Operations came to a sudden standstill on Thursday at 6pm CET, with the airport saying on its website: “Due to weather conditions, no take-offs or landings are currently possible.”
The airport remains closed today as adverse weather conditions continue to disrupt transport across north Germany.
Berlin Brandenburg Airport said in a statement: “We currently have freezing rain and black ice and cannot yet predict when takeoffs and landings will be possible.
Lufthansa also scrapped a number of flights in and out of the city.
German weather service DWD warned of “significant slipperiness” caused by icy conditions spanning Berlin to the Baltic Coast and Polish border.
Forecasters were uncertain about when travel disruptions might ease, with the cold snap anticipated to continue across northwest Europe into next week.
Germany’s national railway operator Deutsche Bahn said train service between Berlin and Hanover have also been affected by the icy weather.
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minneapolis man was arrested Thursday on suspicion of cyberstalking and threatening to kill or assault Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers involved in the crackdown in Minnesota.
Federal prosecutors said in a statement that Kyle Wagner, 37, of Minneapolis, was charged by complaint, and that a decision to seek an indictment, which is necessary to take the case to trial, would be made soon.
Court records in Detroit, where the case was filed, did not list an attorney who could speak on Wagner’s behalf. The complaint was filed Tuesday and unsealed Thursday.
Atty. Gen. Pamela Bondi alleged in a statement that Wagner doxed and threatened law enforcement officers, claimed an affiliation with antifa and “encouraged bloodshed in the streets.”
And at the White House on Thursday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt held up Weber’s photo at the daily briefing and said such conduct by “left-wing agitators” won’t go unpunished.
“And if people are illegally obstructing our federal law enforcement operations, if they are targeting, doxing, harassing and vilifying ICE agents, they are going to be held accountable like this individual here who, again, is a self-proclaimed member of antifa. He is a domestic terrorist, and he will be held accountable in the United States,” Leavitt told reporters.
President Trump announced in September that he would designate antifa a “major terrorist organization.” Antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” is an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups and is not a singular entity. It consists of groups that resist fascists and neo-Nazis, especially at demonstrations.
When Trump administration border policy advisor Tom Homan announced Wednesday that about 700 federal officers deployed to Minnesota would be withdrawn immediately, he said a larger pullout would occur only after there’s more cooperation and protesters stop interfering with federal personnel.
According to prosecutors, Wagner repeatedly posted on Facebook and Instagram encouraging his followers to “forcibly confront, assault, impede, oppose, and resist federal officers” whom he referred to as the “gestapo” and “murderers.”
The complaint alleges Wagner posted a video last month that directly threatened ICE officers with an obscenity-laden rant. “I’ve already bled for this city, I’ve already fought for this city, this is nothing new, we’re ready this time,” he said, concluding that he was “coming for” ICE.
The complaint further alleges that Wagner advocated for physical confrontation in another post, stating: “Anywhere we have an opportunity to get our hands on them, we need to put our hands on them.”
It also details how Wagner used his Instagram account to dox a person identified only as a “pro-ICE individual” by publishing a phone number, birth month and year, and address in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park. The complaint says Wagner later admitted that he doxed the victim’s parents’ house.
Federal prosecutors didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on why the case was filed in Michigan instead of Minnesota. The alleged doxing was the only Michigan connection listed in the complaint.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota has been hit by the resignations of several prosecutors in recent weeks amid frustrations with the surge and its handling of the shooting deaths of two people by government officers. One lawyer, who told a judge that her job “sucks,” was removed from her post.
Trump’s chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota, Dan Rosen, told a federal appeals court in a recent filing that his office is facing a “flood of new litigation” and is struggling to keep up just with immigration cases, while his division that handles civil cases is down 50%.
Rosen wrote that his office has canceled other civil enforcement work “and is operating in a reactive mode.” He also said his attorneys are “appearing daily for hearings on contempt motions. The Court is setting deadlines within hours, including weekends and holidays. Paralegals are continuously working overtime. Lawyers are continuously working overtime.”
Karnowski writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Eric Tucker and Nathan Ellgren in Washington contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Senate Republican Leader John Thune warned Thursday that Congress is not close to an agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security, signaling that another short-term extension may be the only way to avoid a shutdown as Democrats demand “nonnegotiable” ICE reforms ahead of the Feb. 13 deadline.
The Republicans are increasingly looking to punt the full funding package a second time if negotiations collapse. Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, Thune said that such a move would not include any reforms lawmakers had previously negotiated, including body cameras for immigration agents.
“As of right now, we aren’t anywhere close to having any sort of an agreement that would enable us to fund the Department of Homeland Security,” he said. “If [Democrats] are coming to the table demanding a blank check or refusing to consider any measures but their own, they’re likely to end up with nothing.”
He spoke hours after House and Senate Democrats announced they were aligned behind a list of 10 demands they say must be passed before approving the Homeland Security funding package through September.
Democrats are pressing for statutory limits on immigration raids, new judicial warrant requirements, body-worn cameras, identification rules for agents and enhanced oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — reforms they say are necessary to rein in what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called an agency “out of control.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats are planning to propose the legislation as soon as possible.
“We want our Republican colleagues to finally get serious about this, because this is turning America inside out in a way we haven’t seen in a very long time,” Schumer said.
The coordinated demands signal unity among House and Senate Democrats after a rocky week on Capitol Hill. In a slim vote, 21 House Democrats joined Republicans on Tuesday to end a partial government shutdown by temporarily extending Homeland Security funding through Feb. 13.
The two-week stopgap, called a “continuing resolution,” was meant to leave time for the two parties to debate how to rein in ICE after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
But that truce has quickly unraveled. Republican leaders have little appetite for the full slate of reforms. Some have indicated openness to narrower changes, such as expanding body camera programs and training, but reject mask bans and the removal of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has already ruled out warrant requirements, which would limit immigration agents from entering private property without a court order. In remarks to reporters Wednesday, he also hinted at some interest in attaching voter ID and anti-sanctuary city policies to negotiations.
“It will be part of the discussion over the next couple of weeks, and we’ll see how that shakes out. But I suspect that some of the changes — the procedural modifications with ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement — will be codified,” he said.
Johnson was confident the two sides could make a deal without further delays, adding that negotiations are largely between “the White House, Schumer and Senate Democrats.”
President Trump has privately supported the short-term extension to cool tensions while publicly defending immigration agents and expressing skepticism toward Democrats’ reform push, according to House leadership.
White House border policy advisor Tom Homan also announced a drawdown of 700 federal agents from Minneapolis this week as what officials framed as a goodwill gesture amid negotiations.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Thursday that the administration is willing to consider some of the demands Democrats have made, but said some of their requests are not “grounded in any common sense and they are nonstarters for this administration.”
Leavitt did not specify which reforms the administration was willing to consider. She did, however, say the president is committed to keeping the government open and supporting “immigration enforcement efforts in this country.”
The White House did not respond when asked if the president would support a short-term spending measure should negotiations stall.
Republicans continue to warn that a failure to reach a deal would jeopardize disaster response funding, airport security operations, maritime patrols, and increased security assistance for major national events, including the upcoming World Cup in Los Angeles.
“If we don’t do it by the middle of next week, we should consider a continuing resolution for the rest of the year and just put this all behind us,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus.
Democrats, however, remain adamant that verbal assurances are no longer enough.
“These are just some of the commonsense proposals that the American people clearly would like to see in terms of the dramatic changes that are needed at the Department of Homeland Security before there is a full-year appropriations bill,” Jeffries said.
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos in Washington contributed to this report.
