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Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Several European countries sent troops to Greenland for exercises after Wednesday's meeting between Greenland and Denmark envoys and Vice President JD Vance. The United States, Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a high-level working group to discuss the future of the island at the meeting. But the three weren't able to find a diplomatic resolution to the tensions created by President Donald Trump's regular threats to take the island by force. "It was not an easy meeting," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a Facebook post. "There is a fundamental disagreement because the American ambition to take over Greenland is intact. It is, of course, serious and therefore we continue our efforts to prevent that scenario from becoming a reality." The Danish Ministry of Defense published a notice Wednesday saying that the government was deploying troops to the area. "As part of the increased presence in the Arctic and North Atlantic, the Danish Armed Forces are, from today, deploying capabilities and units related to the exercise activities. In the period ahead, this will result in an increased military presence in and around Greenland, comprising aircraft, vessels and soldiers, including from NATO allies," the notice said. "The exercise activities in 2026 could include guarding critical infrastructure, providing assistance to local authorities in Greenland, including the police, receiving allied troops, deploying fighter aircraft in and around Greenland, and conducting naval operations," it said. French President Emmanuel Macron announced on X that French personnel will participate in Operation Arctic Endurance. "At the request of Denmark, I have decided that France will participate in the joint exercises organized by Denmark in Greenland, Operation Arctic Endurance," Macron said. "The first French military elements are already on their way. Others will follow." "Attacking another NATO member would make no sense, it would even be contrary to the interests of the United States ... and so this blackmail must obviously stop," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on RTL radio Wednesday, CNN reported. Germany announced it was sending 13 members of a reconnaissance team to Nuuk, Greenland, "to explore ways of ensuring security in light of Russian and Chinese threats in the Arctic. This is being done at the invitation of and under the leadership of our Danish allies." Germany said it was sending the team via a Danish civilian aircraft. "From our perspective, this joint flight is a strong sign of our unity," the announcement said. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced on X: "Several officers from the Swedish Armed Forces are arriving in Greenland today. They are part of a group from several allied countries. Together, they will prepare for upcoming elements within the framework of the Danish exercise Operation Arctic Endurance. It is at Denmark's request that Sweden is sending personnel from the Armed Forces." NATO countries have regularly conducted training in Greenland in preparation for arctic missions. The United States has Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Force Base, on the northwest coast of Greenland. But the timing of the exercises and participation of so many allies may signal higher tensions. Canada and France have announced they're opening consulates in Greenland. Supporters of ousted Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro carry his portrait during a rally outside the National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela on Monday. Photo by Jonathan Lanza/UPI | License Photo Read More

Iranians are seeking, with some success, to bypass the regime’s internet blackout amid the country’s deadliest protests in years. The country’s walled-off web is supposed to prevent citizens from seeing non-approved content, but is leaky, and during the recent unrest, Tehran tried to cut off access altogether. Iranians, though, have found ways around it, notably SpaceX’s Starlink, whose direct-to-satellite broadband is hard to block; there are thousands of Starlink receivers in Iran. The government is trying to jam it, with some success, Ars Technica reported, while the Elon Musk-owned company is trying to bypass those measures. SpaceX has reportedly made Starlink access free in Iran, and US President Donald Trump has asked Musk to work on boosting Iranians’ internet access.

Vice President JD Vance's statement about why ICE agent Jonathan Ross fired three fatal shots, killing mother-of-three Renee Good in Minneapolis, was "utterly ignorant" and could be problematic, a legal analyst said Thursday.Former federal prosecutor Shanlon Wu described why the agent's "objectively...

