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Two federal officers fired their guns during the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, according to an initial review by the Department of Homeland Security that was obtained by NBC News.

Three sources told NBC News that the preliminary report, from a Customs and Border Protection internal investigation led by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, was sent to congressional committees yesterday, including the House homeland security and judiciary committees.

Ruling follows arrests under DHS ‘re-vetting’ operation of more than 100 refugees who had been lawfully resettled

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from detaining refugees in Minnesota, following a spate of arrests in the state.

More than 100 refugees who had lawfully resettled in the state had been arrested in recent weeks, according to attorneys and advocacy groups. Some were flown to detention centers in Texas, according to attorneys representing the cases, and then were abruptly released – and left to find and pay their own way back home.

County spokesperson says warrant seeks number of 2020 election records while FBI declines to give further details

The FBI executed a search warrant at the election office in Fulton county, Georgia, on Wednesday for records related to the 2020 election, according to a spokesperson for the county and the FBI.

The warrant sought all ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton county, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls, according to a warrant obtained by the Guardian.

US president tells Tehran that time is running out to make a deal on future of nuclear program – key US politics stories from 28 January 2026

President Trump has again raised the spectre of military intervention in Iran, warning the country to “Come to the Table” and quickly negotiate a deal.

Noting that time was running out, Trump threatened that if an agreement could not be reached: “The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”

Move sets up clash with Republicans that could see government partially shut down in coming days

Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, on Wednesday demanded that legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) include a ban on wearing masks and other reforms aimed at federal agents involved in immigration enforcement, setting up a clash with Republicans that could see the government partially shut down in the coming days.

Congress is racing to head off a lapse in federal funding from beginning after Friday, and the Senate’s Republican leaders plan to hold a key procedural vote on Thursday on the DHS funding measure and five bills that authorize spending by several other government departments.

Tennessee officials report eight deaths as forecasters say another potentially major winter storm could hit east coast

Dozens of weather-related fatalities have been confirmed since the start of the powerful winter storm that swept across much of the US in recent days, with current estimates being as high as 60 so far.

Tennessee officials have reported eight deaths as forecasters are now monitoring another potentially significant winter storm that could hit parts of the east coast this weekend.

Fallout from second fatal shooting amid immigration operation in city dogs White House, though raids continue

The two agents who fatally shot a man in Minneapolis over the weekend have been on administrative leave since Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Wednesday, as Donald Trump tried to quell the backlash even while immigration raids in the city continued.

The move, which the DHS emphasized is standard protocol when agents are involved in fatal shootings, comes as the president suggested he would “de-escalate” his immigration enforcement crackdown in the state, but without offering details or whether tactics would change.

Demonstrations will be held across the US against ICE’s reign of terror with flagship event in Twin Cities

A third No Kings protest will be held on 28 March, organizers announced on Wednesday. Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, one of the groups coordinating No Kings, said that he expected it to be “the biggest protest in American history”.

Protests will be held nationwide, with a flagship event in Minnesota’s Twin Cities – Minneapolis and Saint Paul – where this month federal immigration agents killed two residents, Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, amid their escalated operations in the region.

Action comes amid federal agencies’ campaign in the city, prompting an official complaint to US embassy in Quito

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent attempted to enter Ecuador’s consulate in Minneapolis, but was turned back by an employee, prompting an official complaint to the US embassy in Quito, the country’s foreign ministry said.

The Tuesday incident came as ICE and other federal agencies continue their aggressive campaign of arresting people in Minnesota’s largest city suspected of being in the United States illegally, despite outrage over the deaths of two US citizens in the operation dubbed “Metro Surge”.

Fed voted to pause cuts to interest rate, which currently sits between 3.5% and 3.75%, after slashing it three times in fall

The US Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged after its first rate-setting meeting of the year on Wednesday, resisting enormous pressure from the White House to lower rates.

A majority of members in the Fed’s federal open market committee (FOMC) voted to pause interest rate cuts after slashing rates three times in the fall. Rates currently sit at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%.

Local officials confirmed that ICE will conduct immigration operations during 8 February game in Santa Clara

US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) agents are expected to conduct immigration enforcement operations during next month’s Super Bowl game in Santa Clara, California.

Local officials confirmed to media that ICE is expected to deploy for the game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations team has long worked the Super Bowl and other major sporting events, largely focused on preventing human trafficking and stopping the sale of counterfeit goods, but immigration operations would be unusual.

