2026-02-02 02:43:24
Even in the Trumpian corner of New Jersey, where I chose to witness Melania, the $75 million Amazon-produced film about the first lady, I predicted that I would be watching alone. This is, after all, a historically bad time for theatrical releases, and initial forecasts for Melania‘s opening weekend had been dismal. Yet there they were, at least a dozen attendees at a 10 a.m. screening on a frigid Saturday morning. I appeared to be the only one who required breakfast wine for what was about to unfold.
What flashed across the screen over the next hour and 48 minutes can best be described as an interminable slog of airbrushed nothingness. After all, only so much entertainment can be wrung out of footage of a woman in snakeskin Louboutins traveling from Mar-a-Lago to New York and back again in the lead-up to the inauguration. And yet, for nearly two hours, the film turns on the premise that its subject is some kind of fashion genius, resulting in some of the most stultifying scenes I have ever seen committed to film. What other way is there to describe extended, drawn-out shows of Melania getting fitted for her inauguration wardrobe, only to be followed by scenes of her walking across gilded ballrooms in that very wardrobe? A few other pre-inauguration scenes follow, including a meeting between Melania and Brigitte Macron over Zoom. But they all appear brief, choreographed, and wooden. Throughout, Melania claims to have a leading role in the preparations for her husband’s inauguration, but there is scant evidence of actual decision-making by the first lady.
What an obscenity to hear this woman employ the language of shared humanity, as the Trump administration kills Americans and systematically kidnaps immigrants and their kids.
But Melania is more revelatory in its world-historical vapidness than it might seem. Consider that Melania appears to go out of her way to foreground her journey from Slovenian immigrant to American first lady, a story she says serves as “a reminder of why I respect this nation so deeply.” Similarly, the film gives rare space to the immigrants in Melania’s inner circle, including her chief interior designer, Tham Kannalikham, who opens up about her journey from Laos to now decorating the White House, as well as Melania’s father, who is seen beaming with pride in his American daughter. Absent in Viktor Knavs’ film debut is the context of the “chain migration” pathway through which he and his late wife became US citizens, the very same policy targeted by their son-in-law.
“Everyone should do what they can to protect our individual rights,” Melania says at one point. “Never take them for granted, because in the end, no matter where we come from, we are bound by the same humanity.”
What an obscenity to hear this woman employ the language of shared humanity, as the Trump administration kills Americans and systematically kidnaps immigrants and their children. But as galling as they were, the remarks were instructive of both how Melania views her American story and the same anti-immigrant sentiments with which some, in order to prove that they belong here, yank the ladder up from newcomers seeking the same opportunities. Such immigrants, like Melania, cast themselves as the “good immigrant” who came here the “right way.” But the first lady appears to do this despite reports, including our own, that she may have initially been working here without a visa. In other words, she may have violated immigration law. Meanwhile, the immigrants Melania now surrounds herself with, like Tham, are props for that very narrative—with zero mention of her husband’s endless cruelty. But why would there be in a piece of abject propaganda—backed by one of the richest men in the world as he prepares to gut the Washington Post—that many crew members asked not to be credited on?
As a purely cinematic experience, Melania, a ghastly parade of fun-house mirror herstory, will certainly be relegated to the footnotes of her family’s deeper atrocities. I would have asked what my fellow attendees thought, but not even a plastic cup of wine could help me stomach the film in its entirety. I left 15 minutes before the credits rolled in, incomplete as they were.
2026-02-02 02:27:03
A peaceful protest in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday broke into chaos as federal agents deployed tear gas on demonstrators—including families with young children.
Thousands of protesters marched through the city and gathered in the blocks surrounding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. According to the Oregonian, just minutes after the crowd arrived at the facility, federal agents launched tear gas, pepper balls, rubber bullets, and flash-bang grenades after some demonstrators approached the security gate.
Labor leaders from over 20 unions led the march to the ICE building, with many protesters participating as part of the “Labor Against ICE” rally.
Portland City Councilor Mitch Green wrote in a social media post that he was tear gassed in the crowd: “Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions. I expect to see enforcement of our city code prohibiting the use of tear gas.”
Portland’s city code bans selling, furnishing, transporting, carrying, possessing, or using tear gas weapons within the city limits. The code does not apply to “members of the armed forces of the State of Oregon and the United States in the performance of their official duties,” but federal agents are not exempted under the statute.
The Portland Police Bureau posted on X on Saturday night that they closed a major street to prevent drivers from being affected by the tear gas.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson released a statement late Saturday night, saying that it was a “peaceful daytime protest” that “posed no danger to federal forces.”