Since Donald Trump returned to the White House last January, the biggest names in tech have mostly fallen in line with the new regime, attending dinners with officials, heaping praise upon the administration, presenting the president with lavish gifts, and pleading for Trump’s permission to sell their products to China. It’s been largely business as usual for Silicon Valley over the past year, even as the administration ignored a wide range of constitutional norms and attempted to slap arbitrary fees on everything from chip exports to worker visas for high-skilled immigrants employed by tech firms. But after an ICE agent shot and killed an unarmed US citizen, Renee Nicole Good, in broad daylight in Minneapolis last week, a number of tech leaders have begun publicly speaking out about the Trump administration’s tactics. This includes prominent researchers at Google and Anthropic, who have denounced the killing as callous and immoral. The most wealthy and powerful tech CEOs are still staying silent as ICE floods America’s streets, but now some researchers and engineers working for them have chosen to break rank. More than 150 tech workers so far have signed a petition asking for their company CEOs to call the White House, demand that ICE leave US cities, and speak out publicly against the agency’s recent violence. Anne Diemer, a human resources consultant and former Stripe employee who organized the petition, says that workers at Meta, Google, Amazon, OpenAI, TikTok, Spotify, Salesforce, Linkedin, and Rippling are among those who have signed. The group plans to make the list public once they reach 200 signatories. “I think so many tech folks have felt like they can’t speak up,” Diemer told WIRED. “I want tech leaders to call the country’s leaders and condemn ICE’s actions, but even if this helps people find their people and take a small part in fighting fascism, then that’s cool, too.” Nikhil Thorat, an engineer at Anthropic, said in a lengthy post on X that Good’s killing had “stirred something” in him. “A mother was gunned down in the street by ICE, and the government doesn’t even have the decency to perform a scripted condolence,” he wrote. Thorat added that the moral foundation of modern society is “infected, and is festering,” and the country is living through a “cosplay” of Nazi Germany, a time when people also stayed silent out of fear. Jonathan Frankle, chief AI scientist at Databricks, added a “+1” to Thorat’s post. Shrisha Radhakrishna, chief technology and chief product officer of real estate platform Opendoor, replied that what happened to Good is “not normal. It's immoral. The speed at which the administration is moving to dehumanize a mother is terrifying.” Other users who identified themselves as employees at OpenAI and Anthropic also responded in support of Thorat. Shortly after Good was shot, Jeff Dean, an early Google employee and University of Minnesota graduate who is now the chief scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research, began re-sharing posts with his 400,000 X followers criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration tactics, including one outlining circumstances in which deadly force isn’t justified for police officers interacting with moving vehicles. He then weighed in himself. “This is completely not okay, and we can't become numb to repeated instances of illegal and unconstitutional action by government agencies,” Dean wrote in an X post on January 10. “The recent days have been horrific.” He linked to a video of a teenager—identified as a US citizen—being violently arrested at a Target in Richfield, Minnesota. In response to US vice president JD Vance’s assertion on X that Good was trying to run over the ICE agent with her vehicle, Aaron Levie, the CEO of the cloud storage company Box, replied, “Why is he shooting after he’s fully out of harm’s way (2nd and 3rd shot)? Why doesn’t he just move away from the vehicle instead of standing in front of it?” He added a screenshot of a Justice Department web page outlining best practices for law enforcement officers interacting with suspects in moving vehicles. Even venture capitalist Jason Calacanis, who cohosts the popular All In podcast with White House AI and crypto adviser David Sacks, suggested that “masked unidentified federal agents asking people for their ‘papers’ are breaking the 4th amendment.” Thorat, Dean, Levie, and Calacanis did not immediately respond to requests for comment from WIRED. The tech sector’s response to sociopolitical crises over the past several years have been a mixed bag. During the nationwide protests in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder six years ago, many large tech companies issued statements against systemic racism and police brutality and pledged to diversify their workforces. Some of those commitments were criticized as being hollow, and “DEI” soon became a political flashpoint rather than a shared corporate goal. But now, in the wake of Good’s death and other reports of alleged violence by ICE agents, big tech companies and their CEOs are choosing to stay silent, a testament to how the political landscape in the US has rapidly changed. There’s a long history in the US of business leaders avoiding taking a stand on political issues, says Margaret O’Mara, a historian who studies the history of politics and Silicon Valley. It was perhaps naive, she says, to believe that tech leaders were ever really kinder, gentler capitalists, even if they positioned their companies as socially progressive. “It’s important to remember that many of these tech leaders are people who are thinking about things from a business point of view,” O’Mara says. But, she adds, a truism in American business is that political instability is not good for bottom lines. “The reason why American tech has been so successful is because the political climate has been calm enough for people to build great companies,” O’Mara says. Some leaders may want to believe that ICE arrests and the icy streets of Minnesota are far enough away from their own boardrooms not to have any impact, but that belief might not hold much longer.

