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    The Guardian view on Iran’s protests: old tactics of repression face new pressures | Editorial

    A brutal regime has failed to safeguard either the country’s physical security or basic living standards. But Donald Trump’s threats to intervene won’t help civiliansThe internet blackout across Iran is meant to prevent protests from spreading, and observers from witnessing the crackdown on them. But it’s also emblematic of the deep uncertainty surrounding this unrest and the response of a regime under growing pressure.Rocketing inflation and a tanking currency sparked the protests in late December. They have since broadened and spread. Videos showed thousands marching in Tehran on Thursday night and people setting fire to vehicles and state-owned buildings.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading… More

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    ‘A colossal own goal’: Trump’s exit from global climate treaties will have little effect outside US

    For much of the last 30 years, the rest of the world has been forced to persevere with climate action in the face of US intransigenceOutrage as Trump withdraws from key UN climate treaty along with dozens of international organisationsDonald Trump’s latest attack on climate action takes place amid rapidly rising temperatures, rising sea levels, still-rising greenhouse gas emissions, burgeoning costs from extreme weather and the imminent danger that the world will trigger “tipping points” in the climate system that will lead to catastrophic and irreversible changes.The US president’s decision to withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the world’s leading body of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will not alter any of those scientific realities. Continue reading… More

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    Two people shot by US federal agents in Portland

    Mayor urges ICE to pause operations as representative says victims alive but extent of injuries unknownUS federal agents shot two people outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, a day after an ICE officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis.The Portland police bureau (PPB) said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that two people were in the hospital following a shooting involving federal agents, adding that the conditions of those shot were not known. Continue reading… More

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    ICE agents have killed – again. The Trump administration blames the victim | Moira Donegan

    An agent shot a woman in Minneapolis, causing vast and needless grief. Our country is diseased – but that is not the only truthA woman in Minneapolis has died as her neighbors fought Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation. On Wednesday morning, a group of local civilian protesters gathered around a site where several ICE agents were attempting to abduct migrants. The agents were part of a surge of roughly 2,000 deportation officers who have been sent to Minneapolis as part of Trump’s effort to persecute the Somali community there. In a disturbing incident caught on video by multiple onlookers, a woman driving in an SUV covered in bumper stickers blocked traffic on the residential road – perhaps as part of an effort to keep ICE vehicles from passing. In the videos, an ICE agent approaches the SUV, yelling: “Get out of the car. Get out of the fucking car.” He stands at the driver’s side, with his feet clear of the vehicle, and reaches into where the woman is driving. She begins to drive away, and an officer fires three shots, the last from behind the vehicle as the car pulls away from him. The SUV then crashes into a parked vehicle as onlookers scream in distress. “You did a murder, for what?” one of the protesters calls out to the agents.The driver, a US citizen who was described by Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar as a “legal observer”, was declared dead. She died less than a mile from where George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020. Her name was Renee Nicole Good, and she was 37.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading… More

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    Minneapolis residents hold vigil for woman fatally shot by ICE agent – video

    Crowds gathered in Minneapolis on Wednesday to protest and hold a vigil for a woman killed during the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown. The Minneapolis motorist was shot during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in the city in what federal officials claimed was an act of self-defence by an officer, but which the city’s mayor described as ‘reckless’ and unnecessaryWoman in Minnesota fatally shot by ICE agent during raid, video shows Continue reading… More

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    ‘This is not normal’: Minneapolis on edge and angry after ICE killing of woman amid federal surge

    City targeted by Trump has seen swarm of immigration agents on the streets – and residents say the tension is palpableEdwin Torres DeSantiago received a text message on Wednesday morning as he was tracking immigration enforcement across Minneapolis – a person was shot by ICE at 34th Street and Portland Avenue.He jumped into his car to head to the scene. Torres DeSantiago manages the Immigrant Defense Network, a group that monitors ICE activity and responds to community needs after someone is taken. He has responded to dozens of scenes in the past few months, and even more in the last few days since the federal government surged its presence in the midwestern city. Continue reading… More

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    Trump’s assault on the Smithsonian: ‘The goal is to reframe the entire culture of the US’

    The president has vowed to kill off ‘woke’ in his second term in office, and the venerable cultural institution a few blocks from the White House is in his sightsOn 30 May last year, Kim Sajet was working in her office in the grandly porticoed National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. The gallery is one of the most important branches of the Smithsonian Institution, the complex of national museums that, for almost 200 years, has told the story of the nation. The director’s suite, large enough to host a small party, has a grandeur befitting the museum’s role as the keeper of portraits of the United States’ most significant historical figures. Sajet was working beneath the gaze of artworks from the collection, including a striking 1952 painting of Mary Mills, a military-uniformed, African American nurse, and a bronze head of jazz and blues singer Ethel Waters.It seemed like an ordinary Friday. Until, that is, an anxious colleague came in to tell Sajet that the president of the United States had personally denounced her on social media. “Upon the request and recommendation of many people I am herby [sic] terminating the employment of Kim Sajet as Director of the National Portrait Gallery,” Donald Trump had posted on Truth Social. According to the post, Sajet was “a highly partisan person” and a “strong supporter” of diversity and inclusion programmes, which by an executive order on his inauguration day, 20 January, he had eradicated from federal agencies. “Her replacement will be named shortly,” continued the message. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Continue reading… More