Category: News
Risk For Thee, Safety For Me: Celebrity Activism
Risk For Thee, Safety For Me: Celebrity Activism
Authored by Christian Vezilj via American Thinker,
Hollywood has mastered the art of moral performance. Award shows have become political stages where actors speak with the confidence of prophets and the certainty of philosophers. But beneath the applause lines and emotional crescendos lies a contradiction that becomes impossible to ignore: the courage they demand from others is courage they themselves will never have to summon.
This contradiction was unmistakable at the recent Golden Globe Awards. The ceremony quickly transformed into a coordinated tribute to Renee Nicole Goode, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent. Mark Ruffalo dedicated his award by saying, “This is for Renee Nicole Goode, who was murdered,” adding, “I don’t know how I can be quiet.” Wanda Sykes echoed the sentiment on the red carpet, declaring, “Of course, this is for the mother who was murdered by an ICE agent, and it’s really sad.” She went further, urging confrontation: “We need to be out there and shut this rogue government down, because it’s just awful what they’re doing to people.”
Celebrities wore coordinated pins reading “BE GOOD” and “ICE OUT,” signaling solidarity and moral urgency. The messaging was unified, emotional, and unmistakably political. The narrative was clear: this was a moment to resist, to rise up, to confront injustice.
But what was equally clear — and far more revealing — was what they chose not to say.
While the Golden Globes stage was filled with speeches about ICE, not a single celebrity mentioned the mass slaughter, imprisonment, and torture taking place in Iran at that very moment – Hundreds of protesters have been killed by the Iranian regime. Thousands have been dragged into prisons. Torture, rape, and forced confessions have been documented by human rights groups. The government has imposed sweeping internet blackouts to hide the brutality from the world. [ZH: regardless of whether this is yet more ‘regime change paint by numbers’ – it was completely ignored].
And yet, on one of the most visible cultural platforms in America, the silence was absolute.
No speeches.
No pins.
No hashtags.
No calls to “shut down” the Iranian government.
Nothing.
The contrast is staggering. When the villain is a U.S. agency, outrage is immediate, coordinated, and emotionally charged. When the villain is a foreign authoritarian regime slaughtering its own people, the outrage evaporates. The issue is not the moral weight of the cause. The issue is whether the cause is useful to the narrative they want to tell.
But the hypocrisy runs even deeper. It extends to the way Hollywood reacts to domestic events that do not fit its preferred storyline. When Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed inside the Capitol, there were no celebrity tributes. No emotional speeches. No coordinated pins. No calls for accountability. Instead, the officer who shot her was widely described as a hero. The shooting was framed as necessary, justified, even praiseworthy.
Whether one agrees with either shooting is not the point. The difference in reaction reveals the deeper truth: Hollywood’s activism is not driven by universal moral principles. It is driven by selective outrage, selective empathy, and selective courage.
This brings us to the heart of the matter: the asymmetry of risk. Celebrities routinely encourage ordinary people to “stand up,” “fight back,” or “put your body on the line.” Sykes’s call to “shut this rogue government down” is a perfect example. These are not metaphorical suggestions. They imply confrontation, danger, and the possibility of violence.
Yet the people delivering these messages do so from behind layers of insulation that ordinary Americans do not have. They live in gated communities. They travel with private security. Their homes are protected by surveillance systems, controlled access, and armed guards. They are not wrong for wanting safety — everyone wants safety — but they are wrong for preaching danger for others while choosing safety for themselves.
A working‑class person who confronts ICE or police in the street faces real, immediate, physical danger. A celebrity who posts a hashtag or makes a speech faces none. Their activism is symbolic, not sacrificial. It costs them nothing. And yet they speak as though they are shoulder‑to‑shoulder with the people they are urging into the streets.
This is where the phrase “We’re in it together” collapses. When celebrities use it, they rarely mean shared sacrifice. They mean shared sentiment. They mean shared optics. But they do not mean shared risk. Their version of solidarity is digital, not physical.
The deeper civic insight is this: selective outrage and selective courage are symptoms of a broader cultural problem. We have built a society where moral authority is often claimed by those who bear none of the consequences of their own prescriptions. Hollywood’s activism is not dangerous to Hollywood. It is dangerous to the people they encourage to act on their behalf.
True solidarity requires more than a speech, a pin, or a social media post. It requires standing in the same place, facing the same risks, and sharing the same consequences. Anything less is performance.