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January 14, 2026, 12:28 PM ET Greenland is 836,000 square miles, more than five times the size of California, and it’s mostly ice. President Trump has been threatening to commandeer the island, complaining that Denmark has neglected the Arctic territory. On Wednesday, I met with Peter Boysen, the chief of the Danish army, and asked him how his country plans to strengthen Greenland’s defenses. Boysen, who has a lean frame and stoic features, ticked off air capabilities and cyber defenses—satellites, drones, and other technology that can collect data and establish “domain awareness.” In layman’s terms, that means figuring out exactly who’s doing what on the mostly uninhabited territory at the top of the world, which acts as a bridge between the European continent and the northernmost reaches of the Americas. But then the army chief paused. “In order to maintain sovereignty, you need boots on the ground,” he said. He leaned forward over a small table in the Kastellet, a 17th-century fort in Copenhagen that still houses military offices, so that I could not mistake his meaning. “We need, of course, to have units that are able to deploy to Greenland in times of crisis to show presence.” The crisis has come. The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met today at the White House with Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. After the meeting, the Danish foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, called the dialogue constructive but acknowledged, “We didn’t manage to change the American position. It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.” Trump confirmed as much, once again telling reporters, “We need Greenland for national security.” Hours earlier, the Danish defense ministry announced a stepped-up military presence in Greenland, including aircraft, ships, and soldiers. A spokesperson for the Danish Defense Command told me that the military presence represents “routine task execution,” part of “preparation for upcoming activities,” and presented it as the fulfillment of promises made last fall to spend more on Arctic security, including on Greenland. Sweden’s prime minister said soldiers from his country were also arriving on Greenland today, and German personnel were expected to begin arriving tomorrow. Danish lawmakers I spoke with suspected that the timing was not a coincidence. They said the government in Copenhagen wants to avoid inflaming tensions with the United States, but also knows it can’t sit on its hands. “If we want to have a credible deterrent, we have to send something,” said a member of the Danish parliament’s defense committee, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. A U.S. official in Copenhagen told me that the deployment is consistent with Denmark’s promises to boost Arctic deterrence, but was likely expedited because of tensions with the United States. The move seems to offer the Trump administration a stark choice: Will you join our efforts or destroy them? Denmark’s defense minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, appeared to preview the new military footprint in remarks to reporters yesterday. He said additional forces would showcase a “clear response to the challenge facing the Arctic,” but he characterized the deployment as a joint NATO effort, not a threat to the Americans. Boysen struck a similar note in our conversation. He has been head of the army since 2024, helping lead a military buildup that stretches eastward to the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm and westward to Greenland. Historically, Denmark’s military hasn’t had a large permanent presence on Greenland, though its Joint Arctic Command is headquartered in the capital, Nuuk, and there are additional personnel at Station Nord, the northernmost military base in the world, as well as several other outposts. Despite Trump’s claims that adversaries are bearing down on the island, Boysen said Denmark’s foreign-intelligence service hasn’t identified an imminent threat—“from Russia or China or anybody else.” Current and former U.S. officials told me the same. Boysen said Denmark deployed units totaling about 600 soldiers to the Arctic last year. With new conscription rules adding to the ranks of the Danish army, as well as joint NATO priorities in the polar region, he said the country’s “ability to operate up there will increase.” Danish authorities expect allies to step up their footprint on Greenland as well, Boysen told me, pointing to a Denmark-led exercise on the island in 2025, which included France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. “So again,” he said, “I think some of our key allies would want to join us, including the Americans, on Greenland.” Read: Trump seizing Greenland could set off a chain reaction But Trump seems intent on a different path. He has ridiculed existing efforts to defend Greenland, and insisted that the United States must own the island, which has enjoyed home rule within the Kingdom of Denmark since 1979. A Cold War–era agreement signed by Denmark and the United States gave Washington broad latitude to conduct military operations on the territory, and the U.S. Space Force currently has a base on the island’s northwest coast. Rasmus Jarlov, a Danish lawmaker, told me that the Trump administration has yet to articulate a single objective on Greenland, aside from acquiring it. “That’s the challenge we have,” Jarlov