MILAN — Alysa Liu wore a hollow smile on the ice. She had achieved a dream, skating at the Beijing Olympics at just 16, but in a mostly empty arena, few were there to see the moment.
Perhaps that was what Liu secretly wanted.
“It’s not that I didn’t want to be seen,” Liu said. “It’s just I had nothing to show.”
The 20-year-old now proudly presents Alysa Liu 2.0.
Four years after shocking the sport by retiring as a teenage phenom, the Oakland native could win two gold medals at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. She is a title contender in her individual event that begins Jan. 17 as the United States tries to end a 20-year Olympic medal drought in women’s singles figure skating, and she will skate Friday in the women’s short program of a team competition the United States is favored to win.
Armed with a new perspective from her two-year retirement, Liu now smiles genuinely on and off the ice, no matter if there’s a medal around her neck or not.
“I have so much I want to express and show, whether that’s through skating or just through my presence,” said Liu, who placed sixth in Beijing. “It’s exciting to think about that being seen.”
When she made her Olympic debut, Liu didn’t feel like her career belonged to her. Her father, Arthur, was a driving force in her skating career. In a sport where coaches and choreographers often call the shots for young athletes, Liu entered the Olympic stage with programs she didn’t like and clothes she didn’t pick. She was behind a mask and couldn’t express herself. She barely knew how to.
Skating had consumed her entire life. She felt “trapped and stuck” in the sport. So she left.
After retiring following the 2022 world championships — where she won a bronze medal — Liu got her driver’s license. She hiked to Mount Everest base camp with friends. She went shopping for not-skating clothes, played Fortnite until 4 a.m. with her siblings and enrolled at UCLA. She loved studying psychology.
“I found what I like and what I didn’t like,” said Liu, who took time off from UCLA to prepare for the Olympics but hopes to return before her friends graduate. “Really got to know myself, because [when] I had skating, I didn’t really know myself. I couldn’t know myself. I only ever did one thing.”
Alysa Liu practices in Milan on Thursday ahead of the Olympic team competition, which starts Friday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
After a casual ski trip reminded her of the joys of skating, Liu made the decision to return to the sport that shaped, and nearly stole, her childhood. But she would only do it on her terms.
The choreography, the music and the costumes would all be her choice. She doesn’t compete to win. She skates to show her art, she said.
In the process, she’s winning more than ever.
She won the world championship in 2025, becoming the first U.S. woman to win the world title since 2006. She won the Grand Prix final in Japan in December, the last major international competition before the Milan-Cortina Games to announce herself as a potential Olympic champion.
The day before her last performance at the U.S. championships, the final competition that would decide her Olympic bid, Liu ran to a St. Louis salon to dye her hair to match a new skating dress. Unbothered by the pressure of the moment, she debuted a Lady Gaga free skate that brought fans to their feet and earned her a silver medal.
“When you are an Olympic athlete that has a chance in front of the world every four years, it literally is your life’s work that’s on the line,” NBC analyst and two-time Olympian Johnny Weir said. “And she has found a way to compartmentalize that and put it down. … I just think it’s so wonderfully healthy and brave and strong to be doing what she is, because it takes a lot of bravery to put down the pressure that the sport naturally has.”
Liu is just a natural talent in the sport, 2022 Olympian Mariah Bell said. Bell remembered during the Stars on Ice tour in 2022 when the skaters rolled into a new city, tired, groggy and sore from the long bus ride, Liu, dressed in a baggy hoodie and billowing sweatpants, could go on the ice and throw perfect jumps without warning. Bell stood in awe.
U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu practices on Thursday in Milan.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
After Liu’s short program at the U.S. championships last month set a national championship record, Bell was blown away for different reasons.
“She’s so sophisticated and mature and emotional,” Bell said. “When she was younger, she was incredible. But when you’re 13, you don’t skate the way that you do like how she did the short program [at the U.S. championships].”
Skating to Laufey’s “Promise,” a haunting piano ballad, Liu glided through a flawless short program that she said nearly moved her to tears. Fans showered her with stuffed animals.
Liu has always commanded attention in the sport. She was the youngest skater to perform a triple axel in international competition at 12, became the youngest U.S. champion at 13 and followed with another national title at 14. She was the first U.S. woman to complete a quad lutz in competition, doing so in the 2019 Junior Grand Prix in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Six years later, back in that same arena for Skate America in 2025, Liu told her coaches she didn’t remember her historic accomplishment.
“It feels like I’m watching or I got someone else’s memories,” said Liu, who had similar, disconnected, but overall positive memories of her Olympic experience in Beijing. “It feels like a totally different person, but we are definitely the same person.”
U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu practices in Milan on Thursday as she prepares for the team competition, which starts Friday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Exchange the delicate, ballerina-like skating dresses with bold, modern asymmetrical designs. Undo the tight, slicked back bun and bring in halo dyed hair, dark eyeliner and the piercing she did herself on the inside of her upper lip. With three horizontal stripes dyed into her hair, each layer represents a year of the new life Liu is finally happy to put on display.
“I want to be seen more because I like what I have going on,” Liu said. “I like what I’m doing.”
Beset by delays, concerns and last-minute building works, the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena finally opened its doors to the Olympics on Thursday.
And while, as the International Olympic Committee admitted, it was not completely ready for its opening game, the arena was in a much better state than it had been when BBC Sport visited five days prior.
The 11,800-capacity stadium was nearly full for the Group B match between Italy and Olympic debutants France, won 4-1 by the host nation.
On the Saturday before the fixture, we found a frantic construction site, with building materials and dust inside and outside the stadium.
Rubbish littered the floor, lifts and toilets were covered in plastic wraps and many areas of the arena, including hospitality boxes as well as food and drink stalls, were unfinished.
Christophe Dubi, the International Olympic Committee’s executive director for the Olympic Games, admitted on Sunday: “Do we have every single space in that venue finished? No. And is everything in that venue needed [for the matches to take place]? No.”
Returning on the morning of the first game – about three hours before face-off – we found the piles of rubble and building materials gone from the concourses inside and out.
Not all the amenities were quite ready, with merchandise stalls being built and posters still to be put up. This is just over three hours before the opening match.
Inside the arena, one side of the stadium was simply a big black wall. This houses temporary stands on top of what will eventually be a stage for concerts, and was supposed to feature large boards with Olympic branding.
In the stands, it was very dusty and dirty. The arena had the feel of a new build, finished in a hurry without much spit and polish.
And around the stadium, it is an actual building site. The arena stands virtually alone in wasteland, 25 minutes’ walk from the nearest metro station and with no amenities, barring a car park, nearby. Bella Italia this is not.
WASHINGTON — Democrats are threatening to block funding for the Homeland Security Department when it expires in two weeks unless there are “dramatic changes” and “real accountability” for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies carrying out President Trump’s campaign of federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota and across the country.
Congress is discussing potential new rules for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection after officers shot and killed two people in Minneapolis in January. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries reiterated their party’s demands on Wednesday, with Schumer telling reporters that Congress must “rein in ICE in very serious ways, and end the violence.”
Democrats are “drawing a line in the sand” as Republicans need their votes to continue the funding, Jeffries said.
The negotiations come amid some bipartisan sentiment that Congress should step in to de-escalate tensions over the enforcement operations that have rocked Minnesota and other states. But finding real agreement in such a short time will be difficult, if not “an impossibility,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday.
Trump last week agreed to a Democratic request that funding for Homeland Security be separated from a larger spending bill and extended at current levels for two weeks while the two parties discuss possible requirements for the federal agents. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said this weekend that he was at the White House when Trump spoke with Schumer and that they were “on the path to get agreement.”
