2026-01-09 06:15:00
2026年1月7日，人们前往明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯市的纪念活动，悼念被联邦官员射杀的瑞妮·妮可尔·古德（Renee Nicole Good）。然而，关于事件的解读并不统一。国土安全部长克里斯蒂·诺姆（Kristi Noem）在访问德克萨斯州时称该事件为“国内恐怖主义行为”，并表示古德试图用车辆撞向ICE（美国移民与海关执法局）官员。明尼阿波利斯市长雅各布·弗雷（Jacob Frey）则反驳称这是“胡说八道”，并要求ICE离开明尼阿波利斯，称其“正在制造混乱”。
那么，这一切是如何开始的？目前情况又如何？今天，Explained节目主持人诺埃尔·金（Noel King）希望获得一线视角，而明尼苏达州改革者（Minnesota Reformer）的记者马克斯·内斯特拉克（Max Nesterak）表示，明尼苏达人已经疲惫不堪，充满痛苦。
以下是他们对话的节选（已删减和润色）：
过去几周，一场涉及明尼苏达州的欺诈丑闻引发了美国右翼的广泛关注。该丑闻导致政府派遣大量ICE人员前往明尼阿波利斯。昨天，一名ICE官员在巡逻中开枪射杀了一名女性。据目击者和视频显示，古德当时正在步行，看到一辆ICE车辆被困在雪中，随后更多车辆抵达，旁观者吹哨抗议以引起注意。古德停在她的本田车中，一名ICE人员示意她离开，她后退又前进，之后一名ICE官员从车前开枪，导致她死亡。
尽管有多个角度的视频记录，但人们对事件的解读仍存在分歧。特朗普总统昨日表示，古德在“骚扰”并“阻碍”ICE执法行动。然而，许多民众看到的视频内容与此不同。民主党领袖则指责ICE在社区中制造恐惧，称其行为鲁莽且冷漠。
明尼苏达州州长蒂姆·沃尔兹（Tim Walz）本周宣布将不再竞选连任，这一决定与该丑闻有关。该丑闻源于2022年，当时拜登任命的美国检察官安迪·卢格（Andy Luger）起诉了近50人，指控他们从疫情期间为饥饿儿童提供资金的项目中盗取了2.5亿美元。这被称为“喂养我们的未来”丑闻，目前已涉及超过90项指控，涵盖多个社会服务项目。
值得注意的是，被起诉和定罪的人中，大多数是索马里裔。特朗普政府利用这一点，对明尼苏达州的索马里裔社区展开攻击，尽管检察官强调这些欺诈行为是出于贪婪，而非意识形态动机。
然而，保守派记者克里斯托弗·鲁福（Christopher Rufo）在《城市期刊》（City Journal）上发表文章，声称索马里裔纳税人资助了索马里恐怖组织“沙巴布”（Al-Shabaab）。尽管这一说法未经证实，但特朗普随即对索马里移民发表攻击性言论，将明尼苏达州推上了全国关注的焦点。
随后，一位名叫尼克·希里（Nick Shirley）的年轻独立YouTuber在12月26日发布了一段40分钟的视频，声称发现了超过1亿美元的欺诈行为。他走访了多个索马里裔运营的托儿所，声称没有看到任何孩子。然而，据州官员表示，他访问的其中一所托儿所早在2022年就已关闭，而其他九所则正常运营。尽管如此，仍有四所托儿所正接受州政府的调查。
尽管存在争议，但明尼苏达州的媒体和记者仍在努力核实希里所报告的内容。目前尚不清楚他所揭露的信息是否准确。
如今，明尼苏达州再次成为焦点。人们对此感到愤怒和悲伤，同时也在坚持为邻居发声。尽管DHS表示将继续在该州进行大规模执法行动，但明尼苏达人似乎并不打算让步，双方的对抗可能持续下去。
The events that led to a federal officer in Minneapolis killing Renee Nicole Good have not been universally interpreted. On a visit to Texas on Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism.” She said Good was attacking ICE officers and that she “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle.”
“Our officer followed his training, did exactly what he’s been taught to do in that situation,” Noem said later in the day at a press conference in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called that “bullshit” and “garbage.” He demanded that ICE “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”
“We do not want you here,” he said. “Your stated reason for being here in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite.”
And when Frey was questioned about his remarks by CNN host Kaitlan Collins, saying some had called his remarks “divisive,” he said this: “I’m so sorry if I offended their Disney Princess ears. But here’s the thing. If we’re talking about what’s inflammatory, on the one hand, you got someone dropping the f-bomb. On the other hand, you got someone who killed somebody else.”