said. “And, of course, since they already have full access, it’s a little hard to improve.” “But,” the lawmaker added with a laugh, “we’re willing to try.” Trump, for his part, doesn’t appear to be in the mood to negotiate. He wrote this morning on social media that anything less than ownership was “unacceptable.” Last year, his interest in acquiring Greenland was as much a way to bait the Europeans as it was a clear foreign policy ambition, but he has recently embarked on a renewed push for the U.S. to dominate its own hemisphere. The recent military strike in Venezuela—and subsequent pledge to “run” the South American nation—rekindled his desire for expansion, his aides say. Trump has expressed a preference for purchasing Greenland but has not ruled out using force; one of his advisors said he likes “to get people guessing” and that no option is off the table. Yesterday, after Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, vowed to cast his lot with Denmark over the United States, Trump said that he didn’t “know anything about” Nielsen but that such a choice would be a “big problem for him.” What would be a big problem, for everyone, is a U.S. military incursion in Greenland. For one thing, Article 5 of NATO’s charter compels members of the alliance to treat an attack on one as an attack on all. (It doesn’t contemplate what happens if NATO members attack one another.) There’s also a royal decree from 1952, issued in response to Denmark’s humiliating rout by Nazi forces in the Second World War, that compels the country’s soldiers to fight back if their territory is invaded. Boysen was unequivocal in describing the decree as a fact of military service. “You have to,” he said. “It’s an obligation.” When I asked whether Danish forces would really fight back against Americans, he demurred. “This is highly political,” he said. “And I’m just a soldier.” Jonathan Lemire and Marie-Rose Sheinerman contributed reporting.

Washington — Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado has been contacted by the Justice Department about a video he and a group of lawmakers recorded that urged U.S. service members to refuse illegal orders, marking the latest escalation in the Trump administration's efforts against the Democrats. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, led by Jeanine Pirro, has requested to interview Crow about the video, which was released in November. Crow appeared in the video alongside five other lawmakers, who all have experience serving in the military or intelligence community. "Donald Trump called for my arrest, prosecution, and execution — all because I said something he didn't like. Now he's pressuring his political appointees to harass me for daring to speak up and hold him accountable," Crow said in a statement. "I won't be intimidated and will keep fighting to uphold my oath to the Constitution and defend our country." Crow, a former Army Ranger, told reporters on Capitol Hill that the Trump administration is weaponizing the Justice Department "to try to silence their political opponents and suppress dissent." "But we are members of Congress. We will do our duty. We took an oath to this country to enforce the law, and that is exactly what we are going to do, and we will not allow any president to intimidate us and threaten us and dissuade us from performing our duty and fulfilling our oath," he said. Rep. Jason Crow on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Nov. 23, 2025. CBS News The 90-second video was directed at members of the military and those working in the intelligence community and called on them to "refuse illegal orders." President Trump swiftly denounced the lawmakers for the message and accused them of engaging in "seditious behavior" that is "punishable by death." The FBI also contacted the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms requesting interviews with Crow and his colleagues on Capitol Hill. The other lawmakers who appeared in the video are Sens. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Reps. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. Kelly and Slotkin have also come under additional scrutiny. Slotkin, who organized the video, said Thursday that Pirro had sought an interview with her. "To be clear: this is the president's playbook. Truth doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. And anyone who disagrees with him becomes an enemy and he then weaponizes the federal government against them," Slotkin said in a video statement posted to social media. The Pentagon separately opened a review of misconduct allegations against Kelly, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that the Defense Department had "initiated retirement grade determination proceedings" that could result in a "reduction in his retired grade" and "a corresponding reduction in retired pay." Hegseth also said he issued a formal letter to censure Kelly, alleging "reckless misconduct." Kelly filed a civil lawsuit against Hegseth and the Defense Department on Monday seeking to block the efforts to downgrade his retirement pay and rank, and accused the Trump administration of retaliating against him in violation of his First Amendment rights. Scott MacFarlane and Patrick Maguire contributed to this report. United States Department of Justice

Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan says she has learned that federal prosecutors are investigating her after she took part in a video urging military service members to resist illegal orders. Ms. Slotkin, a Democrat, said in an interview on Monday that she found out about the inquiry from the office of Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and a longtime ally of President Trump’s. In an email sent to the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms, Ms. Pirro’s office requested an interview with the senator or her private counsel. A spokesman for Ms. Pirro’s office declined to confirm or deny any investigation, and it is unclear exactly what officials have identified as a possible crime related to the video. Ms. Slotkin organized the video, which Mr. Trump and other administration officials have described as “seditious,” along with five other Democratic lawmakers who are also military veterans. Its message that military officers are obligated to ignore illegal orders is a fundamental principle of military law. The investigation by Ms. Pirro’s office is the latest escalation in a campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies to exact retribution on those he views as enemies seeking to undermine his administration or his authority as commander in chief.ImageMs. Slotkin learned of the investigation after receiving an email from the office of Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times In November, Ms. Pirro opened a criminal investigation into Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, over whether Mr. Powell lied to Congress about the scope of the central bank’s renovation of its Washington headquarters. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the military had started administrative actions against Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona and a retired Navy captain, who also participated in the video. The proceedings could result in a reduction in his rank and military pension. Ms. Slotkin, a former C.I.A. officer who served three tours in Iraq, described the investigation as an effort by an authoritarian president to weaponize the federal government and intimidate her into silence. “Facts matter little, but the threat matters quite a bit,” she said. “The threat of legal action; the threat to your family; the threat to your staff; the threat to you.” Ms. Slotkin’s journey over the last year highlights fundamental questions for moderate Democrats from swing states like Michigan: Should they prioritize economic issues, like lowering inflation, that they know are most central to their constituents’ everyday lives? Or has American democracy reached a crisis point that requires them to sound the alarm? Can they do both? “I’ve seen democracies flicker out,” Ms. Slotkin said in March when she delivered her party’s response to Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address. “I’ve seen what life is like when a government is rigged.” “You can’t criticize the guys in charge without getting a knock at the door in the middle of the night,” she added In the months that followed, Ms. Slotkin’s warnings about the state of American democracy have grown more dire and her worries that Mr. Trump will use the legal system or the military to target Americans who disagree with him have become more pronounced. In June, as Mr. Trump was deploying Marines and National Guard forces to Los Angeles over the objection of state and local leaders, Ms. Slotkin asked Mr. Hegseth during a Senate hearing whether he had given the troops orders “to shoot at unarmed protesters in any way.” Mr. Hegseth laughed and dismissed her question. After the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in September, Mr. Trump and his top advisers said they were going to designate certain left-wing groups as “domestic terrorists.” “As a former C.I.A. officer, that pricked my ears up,” Ms. Slotkin said. Ms. Slotkin, speaking at the Brookings Institution in the fall, suggested that Mr. Trump could use lethal force against his domestic enemies or target them with criminal investigations. “I’m giving this speech today because I believe that’s exactly the plan,” she said. “I believe that Trump is ready to bring the full weight of the federal government against Americans he perceives as enemies. Why? Because he has one goal: making sure that he and his ilk never have to give up power.” Those concerns led a few weeks later to the video she made with her fellow lawmakers urging U.S. troops to remember their oath to the Constitution and resist illegal orders. The message echoed her earlier speech. This time, though, Mr. Trump reacted with vitriol and suggested that their actions were a betrayal of the country. “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” he wrote. Ms. Slotkin said her office was inundated with hundreds of threats and that the Capitol Police told her that she required 24-hour security. The police were called to her father’s home in Michigan in a practice known as “swatting” after a caller falsely asserted that he was trying to kill his wife. “My brother had to have a police car put in front of his home,” Ms. Slotkin said.ImageDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a Senate hearing in June. Last week, he announced that the military had started administrative actions against Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy captain, who also participated in the video. Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times Mr. Kelly sued Mr. Hegseth and the Pentagon this week over the move to punish him for the video. “I didn’t expect that I would ever find myself here,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor on Monday. In the interview on Monday, Ms. Slotkin shared a similar sentiment. “I’ve studied this kind of political authoritarianism in other countries my entire professional life,” she said. “I just can’t believe I am talking about it in my own country.” She grew more concerned this week after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, an unarmed American citizen, by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis. Vice President JD Vance said Ms. Good had interfered with law enforcement operations and called her actions “classic terrorism.” Ms. Slotkin said the administration’s reaction reflected its growing authoritarian impulses. “Anyone who’s an enemy is a terrorist,” she said. Such language, she continued, is the “standard playbook of any authoritarian leader.” Today, she said, the primary divide in the Democratic Party is no longer between moderates like herself and progressives. Rather, she said, it is between Democrats who want to fight and those who believe they can wait out Mr. Trump and his movement. “I realized it’s not just about me and my family,” she said. “It’s what happens when the commander in chief takes the arms of the government and turns them against basic free speech and against his own people. And it’s not going to stop with me.” Devlin Barrett contributed reporting.

US military intervention in Iran could come in the next 24 hours, two European officials said on Wednesday evening, Reuters reported. An unnamed Israeli official also said it appeared US President Donald Trump had decided to intervene, though the scope and timing remained unclear. The United States is withdrawing some personnel from key bases in the region as a precaution amid heightened regional tensions, Reuters reported earlier on Wednesday, citing an unnamed US official. The disclosure follows remarks by a senior Iranian official who told Reuters earlier on Wednesday that Tehran had warned neighbors hosting US troops that it would hit American bases if Washington strikes. Britain is also withdrawing some personnel from an airbase in Qatar ahead of possible strikes by the United States, the i newspaper reported on Wednesday, mirroring the US.Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to his supporters during a press conference after casting his ballot for the parliamentary runoff elections in Tehran on May 10, 2024. (credit: Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images) Polish citizens should leave Iran immediately, the Polish foreign ministry said on Wednesday. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs urges the immediate departure from Iran and advises against all travel to this country," it said in a post on X. Italy has also appealed to its citizens to leave Iran due to the country's security situation, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. There are around 600 Italians in Iran, most of them in the Tehran area, it added This comes less than 24 hours after the US urged its citizens to leave Iran, and advised them to consider departing by land to Turkey or Armenia, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the US virtual embassy in Tehran. "US citizens should leave Iran now. Consider departing Iran by land to Turkiye or Armenia, if safe to do so," the notice said. This comes shortly after personnel were instructed specifically to depart the US military's Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar by Wednesday evening, according to Reuters, amid warnings from Washington that it could intervene to protect protesters in Iran. The US embassy in Doha had no immediate comment, and Qatar's Foreign Affairs Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for confirmation or comment. Al Udeid is the Middle East's largest US base, housing around 10,000 troops. "It's a posture change and not an ordered evacuation," one of the diplomats told Reuters. The diplomat said he was not aware that a specific reason had been given for the posture change. Earlier on Wednesday, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Iran warned regional countries that it would strike US military bases in those countries in case of a US attack. "Tehran has told regional countries, from Saudi Arabia and UAE to Turkey, that US bases in those countries will be attacked if the US targets Iran... asking these countries to prevent Washington from attacking Iran," the official told Reuters. President Trump’s warnings to the Islamic Republic have included threats of military force. Trump also warned Iran against retaliating against the US, saying that if it did so, the US would respond at levels “never seen before.” The Iranian official also told Reuters that direct communications between Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff have been suspended. The senior official added that US threats undermine diplomatic efforts and that potential meetings between the two officials to find a diplomatic solution to a decades-long nuclear dispute have been canceled. The comments confirm a statement made by Trump on Tuesday, when the president posted on his Truth Social social media platform that he had canceled all meetings with Iranian officials. The official’s comments also come in the wake of an Axios report on Monday stating that Araghchi had "reached out" to Witkoff over the weekend and that the two discussed the ongoing protests in Iran.

