating an intent to “kill that guy.” In the vast majority of such cases, the open disclosure allows the matter to be addressed and defused. However, if the patient knows that the doctor will have to tell authorities, such feelings are less likely to be expressed and addressed.

In this case, you have a retailer with an employee who expressed suicidal ideations. Jones did the right thing in seeking police involvement and then personally speaking with Mace. According to this verdict, the store should have barred the purchase. But for how long? What steps are necessary to satisfy this duty?

As with Tarasoff, there is no clear line on what employers should do and when they should do it.

The Second Amendment protects the right to gun ownership, though that right is not absolute. Additionally, this employee has privacy rights. Indeed, a memo to all employees could have been the subject of a different tort action for the disclosure of embarrassing private information, negligent infliction of emotional distress, or other claims.

From the perspective of Jones, he had one employee who expressed concerns over another employee’s mental health. He spoke to the second employee, who assured him that he was doing fine. Under these circumstances, Mace could have purchased the gun from any other store.

This is a tragic case, and it may be difficult to overturn on appeal. I understand the family’s anger that more was not done to save Mace from himself. I am unsure of how far the store could have gone. Jones would have needed to tell all employees not to sell Mace, any sharp objects, guns, or products capable of inducing overdoses or harm. That could trigger a lawsuit. If he fired or suspended Mace, he might be sued under disability laws.

If he did fire or suspend Mace, it is not clear that a gun sale could be withheld without something more than the word of a friend when the individual is denying such ideations. The right move is to seek police intervention, which Jones suggested.

The complaint does allege that Walmart had a “blacklist” for individuals who were suspected of any mental problems. If so, that does raise a legitimate question about why Mace was not added to the list, at least as a precautionary matter. However, these are difficult and fluid circumstances for a manager to address, particularly in a relatively short time period.

The jury awarded approximately $2.5 million in economic damages and $8 million in non-economic damages. Those damages may be reduced due to state caps on non-economic damages.

Here is the complaint in the case: Brady v. Walmart

On the heels of President Trump’s reconciliatory statement earlier hailing his “very good call” with Governor Tim Walz, and decision to send Tom Homan to the frontlines in Minnesota…

“…we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump said.

“I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession.

The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future.

He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I! “

…The Atlantic reports that Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol “commander at large” and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins further confirms that DHS has suspended Gregory Bovino’s access to his social media accounts effective immediately.

He spent yesterday responding to people who were criticizing him and raising questions about his unverified claims about Pretti.

This reported decision follows pressure from Senate Democrats who refused to allow the current DHS funding bill to move forward, this threatening another federal government shutdown.

Additionally, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said after speaking with President Donald Trump that he expects that some federal agents will start leaving the city on Jan. 27.

“I expressed how much Minneapolis has benefited from our immigrant communities and was clear that my main ask is that Operation Metro Surge needs to end,” Frey wrote on X.

“The president agreed the present situation can’t continue.”

Trump said that the conversation with Frey was “very good” and that progress was made.

“Tom Homan will be meeting with [Frey] tomorrow in order to continue the discussion,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The mayor said he would continue pushing for all federal agents to leave the city.

“Minneapolis will continue to cooperate with state and federal law enforcement on real criminal investigations—but we will not participate in unconstitutional arrests of our neighbors or enforce federal immigration law,” Frey stated on X.

Walz and Frey have repeatedly encouraged the public to protest and demonstrate against immigration operations taking place in the state, at some points using profanity to tell federal officers to leave.

Trump presented a three-point plan to Walz during the call, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The plan calls for Walz, Frey, and other Minnesota leaders to turn over all criminal illegal immigrants who are currently in custody in state prisons and jails to federal authorities.

Those with active warrants or known criminal histories would be immediately deported, Leavitt said during a press briefing on Jan. 26.

The plan also calls for state and local law enforcement to agree to turn over all illegal immigrants who are arrested by local police and for local police to help federal law enforcement in arresting and detaining illegal immigrants who are wanted for crimes, especially violent crimes, she said.

We give the last words to General Flynn…

Did the WH just blink? https://t.co/lyIJ3kQBSq

— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) January 27, 2026

…good question.

Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez has publicly pushed back against Washington in a rare first since the US military invasion and overthrow of Nicolás Maduro, assering she has had “enough” of US directives.

While President Trump initially declared that Washington would effectively “run” Venezuela, he later endorsed Rodríguez as a temporary caretaker during the transition, despite her being as hardcore a Leftist pro-Maduro figure as anyone.

“Enough already of Washington’s orders regarding politicians in Venezuela,” Rodríguez told oil workers gathered in Puerto La Cruz on Sunday, in remarks broadcast on state television.

She further urged that Venezuela’s political disputes be handled internally, saying: “Let Venezuelan politics resolve our differences and our internal conflicts” – and warned that the small oil-rich country has already paid a steep price confronting what she described as fascism and extremism.

