Protests intensify in Minneapolis after a second ICE-related shooting, as President Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota. Venezuela’s top opposition leader brings her Nobel Peace Prize to Washington to press her case with President Trump, even as the U.S. signals support for an interim leader. And President Trump unveils what he calls a new healthcare plan, leaning on cheaper insurance with limited benefits as Congress debates the future of ACA subsidies.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Cheryl Corley, Tara Neill, Diane Webber, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
Our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor.
(0:00) Introduction (1:57) Trump and Minnesota (05:29) Venezuela’s Opposition (09:20) Trump’s Healthcare Plan
Agnès Callamard is Amnesty International’s Secretary General
Credit: World Economic Forum/Gabriel Lado. Source: Amnesty International
LONDON, Jan 16 2026 (IPS) – “The ‘spirit of dialogue’, the theme for this year’s meeting in Davos, which begins January 19, has been painfully and increasingly absent from international affairs of late. President Trump’s first year back in office has seen the United States withdraw from multilateral bodies, bully other states and relentlessly attack the principles and institutions that underpin the international justice system.
At the same time, the likes of Russia and Israel have continued to make a mockery of the Geneva and Genocide Conventions without facing meaningful accountability.
“A few powerful states are unashamedly working to demolish the rules-based order and reshape the world along self-serving lines. Unilateral interventions and corporate interests are taking precedence over long-term strategic partnerships grounded in universal values and collective solutions.
This was evident in the Trump administration’s military action in Venezuela and its stated intent to ‘run’ the country, which the president himself admitted was at least partially driven by the interests of US oil corporations. Make no mistake: the only certain consequence of vandalizing international law and multilateral institutions will be extensive suffering and destruction the world over.
“When faced with diplomatic, economic and military bullying and attacks, many states and corporations have opted for appeasement instead of taking a principled and united stand. Humanity needs world leaders, business executives and civil society to collectively resist or even disrupt these destructive trends. It requires denouncing the bullying and the attacks, and strong legal, economic, and diplomatic responses.
What should not happen is silence, complicity and inaction. It also demands engaging in a transformative quest for common solutions to the many shared and existential problems we face.
“We need UN Security Council reform to address abuse of veto powers, robust regulation to protect us against harmful new technologies; more inclusive and transparent decision-making on climate solutions; and international treaties on tax and debt to deliver a more equitable, rights-based global economy. But this will only be achievable through cooperation and steadfast will to resist those who seek to strongarm and divide us.”
-Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza
-The USA’s military action in Venezuela, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and the conflicts in Sudan, DRC and Myanmar
-The importance of revindicating and revitalizing multilateralism
-The need for global tax and debt reform and universal social protection
-The urgent need for a full, fast, fair and funded fossil fuel phase-out
-The need to massively scale up climate finance, including to address loss and damage
-Big Tech, corporate accountability and the risks of deregulation
-How to limit the harmful impact of artificial intelligence on human rights, including the right to a healthy environment
‘SNL’ Alum Chris Redd is speaking out about getting assaulted in NYC three years ago — and he’s ruling out as a suspect his ex-pal — Kenan Thompson — in the unsolved case. Chris was in New York City on Wednesday night when a photog asked him…
Water temperature in San Francisco Bay today is 52.7°F.
The first low tide will be at 1:58 am at 3.43 feet
The first high tide will be at 7:39 am at 6.11 feet
The next low tide at 3:12 pm at -0.29 feet
and the final high tide at Ocean Beach will be at 10:24 pm at 4.63 feet
The Moon is currently 10.1% visible
It’s a Waning Crescent moon
We’ll have a New Moon in 3 days on Sunday the 18th of January of 2026 at 11:52 am
Today is….
Get to Know Your Customers Day
Humanitarian Day
National Bagel Day
National Booch Day
National Fresh Squeezed Juice Day
National Hat Day
National Pothole Day in the UK
National Strawberry Ice Cream Day
Wikipedia Day
Today is also….