An unnamed Israeli official also said it appeared Trump had decided to intervene, though the scope and timing remained unclear.

ALT: a man holding a clock with the words " you know what time it is " behind him

Department of Justice lawyers argued at a hearing in Los Angeles on Wednesday that the state's first-of-its-kind ban on police face coverings could unleash chaos across the country if allowed to take ...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump In the latest sign of the sheer scale of the administration’s war on immigration, the State Department has moved to pause all immigrant visa issuances for applicants from 75 different of countries, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable leaked to me. That’s over one-third of the total number of countries in existence (193)! Effective January 21, the directive was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier today. Citing the Immigration and Nationality Act, the order claims concerns over immigrants being “financially self-sufficient” as the supposed reason for the freeze. “President Trump has made clear that immigrants must be financially self-sufficient to protect public benefits for American citizens,” the cable reads. “Applicants from these countries are at a high risk for becoming a public charge and recourse to local, state, and federal government resources in the United States.” The nationalities affected include: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Yemen I’ve enclosed a screenshot of the diplomatic cable below. Leave a comment Share

(Composite by Hannah Yoest / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock) MEDIA MATTERS, THE LEFT-LEANING WATCHDOG of right-wing media that has been a staple of blue Twitter for nearly two decades, will cease posting on the site starting tonight—a direct result of their lengthy legal fight with the company now known as X and its owner, Elon Musk. Their reason for going dark, according to staff: changes to X’s terms of service, scheduled to go into effect at midnight tonight, that seem specifically designed to hurt Media Matters’ chances in their legal battle—and highlight the lengths to which Musk will sometimes go to punish his critics. “Some of the changes to X’s terms of service underscore Elon Musk’s ability and seeming willingness to change the rules of the platform to punish speech,” said Angelo Carusone, chairman and president of Media Matters, in a statement on Wednesday evening. “There’s little reason to believe similar tactics wouldn’t be used again at crucial moments, like in the runup to elections. Having so much power to control the flow of information should concern everyone invested in democracy.” The two companies have been fighting in court since 2023. That November, Media Matters published a report criticizing Musk’s anything-goes moderation policies and demonstrating that advertisers’ content was sometimes showing up next to hate speech and neo-Nazi posts. X—which was then suffering through a damaging exodus of advertisers due to exactly these concerns—quickly filed what Musk described as a “thermonuclear lawsuit” accusing Media Matters of gaming X’s algorithm in a way that “misrepresented the real user experience.” Media Matters called the lawsuit “frivolous,” accused Musk of trying to weaponize the law to silence critics, and vowed to fight it out in court. Share Much of the recent court wrangling, however, hasn’t concerned the merits of Musk’s accusation but a preliminary procedural matter: Which court or courts provide the proper venue for trying the case? X didn’t file its lawsuit in San Francisco, where X was then based, or in Washington, D.C., home of Media Matters. Instead, it brought the case in the Northern District of Texas—a frequent court-shopping destination for conservatives looking for legal advantage—where it landed on the desk of Chief Judge Reed O’Connor. In addition to a lengthy track record of pro-conservative rulings, O’Connor has faced criticism for presiding over Musk-related lawsuits while personally owning Tesla stock. While O’Connor recused himself from a different 2024 case brought by X—Musk’s attempt to punish businesses for no longer buying ads on his platform—he declined to do so in the Media Matters case. The new X terms of service specifically require that all cases involving the company be filed in the Fort Worth division of the Northern District of Texas. There are just three judges assigned to that division, including O’Connor. Because one is a senior-status judge with a reduced caseload, the odds of any case filed in that division being assigned to O’Connor are greater than one in three. Media