But it’s unclear whether the president or enough congressional Republicans will agree to any of the Democrats’ larger demands that the officers unmask and identify themselves, obtain judicial warrants in certain cases and work with local authorities, among other asks. Republicans have already pushed back.
And House GOP lawmakers are demanding that some of their own priorities be added to the Homeland Security spending bill, including legislation that would require proof of citizenship before Americans register to vote. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and other Republican senators are pushing for restrictions on sanctuary cities that they say don’t do enough to crack down on illegal immigration. There’s no clear definition of sanctuary jurisdictions, but the term is generally applied to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
It’s also uncertain whether Democrats who are furious over the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement operations would be willing to compromise.
“Republicans need to get serious,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said, adding that they will propose “tough, strong legislation” in the next day.
A look at Democrats’ demands and what Republicans are saying about them:
Agreement on body cameras
Republicans say they are open to officer-worn body cameras, a change that was already in the underlying Homeland Security spending bill. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem backed that up on Monday when she ordered body-worn cameras to be issued to every DHS officer on the ground in Minneapolis, including those from ICE. She said the policy would expand nationwide as funding becomes available.
The bill already directed $20 million to outfit immigration enforcement agents with body-worn cameras.
Gil Kerlikowske, who served as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2014 to 2017, said that most agents are “very supportive” of cameras because they could help exonerate officers. But he added that complex questions remain, including when footage should be released and when cameras must be activated.
“When do you turn it on? And if you got into a problem and didn’t have it on, are you going to be disciplined? It’s really pretty complex,” he said.
Schumer said Tuesday that the body cameras “need to stay on.”
Disagreement on masking
As videos and photos of aggressive immigration tactics and high-profile shootings circulate nationwide, agents covering their faces with masks has become a flash point. Democrats argue that removing the masks would increase accountability. Republicans warn it could expose agents to harassment and threats.
“State law enforcement, local folks don’t do it,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the Committee for Homeland Security. “I mean, what’s so special about an ICE law enforcement agency that they have to wear a mask?”
But Republicans appear unlikely to agree.
“Unlike your local law enforcement in your hometown, ICE agents are being doxed and targeted. We have evidence of that,” Johnson said on Tuesday. He added that if you “unmask them and you put all their identifying information on their uniform, they will obviously be targeted.”
Immigration officers are already required to identify themselves “as soon as it is practical and safe to do so,” according to federal regulations. ICE officials insist those rules are being followed.
Critics, however, question how closely officers adhere to the regulations.
“We just see routinely that that’s not happening,” said Nithya Nathan Pineau, a policy attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
Judicial vs. administrative warrants
Democrats have also demanded stricter use of judicial warrants and an end to roving patrols of agents who are targeting people in the streets and in their homes. Schumer said Tuesday that they want “arrest warrants and an end to racial profiling.”
Most immigration arrests are carried out under administrative warrants, internal documents issued by immigration authorities that authorize the arrest of a specific person but do not permit officers to forcibly enter private homes or other nonpublic spaces without consent. Traditionally, only warrants signed by judges carry that authority.
But an internal ICE memo obtained by the Associated Press last month authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with 4th Amendment protections.
Democrats have not made clear how broadly they want judicial warrants used. Jeffries of New York said that Democrats want to see “an end to the targeting of sensitive locations like houses of worship, schools and hospitals.”
Johnson said Tuesday that Democrats are trying to “add an entirely new layer” by seeking warrants signed by a judge rather than the administrative warrants that are signed by the department. “We can’t do that,” he said.
The speaker has said that an end to roving patrols is a potential area of agreement, but he did not give details.
Code of conduct and more accountability
Democrats have also called for a uniform code of conduct for all ICE and federal agents similar to that for state and local law enforcement officers.
Federal officials blocked state investigators from accessing evidence after Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent on Jan. 7. Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, demanded that the state be allowed to take part, saying that it would be “very difficult for Minnesotans” to accept that an investigation excluding the state could be fair.
Hoping for a miracle
Any deal Democrats strike on the Department of Homeland Security is unlikely to satisfy everyone in the party. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts said she would never support an agreement that didn’t require unmasking.
“I ran for Congress in 2018 on abolish ICE,” Pressley said. “My position has not changed.”
Thune, of South Dakota, has repeatedly said it’s an “impossibility” to negotiate and pass something so complicated in two weeks. He said any talks should be between Democrats and Trump.
“I don’t think it’s very realistic,” Thune said Tuesday about finding quick agreement. “But there’s always miracles, right?”
Jalonick and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press. AP writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.
MILAN — Many of the officials supporting the nearly 250 U.S. athletes competing in this month’s Winter Olympics arrived in Italy last weekend to a greeting they may not have expected: Hundreds of demonstrators packed a square in central Milan to protest the reported plan to deploy U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during the Games.
The first events in the 18-day competition, which will be shared by Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Italian Alps, begin Thursday and the opening ceremony is scheduled for Friday. Against that background, International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry called the agents’ involvement “distracting” and “sad.”
“This is a militia that kills. They are not welcome in Milan,” Mayor Giuseppe Sala said on local radio ahead of the protests, which took place beneath the neoclassical Porta Garibaldi arch in the Piazza XXV Aprile, named for the date of Italy’s liberation from Nazi fascism in World War II.
Many demonstrators blew whistles and carried signs of the five Olympic rings rendered as handcuffs above the words “No ICE in Milan.” One woman held a handmade poster featuring photos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the two Minnesotans killed by federal agents last month, alongside Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy in the blue bunny hat who was taken from his home in Minneapolis to a detention facility in Texas.
Anti-ICE protests take place in Piazza XXV Aprile ahead of the Olympics in Milan.
(Lucia Buricelli / Associated Press)
“All the videos are public and everyone can see what’s happening,” Bruna Scanziani, an 18-year-old demonstrator told reporters. “The perception of America has changed.”
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed the presence of ICE agents in Italy to the Athletic, leaving her department, the U.S. Consulate and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to try to cool the controversy.
DHS said the agents dispatched to Milan are not immigration agents but come from a unit known as Homeland Security Investigations, which specializes in cross-border crime. They commonly provide intelligence and security at large sporting events, both in the U.S. and overseas, but in Milan their role will be strictly advisory and intelligence-based, Ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta said.
Travelers pass through the lobby of Milan Linate Airport M4 Metroline train station Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, meanwhile, said it is working with the Diplomatic Security Service, which is under the umbrella of the State Department, unlike ICE, which is part of Homeland Security. The Diplomatic Security Service has been providing security for U.S. delegations at every Olympics since 1992.
“The USOPC does not work with U.S. domestic law enforcement or immigration agencies in the planning or execution of the Games, including agencies within the Department of Homeland Security often referred to as ICE,” the committee said in a statement. “Italian authorities are solely responsible for all security operations at the Games.”
Despite the tensions, in the days before the Games there were few signs of the kind of heavy security presence that marked the Paris Olympics 17 months ago. At Linate Airport, the closest of Milan’s three airports to the city center, two camouflage-clad Italian soldiers with long guns milled outside the arrival gates Monday evening. They were gone by Tuesday afternoon.
Five miles away at the Piazza del Duomo, the cultural and social heart of Milan, two pairs of soldiers stood on either side of the massive square, huddling under white awnings on either side of a pop-up Olympic souvenir tent and ignoring the hundreds of international tourists raising their phones to take photos of the ancient Gothic cathedral that gives the square its name.