And performance, no matter how passionate, is not courage.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/14/2026 – 22:30
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/risk-thee-safety-me-celebrity-activism
President Trump’s list of targeted opponents grows longer with action against the Federal Reserve and Chair Jerome Powell
ATLANTA — Donald Trump promised in his second inaugural address to fairly apply the law, unlike how he said he’d been treated by federal authorities.
“The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end,” he declared on Jan. 20, 2025.
Since then, Trump’s administration has gone after multiple elected and appointed government officials who have either directly opposed the Republican president or not granted his wishes.
The most recent is Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who has defended the independence of the central bank against Trump’s pressure to cut interest rates more sharply. Trump told NBC News over the weekend that he knew nothing about a Justice Department inquiry into the fed’s ongoing construction project in Washington.
But influential White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has also affirmed that Trump sees his White House return as a sort of vengeance tour.
“There may be an element of that from time to time,” she told Vanity Fair. “Who would blame him? Not me.”
Here’s a look at how Trump’s government has pursued his opponents, real and perceived.
Powell and the Federal Reserve are under investigation
Powell said in an unusual video statement Sunday that the Justice Department has subpoenaed the central bank and threatened criminal indictments after his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee this summer. In that appearance, Powell pushed back at Trump’s criticism of the Fed’s $2.5 billion office renovation project in Washington — criticism that Trump had elevated as he also expressed frustration that Powell and his fellow governors were not lowering interest rates sharply enough for Trump’s taste.
Powell, whom Trump appointed as chairman in 2017, asserted plainly that the Justice Department action is a “pretext” to weaken the Fed’s historic independence to set monetary policy without political influence from the president. The chairman had previously ignored Trump’s pressure and personal insults, other than to emphasize the central bank’s historical independent status.
The inquiry and Powell’s statement mark a significant escalation in Trump’s battle with the Federal Reserve and his ongoing straining of the U.S. system of checks and balances.
DOJ investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell sparks backlash, support for Fed independence
Fed member Lisa Cook’s personal finances targeted
Before the latest subpoena, Trump tried to fire another Federal Reserve board member, Lisa Cook, over allegations of mortgage fraud pushed by the president’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte. It was the first time in 112 years that a president had sought to remove a Fed governor.
Cook, a 2022 appointee of a Democratic president, Joe Biden, and the first Black woman to serve on the seven-member board, sued to keep her job. The Supreme Court ruled last fall that Cook could remain on the board as her case advances. The justices are expected to hear arguments in January. The court already has heard a separate case on Trump’s power to remove officials at independent agencies.
James Comey indicted — then the case gets tossed
Former FBI Director James Comey has survived, for now, a federal indictment that charged him with lying to Congress.
Comey, whom Trump fired during his first administration, was the first former senior government official to face prosecution after being involved in one of the president’s chief grievances, the long-concluded investigation into Russian electoral interference.
The September indictment came days after Trump appeared to encourage Attorney General Pam Bondi to punish Comey. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” he said in a social media post that named Bondi and referenced his own impeachments and prosecutions.
A federal judge in Virginia dismissed the criminal case against Comey in November, finding that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, who brought the charges at Trump’s urging, was illegally appointed by the Justice Department. That, of course, means that Comey has not been cleared on the charges, which could be leveled against him again.
Letitia James, the New York attorney general, also spared
New York Attorney General Letitia James has long been a Trump target after she won a massive civil fraud case against him in 2024. The fine was later tossed out by a higher court, but both sides are appealing — and Trump’s Justice Department has gone after James since.
She was indicted on federal mortgage fraud charges two weeks after Comey’s indictment last year. Her case was thrown out by the same Virginia-based judge and for the same reason that spared Comey: The prosecutor who brought the charges was found to be illegally appointed.
The Trump administration has continued to go after James but was twice rebuked in December by grand juries that have declined to issue indictments after hearing evidence from federal prosecutors.
Even more recently, another federal judge, this time in James’ home state, disqualified another prosecutor from overseeing investigations into James. The judge found that John Sarcone also was not lawfully serving as an acting U.S. attorney in the Northern District of New York.
Former CIA Director John Brennan was told he’s being investigated
John Brennan’s lawyers say they’ve been informed the former CIA director is a target of a grand jury investigation in Florida.
That inquiry is related to the U.S. government assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election — the inquiry that fed Trump’s ire at Comey.
Brennan’s lawyers said in a letter last month that they wanted the Justice Department to be prevented from steering an investigation of him and other former government officials to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. She is the Florida jurist who was appointed by Trump and later dismissed a classified documents case against him.