US president says armada heading towards Iran is ‘prepared to fulfil its missions with violence if necessary’

The threat of war between the US and Iran appeared to loom closer after Donald Trump told Tehran time was running out and that a huge US armada was moving quickly towards the country “with great power, enthusiasm and purpose”.

Writing on social media, the US president said on Wednesday that the fleet headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was larger than the one sent to Venezuela before the removal of Nicolás Maduro earlier this month and was “prepared to rapidly fulfil its missions with speed and violence if necessary”.

Man arrested and booked with assault after spraying strong-smelling liquid at Minnesota Democrat from syringe

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unidentified substance by a man with a syringe on Tuesday as she gave her first in-person town hall of the year in Minneapolis, during which she called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished “for good” and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, Kristi Noem, to resign.

Omar had only been speaking for a few minutes when a man in the audience got up and began to shout while spraying her with the liquid. People at the meeting said the liquid had an acidic smell.

The US president bears political responsibility for having greenlighted ICE agents’ regularly lawless conduct

As public outrage grows over the killing of two protesters by Donald Trump’s deportation agents in Minneapolis, the White House is going into damage-control mode. It has its work cut out for it. Trump didn’t pull the triggers that killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but he bears political responsibility for having greenlighted the agents’ regularly lawless conduct.

Good and Pretti should not have been killed. As far as can be seen in the ample video evidence that has emerged, neither posed a threat to the agents at the scene or anyone else. Their sole “offense” was to take a stand against the deportation raids. Yet trigger-happy agents needlessly shot them – Good as she was turning her car away from the agents, Pretti while he was restrained by agents on the ground. There was no plausible self-defense to justify these killings.

In the Caribbean and Latin America, the lived reality of these measures – presented in the language of diplomacy – is stark

Across borders, cultures and faiths, most ordinary people want the same things: the ability to earn a living, put a roof over their heads, feed their families and watch their children grow up with a future. These are not radical ideas, but they are today routinely sacrificed on the altar of geopolitics.

When power and profit take precedence, governments abandon the everyday realities of those they claim to protect and serve, especially when domination of another country’s resources, markets or political direction is at stake.

Whether he’s targeting Greenland, tariffs or Iran, Trump’s agenda is to distract – because a Europe that is always reacting is never planning

When Donald Trump reassured the world that he would not, after all, use force to acquire Greenland – after days of threatening as much – he was doing what he does best: turning geopolitics into a spectacle. Whether Trump ever truly believed the US should acquire a vast Arctic territory belonging to a Nato ally is secondary to the fact that, once again, he ensured that Europe and the rest of the world were focused on his agenda.

Trump is not a politician who responds to events – he seeks to make them. Not because he is deeply invested in policy detail, but because he understands a defining feature of contemporary politics: attention is power. In an era of information overload, there is no scarcity of data or analysis; what is lacking is attention. And whoever controls that controls the debate.

Truly, I am the country’s biggest fan. But in the spirit of free speech its leaders apparently love, here’s a few things the rest of the world needs them to know

We in the rest of the world have had to hear a lot – such a lot – about what this US government and its hardcore fanbase thinks about us. So you know they’ll be super-relaxed and free-speechy about hearing some thoughts about how they look from the outside. Let’s use last Saturday as a single snapshot. In Minneapolis, they had the shooting by federal agents of a protesting nurse who posed no threat – an event promptly, provably and blatantly lied about at the highest level by Donald Trump’s politburo. Then that evening in Washington, a lot of those same politburocrats turned out for the White House premiere of a ridiculous propaganda film about the president’s wife, also attended fawningly by bloodless Apple oligarch Tim Cook. And he’s not even the oligarch who paid an insane amount for the film. Top line, guys: all this makes you look like what your president likes to call a “shithole country”. Sorry! I assume it’s fine to use officially licensed vocabulary?

Obviously, it’s not a proper shithole country until the soft-skinned puppetmasters in the presidential palace cut some grizzled local warlord off at the knees for following orders, so it’s good to learn overnight that border patrol “commander at large” Gregory Bovino has been pulled out of Minneapolis, possibly locked out of his social media accounts, and may soon “retire”, presumably a fall guy for the likes of stage 4 homeland security tumour Stephen Miller. Bovino’s the guy who’s literally got the same haircut and outfit as the Sean Penn character in One Battle After Another. But hey, at least he wears a uniform. Again, what are international outsiders to make of the spectacle of ICE’s federal officers coming masked and frequently dressed in civilian clothes, while images from protests across the States show resisting civilians increasingly drawn to military-style clothing? Can Trump’s storm detachment not at least be issued with matching shirts? They don’t have to be brown, but Maga chic desperately needs to make even a first step to getting itself together. In the entire history of the movement, only one follower – the QAnon shaman – has ever had true style.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

The internet has enabled a golden age of techno-vanity. But hating your looks is a time-honored tradition

Take a second before you read this to look in the mirror. Go on, it’ll be worth it. I’ll be here when you get back.