Rodríguez soon after being sworn in had vowed that no “foreign agent” would rule Venezuela or reduce it to a “colony” – despite that Trump has made clear that his appointed team of American officials would effectively run the country and its oil.

Among the first US actions has been to cut off Venezuela’s oil supply to nearby ally Cuba, which threatens to sink the island-nation’s economy further, after it has endured many decades of Washington sanctions.

Despite this big talk of distancing herself from American interests, Rodríguez warmly greeted CIA Director John Ratcliffe this month, and there was even a photo op. Ratcliffe, as the first top US official to meet with her in the wake of the Jan.3rd military operation, reportedly delivering Trump’s conditions for resetting relations.

The fact that she has even remained in power this long suggests that she is playing ball behind the scenes, and that any anti-American public declarations are primarily for domestic consumption.

Domestic messaging: …has to pretend otherwise not to upset her support base:

Delcy continues to pretend like she is a tough anti-imperialist leader who defies Washinton while behind the scenes Trump can make her do whatever he want and she is only running Venezuela 🇻🇪 at his mercy

She knows this, but has to pretend otherwise not to upset her support base https://t.co/qvaPqqHLla

— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) January 25, 2026

A fresh Monday report in the NY Times summarizes where things stand:

Three weeks after U.S. forces whisked President Nicolás Maduro away from Caracas, the capital, his vice president and replacement, Delcy Rodríguez, is rapidly liberalizing the economy without ceding any political control in an autocratic nation.

With President Trump’s blessing, Ms. Rodríguez has moved to redirect Venezuela’s oil exports from China to the much more lucrative market in the United States. Earlier this month she funneled the first tranche from these oil sales, $300 million, to Venezuela’s banking system, halting the collapse of the national currency and putting hyperinflation fears to rest.

She is rapidly rewriting laws to bring in foreign investment and boost wages, leading many economists to forecast double-digit economic growth in Venezuela this year. She is promising economic transparency and accountability, an implicit recognition of years of looting of state funds by the government that she has served for decades.

Anticipation of an economic windfall has sparked a rally on Caracas’s thinly traded stock exchange and driven a sharp jump in real estate prices, NYT also describes. The country’s long-defaulted bonds have climbed, fueled by speculation that the former Maduro number two could move to restructure the country’s debt, also in anticipation of Washington potentially rolling back sanctions.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

Late last week, a federal appeals court denied the Justice Department’s (DOJ’s) request to arrest more individuals involved in an anti-ICE protest that occurred inside a church in Minnesota earlier this month.

Protesters disrupted a Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul on Jan. 18, chanting phrases such as “Justice for Renee Good,” following claims that one of the church pastors serves as the acting field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota. Several people were arrested on Jan. 22 for allegedly organizing the protest.

The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 23 rejected the DOJ’s emergency petition for a writ of mandamus after Minnesota Chief District Judge Patrick Schiltz refused to issue five more arrest warrants related to the protest.

In a Jan. 23 letter to the appeals court, Schiltz said the DOJ had requested arrest warrants for eight people on Jan. 20, but Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko issued warrants for only three, finding no probable cause to arrest the remaining five.

The five individuals allegedly entered the church and yelled “horrible things at the members of the church” but committed no violence, according to the judge’s letter.

“It is important to emphasize that what the U.S. Attorney requested is unheard of in our district or, as best as I can tell, any other district in the Eighth Circuit,” Schiltz said, referring to the DOJ’s request to review Micko’s denial of arrest warrants.

“The reason why this never happens is likely that, if the government does not like the magistrate judge’s decision, it can either improve the affidavit and present it again to the same magistrate judge or it can present its case to a grand jury and seek an indictment,” the judge added.

The DOJ said that arresting the five individuals was necessary to deter potential “copycats” from disrupting churches, synagogues, and religious services. Schiltz disagreed.

“The leaders of the group have been arrested, and their arrests have received widespread publicity. There is absolutely no emergency,” Schiltz said, suggesting that the DOJ could instead take its case to a grand jury.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the DOJ for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Among the five individuals for whom the DOJ sought arrest warrants is former CNN journalist turned YouTuber Don Lemon, who livestreamed the protest on social media.

Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement on Jan. 23 that the magistrate’s actions “confirm the nature of Don’s First Amendment protected work this weekend in Minnesota as a reporter.”

“Should the Department of Justice continue with a stunning and troubling effort to silence and punish a journalist for doing his job, Don will call out their latest attack on the rule of law and fight any charges vigorously and thoroughly in court,” Lowell said.

Harmeet Dhillon, the DOJ’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, posted on X on Jan. 18 that a house of worship is not a public forum for protest.

“It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws,” Dhillon said.