So how did all of this get started? And how is it all going now? Today, Explained co-host Noel King wanted an on-the-ground perspective, and Max Nesterak, a reporter and editor for Minnesota Reformer, told her that Minnesotans are tired and full of pain.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Over the past couple of weeks, a fraud scandal in Minnesota has consumed the American right. That scandal led to the government deploying a bunch of ICE agents to Minneapolis. Yesterday, one of those officers shot and killed a woman. What do we know about that shooting?
So yesterday morning, around 10 am, ICE officers fatally shot a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident named Renee Nicole Good. I spoke with witnesses and received a video of the incident.
What we see and what the witness I talked to said [is that] she was out for a walk and saw an ICE vehicle stuck in the snow. And then more ICE vehicles arrived, and bystanders were blowing their whistles and protesting to get people’s attention as part of these patrols, “ICE watch,” that people throughout the Twin Cities are doing to document the arrests.
Then we see Good in her Honda Pilot parked perpendicular in the middle of the street. And an ICE agent — she waves one by, then another ICE agent pulls up, gets out of his car, and yells at her to get out of the car. We see her back up and then pull forward. And that’s when an officer, who’s near the front of the vehicle, fires three shots, fatally killing her.
Even though the video of this encounter is out there from multiple angles, people do not agree on what they’re seeing. President Donald Trump yesterday spoke first. What did he say happened?
He echoed what we heard at a news conference yesterday [in which] Kristi Noem accused Goode of stalking and impeding ICE operations. That is completely different than what many people see in the video. And what we’re hearing from Democratic leaders [is completely different]. US Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents Minneapolis, accused ICE of terrorizing their neighborhoods. She called [ICE’s] actions reckless and callous, and [said] that ICE needs to be held accountable.
And your mayor, Jacob Frey, what has he had to say?
Well, he gave a very impassioned news conference, saying very bluntly for ICE to get out of Minneapolis. And that’s something that has been repeated by the governor and members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation: that they don’t want ICE conducting this enhanced enforcement operation in Minnesota.
A few weeks ago, DHS began ramping up immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota. And on Sunday, we received reports that about 2,000 more officers and agents were coming to the state in what DHS is calling its largest operation ever.
So this has really created a standoff between Democratic leaders who say they are not getting any coordination or communication from the Trump administration and federal agencies who are carrying out these operations.
As all of this is happening in the streets, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, announced this week that he’s not going to run for reelection. That announcement was tied to the scandal that I mentioned. Can you explain what happened here?
This goes back a number of years with the prosecution of people for stealing funds intended to feed hungry children during the pandemic. The story has reached the national news and the Oval Office just in recent weeks, but it really began in 2022, when US Attorney Andy Luger, a Biden appointee, charged nearly 50 people with stealing $250 million from this pandemic-era program.
This has been known as the Feeding Our Future scandal after one of the nonprofits at the center of it; it now includes more than 90 indictments across multiple social service programs. So the fraud is no longer contained just to this meals program, but to other programs aimed at serving the most vulnerable Minnesotans.
And there is a very important detail here, which is that a majority of the people charged and convicted are of Somali descent.
That’s right. Now we’re seeing the Trump administration use that to justify vicious attacks on the entire Somali American population in Minnesota of roughly 91,000, most of whom are American citizens.
If local media have been on this story since 2022, why did it boil over in late 2025?
So Christopher Rufo, a conservative journalist, writes a piece in City Journal with this bombshell quote from a confidential source that the largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer. Al-Shabaab is a US-designated terrorist organization that runs parts of Somalia. Days later, President Trump calls Somali immigrants “garbage” and unleashes a torrent of other attacks on Somalis, and draws national attention to Minnesota.
I should note that prosecutors have said that greed has been the motivating factor for these fraudsters, not ideology. Prosecutors say they don’t have evidence of people intentionally funding terrorist groups. That said, Al-Shabaab controls parts of Somalia. So if people send money home, that money — likely, some of it ends up in the hands of Al-Shabaab, because they charge taxes, or rather, extort people.
So Chris Rufo, who is an activist journalist, went out on a limb with the funding terrorism claim. However, in his article, he points out that there was massive fraud and that local officials — most of whom, as I understand it, were Democrats — did not root it out. This happened on their watch.
Yeah, that’s right. You know, Democrats have always condemned the fraud, and Gov. Tim Walz has said they take strong action against people accused, and [that] those people go to jail. But I have to say, the sheer scope of [the fraud] is really an indictment of the Walz administration’s ability to steward public resources. And I think it’s underscored that all of these social service programs have really been run on the belief that everyone is honest. I think that goes back to a tradition here in Minnesota of a Scandinavian-style, high tax, high services government that is trusting and doesn’t have the checks in place to prevent abuse.
How do we get from Chris Rufo’s exposé — which included some truths as well as some unproven stuff — to Tim Walz resigning?