Jack Smith, who led investigations of Trump, still getting probed
An ostensibly independent federal agency that investigates partisan political activity of federal employees opened an investigation last summer into Jack Smith, the former federal prosecutor who led multiple Trump investigations, including into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection by Trump supporters.
The Office of Special Counsel in Trump’s Justice Department confirmed in August that it was investigating Smith on allegations he engaged in political activity through his inquiries into Trump. Smith was named a special prosecutor in November 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In congressional testimony in December, Smith did not back down, saying his team “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that the president criminally conspired to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Biden.
“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election,” Smith said. “We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.”
Adam Schiff’s mortgages draw scrutiny
California Sen. Adam Schiff has long been among the loudest Trump critics on Capitol Hill, starting when he was a House member during the first Trump presidency. Now he is another official whose mortgages and personal finances are under scrutiny. The investigation into Schiff was being conducted by prosecutors in Maryland as of late last year.
And now the investigation itself is the subject of an investigation. Federal authorities in November began inquiring about the roles of Ed Martin, a Justice Department official, and Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director whose name has surfaced in several of the high-profile mortgage fraud cases leveled by Trump’s administration.
Schiff, who pushed impeachment in Trump’s first term, has consistently said the investigation against him is political retribution.
Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker contributed from Washington.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/14/trumps-list-of-targeted-opponents/
Mitchell anota 35 puntos y guía a Cavs a triunfo sobre 76ers por 133-107
FILADELFIA (AP) — Donovan Mitchell sumó 35 puntos y nueve asistencias, Darius Garland añadió 20 unidades antes de salir por una lesión en un pie y los Cavaliers de Cleveland aplastaron el miércoles 133-107 a los 76ers de Filadelfia.
Garland quedó fuera del encuentro al final del tercer cuarto, cuando se lastimó el pie derecho al lanzarse por un balón suelto. Ya se había sometido a una cirugía en junio en el dedo gordo del pie izquierdo, que lo afectó durante la salida de Cleveland de los playoffs.
El base estelar promedió 17,9 puntos después de un comienzo lento esta temporada mientras se recuperaba de la cirugía. Garland continuó su buena racha reciente y atinó ocho de 13 disparos frente a los 76ers.
Promedió 20,6 puntos y 6,7 asistencias durante la temporada regular para ayudar a que los Cavs terminaran en la cima de la Conferencia Este.
Joel Embiid anotó 20 puntos y encestó un triple que le ayudó a alcanzar los 13.000 puntos en su carrera, siendo el séptimo jugador en la historia del equipo en registrar esa marca.
Paul George anotó 17 puntos por los Sixers en el inicio de una serie de dos duelos.
Los fanáticos de los Sixers abuchearon al equipo en el tercer cuarto durante un tiempo muerto, cuando iban perdiendo 75-53.
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Deportes AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes
China Blames Trump For Its Staggering $1.2 Trillion Trade Surplus Amid European Howls Of Outrage
China Blames Trump For Its Staggering $1.2 Trillion Trade Surplus Amid European Howls Of Outrage
At the start of December, China stunned the world when it reported that its trade surplus had surpassed a record $1 trillion, with one month still left to go in calendar 2025.
Fast forward to last night when China reported that in December, its trade balance rose from $112 billion in November to a whopping – and the second highest on record – $114.14 billion, matching Bloomberg estimates…
… exports grew 6.6% YoY in dollar terms, more than double the average forecast from a Bloomberg poll of analysts of 3.1% and greater than November’s growth rate of 5.9%, while imports rose 5.7% in dollars last month on a year earlier, also far outpacing analyst expectations of 0.9% growth and the previous month’s figure of 1.9%.
Adding across, China’s full-year trade surplus exceeded $1 trillion for the first time – $1.2 trillion to be precise – blowing away last year’s figure of $993bn despite exports to the US falling 20%, as those to the EU rose 8.4% and to south-east Asia rose 13.4%, where as we show below the bulk of transshipments to the US take place, as Chinese producers diverted shipments to other markets while ultimately still targeting US consumers.
And since China’s record $1 trillion trade surplus hit a month earlier had already outraged its trading partners, who finally called out Beijing (long after Trump did so first) for its mercantilist, imbalanced trade policies, Beijing needed a scapegoat for the even bigger number it reported. It decided to blame the US, the one country that until recently had reportedly “alienated the world” in its pursuit of more balanced Chinese trade.
As the FT reported, “China blamed the US for growing global trade imbalances as the world’s second-biggest economy reported a record full-year trade surplus of $1.2tn for 2025 despite President Donald Trump’s trade war.”