A building located in the heart of Piazza del Doumo is lit up with animated Olympic competitors Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Up the street, where the trolley tracks curve before the trendy shops and restaurants that line the busy Via Orefici, groups of city police and Carabinieri, the national police known by their black Giorgio Armani-designed uniforms, joked among themselves. They were far less menacing than the roving patrols of soldiers and police officers that were ubiquitous in France.
A local woman shrugged at the officers’ presence.
“Being the iconic and most touristy place of Milan,” she said “there are always lots of police and soldiers.”
It’s unclear how American athletes will be received during Friday’s opening ceremony, which Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to attend.
“When they have the flag and when they have the tracksuit and they’re announced as the U.S., that’s obviously an opportunity for the spectators to make known their feelings about the U.S.,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow for Middle East studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute and an expert on sports and international relations.
Europeans have strong feelings about the U.S. right now, feelings spurred by more than the images of ICE agents that have led TV newscasts and have filled social media feeds for months in Italy and beyond. In the last few months, President Trump has sent forces into Venezuela to removes its president, threatened military action against Iran, fired on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, and disparaged Europe as “decaying” and its leaders as “weak.”
Demonstrators in Milan hold signs protesting ICE in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis on Saturday.
(Alessandro Bremec / Associated Press)
“Without us,” he said in a combative speech before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “you’d all be speaking German.”
What has upset the continent most amid the chaos, however, is Trump’s insistence that the U.S. take control of Greenland from Denmark, a loyal North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, warning the Danes and seven other countries that they would be hit with 25% tariffs if they didn’t relent. Many in Europe’s far-right parties, whose members are often supportive of Trump, now consider the U.S. president an “enemy of Europe,” according to a poll published by the Paris-based platform Le Grand Continent.
As a result of the blowback, Trump has backed away from the tariff threat and said he wouldn’t take control of Greenland by force, but the fallout from tensions remains.
“Greenland, especially, has really touched a nerve. That’s unfortunate coming right in the run-up to the Olympics,” said Coates Ulrichsen, who was born in Greece to English and Norwegian parents.
And that makes the U.S. team and its 232 athletes, the largest contingent at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, a convenient foil for European wrath.
“The national team is symbolic of the nation. That just makes it such a target for any potential political frustration,” Coates Ulrichsen said. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
During the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, for example, which opened 17 months after the American-led invasion of Iraq, the U.S. team was roundly booed.
“The Olympics have been no stranger to politics,” Coates Ulrichsen said. “And obviously the key element [of athletes] walking out behind a flag is a very easy target in a way.”
Some Italians aren’t so sure.
“My personal view is that U.S. athletes will not be targeted by the protests,” said one woman who asked that her name not be used because she works with many international clients, including some in the United States. “It is more of a political subject.”
She also said the attitude of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, among the European leaders most supportive of President Trump, has blunted public opposition to the U.S.
The Olympic Rings ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Tuesday.
(Mattia Ozbot / Getty Images)
Because this month’s Games, the first Winter Olympics to officially have co-host cities, will be spread across four clusters covering about 8,500 square miles in northern Italy, there will be four opening ceremonies Friday, with the main one at San Siro Olympic Stadium in Milan beginning at 11 a.m. Pacific time. Smaller events will take place simultaneously in the mountain venues of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme.
Bobsledder Azaria Hill, a first-time Olympian whose mother, father and aunt all competed in the Summer Games, said marching in the opening ceremony has long been a dream of hers. And she doesn’t think politics will spoil that Friday.
“Olympics brings all the nations together,” she said. “That’s one of the special things about the Olympics, and you really see that in the unity. I think everything will be fine.”
In an effort to separate athletes from politicians, the U.S. governing bodies for three winter sports — figure skating, speedskating and hockey — changed the name of their Milan hospitality space to the Winter House.
‘We won’t see anything on national territory that resembles what’s been seen in the US,’ Italy’s interior minister says.
Published On 4 Feb 20264 Feb 2026
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Agents from the divisive United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency will have no operational role in the Winter Olympics, Italy’s interior minister has said days before the Milan-Cortina Games open.
ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which is a separate investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from the department carrying out the US immigration crackdown, will operate within US diplomatic missions only and “are not operational agents” and “have no executive function”, Matteo Piantedosi told the Italian Parliament on Wednesday.
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He said the outrage over the HSI presence, including the Milan mayor’s warning that they were not welcome in the city during the February 6-22 Winter Games, was “completely unfounded”.
“ICE does not and will never be able to carry out operational police activities on our national territory,” Piantedosi said.
The minister aimed to clarify the news of the contentious deployment of ICE agents, which prompted protests in the Italian metropolis.
“Security and public order are ensured exclusively by our police forces,” he said.
“During the Milan-Cortina Games, the members of this agency will be engaged solely in analysis and information exchange with the Italian authorities,” he added.
“The presence of personnel linked to the ICE agency is certainly not a sudden and unilateral initiative to undermine our national sovereignty, as some have portrayed, but rather compliance with a legally binding international agreement entered into by Italy.”
Last week, the US agency said it will support the “Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and host nation to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organisations”.
Following the announcement, Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said ICE would not be welcome in his city.
“This is a militia that kills … It’s clear that they are not welcome in Milan. There’s no doubt about it. Can’t we just say no to [US President Donald] Trump for once?” he said in an interview with RTL 102.5 radio.
ICE said its operations in Italy are separate from the immigration crackdown ordered by Trump in the US.
The Italian interior minister confirmed that the agency’s role would be limited.
“We will not see anything on national territory that resembles what has been seen in the media in the United States,” Piantedosi said.
“The concerns that have inspired the controversy of the last few days are therefore completely unfounded, and this information allows me to definitively dispel them.”
MINNEAPOLIS — U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi on Monday announced two more arrests following a protest at a Minnesota church against the immigration crackdown, bringing the number of people arrested to nine.
The nine were named in a grand jury indictment unsealed Friday. Independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were among four people arrested Friday. Three others were arrested earlier in the week, including prominent local activist Nekima Levy Armstrong.
A grand jury in Minnesota indicted all nine on federal civil rights charges of conspiracy and interfering with the 1st Amendment rights of worshippers during the Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul. A pastor at the church is also a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. The protest generated strong objections from the Trump administration.
In a social media post Monday, Bondi named the latest two arrestees as Ian Davis Austin and Jerome Deangelo Richardson. She gave no details of their arrests.
Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023 following a bumpy run as a morning host, has said he had no affiliation to the group that disrupted Sunday service by entering the church. He has described himself as an independent journalist chronicling protesters.
The indictment alleges that Richardson traveled to the church with Lemon while he was streaming and that Richardson told Lemon they needed to catch up to the others. It also alleges that Austin stood in the aisles of the church and loudly berated a pastor with questions about Christian nationalism.
Online jail records show Austin was arrested Friday. It wasn’t immediately clear when Richardson was taken into custody.
Austin’s attorney, Sarah Gad, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Court records don’t list an attorney for Richardson who could comment on his behalf.
The Justice Department began its investigation after the group interrupted services by chanting, “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.
Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads ICE’s St. Paul field office.
MINNEAPOLIS — For weeks, administrators at this charter high school have arrived an hour before class, grabbed neon vests and walkie-talkies, and headed out into the cold to watch for ICE agents and escort students in.
Lately, fewer than half of the 800 sudents show up.
“Operation Metro Surge,” the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to nationwide protests after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, has had students, parents and teachers on edge regardless of their immigration status.
Signs of a fearful new normal are all over the school. Green craft paper covers the bottom of many first-floor windows so outsiders can’t peer in. A notice taped outside one door says unauthorized entry is prohibited: “This includes all federal law enforcement personnel and activities unless authorized by lawful written direction from appropriate school officials or a valid court order.”
