ICE in Minnesota

Plus: Mamdani staffer embroiled in scandal, inside the new food pyramid, Ro Khanna's misstep, and more...

Tragedy in Minnesota: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minnesota shot and killed a 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Goode, in her car yesterday. Footage of the incident is rather unclear. President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and top officials at ICE say the officer had been acting in self-defense as Goode attempted to use her car as a lethal weapon, trying to run over law enforcement; Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called this "bullshit."

"We've dreaded this moment since the early stages of this ICE presence in Minneapolis," added Frey. It's true: Whenever a bunch of armed agents of the state enter your city, it's not crazy to expect that at some point they abuse their power, that a vague situation ends in bloodshed, that they misread a threat, or that a threat is legitimately directed toward them and they react, resulting in a death. It's very hard to tell what exactly happened here.

Here's what we know: City leaders claim Goode was a legal observer, not a protester. Noem describes Goode's driving—first backing up, after an agent tried to open the driver's side door, then moving forward, at which point shots were fired—as an "act of domestic terrorism." Noem also said that the officer (whose name has not been released) who shot the woman was involved in another incident with an "anti-ICE rioter" in June, details of which have not come out yet.

Other reports have emerged of Border Patrol agents roughing up people on school property at Minneapolis' Roosevelt High School.

National values: The old Venezuelan regime is enjoying playing a P.R. game. Nicolás Maduro claimed in court Monday that he's a "prisoner of war" (attempting the same strategy as Panama's Manuel Noriega, who became an ur–Peloton Guy in prison and got the nicest digs, having shown up for trial in his military uniform).

This will be a stretch, as Maduro has never served in the military (though he claims the commander in chief title for himself). It will also present a tension in which the federal government will probably argue that, no, the United States is not at war with Venezuela, contra what the Trump administration says.

Meanwhile, down south, "the Venezuelan authorities asked radio broadcasters to change their programming to comply with seven days of national mourning in honor of those killed in the U.S. raid on Saturday," reports Emma Bubola for The New York Times. "In a message to broadcasters, Oswaldo Sifontes, the president of the Venezuelan chamber of the broadcasting industry, asked radio stations to enforce the 'promotion of national values' by prioritizing Venezuelan music, and maintain a serious editorial line, with no games and announcers using 'a sober, moderate, and respectful tone of voice.'"

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Scenes from New York: "Mayor Zohran Mamdani's newly instated radical-left tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, broke down Wednesday as she dodged questions from reporters about her gentrification hypocrisy," reports The New York Post. "The 37-year-old, who has faced backlash for blasting homeownership as a 'weapon of white supremacy' in the past, teared up when she emerged briefly from her apartment building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, at about 9 a.m." (Of course, it's Crown Heights. They always live in Crown Heights.) "Weaver, who was tapped by Mamdani to be his new director of the city Office to Protect Tenants, quickly ran back inside after she was asked about the $1.6 million home her mother owns in Nashville, Tennessee." More Cea Weaver here, interviewed by Reason a few years ago:

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QUICK HITS

• On Wednesday, the Trump administration released a new food pyramid. Though it's much more correct than the one that preceded it—Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for all his flaws, has decided to emphasize the importance of meat and dairy, prioritizing protein and reducing sugar intake—I'm fascinated by who, exactly, looks to the government to dictate what they eat and how much these changes will actually matter. (It is possible these guideline changes will affect school lunches for the better.)

The official new Dietary Guidelines food pyramid
Revolutionary. Grains now at the bottom pic.twitter.com/QJYIQIZbNF

— Nina Teicholz, PhD (@bigfatsurprise) January 7, 2026

I do think this is decent advice from Dr. Oz:

Dr. Oz on alcohol guidelines: "Alcohol is a social lubricant that brings people together…there's nothing healthier than having a good time with friends."

"There was never good data" to back the 1-2 drink guideline, which was taken out.

But "don't have it for breakfast."

— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) January 7, 2026

• More on this as the situation develops:

Donald J. Trump Truth Social Post 06:53 PM EST 01.07.26 pic.twitter.com/7EtpJypJCJ

— Commentary Donald J. Trump Posts From Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) January 8, 2026

• Humanoid robots kinda suck so far, per Bloomberg.
• On branding, tech-world hiring trends, and the future of public relations, from Lulu Cheng Meservey over at Pirate Wires.
• "Instead of retreating from the limelight that had so wounded them, the Louds embraced it entirely," writes Tiffany Jenkins for UnHerd. "They were among the first to become famous simply for being themselves, and the experience changed them forever. Pat Loud wrote an autobiography, prefiguring the 'warts and all' memoir boom of the Nineties; Bill modelled in his bathrobe for Esquire. Delilah appeared as a 'bachelorette' on The Dating Game, and all five children performed as a rock band on The Dick Cavett Show. Lance posed naked for Screw magazine.…Intimate confession and recognition of the 'true' self is now a mainstay of contemporary discourse. Being 'false', or worse a hypocrite, is a deadly modern sin. Social media platforms would later accelerate and monetise these trends, of course, but they surely didn't invent them."
• "[Rep. Ro] Khanna [D–Calif.], an ambitious 49-year-old Democrat seen as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, has publicly defended a proposed one-time wealth tax in California that has angered some of the state's richest executives and prompted threats that they will flee," reports The New York Times. "Some of those wealthy Californians are now quietly mobilizing on WhatsApp chats and conference calls to try to put together a well-funded but long-shot bid to oust Mr. Khanna, according to half a dozen people close to the effort who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations."
• Property rights violation alert:

????President Trump will immediately take steps to ban big institutional investors from buying more single family homes and he will be calling on Congress to codify it. pic.twitter.com/Rq77lfs8Vi

— James Blair (@JamesBlairUSA) January 7, 2026