Why? Because as we first reported last month, China’s gargantuan surplus will further inflame global trading tensions, particularly with the EU where China is indiscriminately dumping cars below cost and singlehandedly putting the entire German auto industry into an early grave; it’s not just Europe – all export-focused developing countries are also seething, as they find their exports are simply not competitive with cheap Chinese goods which are being dumped at a furious pace around the globe.
YIKES
China just posted a record-breaking $1.2 trillion global trade surplus. The EU’s is up 18.1%. Germany’s numbers are BONKERS – a staggering 108% surge in surplus, meaning that it now accounts for nearly a third of China’s entire EU surplus.
The US has been aggressively… https://t.co/ikpiHIiADr
— Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) January 14, 2026
In a sign of the growing decoupling of direct trade between China and the US, the American share of Chinese exports last year was 11.1% , down from 14.7% in 2024, some of the lowest levels since the 1990s, the FT reports. Of course, that is woefully inaccurate at worse, and at best incomplete, since China has merely redirected its US goods via intermediary countries – i.e., transshipments – such as Vietnam, which has seen imports from China soar to a record high.
And since Vietnam didn’t grow an affluent middle class overnight, all that is happening is China is sending its trinkets to Hanoi first, before they are reshipped onward to China, under the guise of Vietnamese exports.
But, as last month, the loudest complaints about China’s surplus are expected from the EU (which said nothing when Trump was complaining loudly over the past decade and now is stuck with a crippled economy which has lost all export vibrancy for ever), yet which is terrified of its own shadow, and still has to follow the US and implement broad-based tariffs. Instead, the bloc has called for Beijing to stimulate domestic demand and reduce its own barriers to manufactured imports, something Beijing – already stuffed to its gills in debt – has shown precisely zero interest in doing, or being able to create organically.
And so, China decided to… blame Trump.
Wang Jun, vice-minister of the General Administration of Customs of China, said on Wednesday that trading partners’ export controls on high-tech products were preventing China from importing more, in not so thinly veiled comments directed at the US. Successive US administrations have imposed stringent curbs on China’s access to high-end semiconductors.
“It should be pointed out that some countries politicize economic and trade issues, using various pretexts to restrict exports of high-tech products to China; otherwise, we would import more,” said Wang, adding: “There is vast room for import growth.”
Actually no, there isn’t, because as the upcoming Chinese data dump will reveal, China’s domestic economy continues to deteriorate with retail sales and fixed investment at a level that signals flat GDP at best, if not negative.
Which only leaves a flood of exports to keep China’s economy alive. Sure enough, economists have warned that China’s economy is too reliant on manufacturing and exports for growth amid anaemic domestic consumption and a years-long property sector slowdown.
“China’s staggering trade surplus is simultaneously a symbol of its exporting prowess and the weaknesses in its growth model,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of economics at Cornell University.
One more point: China’s staggering trade surplus is a remnant of an era in which nobody dared point out that the neoliberal, mercantilist emperor is dead, until Trump came along. And while Europe laughed at him at first (just like they laughed when he told Germany they are entirely reliant on Russian gas), Brussels has finally figured out that it can do nothing and watch its economy implode from inside while purchasing cheap Chinese trinkets, or it can join the US president in calling out China’s trade practice. At which point China’s record trade surplus will collapse, with various unpleasant consequences for its economy. As for the US, it is on the right path, but it too needs to plug the gaping loopholes such as record trans-shipments through Vietnam and other Pacific rim countries. Once it does that, only then will Beijing be forced to finally revise its export-led model which is the main reason why the world finds itself in a brutal trade war for the second year running.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/14/2026 – 22:00
Family of Harold’s Chicken CEO announces death
Kristen Pierce-Sherrod, CEO of the beloved Chicago chain Harold’s Chicken, has died, according to an announcement shared by family and company franchises on social media Wednesday.
“The family extends their sincere gratitude for the outpouring of prayers and condolences,” the announcement read.
How and when Pierce-Sherrod died was not immediately clear.
Harold’s Chicken was founded on Chicago’s South Side in 1950 by Pierce-Sherrod’s father, the late Harold Pierce. The restaurant that started it all, then called H&H, specialized in dumplings and chicken feet.
“When he started, it was the whole chicken,” Pierce-Sherrod told the Tribune in 2019.
Seventy years later, the venture has expanded to dozens of franchises nationwide.
Pierce-Sherrod’s father, who went on to become the city’s chicken king, was born in Alabama and already owned a family business — a grocery store — with her grandfather before moving to Chicago.