“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” he continued. “To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children. Ask yourselves why you continue to work for an agency responsible for murders on American streets.”
Wilson said later in the lengthy statement that the city would carry out an ordinance that went into effect in January that imposes financial penalties on facilities where chemical agents are deployed.
The crackdown against protesters in Portland comes one day after a nationwide uprising where hundreds of demonstrations took place across the country to demand federal agents leave American towns and cities.
2026-02-01 20:30:00
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
With an icy white sheet still blanketing much of the Eastern United States after an intense storm this week, it’s hard to imagine a future with less snow at this time of year.
But over time, climate change has decreased snowpack by as much as 20 percent per decade in parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
This trend is already causing trouble for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, global events reliant on snow to succeed. In a landmark 2024 study, researchers found that potential host locations are dwindling as temperatures warm.
Just weeks before this year’s Olympics-Paralympics events kick off in Italy, scientists published a follow-up study analyzing how the games can adapt. The most effective option: shifting when they are held.
Disappearing snow isn’t just affecting Olympians. Around the world, the warming climate is shortening recreational ski and snowboarding seasons, which could have cascading impacts for the towns that have long relied on this winter economy.
For more than a century, the Winter Olympics have been held almost every four years in snowy cities across the globe, from the first games in Chamonix, France, to the most recent in Beijing. The Paralympic Games take place in the same location shortly afterward.
Olympic competitions such as alpine skiing and snowboarding are dependent on consistent snowpack. Rapid levels of warming across the Northern Hemisphere disrupt that. In 2010, Vancouver saw a record-warm January, partially due to the weather phenomenon known as El Niño, and had to drive and fly in enough snow to fill 20 Big Bens for snowboarding and freestyle skiing events, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
Warm weather also threatens the quality of the snow already on the ground, as shown at Russia’s Sochi Olympics and Paralympics in 2014, which saw an uptick in injury rates compared with the previous games as athletes struggled in the slush.
With this in mind, the International Olympic Committee, which governs the games, recently commissioned a study to determine future climate impacts. Researchers analyzed 93 regions around the world that have previously hosted the Olympic Winter and Paralympic Games to determine whether they’d be “climate-reliable” by the 2050s. Under the most likely emissions scenario, only 52 locations met the criteria for the Olympics and just 22 for the Paralympics, given that it is slightly later in the season, according to their 2024 study.
But there are ways to adapt, according to co-author Daniel Scott, a climate expert at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. In a follow-up study published last week, Scott and his colleagues found that shifting both the Olympic and Paralympic Games to earlier dates could increase the number of climate-suitable host countries, particularly for the Paralympics.
As I reported last year, experts have called for a similar timing change for the Summer Olympics to reduce the risk of extreme heat, which has harmed both competitors’ and fans’ health in recent years.
It’s a seemingly simple shift but comes with its own set of complexities. Moving the Winter Olympics up a few weeks would mean the games are happening right after the holiday season. Cities may struggle to secure pre-games housing, ensure there’s sufficient infrastructure, or find volunteers shortly after Christmas.
Another added nuisance, according to Scott: Television rights. Broadcasters and advertisers pay billions and plan years ahead for the rights to air the Olympics, which provides the financial foundation for the games. Changing the time of the games could disrupt this model, at least in the short term.
Other experts have pointed out that organizers must reckon with the Olympic Games’ own rampant emissions to secure a future less threatened by climate change. Cities often raze ecosystems to build new facilities, companies use copious amounts of energy to broadcast the competitions, and people travel from around the world in carbon-emitting planes to spectate.
For the Winter Games specifically, environmentalists are concerned about the growing amount of artificial snow cities must pump out to supplement dwindling natural supplies. In 2022, Beijing made Olympics history as the first host to use artificial snow almost exclusively to support the games.
It was a mammoth task. China pulled water from key reservoirs to help create a wintry snowscape in a historically dry city. But critics said the effort strained water supplies for local communities, disrupted soil and plant growth, and used large amounts of energy.
The 2026 Olympics is in a snowier region, the Italian Alps. But still, the International Olympic Committee told the Associated Press it has produced more than 2 million cubic yards of artificial snow for the upcoming games.
Since the last time Italy’s Cortina d’Ampezzo hosted in 1956, February temperatures have warmed in the area by 6.4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a recent analysis by the nonprofit Climate Central.
Environmentalists have pointed to the climate feedback loop this can create: As places pump out more artificial snow, the emissions from this process—if fossil fuels are used—feed the climate change that will reduce future natural snowpack.