OK, how’d that go? Did you like what you saw? Probably not. Feeling a bit puffy? See a zit in a conspicuous area? Did you want to punch yourself for the sin of experiencing the natural course of ageing? These feelings are normal. Being disappointed in how you look is a time-honored tradition; it’s just that now, we have the means to fix all that. GLP-1s mean you can lose weight quickly, without doing much more than shoving a needle in your bum a few times a month. Plastic surgery, Botox, fillers, Turkish hair plugs. We live in the golden age of techno-vanity, where “self-improvement” can be had for a few bucks (and days and days of living in bandages like a hipster mummy). The odious trend of “looksmaxxing” is the natural nadir of our collective obsession with not being ugly.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

A chance encounter reminded me: there are two ways to look at what’s happened in Minneapolis

One of the few advantages of being as conspicuous as I am is that many people come up to me whom I don’t know, to talk about what’s happening in America. It’s like a free-floating focus group.

On Monday morning, I was at a restaurant counter finishing my breakfast when a middle-aged man sat down next to me and said he didn’t want to intrude. (He just had, so I put down my knife and fork, wiped my mouth with my napkin, and turned toward him.) He wanted me to know that although he’d been a lifelong Republican, the events of the past weeks had caused him to leave the Republican party.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

A country where safety is under threat from federal violence on the streets is not fit to stage soccer’s showpiece event

Removing the United States as co-host of the 2026 World Cup would hurt for pretty much everyone. Fans would miss out on seeing the sport’s pinnacle in their home towns (or somewhere nearby). Cities and businesses small and large would lose the financial benefits they had banked on. It would be a logistical and political nightmare on an international scale, the likes of which have never been seen before in sports. It would be eminently sad. And it would be entirely justified.

It brings me no pleasure to say this. The United States has been eager to host a men’s World Cup for more than a decade and a half. The desire survived and even grew after 2010’s failure to out-bid Russia and Qatar (in public and behind closed doors) for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. With hosting rights for 2026 later secured alongside Canada and Mexico, the US soccer scene prepared to show off that the sport is now part of the nation’s fabric, 32 years after hosting the tournament for the first time in 1994. Soccer’s growing popularity in America has helped inspire other US sports to try new formats, encouraged us to engage more fully with the world in a sporting context, and has been at the center of conversations about our society and culture. The 2026 World Cup was seen as the best chance for the world to fully experience not just how much the US has improved at soccer, but how much soccer has improved the US.

The shooting of Alex Pretti was carried out by a federal agent licensed to act with impunity. The US must be rescued from Trump’s authoritarianism

Following the fatal shooting earlier this month of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, his colleagues received reassurance that they continued to enjoy “federal immunity” for their actions. “Anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony,” the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, had previously stated. “No city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.”

Words have consequences. Ms Good, a US citizen and mother of three children, had in fact been attempting to drive away from a protest in Minneapolis, where ICE’s deportation snatch squads have terrorised migrants and those who have attempted to defend their rights. On Saturday, in the same city, the same quasi-paramilitary force was responsible for a second shocking death. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was shot multiple times in the back after being wrestled to the ground and pepper-sprayed.

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The US cites the ‘wisdom’ of historical immigration policy. But nation states in the Americas have spent more time with open borders than closed

Late last year, Donald Trump’s White House published a new National Security Strategy (NSS) outlining its vision for the world. At the time, the plan raised alarm for dismissing European alliances (now largely confirmed after Trump threatened Nato allies over Greenland), previewing interventions in Latin America (also largely confirmed by recent military action in Venezuela), and aligning closely with the priorities of the Kremlin.

The document also demonizes immigrants. In one widely cited passage, it even claims that “unchecked migration” has gotten so out of control that Europe is facing imminent “civilizational erasure”. On these grounds, the plan makes ending “The Era of Mass Migration” a top priority for the US.

• Ravens OC replaces Kevin Stefanski in Cleveland

• Several candidates passed on chance to take job

The Cleveland Browns are naming Todd Monken as their head coach, according to multiple reports.

Monken had been Baltimore’s offensive coordinator for the past three seasons, and his appointment comes after several high-profile candidates rejected the Browns. He has also interviewed for Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator opening and was tied to the New York Giants offensive coordinator spot after John Harbaugh was named coach.

