On January 31, demonstrators in Portland marched to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office in Portland. In response, without provocation, ICE agents attacked them with a variety of dangerous weapons, blanketing the area in tear gas and injuring a number of small children. Rather than intimidating the people of Portland, this brazen assault has only galvanized them against ICE. In the following account, participants in the demonstration recount the events as they unfolded.

The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.

Both men were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent scores of armed and masked agents across the city.

CBP, which employs both men, has so far refused to release their names and has disclosed few other facts about the deadly incident, which came days after a different immigration agent shot and killed another Minneapolis protester, a 37-year-old mother of three named Renee Good.

Women have increasingly shaped every facet of the US military, with their immense contributions in critical operational, technical, and leadership roles across all branches. Today, more than two million female veterans live in the country. By 2040, they are expected to comprise nearly 20% of the total veteran population—making them the fastest-growing group of former service members. But notwithstanding their expanding presence, women retirees continue to face systemic gaps in the healthcare system that often compel them to confront the drastic repercussions of their profession head-on without sufficient support. Strikingly, a study shows that these personnel are more likely to receive assistance in civilian settings than through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—raising serious concerns about why they cannot rely on the very institution meant to champion and respond to their needs.

Konstantin Malofeev, the Russian far-right media oligarch whose Orthodox Christian news network Tsargrad TV promotes ultranationalist and monarchist ideas, is set to become a lecturer at the prestigious Moscow State University (MSU), a source at the school told Meduza.

His course, The History of Empire, has already appeared in the university’s course calendar, which also lists someone with Malofeev’s initials and surname as the instructor.

While we don’t know for certain what the media mogul will say in his lectures, he has spoken and written extensively about his views on empires — namely in his quasi-historical “Empire” book series, the third volume of which was published in 2022. He explained the book’s premise in an interview with far-right ideologue Alexander Dugin that same year.

In June, the government announced an increase of $9 billion for the Canadian Armed Forces, including higher recruitment targets for the primary reserve. Two days later The Globe and Mail published an article praising Carney’s military funding. Just this week, The National Post celebrated the “rebuilding” of Canada’s military through Carney’s $9-billion funding package.

For now, Carney’s plans to beef up the military rely on volunteers. But elite media is making the case for a mandatory national service that includes joining the military. We’ve seen these calls in Maclean’s, The National Post, and PNI Atlantic News (the Maritimes arm of the mammoth Postmedia news network).

“Do we have a constitution or not?” asked independent journalist Georgia Fort after she was released from federal detention following Friday’s court hearing. As press, “I should be protected under the First Amendment,” she said. “Amplifying the truth, documenting what is happening in our community is not a crime.”

Eichmann’s perverse blind mindlessness enabled him to create the ghastly, orderly efficiency of the Holocaust. He helped establish the Central Offices for Jewish Emigration for the deportation of millions of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps, he scheduled trains, arranged for the seizure of Jewish property and ensured his department benefited from confiscated assets, and was a principal organizer of Hitler’s “Final Solution.”

I find frightening echoes in Trump and his Republican-controlled Senate and Congress marching in lockstep, the shockingly compromised Supreme Court, the toadying Cabinet members. Here lies the ‘banality of evil.’ While some in charge may be in ideological agreement, others at lower levels are ‘just doing their jobs’ or fearful of not doing them without fully grasping their consequences (i.e.: separating families, withholding food from hungry children, and creating other horrors). Trumpism is an evil ideology – one that can exist after him if it is not defeated while he’s here.

Cicih Sukaesih helped bring the world’s attention to the lives of the young women in poor countries who made sneakers in the 1990s, first by organizing a strike and later by marching onto Nike’s bucolic corporate campus in Oregon to demand a meeting with co-founder Phil Knight.

For four straight budget cycles, billions of pesos meant for airports, railways, mass transport, flood control, and climate protection were quietly pulled out of the national budget. The projects were approved. The loans were negotiated. The need was undeniable. And yet, year after year, the funding was stripped away at the last moment.

“Here’s the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand. We are Minnesota strong, and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us,” she told the crowd. Later on X, she added: “I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win.”

It might come as a surprise to learn that the brain responds to training in much the same way as our muscles, even though most of us never think about it that way. Clear thinking, focus, creativity and good judgment are built through challenge, when the brain is asked to stretch beyond routine rather than run on autopilot. That slight mental discomfort is often the sign that the brain is actually being trained, a lot like that good workout burn in your muscles.

For Bryant, and for hundreds of others still entangled in the late Jeffrey Epstein’s world, the past six years have been shaped by the psychological aftershocks of one of the most notorious sexual abuse networks in modern history.

In November 2021, photojournalist Amber Bracken was on assignment for The Narwhal, reporting from northwestern British Columbia. She was documenting tensions over the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline through Wet’suwet’en territory.

Amber was handcuffed, held in a cell for three nights and had her camera gear and photographs seized — all for doing her job.

We believe this was a clear violation of her Charter rights — and The Narwhal’s. So we sued the RCMP to take a stand for press freedom. Now, our trial is underway.