Matters has been fighting Musk’s maneuver to get the suit in front of O’Connor. In response to X’s lawsuit, they argued that, by suing in Texas, X had violated its own terms of service—which stipulated at the time that all disputes involving X be brought “solely in the federal or state courts located in San Francisco County” and under California law. Media Matters made the same claim in a countersuit filed against X in California. (In October 2024, Musk belatedly updated X’s terms of service to require all future litigation involving the company to be brought in North Texas.) But a new change in X’s terms of service, announced last month and effective as of tomorrow, seems designed specifically to undercut Media Matters’ venue argument. Now, in addition to insisting that all new federal disputes be held in Judge O’Connor’s district, X is also attempting to bind its users to an agreement that all pre-existing U.S. disputes be litigated there as well. Here’s the relevant passage (emphasis added): The choice of law and forum selection provisions of this paragraph shall apply to pending and future disputes and shall apply to your dispute regardless of when the conduct relating to the dispute arose or occurred. Ongoing use of X requires ongoing assent to the company’s terms of service. In Media Matters’ case, that would mean providing Musk with a weapon to deploy against them in court. As a result, when the new terms go into effect tonight, Media Matters will stop all publishing on the platform. Their accounts won’t be deleted—Media Matters says it doesn’t want to free up the handles for impersonators or trolls—but there will be no further engagement on the platform from the nonprofit or its employees, according to a person familiar with the group’s thinking. Media Matters’ official account has nearly 415,000 followers on X; some of the organization’s most well-known personalities, like senior fellow Matthew Gertz, have hundreds of thousands. Treat yourself: Join Bulwark+ for 2026 Unsavory terms of service agreements are hardly unique to X. Most users breeze through such agreements without taking in a word; courts, on the other hand, have typically treated them as binding legal contracts. And tech companies habitually take full advantage, slipping in all sorts of self-dealing legal goodies: venue stipulations, caps on damages they can be sued for, requirements to solve disputes through arbitration rather than lawsuits, bans on class-action suits, and so on. “This has been going on for like twenty years—not with X in particular, but with data privacy in general,” said Nancy Kim, a law professor and expert on contract law at Illinois Tech’s Chicago-Kent College of Law. “We’re just getting our rights slowly eroded, and these platforms are just increasingly getting more and more powerful, and they’re doing this through terms of service.” But X’s conduct stands out for a few reasons. For one, there’s the obviously personal nature of the proposed changes. The lawsuit against Media Matters is a personal hobbyhorse of Musk’s, who has repeatedly described the organization as “pure evil,” “evil incarnate,” “evil to its core,” a “scam,” and “a radical left propaganda machine.” Compared to the practices of other businesses, it’s significantly outside the norm for Musk—especially after having already made it harder for any future litigants to win in court against X—to further tinker with the terms of service to bolster his side in one particular set of ongoing lawsuits. Then there’s the fact that X—for better or worse—still functions, in many respects, as a digital public square. Discourse there still sets the table for much of the political conversation in the rest of the country. Media Matters’ decision to stop posting means X will lose a significant voice pushing back on the monsoon of fact-agnostic MAGA infotainment that’s become ubiquitous on the platform. As Musk’s endless campaign against Media Matters continues to show, the openness of that discourse rests on the whims of one crabby, strung-out, impetuous billionaire, whose devotion to the ideals of free and open communication tends to shrivel up quickly when it comes into tension with his various political campaigns, ideological beliefs, or personal vendettas. If Musk is willing to repeatedly revise X’s terms of service just to make it easier to punish Media Matters, what else might he do to restrict what was once regarded as a national, or even global, public square? And to what extent are other users who remain on the platform1 enabling him to do so—and exposing themselves, perhaps, to liability of their own—by continuing to use it? Leave a comment Share