Artificial snow is becoming similarly important for recreational winter sports as temperatures rise. Some resorts have taken to stockpiling snow under giant insulating blankets to keep it from melting during warmer seasons, WIRED reports. But these efforts are costly, and it may soon become untenable for certain regions in the Northern Hemisphere, including some parts of the Northeastern US such as New York and Pennsylvania, to save or make enough snow for a lucrative ski operation.
Scott told me there will be “winners and losers” as winter resort towns face global warming. “As some of those businesses go out of business, the others are there to pick up market share, if demand stays the same,” he said.
Though Scott recognizes the energy and water required to produce machine-made snow, he believes the sustainability of snowmaking gets a bit of a bad rep. He noted that up to 90 percent of the water is returned to the same watershed once the snow melts, and the process likely has a lower emissions footprint than traveling farther to ski elsewhere or flying to watch the Olympics.
Nonetheless, winter sport enthusiasts—professional and amateur—will have to adapt to changing conditions. A survey of Olympic winter athletes and coaches from 20 countries found 90 percent had concerns about how climate change will affect the future of their sport.
“When it comes to the Olympics, you hope you deliver [athletes] the best conditions possible,” Scott said. “These people have trained their whole damn lives for these things.”
2026-02-01 06:42:34
A federal judge on Saturday ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos from an immigration detention facility outside San Antonio. Ramos, in the blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, who became another symbol of the cruelty of ICE agents, was detained by federal agents earlier this month in a suburban Minneapolis neighborhood—an incident that has since drawn immense outrage.
Judge Fred Biery of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas has ruled that the detention of Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, was unconstitutional. They are both asylum seekers.
In a scathing opinion, the judge wrote that the father and son “seek nothing more than some modicum of due process and the rule of law,” adding that immigration agents were “traumatizing children.”
The father and son’s case “has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” the judge noted.
Biery wrote of the detainment: “Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency.”
According to school officials in Minnesota, on January 20, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the father as he and Liam were on their way home from school pickup. Agents then reportedly used the child as “bait” to knock on his front door to see if anyone else was home, Zena Stenvik, the superintendent for the Columbia Heights Public Schools district, said. A photo of a federal agent holding onto the backpack of Liam went viral, sparking intense criticism.
Writing in the Washington Post, Phillip Kennicott noted, “This is an image of universal moral urgency, akin to a small number of photographs that once upon a time had the power to change our behavior, away from cruelty or indifference and in the direction of basic decency.”
The father and son were quickly sent to the Texas detention center, where Liam reportedly has been sick, according to his mother.
Judge Biery accused the federal government of “ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence” and “that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment.” At the end of the ruling, he includes that now indelible photo of Liam with two Bible verses. Matthew 19:14, which quotes Jesus: “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
And John 11:35, “Jesus wept.”
2026-02-01 05:57:57
Veterans, people aging out of foster care, and parents of teenagers are just a few of the groups who will face dire consequences from work requirements for people receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, that are taking effect for several states across the country on Sunday, February 1.
Expected to impact millions of Americans and cause around two million recipients to stop receiving benefits altogether, these changes stem from President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that passed in July. The GOP bill will reduce SNAP funding by approximately $186 billion over 10 years—a cut of around 20 percent.
SNAP currently helps provide food to more than 42 million Americans each month—more than two–thirds of whom are elderly, disabled, or children. To qualify for SNAP, households must be at or below 130 percent of the poverty line —which, as of 2026, stands at $15,960 for a single person, $27,320 for a three-person household, and $38,680 for a five-person household.
Typically, adults who are eligible for SNAP can receive benefits for three months within a 36-month period before needing to fulfill additional work requirements, such as getting employment or attending a work training program. Many groups of people are granted exceptions to the work requirements depending on their abilities and life circumstances. The updated requirements, however, target some of these groups.
Starting Sunday, February 1, in several states around the country able-bodied individuals between the ages of 18 and 65 without dependents must be working or attending a work program for 80 hours or more per month to receive benefits. Before the GOP bill’s passage, the age limit for work requirements was 55. And, while parents and household members with dependents under the age of 18 were previously exempt from the requirements, moving forward those exceptions will only apply to families with dependents under the age of 14.
Certain other groups facing unique challenges were also able to receive benefits without fulfilling certain requirements, but will now be forced to comply with the new rules. These groups include veterans, people ages 24 and under who recently aged out of foster care, and people who are unhoused.
According to a Congressional Budget Office report from August 2025, these new provisions could reduce participation in SNAP by roughly 2.4 million people in an average month from 2025 to 2034.