Students at a Minneapolis high school classroom with many empty seats on Jan. 29, 2026.
Staff coordinate throughout the day with a neighborhood watch group to determine whether ICE agents are nearby. When they are, classroom doors are locked and hallways emptied until staff announce “all clear.”
Similar tactics have been utilized by schools in other cities hit by immigration raids across the country. The Los Angeles Unified School District established a donation fund for affected families and created security perimeters around schools last summer.
But it appears nowhere have students felt the repercussions of local raids more than in Minneapolis.
Many schools have seen attendance plummet by double-digit percentages. At least three other, smaller charter schools in Minneapolis have completely shut down in-person learning.
At this high school, which administrators asked The Times not to identify for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration, 84% of students are Latino and 12% are Black. Staff and students are being identified by first or middle names.
A balloon sits in a hallway at the high school.
Doors and windows are covered at the school so outsiders can’t see in.
Three students have been detained — and later released — in recent weeks. Two others were followed into the school parking lot and questioned about their immigration status. Several have parents who were deported or who self-deported. Latino staff said they have also been stopped and questioned about their legal status.
“Our families feel hunted,” said Noelle, the school district’s executive director.
Students returned from winter break on Jan. 6, the same day 2,000 additional immigration agents were dispatched to Minneapolis to carry out what Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons called the agency’s “largest immigration operation ever.” The next day, an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three.
“I describe that day as if you’re on an airplane and it’s really bad turbulence, and you have to keep your cool because, if you don’t, you lose the entire building,” said Emmanuel, an assistant principal. “It felt like we went through war.”
Attendance dropped by the hundreds as parents grew too afraid to let their children leave home. School leaders decided to offer online learning and scrambled to find enough laptops and mobile hotspots for the many students who didn’t have devices or internet. Some teachers sent packets of schoolwork to students by mail.
A teacher at the Minneapolis high school that administrators asked The Times not to identify for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration. Teachers and students there also asked not to be identified.
Noelle said in-person attendance, which had dropped below 400 students, increased by around 100 in the third week of January. Then federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, and attendance plummeted again.
Rochelle Van Dijk, vice president of Great MN Schools, a nonprofit supporting schools that serve a majority of students of color, said many schools have redirected tens of thousands of dollars away from other critical needs toward online learning, food distribution and safety planning. For students still attending in person, recess has frequently been canceled, and field trips and after-school activities paused.
Even if students return to school by mid-February, Van Dijk said, they will have missed 20% of their instructional days for the year.
“A senior who can’t meet with their college counselor right now just missed support needed for major January college application deadlines. Or a second-grader with a speech delay who is supposed to be in an active in-person intervention may lose a critical window of brain plasticity,” she said. “It is not dissimilar to what our nation’s children faced during COVID, but entirely avoidable.”
At the high school, administrators said they tried to create “a security bubble,” operating under protocols more typical of active shooter emergencies.
Gym class at the Minneapolis school, where many students are so afraid of ICE that they won’t go to the campus.
If agents were to enter the building without a judicial warrant, the school would go into a full lockdown, turning off lights, staying silent and moving out of sight. That hasn’t happened, though ICE last year rescinded a policy that had barred arrests at so-called sensitive locations, including schools.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said that blaming ICE for low school attendance is “creating a climate of fear and smearing law enforcement.”
“ICE does not target schools,” McLaughlin said. “If a dangerous or violent illegal criminal alien felon were to flee into a school, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect the safety of the student. But this has not happened.”
Alondra, a 16-year-old junior who was born in the U.S., was arrested after school Jan. 21 near a clinic where she had gone with a friend, also 16, to pick up medication for her grandmother.
She said that as she was about to turn into the parking lot, another car sped in front of her, forcing her to stop. Alondra saw four men in ski masks with guns get out. Scared, she put her car in reverse. Before she could move, she said, another vehicle pulled up and struck her car from behind.
Alondra shared videos with The Times that she recorded from the scene. She said agents cracked her passenger window in an attempt to get in.
“We’re with you!” a bystander can be heard telling her in the video as others blow emergency whistles.
She said she rolled her window down and an agent asked to see her ID. She gave him her license and U.S. passport.
“Is it necessary to have to talk to you or can I talk to an actual cop?” she asks in the video. “Can I talk to an actual cop from here?”
“We are law enforcement,” the agent replies. “What are they gonna do?”
In another video, an agent questions Alondra’s friend about the whereabouts of his parents. Another agent is heard saying Alondra had put her car in reverse.
“We’re underage,” she tells him. “We’re scared.”
A sign directs students to line up for their school bus route. Bus pickups are staggered, with one group of students escorted outside at a time. This way, the children can be taken back inside the school or onto the bus more easily if ICE arrives.
A Minneapolis Public Radio reporter at the scene said agents appeared to have rear-ended Alondra’s car. But Alondra said an agent claimed she had caused the accident.
“It’s just a simple accident, you know what I mean?” he says in the video. “We’re not gonna get on you for trying to hit us or something.”
“Can you let us go, please?” her friend, visibly shaken, asks the agent at his window.
Alondra and her friend were handcuffed and placed in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle as observers filmed the incident. At least two observers were arrested as agents deployed tear gas and pepper spray, according to an MPR report.
The agents took the students to the federal Whipple Building. Alondra said the agents separated the friends, looked through and photographed her belongings and had her change into blue canvas shoes before chaining her feet together and placing her in a holding cell alone.
“I asked at least five times if I could let my guardian know what was happening, because I was underage, but they never let me,” she said.
Finally, around 7 p.m., agents released Alondra — with no paperwork about the incident — and she called her aunt to pick her up. Her friend was released later.
Meanwhile, school administrators who saw the MPR video called Alondra’s family and her friend’s.
Alondra said officers didn’t know what had happened to her car and told her they would call her when she could pick it up. But no one has called, and school administrators who helped her make calls to Minneapolis impound lots haven’t been able to locate it either.
Though Alondra could attend classes online, she felt she had to return to campus.
“I feel like if I would have stayed home, it would have gone worse for me,” she said, her lip quivering. “I use school as a distraction.”
The backstage of the auditorium, dubbed the bodega, has been turned into a well-stocked pantry for families who are too afraid to leave their homes.
A volunteer organizes donated items for distribution to families at the Minneapolis high school.
A teacher makes a delivery to a family in Minneapolis.
Teachers and volunteers sort donations by category, including hygiene goods, breakfast cereals, bread and tortillas, fruit and vegetables, diapers and other baby items. Bags are labeled with each student’s name and address and filled with the items their family has requested. After school, teachers deliver the items to the students’ homes.
Noelle said some students, particularly those who are homeless, are now at risk of failing because they’re in “survival mode.” Their learning is stagnating, she said.
“A lot of these kids are — I mean, they want to be — college-bound,” Noelle said. “How do you compete [for admission] with the best applicants if you’re online right now and doing one touch-point a day with one teacher because that’s all the technology that you have?”
On Thursday afternoon, 20 of 44 students had shown up for an AP world history class where the whiteboard prompt asked, “Why might some people resort to violent resistance rather than peaceful protest?”
Upstairs, in an 11th-grade U.S. history class, attendance was even worse — four students, with 17 others following online. The topic was what the teacher called the nation’s “first immigration ban,” the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Students head to their bus at the high school.
Morgan, the teacher, asked the students to name a similarity between the Chinese exclusion era and current day.
“Immigrants getting thrown out,” one student offered.
“Once they leave, they can’t come back,” said another.
“The fact that this is our first ban on immigration also sets a precedent that this stuff can happen over and over and over again,” Morgan said.