Pressure has been mounting for months. The House Republicans created a committee, a fraud oversight committee. It became clear that Republicans were going to run on this issue. This was going to be their signature issue in trying to win back the governorship in 2026. The New York Times publishes a big piece in November that makes it even harder to ignore. And then it gets the attention of a young independent YouTuber named Nick Shirley, who posts a 40-minute video on December 26, showing himself going around to Somali-run daycares and demanding to see children, and not seeing any. He claims to uncover more than $100 million in fraud.
I should note: It’s maybe not so unusual that a random person with a video camera who demands to see children in a daycare doesn’t see any. I know at my child’s daycare, they have a passcode to get in. I would expect that my daycare center would not let in any random YouTuber off the street.
In the wake of this, reporters have been crawling all over Minnesota trying to fact-check Nick Shirley. Was any of what he reported accurate?
I think we’re still trying to figure that out. There’s definitely problems with his reporting, not just the tactics, but the fact is that one [daycare] that he visited has been closed since 2022, according to state officials. State officials also visited and found nine operating normally with children. Still, four of them are the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, according to the Star Tribune. Reporters at the Star Tribune also visited those 10 facilities [that Shirley visited] and were able to go inside four where they found children.
I should also note that local reporters have also made the connection that some of those daycare centers were also meal sites for Feeding Our Future, which was tied to that giant fraud. But, it’s important to note, the owners have not been charged in that case.
So here we sit on Thursday morning, and you may have seen some dark jokes circulating online about how everything happens in Minnesota: You guys had George Floyd’s murder in the summer of 2020. Tim Walz’s ups and downs. You had a Democratic lawmaker murdered in her home last summer. And now, again, you have the Twin Cities really on edge. How are people there doing?
I think all of us here are tired of feeling like everything happens in Minnesota.
I was at the vigil for Renee Good yesterday, and the atmosphere was just anguish at her killing, and certainly resolve: People saying, “We have to continue turning out to stand up for our neighbors.” So there’s a sense of defiance, but also just sadness. We’re all tired of Minnesota being the center of attention, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to let up. The DHS says it’s running the largest operation ever in the state right now. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said yesterday that ICE operations did not stop after the killing, that they will continue as planned. So there’s a sense on both sides that there’s a fight to be had here. I think people are digging in for a continued standoff between the state and federal government.
2026-01-09 03:45:00
Recently, something incredibly rare happened: American policymakers at the highest levels of government committed to tackling animal cruelty.
Specifically, late last month, the Trump administration announced a multi-agency “strike force” to crack down on animal abuse.
In a Fox News interview with Lara Trump about the initiative, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Trump’s Department of Justice will aggressively pursue dog fighting cases, and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins promised to hold puppy mills — operations that confine dogs in cages for breeding, and where most of America’s puppies for sale originate — accountable for mistreating animals.
Alongside Bondi and Rollins, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke about how his agency has been working to end animal experimentation for drug development and scientific research.
The announcement of this new “strike force” took animal advocates by surprise. Historically, both Republican and Democratic administrations have largely ignored animal welfare as a policy matter, failed to enforce what few legal protections animals do have, and benefited animal-exploiting industries through favorable executive orders, subsidy programs, and deregulatory measures.
That was certainly the case during Trump’s first term and, for the most part, it’s true for his second, which makes it hard to square the agency heads’ strong language in support of animal welfare during the Fox News interview with many of its past actions. Those include reduced enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act, gutting the USDA’s animal welfare research department, removing protections for endangered species, and suing California to dismantle its cage-free egg law. (The one major exception is the Trump administration’s long-running campaign to phase out animal experimentation.)
It remains to be seen just how much the “strike force” initiatives will help animals, but the administration’s effort to stake out territory on these issues is striking. Animal welfare is often coded as a liberal cause, but it has widespread support among voters across the ideological spectrum, though neither party has meaningfully taken it up as a priority — until recently. Over the last few years, some prominent figures on the right have seized on this opening, and the administration’s strike force is the latest and most high-profile move.
While HHS has laid out some details about its efforts to phase out animal experimentation, Secretary Rollins and Attorney General Bondi didn’t include many during their Fox News segment on the new initiative, and no official documents have been released about their plans, so it’s hard to properly assess just how much it’ll help animals. But actions over the past year provide some clues, according to Delcianna Winders, the director of Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Animal Law and Policy Institute. (Disclosure: In 2023, I attended a media fellowship program at Vermont Law and Graduate School.)
To start, Winders lauds Bondi’s plan to combat dog fighting. But she notes that dogs used in fighting comprise “a very small number of animals relative to the number of animals who are supposed to be protected under the Animal Welfare Act,” which provides minimum standards for more than a million animals in zoos, puppy mills, and laboratories, in addition to meting out penalties for animal fighting.