• American becomes latest major winner to exit

• 2018 Masters champion will be eligible for PGA Tour

Patrick Reed has delivered the ­latest high-profile blow to LIV Golf by announcing he will leave the circuit before the start of its 2026 season.

The 35-year-old American former Masters champion joins Brooks Koepka by instead focusing on the PGA Tour. Reed will spend his immediate time on the DP World Tour, where he won the Dubai Desert Classic on Sunday. Reed tees up in Bahrain from Thursday.

• Gotham FC 0-1 Corinthians (Zanotti 83)

• Corinthians’ 40-year-old captain scores late winner

Corinthians earned a stunning victory against Gotham FC in the first semi-final of the inaugural Fifa Women’s Champions Cup, a goal from the 40-year-old Corinthians captain Gabi Zanotti in the 83rd minute the difference.

“Everyone was talking about maybe Gotham and Arsenal in the final but Corinthians are here and we played a very good game to beat the NWSL champions,” their manager, Lucas Piccinato, said. “We know what we can do.”

• Rodman strikes again as USA rout Chile 5-0

• Bethune, Joseph and Sams score first goals

• SheBelieves Cup in March is next up for US

Croix Bethune, Jameese Joseph and Emily Sams scored their first international goals and the United States went on to beat Chile 5-0 on Tuesday night in Santa Barbara, California.

Emma Sears and Trinity Rodman also scored for the US, who haven’t conceded a goal in five matches and haven’t lost in six.

World’s richest person targeting symbolic date in June for flotation of rocket company

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is considering a flotation valuing the rocket company at $1.5tn (£1.1tn) that will reportedly be timed for early summer to coincide with a planetary alignment and the multibillionaire’s birthday.

The world’s richest person is targeting a symbolic date of mid-June for the initial public offering, according to the Financial Times. This would be around the same time as Jupiter and Venus appear in close proximity to each other and shortly before Musk turns 55 on 28 June.

Dollar drops against basket of currencies after Donald Trump brushed off concerns over slide

• Business live – latest updates

The US dollar has fallen to its lowest level in four years after Donald Trump brushed off concerns over the currency’s fall, sending investors fleeing to traditional havens including gold and the Swiss franc.

The dollar dropped by 1.3% against a basket of currencies after the president’s comments on Tuesday, marking its fourth day of declines, then slipped by a further 0.2% on Wednesday morning.

United Parcel Service adds to 2025 job reductions as delivery giant slashes low-profit Amazon deliveries

United Parcel Service on Tuesday said it would cut up to 30,000 operational roles in 2026, adding to last year’s job reductions as the delivery giant looks to accelerate a turnaround fueled by a pivot to higher-margin shipments.

The company also beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly results in the all-important holiday period and forecast a surprise rise in annual revenue.

Investors seek safe haven in precious metal, while Japan’s government spooks money markets with tax-cuts pledge

The price of gold has jumped above $5,000 an ounce for the first time as Donald Trump’s chaotic policies and proclamations drive more investors to seek safe harbour in the precious metal.

Gold reached a record high of $5,100 (£3,723) on Monday morning, before easing back to settle up 2.2% at $5,091.

Video filmed from inside Ecuador's consulate in Minneapolis shows an ICE agent trying to enter the building but being prevented by consulate staffers, according to the country's foreign ministry. Reuters confirmed the location as the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis, from the doors, windows, walls, ceiling fixtures and building across the street that are seen in the video which matched file imagery of the consulate and the area. The date was verified by Ecuador's ministry of foreign affairs that said an ICE agent attempted to enter the consulate’s facilities in Minneapolis on Tuesday 27 January.

• US politics live

Sarah Mullally was officially confirmed as archbishop of Canterbury on Wednesday, becoming the first woman to lead the Church of England and the 106th person to assume the role. The worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church in the US, has no formal head, but the archbishop has traditionally been seen as its spiritual leader. The C of E ordained its first female priests in 1994 and its first female bishop in 2015

Video shows the Hudson river partially frozen near the George Washington Bridge in New York City after a heavy winter snowstorm. Eight people were found dead outside over the frigid weekend in the city, officials said, as New York experienced its snowiest day in years, recording 20-38cm (8-15in) of snow. At least 30 deaths were linked to a winter storm that hit North America's north-east. Some regions may not see temperatures rise above freezing until early February with the midwest, in particular, forecast to shiver in exceptionally frosty conditions