Sophie, who teachers English language learners, led the effort to organize the online school option. She is from Chile and says she has struggled to put her own fear aside to be present for the students who rely on her. Driving to school scares her, too.
“It’s lawless,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that I have my passport in my purse. The minute I open my mouth, they’re going to know that I’m not from here.”
Sophie said she once had to call a student’s mother to say her husband had been taken by immigration agents after another school staffer found his car abandoned on a nearby street.
“Having to have that conversation wasn’t on my bingo card for that day, or any day,” she said. “Having to say that we have proof that your husband was taken and hearing that woman crying and couldn’t talk, and I’m like, what do I say now?”
Close to the 4:15 p.m. dismissal, administrators again donned their neon vests and logged on to the neighborhood Signal call for possible immigration activity.
Students walk to a bus Thursday. Dismissal used to be a free-for-all, with large numbers of students rushing outside as soon as the bell rang.
Dismissal used to be a free-for-all — once the final bell rang, students would rush outside to find their bus or ride or to begin the walk home.
Now pickups are staggered, with students escorted outside one bus at a time. Teachers grab numbered signs and tell students to line up according to their route. If ICE agents pull up, administrators said, they could rush a smaller group of students onto the bus or back inside.
In yet another example of how the immigration raids had crippled attendance, some buses were nearly empty. On one bus, just two students hopped on.
ICE agents in California detained several residents, including a US citizen, amid a surge in immigration raids under the Trump administration. Protests under the ‘ICE Out of Everywhere’ campaign erupted across southern California, where demonstrators faced arrests and injuries.
In speech after speech, this year’s Grammy-winning artists returned to one message—ICE is a menace that must be stopped.
After dramatic, violent escalations in federal raids on immigrant communities and their supporters in Minneapolis and across the country, Americans have been shocked into despair and action. Many artists up for top Grammys have been vocal about their opposition to these raids, but at Sunday’s Grammys, the topic was front and center for many winners in their speeches.
“I want to dedicate this to all the people who had to leave their home, their country, to follow their dreams,” Bad Bunny said in his mostly-Spanish acceptance speech for the Grammys top prize, Album of the Year.
Earlier in the night, he joked with host Trevor Noah about Puerto Rico not being a great place for Noah should flee to, the island still being an American territory and all. But Bad Bunny made his point clearly even before taking home his biggest prize yet. “Ice out,” he said. “If we fight, we have to do it with love.”
With a Super Bowl halftime show coming next week, he’ll take the stage as the most important musician on earth right now, an urgent message brought to the heart of the most aggressively American live event.
As musicians around the country and the globe use their platforms to organize and speak out against the ICE raids, many acts wore pins on the red carpet Sunday—from Joni Mitchell and Carole King to Olivia Rodrigo, Brandi Carlile and Justin and Hailey Bieber.
Yet it was striking just how many artists used the acceptance speeches to decry the agency’s actions under President Trump.
Billie Eilish, an upset winner with brother Finneas for song for “Wildflower,” was even more direct. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” she said. “It’s hard to know what to say and what to do, but we need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting. Our voices really do matter.” Then came a long, bleeped moment on the CBS broadcast—presumably something urgently profane directed at a similar target.
That sentiment spanned genres and cultures. New artist winner, the U.K. R&B singer Olivia Dean, acknowledged the gifts of being “the granddaughter of an immigrant. I’m a product of bravery and I think these people deserve to be celebrated.”
“Immigrants built this country, literally,” said country star Shaboozey, a descendant of Nigerian immigrant parents, winning for country duo/group performance. “This is also for those who came to this country in search of better opportunity to be part of a nation that promised freedom for all and equal opportunity to everyone willing to work for it. Thank you for bringing your culture your music, your stories and your traditions here.”
Kehlani, a winner for R&B song and performance, said that “Together, we’re stronger in numbers to speak out against all the injustice going on in the world right now. I hope everyone is inspired to come together as a community of artists ad speak out against what’s going on.”
” F— Ice,” Kehlani added, walking off the stage.
Recording Academy chief Harvey Mason Jr. also used his speech to underscore the “uncertainty and real trauma,” of the environment in America now. “It can be easy to feel overwhelmed, even helpless in challenging times. But music never stands still,” he said. “When we’re exhausted, music restores us. When were grieving, music sits with us.”
Alongside the night’s words of warning and rage, singer SZA offered what amounted to reassurance in her speech after winning record for “Luther,” her Hot 100-dominating collaboration with Kendrick Lamar.
“Please don’t fall into despair,” she said. “I know algorithms tell us it’s so scary and all is lost. But we can go on, we need each other. We’re not governed by the government, we’re governed by God.”
PORTLAND, Ore. — The mayor of Portland, Ore., demanded U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement leave his city after federal agents launched tear gas at a crowd of demonstrators — including young children — outside an ICE facility during a weekend protest that he and others characterized as peaceful.
Witnesses said agents deployed tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets as thousands of marchers arrived at the South Waterfront facility on Saturday. Erin Hoover Barnett, a former OregonLive reporter who joined the protest, said she was about 100 yards from the building when “what looked like two guys with rocket launchers” started dousing the crowd with gas.
“To be among parents frantically trying to tend to little children in strollers, people using motorized carts trying to navigate as the rest of us staggered in retreat, unsure of how to get to safety, was terrifying,” Barnett wrote in an email to OregonLive.
Mayor Keith Wilson said the daytime demonstration was peaceful, “where the vast majority of those present violated no laws, made no threat and posed no danger” to federal agents.
“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” Wilson wrote in a statement Saturday night. “Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame.”
The Portland Fire Bureau sent paramedics to treat people at the scene, police said. Police officers monitored the crowd but made no arrests Saturday.
The Portland protest was one of many demonstrations nationwide against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in cities including Minneapolis, where in recent weeks federal agents killed two residents, Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Federal agents in Eugene, Ore., deployed tear gas on Friday when protesters tried to get inside the federal building near downtown. City police declared a riot and ordered the crowd to disperse.
President Trump posted Saturday on social media that it was up to local law enforcement agencies to police protests in their cities. But he said he has instructed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to have federal agents be vigilant in guarding U.S. government facilities.
“Please be aware that I have instructed ICE and/or Border Patrol to be very forceful in this protection of Federal Government Property. There will be no spitting in the faces of our Officers, there will be no punching or kicking the headlights of our cars, and there will be no rock or brick throwing at our vehicles, or at our Patriot Warriors,” Trump wrote. “If there is, those people will suffer an equal, or more, consequence.”
Wilson said Portland would be imposing a fee on detention facilities that use chemical agents.
The federal government “must, and will, be held accountable,” the mayor said. “To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children.”
Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian, were accompanied home by Texas Democratic Representative Joaquin Castro.
Published On 1 Feb 20261 Feb 2026
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A five-year-old boy and his father, who were detained as part of United States President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration raids and held at a detention facility in Texas, have returned to their home in Minnesota.
Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian, who are asylum seekers from Ecuador, spent 10 days in the Dilley detention centre until US District Judge Fred Biery ordered their release on Saturday.
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US Representative Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, wrote in a social media post that he picked them up on Saturday night at the detention facility and escorted them home on Sunday.
“Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack,” Castro wrote, including photos of the child. “We won’t stop until all children and families are home.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Liam and his father on January 20 as the boy arrived home from preschool.
Images of the boy with a blue bunny hat and backpack being held by officers spread around the world and added fire to public outrage at the federal immigration crackdown, during which agents have shot dead two US citizens.
Liam was one of four students detained by immigration officials in a Minneapolis suburb, according to the Columbia Heights Public School District.