Arbor Day in Egypt
Armed Forces Remembrance Day in Nigeria
Army Day in India
John Chilembwe Day in Malawi
Korean Alphabet Day in North Korea
Ocean Duty Day in Indonesia
Teacher’s Day in Venezuela
If today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You! You share your special day with….
1622 – Molière, French actor and playwright (died 1673
1902 – Saud of Saudi Arabia (died 1969)
1908 – Edward Teller, Hungarian-American physicist and academic (died 2003)
1909 – Jean Bugatti, German-French engineer (died 1939)
1909 – Gene Krupa, American drummer, composer, and actor (died 1973)
1913 – Lloyd Bridges, American actor (died 1998)
1918 – Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian colonel and politician, second President of Egypt (died 1970)
1929 – Martin Luther King Jr., American minister and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
1941 – Captain Beefheart, American singer-songwriter, musician, and artist (died 2010)
1945 – Vince Foster, American lawyer and political figure (died 1993)
1945 – Princess Michael of Kent
1947 – Andrea Martin, American-Canadian actress, singer, and screenwriter
1957 – Mario Van Peebles, Mexican-American actor and director
1971 – Regina King, American actress
1981 – Pitbull, American rapper and producer
1984 – Ben Shapiro, American author and commentator
….and on this day in history….
1759 – The British Museum opens to the public.
1782 – Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris addresses the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.
1870 – Thomas Nast publishes a political cartoon symbolizing the Democratic Party with a donkey (“A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion”) for Harper’s Weekly.
1889 – The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is incorporated in Atlanta.
1892 – James Naismith publishes the rules of basketball.
1908 – The Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority becomes the first Greek-letter organization founded and established by African American college women.
1962 – The Derveni papyrus, Europe’s oldest surviving manuscript dating to 340 BC, is found in northern Greece.
1967 – The first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles. The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10.
1981 – Pope John Paul II receives a delegation from the Polish trade union Solidarity at the Vatican led by Lech Wałęsa.
2001 – Wikipedia, a free wiki content encyclopedia, is launched
The debate surrounding the authenticity of the image of John Chilembwe on Malawian currency has been attracting mixed reactions from different quarters. Some Malawians question whether the image aligns with several other available images of Chilembwe. Maybe the one on the currency went ‘ku HD’. However, here is what a political analyst, Wonderful Mkhutche, has to say on those sentiments.
“The one on the currency is John Chilembwe. Arguing against this is trivial for people who do not have substance to talk about the life of John Chilembwe. There are so many things to talk about Chilembwe,” says Mkhutche.
Mkhutche: Let’s keep honoring his legacy.
He further argues that Malawians should continue remembering Chilembwe as an autonomist who gave his life for the country’s scuffle.
“We should remember Chilembwe as a nationalist who gave his life for this country’s struggle. We too should have the same spirit,” he posits.
Meanwhile, John Chilembwe was born in Chiradzulu district in June 1871, though some quarters argue that it is not the exact year Chilembwe was born, as in those days it was hard to keep records of one’s age. According to the Dictionary of African History Biography, around 1880, Chilembwe became a pupil at the Church of Scotland mission in Blantyre, but he was converted by Joseph Booth, a British Baptist missionary, and became his assistant from 1892 until 1895.
Booth worked for a number of churches and had no denominational loyalty; he taught a radical equality that resonated with Chilembwe’s own sense of black pride. In 1897, Booth took Chilembwe to the United States, where a Baptist church sponsored him through Virginia Theological College. Here, he seems to have come into contact with contemporary African-American thinking, especially that of Booker T. Washington.
He returned to Nyasaland in 1900 as an ordained Baptist and founded the Providence Industrial Mission, which developed into seven schools.