“He would tell stories about how the preacher would come to the house on Sundays and eat up all the chicken,” Pierce-Sherrod remembered six years ago. “He said then, when I get older, I’m going to have my own chicken place and I’m going to be able to eat as much chicken as I want.”
It was her mother, the late Willa Pierce, who played a major role in the fried chicken business expanding beyond Chicago.
With the news of Pierce-Sherrod’s death, condolences have started to pour out on social media.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/14/harolds-chicken-kristen-pierce-sherrod-dead-chicago-food/
El veterano Nolan Arenado espera que su llegada a los Diamondbacks lo lleve al éxito en postemporada
Por DAVID BRANDT
Nolan Arenado ha sido elegido ocho veces al Juego de Estrellas, ganó ya diez Guantes de Oro, y muchos en el mundo del béisbol creen que el destacado tercera base está en camino de tener una placa en Cooperstown en el Salón de la Fama del Béisbol.
Una cosa que no ha logrado es el éxito en la postemporada, con sólo cinco imparables en 33 turnos al bate en 13 años.
Espera que una mudanza a los jóvenes Diamondbacks de Arizona pueda revertir esa tendencia.
“Todavía quiero jugar en los playoffs”, afirmó Arenado. “Sé que mis números no son geniales, pero eso no quita el hecho de que estaba preparado para ello y que siempre he estado preparado. Simplemente no he jugado como esperaba. Quiero la oportunidad de hacerlo de nuevo y no veo por qué este grupo no puede lograrlo”.
No sorprende que Arenado haya sido cambiado el martes procedente de los Cardenales de San Luis, un equipo en reconstrucción, considerando que lo habían ofrecido extensamente durante más de un año. Aun así, el final llegó rápidamente.
Ahora se une a una franquicia que intenta alcanzar la postemporada por primera vez desde que llegó a la Serie Mundial en 2023.
Arenado —quien cumplirá 35 años en abril— jugará para su tercer equipo de las mayores después de cinco años con los Cardenales y los primeros ocho con los Rockies de Colorado. Dijo que su salida de los Cardenales fue amistosa y sostuvo buenas conversaciones con el presidente de operaciones deportivas Chaim Bloom, incluso si el proceso se prolongó más de lo que ambas partes esperaban.
Bloom ha dejado claro que San Luis —que terminó 78-84 la temporada pasada— está en modo de reconstrucción.
Arenado no fue la fuerza ofensiva que solía ser la temporada pasada. Bateó para .237 con 12 jonrones y 52 carreras impulsadas, pero aporta experiencia y una defensa por encima del promedio en la tercera base después de que los D-backs negociaron al toletero venezolano Eugenio Suárez en la fecha límite de canjes de la temporada pasada.
“Espero salir y ayudar a este equipo a ganar en ambos lados”, manifestó Arenado. “Sé que los últimos años no han ido como quería. Obviamente, lidié con algunas lesiones y diferentes cosas, pero creo que algunos de los ajustes que estoy tratando de hacer… van a dar frutos a largo plazo”.
Apostar por el potencial renacimiento tardío de Arenado tiene sentido para los D-backs, particularmente porque es un movimiento de costo relativamente bajo. A Arenado se le adeudan 42 millones de dólares en las próximas dos temporadas, pero los Cardenales todavía están pagando 31 millones de su salario como parte del acuerdo.
Arenado renunció a una cláusula que impedía su canje para aceptar el acuerdo.
Ahora, en los últimos años de su carrera, está listo para proporcionar liderazgo a un equipo de los D-backs ansioso por mejorar después de una decepcionante temporada de 80-82 en 2025.
___
Deportes en español AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes
NASA sends 4 astronauts back to Earth in first medical evacuation
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — An astronaut in need of doctors’ care departed the International Space Station with three crewmates on Wednesday in NASA’s first medical evacuation.
The four returning astronauts — from the U.S., Russia and Japan — are aiming for an early Thursday morning splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego with SpaceX. The decision cuts short their mission by over a month.
“Our timing of this departure is unexpected,” NASA astronaut Zena Cardman said before the return trip, “but what was not surprising to me was how well this crew came together as a family to help each other and just take care of each other.”
Officials refused to identify the astronaut who needed care last week and would not divulge the health concerns.
The ailing astronaut is “stable, safe and well cared for,” outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke said earlier this week via social media. “This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists.”
Launched in August, Cardman, Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov should have remained on the space station until late February. But on Jan. 7, NASA abruptly canceled the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke and later announced the crew’s early return. Officials said the health problem was unrelated to spacewalk preparations or other station operations, but offered no other details, citing medical privacy. They stressed it was not an emergency situation.