In a statement, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said ICE did not target or arrest Liam, and that his mother refused to take him after his father’s apprehension. His father told officers he wanted Liam to be with him, she said.
“The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” McLaughlin said.
Neighbours and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer.
DHS called the description of events an “abject lie”. It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.
Biery said in a scathing opinion that “the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children”.
He criticised what he called the government’s apparent “ignorance” of the US Declaration of Independence, which “enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation”.
Biery also cited the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the right against “unreasonable searches and seizures”.
US Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, posted a photo to social media of her with Liam, his father and Castro, with her holding Liam’s Spider-Man backpack.
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday that it will be a few days before a government funding package comes up for a vote, all but ensuring the partial federal shutdown will drag into the week as Democrats and Republicans debate reining in the Trump administration’s divisive immigration enforcement operations.
Johnson signaled he is relying on help from President Trump to ensure passage. Trump struck a deal with Democratic senators to separate out funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a broader package after public outrage over two shooting deaths during protests in Minneapolis against the immigration crackdown there. The measure approved Friday by the Senate would fund Homeland Security for two weeks, setting up a deadline for Congress to debate and vote on new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
“The president is leading this,” Johnson (R-La.) said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“It’s his play call to do it this way,” the speaker said, adding that the Republican president has “already conceded that he wants to turn down the volume” on federal immigration operations.
Johnson faces a daunting challenge ahead, trying to muscle the funding legislation through the House while Democrats are refusing to provide the votes for speedy passage. They are demanding restraints on ICE that go beyond $20 million for body cameras that already is in the bill. They want to require that federal immigration agents unmask and identify themselves and are pressing for an end to roving patrols, amid other changes.
Democrats dig in on ICE changes
“What is clear is that the Department of Homeland Security needs to be dramatically reformed,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Jeffries said the administration needs to begin negotiations now, not over the next two weeks, on changes to immigration enforcement operations.
“Masks should come off,” he said. “Judicial warrants should absolutely be required consistent with the Constitution, in our view, before DHS agents or ICE agents are breaking into the homes of the American people or ripping people out of their cars.”
It’s all forcing Johnson to rely on his slim House GOP majority — which will narrow further after a Democrat was elected to a vacant House seat in a Texas special election Saturday — in a series of procedural votes, starting in committee Monday and pushing a potential House floor vote on the package until at least Tuesday, he said.
House Democrats planned a private caucus call Sunday evening to assess the next steps.
Partial government shutdown drags on
Meanwhile, a number of other federal agencies are snared in the funding standoff as the government went into a partial shutdown over the weekend.
Defense, health, transportation and housing are among those that were given shutdown guidance by the administration, though many operations are deemed essential and services are not necessarily interrupted. Workers could go without pay if the impasse drags on. Some could be furloughed.
This is the second time in a matter of months that federal operations have been disrupted as Congress digs in, using the annual funding process as leverage to extract policy changes. In the fall, Democrats sparked what became the longest federal shutdown in history, 43 days, as they protested the expiration of health insurance tax breaks.
That shutdown ended with a promise to vote on proposals to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. But the legislation did not advance and Democrats were unable to achieve their goal of keeping the subsidies in place. As a result, insurance premiums have soared in the new year for millions of people.
Trump wants quick end to shutdown
This time, the administration has signaled its interest in more quickly resolving the shutdown.
Johnson said he was in the Oval Office last week when Trump, along with border advisor Tom Homan, spoke with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York to work out the deal.
“I think we’re on the path to get agreement,” Johnson said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Body cameras for immigration agents, which are already provided for in the package, and an end to the roving patrols are areas of potential agreement, Johnson said.
But he said taking the masks off and putting names on agents’ uniforms could lead to problems for law enforcement officers as they are being targeted by the protesters and their personal information posted online.
“I don’t think the president would approve it — and he shouldn’t,” Johnson said on Fox.
Democrats, however, said the immigration operations are out of control, and it is an emergency situation that must end in Minneapolis and other cities.
Growing numbers of lawmakers are calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be fired or impeached.
“What is happening in Minnesota right now is a dystopia,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who led efforts to hold the line for more changes.
“ICE is making this country less safe, not more safe today,” Murphy said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“Our focus over the next two weeks has to be reining in a lawless and immoral immigration agency.”
MILAN, Italy — Two years before the Los Angeles Olympics, the United States is already dominating the narrative in the run-up to the opening ceremony of the Milan-Cortina Winter Games.
International Olympic Committee officials, including President Kirsty Coventry, couldn’t avoid questions relating to ICE and the Jeffrey Epstein files at a news conference in Milan, Italy, on Sunday.
Coventry tried to fend them off by saying it was not the IOC’s place to comment on the issues, but when pressed remarked it was “sad” that such stories were deflecting attention away from the upcoming Olympics.
“I think anything that is distracting from these Games is sad, right? But we’ve learned over the many years … there’s always been something that has taken the lead, leading up to the Games,” Coventry said. “Whether it has been Zika, COVID, there has always been something.
“But what is keeping my faith alive is that when that opening ceremony happens and those athletes start competing, suddenly the world remembers the magic and the spirit that the Games have and they get to suddenly remember what’s actually important and they get to be inspired, and so we’re really looking forward to that.”
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Saturday in Milan to protest the deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during the upcoming Winter Olympics, although agents would be stationed in a control room and not operating on the streets.
Meanwhile, the latest collection of government files released on Epstein includes emails from 2003 between Casey Wasserman, the head of the Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, and Epstein’s one-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
“From all the information that we have and I believe that the U.S. authorities, as the other authorities, have made all the clarifications needed, so from our side that’s not for us to further comment on that part of the security. But we’re really looking forward to the Games,” Coventry said when asked about the presence of ICE agents in Milan.
She was even less responsive when asked about Wasserman.
“We didn’t discuss it yesterday and I believe Mr. Wasserman has put out his statement and we now have nothing further to add,” said Coventry, who was elected just over 10 months ago as the first female IOC president.
The upcoming Olympics run from Friday through Feb. 22. U.S. Vice President JD Vance will lead an American delegation to the Milan-Cortina Games and attend the opening ceremony.
Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, who were detained by immigration officers in Minnesota and held at an ICE facility in Texas, have been released a day after judge’s order, which excoriated the Trump administration for its conduct in the case. They have returned to Minnesota, according to the office of Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro.
The two were detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20. He and his father were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
Katherine Schneider, a spokesperson for Castro, a Democrat, confirmed that the two had arrived home. She said Castro picked them up from Dilley on Saturday night and escorted them home Sunday to Minnesota.
The Associated Press emailed the Department of Homeland Security for comment on the father and son’s release. There was no immediate response.
Images of the young boy wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack and surrounded by immigration officers drew outrage about the Trump administration’s crackdown in Minneapolis.
Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security has rejected that description. It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.
Castro wrote a letter to Liam while they were on the plane to Minnesota, in which he told the young boy he has “moved the world.”
“Your family, school and many strangers said prayers for you and offered whatever they could do to see you back home,” Castro wrote. A photo of the letter was posted on social media. “Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t your home. America became the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth because of immigrants not in spite of them.”
In a social media post, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) welcomed the boy back to Minnesota, saying that he “should be in school and with family — not in detention,” adding, “Now ICE needs to leave.”
Some actors who appear right on the edge of becoming household names and who happen to be hosting “Saturday Night Live” for the first time might be leery of letting a famous relative steal their spotlight.
Alexander Skarsgård let it happen twice in the same “SNL” episode when his father Stellan Skarsgård appeared in a returning sketch about immigrant fathers (in which Cardi B also appeared) and one about a Scandinavian film’s giggly production. To be fair, though, his dad is currently Oscar-nominated in the supporting actor category for “Sentimental Value.”