The Justice Department hasn’t released any details on its plan, and it’s unclear where the money will come from to designate prosecutors in all 50 states to work specifically on dog fighting cases, as Bondi has promised. The agency didn’t respond to our request for comment about its initiative.
To help far more dogs, the administration would need to strictly regulate puppy mills, which USDA Secretary Rollins suggests the agency will do.
“On the surface, it’s exciting,” Winders said. “It’s exciting to hear a secretary of agriculture say, ‘We want to tackle puppy mills.’ That has never happened before.” But Winders is skeptical the USDA will follow through: “All of the evidence, including the evidence from the past year, indicates that there is not a commitment to do that.”
Over the past year, the USDA hasn’t issued a single fine against a puppy mill and has increasingly relied on issuing relatively toothless warnings (instead of fines and other penalties) to businesses that violate the Animal Welfare Act. The Trump administration’s slash-and-burn budget cuts have also led to a further decline in the number of USDA inspectors, even as the number of facilities it’s tasked with inspecting has significantly increased. This has meant there just aren’t enough employees to inspect the country’s more than 2,000 USDA-licensed puppy mills.
Another crack in the plan is that providing immediate relief for dogs in puppy mills — by taking them out of especially harmful conditions — would require involvement from the Justice Department, but its division that handles such cases has also been hollowed out. The USDA did not respond to questions about its initiative.
However, Winders is optimistic about HHS’s efforts to phase out animal experiments, an area where “we’ve already seen significant progress.”
Last April, the US Food and Drug Administration announced it would no longer require animal testing for the development of certain drug classes. And weeks later, the National Institutes of Health — the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research — launched an initiative to reduce animal experimentation and fund the development of alternative non-animal research methods, like organoids, tissue chips, and computational modeling.
Pro-animal research groups, and some academics, have criticized the administration’s anti-animal experimentation plans as vague at best, and a significant hindrance on scientific research at worst. The criticism is understandable, given Secretary Kennedy’s reckless policy decisions on many areas, including vaccines. But there’s certainly merit to the idea that we ought to reduce our dependence on using well over 100 million animals annually in biomedical research, drug development, and toxic chemical testing. There’s the argument that it’s inhumane, but it’s also expensive and often ineffective, as results rarely translate from mice, rats, dogs, or monkeys to humans.
In November 2024, Vivek Ramaswamy — a conservative who ran for president that year and is currently running to be governor of Ohio — posted on X that “animal cruelty will eventually become a genuine concern for conservatives” and that it “shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”
The strike force initiative, despite its flaws, shows Ramaswamy’s prediction was somewhat prescient.
Animal welfare may be perceived as a progressive issue, and indeed, Democrats tend to support animal welfare at higher rates than Republicans — but not by much. And over the last decade, there’s been an increasing appetite among conservatives to challenge industries that exploit animals and claim the Republican Party as the party for animal welfare.
The most notable demonstration of that is the White Coat Waste Project, which was launched over a decade ago by a former right-wing consultant and has worked to cut government spending for animal experimentation on the grounds that it’s cruel but also amounts to taxpayer waste. The group has found some support among Democrats, but more so among high-profile Republican elected officials and right-wing activists and pundits.
More recently, Liam Gray — a former editor at the right-wing news outlet the Daily Caller — founded the Wilberforce Institute, a home for conservatives and libertarians who champion animal welfare. His organization has a presence at a lot of conservative events — including Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest last month — and he said that while there’s often some suspicion at first, once he talks with conservatives about the actual issues, “people agree with what we’re saying” and that the response has been “overwhelmingly positive.”
When it comes to the Trump administration’s strike force initiative, Gray said that while there may be valid criticisms to be had, “in the animal movement, there’s a tendency to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and I think that I don’t want to see that happen here.”
He does, however, want to see the Trump administration address factory farming, which is the proverbial elephant in the room. Animals raised for meat account for around 99 percent of all animals exploited for profit in the US, and the Trump administration has done a lot to benefit the industry, and almost nothing to regulate it. That might be because the meat and dairy industries overwhelmingly contribute to Republican candidates (though Democrats go similarly easy on these industries).
Most recently, the new US dietary guidelines — published yesterday — emphasize meat and dairy consumption, news that the meat industry is celebrating.
“What I would like to see from the Republican party is a recognition that we are wasting billions of dollars supporting and sustaining and bolstering factory farming,” Gray said, by way of subsidy support and various marketing and research programs. “And if you’re a proponent of the free market, then you should believe that this industry should be able to survive on its own.”