NASA said it would stick to the same entry and splashdown procedures at flight’s end, with the usual assortment of medical experts aboard the recovery ship in the Pacific. It was another middle-of-the-night crew return for SpaceX, coming less than 11 hours after undocking from the space station. NASA said it was not yet known how quickly all four would be flown from California to Houston, home to Johnson Space Center and the base for astronauts.
One U.S. and two Russian astronauts remain aboard the orbiting lab, just 1 1/2 months into an eight-month mission that began with a Soyuz rocket liftoff from Kazakhstan. NASA and SpaceX are working to move up the launch of a fresh four-person crew from Florida, currently targeted for mid-February.
Computer modeling predicted a medical evacuation from the space station every three years, but NASA hasn’t had one in its 65 years of human spaceflight. The Russians have not been as fortunate. In 1985, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Vasyutin came down with a serious infection or related illness aboard his country’s Salyut 7 space station, prompting an early return. A few other Soviet cosmonauts encountered less serious health issues that shortened their flights.
It was the first spaceflight for Cardman, 38, biologist and polar explorer who missed out on spacewalking, as well as Platonov, 39, a former fighter pilot with the Russian air force who had to wait a few extra years to get to space because of an undisclosed health issue. Cardman should have launched last year but was bumped to make room on the way down for NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were stuck nearly a year at the space station because of Boeing’s capsule problems.
Fincke, 58, a retired Air Force colonel, and Yui, 55, a retired fighter pilot with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, were repeat space fliers. Finke has spent 1 1/2 years in orbit over four missions and conducted nine spacewalks on previous flights, making him one of NASA’s top performers. Last week, Yui celebrated his 300th day in space over two station stays, sharing stunning views of Earth, including Japan’s Mount Fuji and breathtaking auroras.
“I want to burn it firmly into my eyes, and even more so, into my heart,” Yui said on the social platform X. “Soon, I too will become one of those small lights on the ground.”
NASA officials had said it was riskier to leave the astronaut in space without proper medical attention for another month than to temporarily reduce the size of the space station crew by more than half. Until SpaceX delivers another crew, NASA said it will have to stand down from any routine or even emergency spacewalks, a two-person job requiring backup help from crew inside the orbiting complex.
The medical evacuation was the first major decision by NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman. The billionaire founder of a payment processing company and two-time space flier assumed the agency’s top job in December.
“The health and the well-being of our astronauts is always and will be our highest priority,” Isaacman said in announcing the decision last week.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/14/nasa-medical-evacuation/
Stephen Miller: Feds Have Begun Work Of ‘Identifying, Disrupting And Dismantling The Insurgent Networks’ In Minnesota
Stephen Miller: Feds Have Begun Work Of ‘Identifying, Disrupting And Dismantling The Insurgent Networks’ In Minnesota
Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,
Stephen Miller, a top White House official, said Tuesday evening that federal law enforcement now has the resources to protect its officers and begin the work of “identifying, disrupting and dismantling the insurgent networks” hampering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minnesota.
Miller’s message came after President Trump released a statement on Truth Social earlier Tuesday, saying: “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched a large-scale deployment of federal agents to Minneapolis and St. Paul in early January 2026, deploying approximately 2,000 federal agents from ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) under an operation dubbed “Operation Metro Surge.”
President Trump ordered an additional 1,000 CBP agents to deploy to the Twin cities, potentially bringing the total to approximately 3,000 federal personnel there to conduct immigration enforcement operations amidst the violent left-wing insurgency.
Miller delivered an encouraging message to these federal officers during an appearance on Fox News’ Will Cain Show, Tuesday evening:
“You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. Anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony, he stated. “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one—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. The Department of Justice has made clear that if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.”
During a later appearance on Fox News’ Ingraham Angle, Miller described the ongoing anti-ICE riots in the Twin Cities as “a sophisticated insurgency,” and “domestic terrorism.”
“Mayor Jacob Frey, Governor Tim Walz, and Attorney General Keith Ellison have deliberately, willfully and purposefully incited this violent insurgency against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and against Border Patrol, he said.
Miller blasted the state’s Democrat leaders for enabling the crazed chaos for partisan ends.
When you have mayors and state leaders say that they’re going to order federal law enforcement out of their city in order to maintain enclaves of criminal illegal aliens and criminal refugees who are looting and pillaging the state and the American people. When you have them effectively banning the city police and the state police from rendering life-saving aid to ICE officers, from rendering necessary protection and support to the federal government when it is under siege while carrying out these operations, that is a direct attack and assault on our federal government.