Events after 1912 disillusioned Chilembwe. A famine in 1913 brought great hardship and starvation to many peasant farmers. Mozambican refugees flooded into Nyasaland, and Chilembwe deeply resented the way they were exploited by white plantation owners. When World War I broke out the following year, Africans were conscripted into the British army, and Chilembwe protested both from the pulpit and in the local press.
The white landowners were infuriated by his nationalist appeal, and several of his schools were burned down. Added to personal problems of declining health, financial difficulties, and the death of a beloved daughter, Chilembwe’s sense of betrayal deepened into fury.
In careful detail, Chilembwe planned an attack on the worst of the area plantations, which was known for cruelty to its African workers. With 200 followers, he struck swiftly, and three plantation managers were killed. One of these, a cousin of David LIVINGSTONE, was notorious for burning down tenants’ chapels, whipping workers, and denying them their wages.
His head was cut off and displayed on a pole in Chilembwe’s church. The rebels, however, scrupulously observed Chilembwe’s orders not to harm any women or children. The colonial response was immediate and ruthless, resulting in the death of many Africans.
Chilembwe and his followers–mostly educated, Christian, small businessmen–demanded for themselves the same place in the modern world that they saw Europeans enjoying. Meanwhile, John Chilembwe died on February 3, 1915, at the age of 43 after being killed by the white people.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “shocked by reports of violence and excessive use of force by Iranian authorities against protesters”, is urging restraint and immediate restoration of communications, as unrest enters its third week. 11 January 2026. Credit: United Nations
NEW YORK, Jan 15 2026 (IPS) – Unlike ever before, Iran’s Islamic regime is facing a revolt led by a generation that has lost its fear. Young and old, men and women, students and workers, are flooding the streets across the country.
Iran’s future may well hinge on whether its military chooses to act and save the country, driven by economic collapse, corruption, and decades of repression. Women and girls are at the forefront, protesting without headscarves, defying the clergy that once controlled every aspect of their lives. They don’t want reform; they are demanding freedom, economic relief, and the end of authoritarianism.
Shutting down the internet, arresting nearly 17,000 protesters, killing at least 3,000, including children, and Trump’s threat to use force to stop the Iranian regime have not prevented the mullahs from continuing their onslaught. The regime’s ruthless crackdown has been a calamitous wave of repression, taking thousands of lives in a brutal attempt to crush dissent. Yet even in the face of such peril, the public remains undeterred, determined to continue their fight.
Now, however, they need the support of the most powerful domestic—not foreign—power to come to their aid. The Iranian military is the most pivotal institution in the country, capable of catalyzing the downfall of the regime. The military is the key player, with significant internal influence and the capability to drive the necessary change from within, ultimately leading to regime change.
Every officer in the military should stop and think, how do I want to serve my country.
Do I want to continue to prop up a bunch of reactionaries, self-obsessed old men who have long since lost their relevance, wearing the false robe of piety to appear sanctimonious while subjugating the people to hardship and hopelessness?
Should I not support the younger generation who are yearning for a better life, for opportunity, for a future that gives meaning to their existence?
Should I not participate in sparking the revival of this magnificent nation from the doldrums of the past 47 years that have consumed it from within?
Should I continue to prepare for war against Israel, or extend a peaceful hand and invest in building my country with such immense natural and human riches and be in the forefront of all other modern democratic and progressive nations, and restore the glory of ancient Persia?
Do I truly want to continue to wear blinders and let my country be destroyed from within, or should I become part of a newly reborn nation and take personal pride in helping to revive it?
The answer to these questions should be clear to every officer. The military should establish a transitional government and pave the way for a legitimate, freely elected government, and restore the Iranian people’s dignity and their right to be free.
The idea that the Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, could return and restore a monarchy is just the opposite of what the Iranian people need. Instead of another form of corruption or an old kingdom, they deserve a democracy and genuine freedom.
In the final analysis, Iran’s destiny may rest on a single profound choice—whether its military steps forward to reshape the nation’s destiny.
Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.