But beyond the government’s financial support of the meat industry, there’s a tension at the heart of the conservative cause for animal welfare. Conservatives tend to oppose regulation, which is what animals most need. Virtually all animal suffering is not the result of one-off cases of people hurting or neglecting individual animals, but the lack of regulations and laws that allow large-scale industries to hurt animals with impunity. Republicans have shown they can challenge the animal research field, but the real test will be whether it can do the same for the livestock sector.
Over the past decade, it’s been fascinating to see the animal rights movement — which is mostly comprised of left-leaning activists — reckon with the fact that an administration they largely oppose has taken some actions to help animals. Especially on the animal experimentation issue, it’s led to a “diverse, sometimes-uneasy coalition of animal welfare advocates, science reformers, and far-right political figures,” as journalist Rachel Fobar put it for Vox last year. But that coalition, with all its contradictions and disagreements, represents what little hope there is to prevent animal cruelty at the federal level. I hope it can turn splashy television announcements into substantive policy — and I hope more people of all political stripes join them.
2026-01-08 19:45:00
2025年6月15日，法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙、格陵兰总理延斯-弗雷德里克·尼尔森和丹麦总理梅特·弗雷德里ksen在格陵兰首都努克举行联合记者会。| Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
关键要点：
美国前总统唐纳德·特朗普对获得格陵兰的野心已变得越来越明显，尤其是在最近逮捕委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗之后。欧洲政府正在讨论应对方案，以防特朗普兑现其威胁。尽管美国对友好欧洲国家发动军事攻击——这实际上意味着北约联盟的终结——似乎仍不太可能，但也不能完全排除。虽然有提议在格陵兰部署更多美军作为威慑，但目前欧洲政府似乎认为这会过于激化紧张局势。更可能的是，美国会通过政治和经济手段施压欧洲，使其放弃对格陵兰的主权。防止美国进一步推进这一计划的希望，可能在于格陵兰和美国国内对此事的普遍不支持。
特朗普曾多次表示希望美国获得格陵兰，这一想法过去可能被视为玩笑或干扰，但随着马杜罗事件的发生，人们开始认真看待特朗普对军事行动的偏好，以及他越来越不遵守国际规范的态度。特朗普在马杜罗事件后表示，格陵兰“被俄罗斯和中国的船只包围”，白宫也表示特朗普及其高级顾问正在讨论如何接管丹麦领土，军事手段是“始终存在的选项”。特朗普的高级顾问史蒂芬·米勒则表示，没有人会因为格陵兰的未来而与美国发生军事冲突，因为世界由实力、力量和权力决定。
丹麦总理梅特·弗雷德里ksen回应特朗普的威胁时表示，特朗普对格陵兰的野心应被认真对待，并警告称，如果美国攻击另一个北约国家，那么整个国际秩序、民主规则、北约以及世界上最强大的防御联盟都将崩溃。本周，六国领导人和格陵兰共同发表声明，强调领土完整的重要性，并表示格陵兰和丹麦的未来应由他们自己决定。
法国政府表示正在与其他盟友沟通，以应对特朗普可能兑现的威胁。然而，欧洲是否有足够的实力来支持这些强硬表态？如果特朗普真的计划在大约两个月内采取行动，那么丹麦及其欧洲盟友在那之前能做些什么来阻止他？如果他真的采取行动，他们愿意付出多大的代价来反击？
尽管很难想象美国会与欧洲国家爆发战争以夺取格陵兰，但欧洲国家并未完全排除这种可能性。丹麦情报机构在12月发布的一份全球展望报告中首次将美国列为安全威胁，指出华盛顿“利用经济力量，包括以高关税威胁，来推行其意志，并不再排除使用军事力量，即使是对盟友”。丹麦外交部还设立了“夜间警戒”，以监控特朗普的活动和社交媒体动态。
尽管特朗普嘲讽丹麦加强安全措施的举措，称其只是“多了一条狗拉雪橇”，但事实上，哥本哈根在11月宣布了一项价值42.6亿美元的北极安全计划，包括两艘新军舰和16架F-35战斗机。讽刺的是，这正是特朗普一直呼吁北约国家增加军费开支的举措，尽管过去人们很难想象增加开支能抵御美国的军事行动。
即使拥有更强大的军事力量，丹麦及其盟友在常规战争中可能仍无法与美国抗衡。丹麦评论人士承认，增加美军驻扎格陵兰主要是象征性的举措。然而，值得注意的是，丹麦曾在阿富汗战争中与美国并肩作战，尽管现在被美国政府“欺负”，但其损失的士兵人数与美国相当。特朗普和米勒的轻视言论之外，丹麦显然并不缺乏保卫自己的意愿。
特朗普可能还有其他方式对格陵兰施压，例如宣布格陵兰为美国保护国，然后利用各种形式的杠杆迫使丹麦和其他欧洲国家接受美国对格陵兰的控制。这可能包括他偏好的经济武器——关税，或者威胁退出北约，或者威胁停止对乌克兰的武器援助和情报支持。欧洲如何应对？最可能的策略是与特朗普达成交易。特朗普对格陵兰的兴趣似乎不仅仅是为了施压，他可能真心希望获得该岛，要么是因为担心中俄在北极的活动，要么只是出于领土扩张的欲望。然而，聪明的外交是否能将他的执念转化为一种杠杆？欧洲外交官Liana Fix指出，欧洲领导人现在面临的问题是：“是否有办法让特朗普获得胜利，同时不侵犯丹麦的主权？”
