As lawmakers convene for this year’s state legislative sessions, immigration has surged to the top of the agenda. Across the country, dozens of bills touching on immigration enforcement, civil rights and the role of federal agents have been introduced this month. The proposals range from measures that would restrict where federal immigration agents can operate, to bills creating new legal pathways for residents to sue those agents, to proposals that would shield agents from having their personal information disclosed publicly. The volume and scope of the legislation reflect growing political…
Posts published in “Politics”
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump once again turned on the klieg lights by launching a new major international initiative – the “Board of Peace.” Though this multilateral body is supposed to start with managing the post-conflict restoration and future development of the Gaza Strip, many argue that its real goal has a larger scale and might reflect the US president’s ambition to find an efficient alternative to the UN, which he shows no respect for. If the pilot Gaza project turns out to be a success story, this model…
PORTLAND, Ore. — Keith Ellison held up his cellphone. The Minnesota attorney general was onstage in an Oregon theater in front of hundreds of people, accompanied by four of his Democratic peers from other states, to mark a year of coordinated legal strategy to resist the Trump administration’s expansive use of executive power. “Can I just note, real quickly, that we need everybody to use these things?” Ellison said to the audience, which earlier had greeted the out-of-state attorney general with a standing ovation. “They have been remarkably helpful.” Ellison…
More than 1,000 people gathered for a vigil and rally Saturday night at Whittier Park in Minneapolis to mourn Alex Pretti, the man who was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent. After the vigil, demonstrators marched in subzero temperatures to the site where Pretti was killed on Nicollet Avenue, south of 26th Street. The site of the shooting has been turned into a makeshift memorial of candles and flowers, less than 2 miles away from the memorial in the Powderhorn neighborhood made for Renee Good on January 7,…
Determined to push back against online falsehoods, the French state is turning to facts, humour and a new digital voice to challenge misleading narratives wherever they spread. France has set up a new digital rapid-response unit – titled “French Response” – to push back against what it sees as a rising tide of online disinformation, and it wasted little time making its presence felt. When the US secretary of state Marco Rubio took a swipe at European culture on X this week, the English-language account run by the French foreign…
The renewed campaign by United States President Donald Trump to acquire Greenland has escalated, with tariff threats against European allies. Asked on Tuesday how far he is willing to go to “acquire” Greenland, Trump replied: “You’ll find out”. This is the latest episode in a long-running effort under Trump 2.0 to remake the international order with major geopolitical implications: There is a chance of both escalation and de-escalation when Trump holds meetings this week on Greenland with European leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. US–Greenland relations and…
Across the country, community leaders gathered to celebrate the life and legacy of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday. Some leaders took the opportunity to criticize the Trump administration. Early in the afternoon, there were no significant disruptions being reported. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrates the Jan. 15 birthday of the civil rights leader on the third Monday of January. He would have been 97. King delivered his “I have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, in sight of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington…
U.S. allies in Europe are banding together against President Donald Trump’s ultimatum: tax imported goods from their countries unless Denmark surrenders control of strategically important Greenland. Trump said that U.S. ownership of Greenland – an 800,000-square-mile Arctic island and Danish territory – is vital to national security. He says Denmark cannot defend its mineral-rich territory from China and Russia. On Monday, Trump criticized NATO, saying the alliance has failed to compel Denmark to comply. “NATO has been telling Denmark, for 20 years, that ‘you have to get the Russian threat…
There are no Chinese warships operating in Greenland and no significant Chinese investments in the region, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in Washington on Wednesday, as he countered US threats to seize the Arctic island. Rasmussen, together with Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt, had an hourlong meeting with US Vice-President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, the first face-to-face meeting between the high-level officials as Washington’s rhetoric of taking full control Greenland has run high. “It was a great opportunity also for…
Amid global tensions involving Venezuela and Iran, there is hope that the scheduled meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing in April 2026 could arrest America’s aggressive and predatory policies. A possible Trump-Xi détente could also reduce risk-taking in the Taiwan Straits, and push China to take a different position on the Ukraine war. In 2025, Trump accepted an invitation from Xi to visit Beijing in April 2026. The call, as US media reported, was initiated by Xi. This was preceded by a…