The power of individual states to provide benefits during difficult hiring periods is also being affected. State leaders can only temporarily extend benefits beyond three months if the unemployment rate in an area is at least 10 percent, per the updated rules. The national unemployment rate is, according to a January report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 4.4 percent.
According to the Trump administration, these new rules are aimed at eliminating what they say is fraud and “reflect the importance of work and responsibility,” as detailed on the United States Department of Agriculture website. The USDA is the agency that funds SNAP. Yet, according to an April 2025 report from the Congressional Research Service, “SNAP fraud is rare.” Sometimes, an occasional error may occur through bureaucratic mistakes such as duplicate enrollments—though this does not constitute fraud, the report explained.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has lauded the new rules, saying in an interview with Fox Business on Friday that “the American dream is not being on [a] food stamp program.” She added, “That should be a hand up, not a handout.”
People who receive SNAP benefits repeatedly have faced uncertainty recently, including during the longest government shutdown in American history last year, when millions of Americans didn’t receive their food benefits. Unlike during other government shutdowns, the Trump administration opted not to use contingency funds to keep SNAP operating while Congress worked on a deal.
The administration last year also threatened to withhold federal funding for food stamps for more than 20 Democratic-led states that refused to hand over sensitive personal data—such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, and home addresses—about their recipients, reportedly in an effort to root out fraud. Democratic leaders refused, in part, because they worried this data would be used for immigration enforcement.
Some people who are legally in the country but are not citizens have had access to SNAP benefits. These rules have also changed in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” The GOP move will affect scores of people legally present in the US, including those who came to the country under asylum and refugee laws or had urgent humanitarian needs, such as being survivors of domestic violence or human trafficking. The new work guidelines risk adding more confusion to the mix.
“These work requirements aren’t really about promoting work. They’re about dehumanizing people and attacking the ‘other,'” Joel Berg, CEO of the nonprofit Hunger Free America, told ABC News. “Most SNAP recipients are pro-work, and most SNAP recipients are already working, or children, or people with disabilities, or older Americans. So all this is sort of a diversionary debate.”
And now, he explained, “more Americans will go hungry.”
2026-02-01 02:31:04
Many thousands of protestors across hundreds of demonstrations around the country on Friday once again took to their streets to tell President Donald Trump’s federal immigration agents a simple message: Get out of our towns and cities.
Friday’s nationwide mobilization is only the most recent in a string of demonstrations demanding justice for those targeted in the Department of Homeland Security’s ongoing, and violent, operations. Many of them focused on the brutality in Minnesota, including the killings of two US citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, by federal agents, and the apprehension of Liam Ramos, the 5-year-old boy with the Spider-Man backpack and the blue hat, who is currently sick in a Texas detention center after being picked up by DHS officials.
There’s no clear sign of when agents will leave the Twin Cities, as a US District judge on Saturday declined to order the Trump administration to immediately scale back its operations. As the Washington Post reported, she argued “Minnesota and the Twin Cities had not definitively shown that the administration’s decision to flood the state with agents was unlawful or designed to force local officials into cooperating with the administration’s objectives.” And, even if some agents leave Minneapolis, scores of immigration officials around the nation continue to target people in their cars, at home, and while working.
In addition to protests, the widespread actions included refraining from economic participation—no shopping, no working—and a school walkout, organized by students around the country.
Here are just some of the places where immigrants and their allies—many of them schoolchildren—took to the streets across the US:
Protests in Minnesota have continued unabated for weeks as locals face subzero temperatures, yet come out en masse around the Twin Cities area.
Demonstrations took place in major California cities, including Los Angeles, where prominent journalist and former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested by federal agents late Thursday night in connection with his appearance at a church protest in St. Paul, which he reported on earlier this month.
Starting at Foley Square near City Hall, a large crowd of demonstrators marched toward Washington Square Park. Earlier this week, dozens of protestors were arrested after going into the lobby of a TriBeCa hotel where they said federal agents were being housed.
As with previous nationwide mobilizations, residents of smaller cities or towns gathered near the side of a road to protest. These are demonstrators in Livingston, Montana.
And, demonstrations are not just in the United States. Anti-ICE protests in cities around the world, including Paris and Milan, took place this week in solidarity with demonstrators in the United States. Those in Milan were focused on protesting the possible presence of ICE at the Olympic Games.
There’s another US-based nationwide mobilization planned for March 28. That action is being organized by the No Kings coalition, which has put on several mass demonstrations across the nation in the past year. Though it is unclear if another cross-country day of outrage will take place before then, as people remain ready to respond to whatever news alert about DHS comes across their phones next.