欧洲对特朗普声称的格陵兰安全问题持怀疑态度，因为美国军方已经通过之前的防务协议在格陵兰拥有广泛的行动自由。丹麦政府也表示，只要格陵兰保持主权，就愿意扩大美军驻扎和采矿活动。但特朗普政府似乎并不满足于此。欧洲可能可以就其他问题与特朗普达成交易，例如备受美国科技公司反对的《数字服务法案》。Fix指出，这是一条“走钢丝”的路，不能显得在讨好特朗普。她认为，讨好特朗普很可能会适得其反。
欧洲政府可能威胁对美国公司实施制裁或出售美国债券，但Rizzo指出，欧洲在经济上对美国的影响力有限，而特朗普在贸易谈判中已经得到了美国的帮助，这可能是他敢于如此对待丹麦的原因。
在大西洋两岸，格陵兰和美国民众都不支持美国控制格陵兰。丹麦的统治问题在格陵兰一直存在争议，所有政党都支持最终独立，只是时间不同。丹麦国际研究所在的高级研究员乌尔里克·布拉姆·加德指出，特朗普的强硬手段也引起了格陵兰人的不满，导致努克与哥本哈根之间的协调加强。格陵兰政府拒绝与美国进行双边会谈，除非丹麦参与，这在其他情况下可能是一个机会。但目前的民意调查显示，美国控制格陵兰在格陵兰民众中并不受欢迎。YouGov本周发布的调查结果显示，仅8%的美国人支持使用武力夺取格陵兰，28%支持购买。
在乌克兰战争和寻求停火的背景下，欧洲国家似乎仍希望维持与美国的联盟关系。尽管特朗普的言论和推文令人震惊，但过去一年欧洲在北约和对乌克兰的物质支持方面成功地让特朗普保持合作。这可能是欧洲政府不愿强烈批评特朗普对格陵兰野心的原因之一。然而，问题在于，欧洲国家是否真的愿意为了格陵兰而摧毁跨大西洋安全联盟？答案——特别是来自丹麦，正如弗雷德里ksen本周的言论所表明的——是，如果特朗普强行夺取格陵兰，联盟本身就已崩溃。加德表示，欧洲各国普遍认识到，长期来看，欧洲需要从美国独立。因此，欧洲政策制定者希望缓慢地摆脱对美国的依赖，而不是由特朗普决定。然而，随着一场重大战争正在他们家门口进行，他们可能已经没有这个奢侈了。加德说：“为什么我们要和特朗普就格陵兰做交易，如果他最终也不会遵守承诺？”这种不信任很可能会持续到特朗普任期结束。加德补充道：“你已经选了他两次，我们怎么能信任你？”
The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, along with recent comments from the White House have made clear that US President Donald Trump’s ambition to take over Greenland needs to be taken very seriously. European governments are reportedly discussing contingency plans if he makes good on his threats.
A US military attack on the territory of a friendly European country — effectively the end of the NATO alliance — still seems unlikely, though can’t be ruled out entirely. While there have been proposals to station more troops in Greenland as a deterrent, for now, European governments seem to view that step as unnecessarily escalatory.
A political and economic campaign to pressure Europe into giving up Greenland seems more likely. The best hope of preventing the US from going farther down this road may be just how unpopular the idea is in Greenland itself and in the United States.
No one is laughing about Greenland anymore.
President Donald Trump’s frequently expressed desire for the US to take possession of the world’s largest island may once have been treated as a lark, troll, or distraction, but following last week’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, it’s become clear that Trump is increasingly acquiring a taste for military action and that he is even less constrained by international norms than previously thought.
“We do need Greenland, absolutely,” Trump said, shortly after the Maduro raid, describing it as “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships.” The White House said on Tuesday that Trumpand his senior advisers are discussing options for how to take over the Danish territory and that military force is “always an option.”
Trump’s senior adviser, Stephen Miller, dismissed the idea that there was anything stopping the US from pursuing its imperialist visions in the far north, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper, “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. … We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” (Secretary of State Marco Rubio took a softer line, saying no invasion was imminent and that the goal is to purchase Greenland. Neither Denmark nor Greenland have indicated any interest in selling.)