“What we’re building together is about more than one march or one Legislative Session,” said YUCCA Campaign Organizer Jonathon Juárez to Unicorn Riot. “The We Got Us Mass Mobilization was the culmination of weeks of organizing and an intensive four-day bootcamp, giving newly trained organizers the chance to put their skills into practice and bringing together a diverse coalition of young people, community members, and organizations to take action together.”

In a post published in a closed NS/WP Telegram channel on January 18, the group said that “certain enterprising individuals” had destroyed the plaque on the apartment building where Politkovskaya was killed. The post described the act as a “tribute” from NS/WP to its “glorious predecessors” from the neo-Nazi group BORN (the Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists).

In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called “The Power of the Powerless.” In it, he asked a simple question: How did the communist system sustain itself?

And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists. Not through violence alone but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.

Canada’s finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, then said on Tuesday that the Canadians did not plan to pay the $1bn countries were asked to hand over to Trump for a permanent seat on the board that was originally described as a temporary body to oversee the governance and reconstruction of Gaza.

In a frank address to world leaders at Davos on Tuesday, Carney described what he called “a rupture” in the previous “rules-based” world order overseen by the United States caused by Trump’s aggressive behavior.

In practical terms, smartphones generate at least three kinds of digital exposure.

The first is identification risk, including through facial recognition technology. When you post footage, you may be sharing identifiable faces, tattoos, voices, license plates, school logos or even a distinctive jacket. That can enable law enforcement to identify people in your recordings through investigative tools, and online crowds to identify people and dox or harass them, or both.

That risk grows when agencies deploy facial recognition in the field. For example, ICE is using a facial recognition app called Mobile Fortify.

Facial recognition accuracy also isn’t neutral. National Institute of Standards and Technology testing has documented that the technology does not perform equally across different demographic groups, meaning the risk of misidentification is not evenly distributed across groups. For example, studies have shown lower recognition accuracy for people with darker skin color.

Second is the risk of revealing your location. Footage isn’t just images. Photos and video files often contain metadata such as timestamps and locations, and platforms also maintain additional logs. Even if you never post, your phone still emits a steady stream of location signals.

This matters because agencies can obtain location through multiple channels, often with different levels of oversight.

Agencies can request location or other data from companies through warrants or court orders, including geofence warrants that sweep up data about every device in a place during a set time window.

Agencies can also buy location data from brokers. The Federal Trade Commission has penalized firms for unlawfully selling sensitive location information.

Reporting Highlights:

Questioning Tests: Michigan officials expressed concern in 2020 about conflicting drug test results from Averhealth, the company doing the testing for the state’s child welfare agency.

No Answers: The company didn’t tell Michigan that the lab’s accreditor had placed it on probation. Averhealth has defended the accuracy of its testing, citing an independent review.

Inside the Lab: Former employees told ProPublica the lab was understaffed and had broken and poorly maintained instruments, and they were pressured to speed delivery of test results.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/53710351

The memo describes how DISA’s Command, Control, Communications, and Computers Enterprise Directorate, known as J6, was hobbled by DOGE cuts to such an extent that it was unable to obtain necessary software. This unit is responsible for maintaining secure channels that keep the Pentagon connected to military assets around the world, including nuclear capabilities.

Kyra Wilson, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, told rally participants that First Nations people are “always having to wait for government to make a decision on how much our lives matter.”

She said that part of the problem is that funding and resources for First Nations emergency management fall under the control of federal and provincial governments.

The government’s decision to grant Chinese tourists and investors a 14-day visa-free entry is being presented as a pragmatic economic move meant to revive tourism, attract investments, and keep the Philippines competitive as Chinese outbound travel rebounds.

On paper, the policy targets immediate, specific and short-term benefits: easier entry, more arrivals and economic stimulus. In practice, however, it cannot be separated from the wider and far more volatile context of relations between the Philippines and China, most notably the unresolved and increasingly tense dispute in the West Philippine Sea, lingering public mistrust, and the still-unsettled issues surrounding Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs). A visa policy does not exist in a vacuum; it communicates intentions as much as it grants privileges.

Wednesday night (Day 44) an ICE agent shot another person in Minneapolis, injuring him after attempting to arrest him. Immediately after the incident neighbors and community members turned up in the street to confront ICE and halt their work. Agents left behind equipment and a vehicle that protesters quickly ran through. More on that below.

The following morning, Trump took to Truth Social to threaten invoking the Insurrection Act to quell protests in the state, which would allow for the deployment of military in Minnesota. On Friday he walked this back somewhat.

Increasingly, arts boards are weighing up artistic purpose against perceived organisational risk. This is often putting them at odds with those tasked with executing these decisions. We saw this last year, when Creative Australia backflipped in their appointment of the Venice Biennale artistic team artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino.

Rather than repealing civil rights statutes outright, the administration has focused on disabling the mechanisms that make those laws work.

Drawing on over two decades of teaching and writing about civil rights and my experience directing a GW Law project on inclusive democracy, I believe this pattern reflects not isolated administrative actions but a cumulative retreat from the federal government’s role as an enforcer of civil rights law.