Miller pointed out that the insurgents are highly coordinated operators who attempt to free arrestees by tracking ICE operations through spotters and blocking their vehicles.
“Then they dox ICE officers. They follow them home, they follow them to where they sleep at night,” he said.
“It’s a sophisticated insurgency involving a large number of radicalized extremist, violent leftwing operators stoked by the Democrat party,” Miller continued.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the insurgency is being organized by the Sunrise Movement, a far left political action organization that “has shifted from climate activism into anti-ICE agitation in Minneapolis-St. Paul.”
Sunrise operatives on the ground in the Twin Cities are circulating lists of hotels housing ICE agents and coordinating late-night disruption campaigns—often involving noisemakers—aimed at coercing hotels and other local businesses into refusing to serve ICE personnel.
Sunrise has received $2 million from Open Society since 2019, $150,000 from Ford in 2024 and $550,000 in 2025, and $250,000 from MacArthur in 2024, according to grant databases and tax filings.
Sunrise Twin Cities works alongside two other local groups—Unidos MN and Defend the 612—known for “rapid response” efforts in which activists are dispatched to the scene of ICE activity.
Both maintain ties to MN ICE Watch, a covertly maintained Instagram page that posts training slides calling on its followers—a group that reportedly included Renee Good’s wife—to block, push, and otherwise obstruct officers making an arrest.
Miller told Ingraham that resources and strategies are in place now to deal with the insurgents.
“There has already been, in the recent days, a huge increase in arrests of domestic insurgents, but those numbers are going to increase,” he said.
“Americans voted in a landslide to uphold the sovereignty of this country, he added. “Americans by overwhelming majorities oppose mass Somali fraud. Americans by overwhelming majorities oppose Somali refugee resettlement in principle, so the public is behind this.”
In his Truth Social post Tuesday morning, Trump said:
Do the people of Minnesota really want to live in a community in which there are thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign mental institutions and insane asylums, and other deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention. All the patriots of ICE want to do is remove them from your neighborhood and send them back to the prisons and mental institutions from where they came, most in foreign Countries who illegally entered the USA though Sleepy Joe Biden’s HORRIBLE Open Border’s Policy. Every place we go, crime comes down. In Chicago, despite a weak and incompetent Governor and Mayor fighting us all the way, a big improvement was made. Thousands of Criminals were removed! Minnesota Democrats love the unrest that anarchists and professional agitators are causing because it gets the spotlight off of the 19 Billion Dollars that was stolen by really bad and deranged people. FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!
Later Tuesday, Trump announced on Truth Social that the federal government will no longer fund states with sanctuary policies protecting illegal immigrants.
“EFFECTIVE FEBRUARY FIRST, NO MORE PAYMENTS WILL BE MADE BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO STATES FOR THEIR CORRUPT CRIMINAL PROTECTION CENTERS KNOWN AS SANCTUARY CITIES. ALL THEY DO IS BREED CRIME AND VIOLENCE! If States want them, they will have to pay for them! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” he said.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/14/2026 – 21:30
Former resident of raided South Shore building reported missing, police say
A month after tenants of the troubled South Shore apartment building raided by immigration agents last fall faced court-ordered eviction, a former resident of the complex has been reported missing, according to Chicago police.
Samantha Stamps, 56, was last seen Jan. 2 headed to catch the Pink Line from the Central Park CTA station in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side, police said in a missing-persons alert just before noon Wednesday.
According to police, Stamps previously lived at 7500 South Shore Drive, which was the site of a military-style federal immigration raid that made international headlines nearly four months ago. The report of Stamps missing was first reported by Block Club Chicago.
Three weeks into Operation Midway Blitz — the Trump administration’s local mass deportation campaign last fall and early winter — agents dressed for combat rappelled from helicopters onto the roof of the apartment building. They broke through windows and stormed inside, where they crashed through doors and placed residents in zip ties and on buses or in the back of box trucks. Many Venezuelan migrants lived in the building and were taken in the raid.
While the operation became one of the most infamous moments of the Blitz, it also exacerbated a housing complex already in crisis, as deteriorating living conditions had plagued the building long before the arrival of the agents. Two months later, the Circuit Court of Cook County granted an order mandating any tenants remaining — who formed a union in the wake of the raid — to vacate the building by early December.
Despite a last-minute plea for more time, residents were forced to pack.
In December, at a news conference outside the building organized by the residents’ union, Stamps spoke.
“I have never been through nothing like this in my life,” Stamps said between tears.