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen responded to the threats by saying that Trump’s ambitions for the territory should be taken seriously and that “If the United States were to choose to attack another NATO country, then everything would come to an end. The international community as we know it, democratic rules of the game, NATO, the world’s strongest defensive alliance — all of that would collapse if one NATO country chose to attack another.”
On Tuesday, the leaders of six European countries along with Greenland issued a joint statement affirming the importance of territorial integrity and stating that “it is for Denmark and Greenland and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.” The French government says it is in communication with partners over plans to respond if Trump makes good on his threats.
Strong words, but can Europe back them up? If we take Trump at his word that he plans to take some action on Greenland “in about two months,” what can Denmark and its European allies do before then to dissuade him? And if he follows through on his threats, what costs are they willing to pay to fight back?
The idea of an actual US vs. Europe military conflict over Greenland still seems outlandish, even after what happened in Venezuela, though European countries aren’t discounting it entirely. A global outlook published by Denmark’s intelligence service in in December classified the United States, for the first time, as a security risk, writing that Washington “uses economic power, including in the form of threats of high tariffs, to enforce its will and no longer excludes the use of military force, even against allies.” The country’s foreign ministry has set up a “night watch” to monitor Trump’s activities and social media activity posts while the rest of the country is sleeping.
“I absolutely think there’s the political will to protect Greenland.”
Rachel Rizzo, senior fellow focused on transatlantic security at the Observer Research Foundation
Early in 2025, when it first became clear Trump wasn’t going to let the issue drop, the French government discussed sending troops to Greenland as a deterrent, though the proposal hasn’t gone anywhere since then. The consensus for now among European governments is that a military build-up to counter the United States would risk further inflaming tensions with Trump while still probably not being enough to hold off a (still hard to imagine) US operation to seize the territory by force.
“For all of the military assets that Europe has and that NATO has, the United States still remains the backbone of NATO, and I think that that’s why this is also such an unprecedented conversation that we’re having,” said Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow focused on transatlantic security at the India-based Observer Research Foundation.
Trump has mocked Denmark’s recent moves to bolster security in Denmark by saying they had added “one more dogsled.” In fact, Copenhagen announced a new $4.26 billion arctic security package in November, including two additional naval vessels and 16 F-35 fighter jets. Ironically, this is the sort of spending Trump, who has long accused NATO countries of skimping on their own defense and free-riding on US security guarantees, has called for, though until recently the idea that increased spending would provide security from the United States would have seemed very strange.
Even with a bulked-up military, Denmark and allies may not be a match for the US in a conventional war. Danish commentators calling for more troops to be sent to Greenland acknowledge this would be mostly a symbolic step. Still, it’s worth noting that Denmark not only fought alongside the United States in Afghanistan — a major source of frustration now that they’re being bullied by its government — but lost around the same number of troops per capita.. Trump and Miller’s dismissive comments aside, this is not a country that lacks the will to defend itself.
“I absolutely think there’s the political will to protect Greenland,” Rizzo said.
If it’s still hard to imagine even Trump militarily invading a friendly European NATO ally, it’s much easier to imagine him applying political and economic pressure to get what he wants. European officials interviewed in a recent Atlantic article sketched out a scenario in which Trump simply declares Greenland to be a US protectorate. He could then use various forms of leverage to pressure Denmark and other European governments to accept US control of Greenland as a fait accompli. This could include his preferred economic weapon, tariffs. He could also threaten to pull the United States out of NATO —a scenario that appeared very possible during his first term but that he has spoken less about lately. Finally, he could return to another familiar source of leverage: threatening to withhold ongoing US weapons aid and intelligence support to Ukraine.
What can Europe do to prevent this? The first choice is likely to cut a deal with the notoriously transactional president. It’s become clear that Trump’s interest in Greenland is not just about leverage or pressure — he sincerely wants the island, either because he’s genuinely worried about Chinese and Russian activities in the Arctic or because he’s simply interested in territorial expansion as an end unto itself. But could savvy diplomacy turn his obsession into a form of leverage? The question now facing European leaders, says Liana Fix, senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, is “is there something that can give Donald Trump a win that does not violate the sovereignty of Denmark?”
One reason Europeans are skeptical of Trump’s stated concern about the island’s security needs is that the US military already has broad latitude through prior defense agreements to operate in the territory. The Danish government has also made clear it’s open to an expanded US troop presence in Greenland and increased US mining activity, so long as it remains sovereign Danish territory, but this was apparently not enough for the Trump administration.
It’s possible there may be an unrelated issue Europe could cut a deal on in exchange for Trump backing off, such as the Digital Services Act, which is strongly opposed by US tech companies and has been harshly criticized by Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk, and others in Trump’s orbit.