If the Alexander of the Skarsgård was bothered, it sure didn’t show; the first-time host of the 1,000th episode of “SNL” was loose and committed throughout, even if not all the sketches hit. And yes, before you go racing to Peacock to confirm, Alexander gave his father Stellan a big ol’ hug in the closing goodbyes. Aww.
If “SNL” shied away last week from directly addressing the quickly devolving situation in Minneapolis last week, it found its footing with a cold open about ICE that didn’t rely on James Austin Johnson’s impression of President Trump. Instead, it featured former cast member Pete Davidson as border czar Tom Homan taking over command of clueless ICE officers. This was followed, after the monologue, by a well-executed sketch about a mom (Ashley Padilla) slowly changing her mind about the Trump administration.
As the younger Skarsgård’s career has shown (“Murderbot,” “True Blood,” “The Northman”), he’s used to playing odd, extreme characters and “SNL” was a nice fit.
For the first time in a while, Trump didn’t dominate the cold open of the show; instead, Davidson came back to the show, wearing a bald cap to portray Homan. Homan points out the irony that things have gotten so bad in Minneapolis with ICE that he’s now considered the voice-of-reason adult in the room. ICE commanders (Kenan Thompson, Andrew Dismukes, Johnson, Ben Marshall, Mikey Day and Jeremy Culhane) claimed their orders were “wildin’ out” and wondered if they’re supposed to be releasing the Epstein files. As Homan pointed out, the ICE raids were to distract from those, but now the Epstein files are being released to distract from ICE. Davidson is remembered more for his “Weekend Update” segments and his Chad character on “SNL,” but he does some nice work here even if he breaks character at one point.
Skarsgård’s could have spent his monologue discussing his TV and movie roles, like his upcoming film “Wicker” or his role in the new Charli XCX mockumentary “The Moment,” but instead he focused on the band members who appear on stage but rarely get to speak on the show. He interviewed some of the band members, poorly, and then grabbed a saxophone to do some inspired fake playing. It was silly and fun, a nice start to Skarsgård’s night.
Best sketch of the night: Mom’s having a change of heart, but you can’t say anything
For most of this season you can count on at least one sketch to feature a standout performance from featured player Ashley Padilla, who has become a ringer for playing women who are either very deluded and are trying to pretend they’re not, or who are trying to manage other people’s reactions to her odd behavior. For this sketch, she gets to do both, playing a mother who, after a lengthy preamble, reveals to her adult children and husband (Skarsgård) that she’s starting to change her opinion about Trump’s policies, from immigration to guns to trans people. As her kids struggle to hold back their reactions, lest she swing back the other way, her husband just wants to go to Red Robin for his birthday scoop. Best line: “If I hear a single ‘I told you so,’ I will go see the ‘Melania’ movie tonight!”
Also good: Having the right body shape for Olympics-level luge, even if it’s a corpse
Wickline, another featured player, has become a polarizing cast member among fans, some of whom simply don’t get her humor or appreciate her performances, while others love her quirky songs and see her as bringing a unique vibe to the show. For this Olympics-themed pre-taped piece, she gets to have a lot of fun as a reluctant luge competitor who is terrified to go down the mountain and tries to fake being sick to avoid going to Milan. This might remind you of Patti Harrison’s perfect performance in the “Capital Room” sketch on “I Think You Should Leave,” but Wickline manages to make the character her own.
‘Weekend Update’ winner: They scored again ahead of the Super Bowl
Sherman was promoted to “Weekend Update” weather correspondent in a segment that included a surprise appearance from “30 Rock” star Jack McBrayer, but it was Dismukes and Padilla as a couple who just had sex winning the week with their awkward, infatuated banter, which tied in nicely to a discussion about next week’s big game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. The couple predict that the Patriots will be on top the first half, but at some point the Seahawks will come from behind and dominate the Patriots for a little while. “Maybe the Patriots get tired and ask the Seahawks to play themselves for a while,” Dismukes suggests. Things go off the rails when he says no matter what happens, someone’s getting a ring, which puts tension on the budding relationship. “I didn’t say that night!” he explains to a disappointed Padilla. The two previously hooked up for the first time in the Glen Powell episode.
Hundreds of protesters in Italy have denounced plans to bring ICE agents from the US to the Winter Olympics in Milan that begin on Friday. Italy’s interior ministry says ICE will only operate at US diplomatic offices and won’t be patrolling on the ground.
A federal judge in the United States has ordered the release of a five-year-old boy and his father from a facility in Texas amid an outcry over their detention during an immigration raid in Minnesota.
In a decision on Saturday, US District Judge Fred Biery ruled Liam Conejo Ramos’s detention as illegal, while also condemning “the perfidious lust for unbridled power” and “the imposition of cruelty” by “some among us”.
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The scathing opinion came as photos of the boy – clad in a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took him away in a suburb of the city of Minneapolis – became a symbol of the immigration crackdown launched by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” Biery wrote in his ruling.
“Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation. But that result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place.”
The judge did not specify the deportation quota he was referring to, but Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff for policy, has previously said there was a target of 3,000 immigration arrests a day.
The ongoing crackdown in the state of Minnesota is the largest federal immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, according to federal officials, with some 3,000 agents deployed. The surge has prompted daily clashes between activists and immigration officers, and led to the killings of two American citizens by federal agents.
According to the Columbia Heights Public School District in Minneapolis, Liam was one of at least four students detained by immigration officials in the suburb this month.
Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik said ICE agents took the child from a running car in the family’s driveway on January 20, and told him to knock on the door of his home, a tactic that she said amounted to using him as “bait” for other family members.
The government has denied that account, with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claiming that an ICE officer remained with Liam “for the child’s safety” while other officers apprehended his father.
Vice President JD Vance, who has vigorously defended ICE’s tactics in Minnesota, told a news conference that although such arrests were “traumatic” for children, “just because you’re a parent, doesn’t mean that you get complete immunity from law enforcement”.
The Trump administration has said that Conejo Arias arrived in the US illegally in December 2024 from Ecuador, but the family’s lawyer says they have an active asylum claim that allows them to remain in the country legally.
Following their detention, the boy and his father were sent to a facility in Dilley in Texas, where advocacy groups and politicians have reported deplorable conditions, including illnesses, malnourishment and a fast-growing number of detained children.
Texas Representatives Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett visited the site earlier this week. Liam slept throughout the 30-minute visit, Castro said, and his father reported that he was “depressed and sad”.
Biery’s ruling on Saturday included a photo of the boy, as well as several Bible quotes: “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’,” and “Jesus wept”.
The episode, Biery wrote, made apparent “the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence”. Biery drew a comparison between Trump’s administration and the wrongdoings that then-author, future President Thomas Jefferson, mounted against England’s King George, including sending “Swarms of Officers to harass our People” and creating “domestic Insurrection”.
There was no immediate comment from the Department of Justice and DHS.
The Law Firm of Jennifer Scarborough, which is representing Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, said in a statement that the pair will soon be able to reunite with the rest of their family.
“We are pleased that the family will now be able to focus on being together and finding some peace after this traumatic ordeal,” the statement said.
Minnesota officials have been calling on the Trump administration to end its immigration crackdown in the state. But a federal judge on Saturday denied a request from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and other officials to issue a preliminary injunction that would have halted the federal operation.
Trump, meanwhile, has ordered DHS to, “under no circumstances”, get involved with protests in Democratic-led cities unless they ask for federal help, or federal property is threatened.
