Good morning. It's Friday, Jan. 16, and we're covering the latest on Minnesota protests, President Donald Trump's meeting with Venezuela's opposition leader, and much more. First time reading? Join over 4.6 million insatiably curious readers. Sign up here.
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Minneapolis Unrest Escalates |
President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to end ongoing protests in Minneapolis against federal immigration enforcement. The 1807 law empowers the president to deploy the military domestically under specific circumstances (details here).
Trump’s threat came after hours of clashes between at least 200 protesters and law enforcement on the south side of Minneapolis, where a federal agent shot and injured a man Wednesday evening. The man, reportedly a Venezuelan national who entered the US illegally, allegedly assaulted the agent after fleeing a traffic stop. The city police chief has asked Minnesota’s criminal investigations bureau to investigate the shooting; federal authorities excluded the state bureau from an inquiry into the fatal shooting of Minneapolis woman Renee Good by federal agents last week.
Minneapolis has received roughly 3,000 federal agents—about five times its police force—in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration and an alleged fraud scheme involving the local Somali population. |
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado presented President Donald Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize award when she met with him at the White House yesterday. The two did not provide a readout of their conversation.
The meeting comes as the US made its first sale of Venezuelan oil since capturing Nicolás Maduro earlier this month. Details of the sale, reportedly valued at $500M, were not available as of this writing. Trump hopes to sell 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil within months. However, US oil companies have expressed hesitation about reentering the Venezuela market—especially if it means helping lower oil prices to Trump’s goal of $50 per barrel.
Separately, the US seized its sixth sanctioned oil tanker with alleged ties to Venezuela. The ship—known by a variety of names, including the Veronica, the Galileo, and the Pegas—was owned and managed by a company in Russia. |
Federal prosecutors have charged 26 people in an alleged multiyear scheme to fix at least 29 basketball games in the US and China, accusing them of manipulating games to generate illegal betting profits.
A 70-page indictment alleges the scheme ran from September 2022 through February 2025, starting with point-shaving in Chinese Basketball Association games before expanding to NCAA Division I men’s basketball. Thirty-nine players from 17 teams were linked to the operation, with bribes allegedly ranging from $10K to $30K per game and wagers placed through legal US sportsbooks and offshore platforms. Twenty defendants are current or former NCAA men’s basketball players, several of whom played during the 2023-24 or 2024-25 seasons, including some who appeared in games this season. The other five are described as fixers.
The charges include bribery in sporting contests, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud. Each fraud charge carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years. See a list of schools impacted here. |
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Sports, Entertainment, & Culture |
> China's Zhejiang University tops global research institution rankings, dethroning Harvard University, now No. 3; seven other Chinese schools make the top 10 as their research outputs surpass top US schools (More) |
> NFL playoffs continue tomorrow, with Buffalo Bills at Denver Broncos at 4:30 pm ET, then San Francisco 49ers at Seattle Seahawks at 8 pm ET (More) | New York Giants expected to hire ex-Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh (More) |
> BTS to release fifth studio album March 20 after nearly four-year hiatus (More) | Harry Styles announces first studio album in four years, out March 6 (More) |
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> OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT-powered translation tool for text, voice inputs, and images in over 50 languages; claims to consider tone, idioms, and context (More) |
> NASA astronauts return to Earth over a month early in the agency's first medical evacuation from space after one suffers from an undisclosed health problem (More) |
> Rare mummified cheetahs found in caves in northern Saudi Arabia reveal at least two subspecies lived in the region before cheetahs went locally extinct, expanding pool of subspecies believed suitable for reintroduction (More) |
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In partnership with Nourish |
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You Health Goals, Achieved with Experts |
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94% of users pay $0 thanks to insurance. Everything happens online, with video visits, in-app messaging, and progress tracking to keep you accountable between sessions. Check your coverage, get matched, and start your healthiest year yet. |
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> US stock markets close higher (S&P 500 +0.3%, Dow +0.6%, Nasdaq +0.3%) (More) | US average 30-year fixed mortgage rate falls to 6.06%, the lowest level in more than three years (More) |
> Taiwan to invest at least $250B in US chipmaking under new trade deal (More) | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to increase capital spending to record of up to $56B this year, reports 35% rise in net profit in latest quarter (More) |
> Amazon battling Saks Global in court after owner of Saks Fifth Avenue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week; Amazon owns $475M stake in Saks Global (More) |
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> US military sends carrier strike group toward the Middle East amid heightened tensions with Iran over deadly protests (More) |
> European military personnel arrive in Greenland from Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the UK amid ongoing US-Danish tensions (More) |
> Federal appeals court reverses lower court decision that freed pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, potentially laying the groundwork for his rearrest (More) |
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> The Man Changing How We Watch Football
NBC News | Andrew Greif. Sam Schwartzstein, a former all-conference center at Stanford, is now the analytics expert on Amazon Prime’s fledgling Thursday Night Football. He believes fans are eager for more statistics and strategy talk. (Read) |
> New Taste of Appalachia
Eater | Kayleigh Ruller. Step into the flourishing restaurant scene at the foothills of North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains, where chefs are putting a modern twist on foraging, pickling, and communal cooking. (Read) |
> Scissors Machines Cannot Replace
WSJ | Staff. Two rival companies, 8 miles apart in Sheffield, England, make $800 tailoring shears that can cut through the thickest denim. But both recently changed ownership, and their master artisans are retiring. Will the scissors survive? (Watch) |
> What Do You Owe Your Future Child?
Vox | Unexplainable. A woman who does IVF debates whether she should handpick her embryo using new polygenic tests that evaluate whether an unborn child will have cancer, be diagnosed with depression, or have a high IQ. (Listen) |
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In partnership with Fatty15 |
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Swimming Against the Current of Aging |
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Historybook: Hiram Revels, first African American to serve in Congress, dies (1901); 18th Amendment ratified, banning alcohol in the US (1919); R&B and pop singer Aaliyah born (1979); "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda born (1980); Operation Desert Storm of the Persian Gulf War begins (1991). |
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"Because of phones, we always have the ability to jump out of ourselves. But unless you learn how to be in your head, you’ll never learn how to create." |
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