“This is bad,” she said. “I can’t even have my grandkids over and they was here with me every weekend.”
Police said Stamps had been homeless since the building was vacated. She is known to frequent areas around the 2100 block of South Spaulding Avenue in Little Village, police said.
Police are asking anyone with information on Stamps’ whereabouts to call detectives at 312-747-8274 or 911.
Chicago Tribune’s Laura Turbay contributed.
Bouncing back, Illinois recruit Liam Kelly looks to defend state title for Mount Carmel. ‘Best thing for me.’
Mount Carmel senior Liam Kelly knows what it’s like to ride the express elevator and experience the emotional equivalent of whiplash. He’s gone through the rise, the plummet and rising again.
Two years ago, as a sophomore wresting at 150 pounds, Kelly was so discouraged by going 2-2 and not earning a medal in the individual state tournament that he was ready to walk away.
“My coaches and my brothers kept me going,” Kelly said. “At the time, I thought losing was the worst thing that could happen. Looking back, it was the best thing for me.
“It helped my mindset more than anything. From there, it’s been a straight climb.”
Kelly returned with a vengeance last winter to the State Farm Center in Champaign — hungry, refocused and more than ready for anything and everything that came his way.
He passed with flying colors, pulling out a 4-3 win over West Aurora’s Dominic Serio to capture the Class 3A state championship at 157.
Mount Carmel’s Liam Kelly, top, takes control against Marist’s Ty Valachovic in the 165-pound weight class during a nonconference dual meet in Chicago on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (Nate Swanson / Daily Southtown)
Kelly’s older brother Colin, a two-time state champion for the Caravan and now a redshirt freshman at Illinois, was the first person to congratulate Liam.
“He has a really good personality,” Colin said. “He always stays positive. He’s fun to be around, even when wrestling gets tough and gritty. He’s one of the fastest learners I’ve ever known.
“I think that’s what has made him so good. He has really focused on the aspect of learning and getting better. He’s really coachable and he loves the sport.”
Liam, an Illinois recruit, is set to join his brother in college. And in his final high school season, he has taken his skills to another level.
Mount Carmel’s Liam Kelly, top, takes control against Marist’s Ty Valachovic in the 165-pound weight class during a nonconference dual meet in Chicago on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (Nate Swanson / Daily Southtown)
Kelly (23-2), who’s undefeated against in-state competition, is the top-ranked wrestler at 165 in Class 3A by the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association.
He has negotiated the emotional and physical complications of the sport and improved every step of the way, according to Mount Carmel coach Alex Tsirtsis.
“The reason he’s gotten to where he is comes down to his day-to-day process,” Tsirtsis said. “No matter what accolades he has, he’s focused on getting better every single day. If you lose that focus, you don’t improve. He’s dialed in daily and that takes pressure off him too.”
“He’s been through the ringer to get here. That’s given him a different level of toughness. In some ways, he’s had to deal with more adversity than his brothers did and that’s shaped who he is.”
Mount Carmel’s Liam Kelly, front, wrestles against West Aurora’s Dominic Serio in the 157-pound weight class during the Class 3A Hinsdale Central Sectional on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (James C. Svehla / Daily Southtown)
If the earlier adversity informed his response, winning also underscored the need to remain vigilant and never take anything for granted.
“I still think about winning, but it’s in the past now,” Kelly said. “You can’t sit on it for too long because someone else is always trying to come and get you.
“I got right back in the room and worked with coach Alex all summer. I definitely jumped a few levels. I was going to practice a lot on the weekends and I also worked with my brother.”
Growing up as the third of four brothers in Mokena, Liam took pains to assert his personality.
Mount Carmel’s Liam Kelly, top, pins down Yorkville’s Jack Ferguson at 150 pounds in the Class 3A dual team state final at Grossinger Motors Arena in Bloomington on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (Vincent D. Johnson / Daily Southtown)
His oldest brother, Michael, played baseball at Mount Carmel and pitched at Western Michigan. Colin and Liam played crucial roles as the Caravan won the dual team state title two years ago.
Quiet and reserved, Liam has been staking out his own path.
“We have a little brother, he’s just 8, and I like to spend time with him and go to his tournaments,” Kelly said. “I also like to fish, and I play basketball in open gyms. I’m always trying to be excellent.
“My big brothers push me hard. I just want to be the best. The ultimate goal is to win a national title. Everything else along the way are just smaller goals that help you get there.”
Patrick Z. McGavin is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/14/liam-kelly-mount-carmel-ihsa-boys-wrestling/