Fix notes that “it’s a fine line to walk, not to appear to be appeasing” Trump. This is one case, she notes, where “appeasing is likely to backfire.”
European governments could threaten to sanction US companies or sell off US bonds, but at the end of the day, notes Rizzo, “Europe doesn’t have that much leverage economically over the United States,” which has already helped Trump in trade talks this term, and is likely the reason he feels emboldened to treat Denmark this way.
The best weapon the Europeans may have for resisting US pressure may be just how unpopular an idea this is in all corners of the Atlantic. Danish rule is a fraught issue in Greenland and all the island’s political parties support eventual independence, albeit on different timelines. But Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, noted that Trump’s brute-force approach has offended Greenlanders as well, leading to increased coordination between Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, and Copenhagen. The Greenland government has refused to engage in bilateral talks with the Americans without Danish involvement, an opportunity they might have jumped at under other circumstances.
Polls show US control of Greenland is deeply unpopular there. “It has been very difficult for the US administration, for the MAGA universe, to tell stories about anyone in Greenland actually wanting to be American,” Gad said. A visit by second lady Usha Vance to Nuuk was scrapped in March amid reports of planned protests, though the administration blamed scheduling issues. The fact that one particularly vocal Greenlandic Trump superfan, stonemason Jørgen Boassen, has become a quasi-celebrity who seems to be interviewed in nearly every article about the topic, indicates that there is probably not a wide base of support for US annexation.
The lack of any popular base of local support would make it difficult for the US to pull off a version of the “little green men” operation Russia carried out in Crimea in 2014, which involved Russian forces taking over the region while presenting it as a local uprising against Ukrainian rule. Whether or not they were actually a majority, there at least was a significant amount of local support for Russian rule in Crimea. That’s not the case in Greenland.
Trump prefers quick and overwhelming victories in his foreign policy actions — arresting Maduro, bombing Iran’s nuclear sites. Even if he could take over Greenland, and even if he doesn’t care about effectively destroying NATO, how much sense does it make for the US to rule long-term over a hostile population in a territory that polls show Americans overwhelmingly don’t even want? A YouGov survey released this week shows only 8 percent of Americans support using force to take Greenland and just 28 percent support purchasing it.
All of this is taking place against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire. Just this week, even amid the rising Greenland tensions, France and the UK announced a plan for future security guarantees for Ukraine that envisions the US playing a prominent role in monitoring the ceasefire.
Would European governments really be willing to blow up the transatlantic security alliance over Greenland?
For all Trump’s bluster and surprise tweets, Europeans have been fairly successful at keeping him onside over the past year when it comes to NATO in general and continuing material support for Ukraine in particular. This is likely one major reason why European governments have been reluctant to criticize Trump’s Greenland ambitions too strongly.
So the question is, would European governments really be willing to blow up the transatlantic security alliance over Greenland? The answer — particularly from Denmark, as Frederiksen’s comments this week indicated, is that by taking Greenland against their will, Trump would have blown it up anyway.
“Basically, all the important European countries understand and agree that Europe will need to be independent from the US in the long run,” said Gad, the Danish analyst. “The basic dynamic is still that we need to make this [alliance ] fall apart so slowly that we don’t get in a lot of trouble before the process is over.”
In other words, policymakers in Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, London, and elsewhere would no doubt prefer the process of weaning themself off dependence on the United States for their security to happen on their own timeline rather than one dictated by Trump, particularly with a major war raging on their doorstep, but they may no longer have that luxury.
“Why on Earth would we want to make a deal with Donald Trump [over Greenland] when the expectation is that he won’t keep it anyway?” Gad said. The distrust is likely to outlast this presidency.
“You elected the guy twice; we can’t trust you,” Gad added.
2026-01-08 19:30:00
慢性炎症是现代健康问题之一，但许多健康影响者对其进行了过度简化。如今，炎症已成为人们关注的焦点，从TikTok和Instagram上的网红到美国卫生部长罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 Jr.，大家都在谈论如何减少炎症。炎症是无数科学论文的主题，也是自我帮助指南和新闻报道的焦点，比如你正在阅读的这篇文章。
当白宫官员周三宣布新的饮食指南时，他们表示这些指南旨在帮助人们减少“全身炎症”，他们认为这是导致美国慢性疾病危机的主要原因。你可能会疑惑，炎症是否是所有健康问题的根源，而减少炎症是否就是通往健康生活的关键。但事实并非如此简单。
“炎症已经成为所有健康问题的万能替罪羊，”伊卡翰医学院的免疫学家Shruti Naik告诉我，“它是一个方便的简写，但掩盖了非常复杂的生物学过程。”
关键要点：
慢性炎症确实正在上升，研究人员将其与工业化和现代生活方式联系起来。然而，炎症并非全然有害，它是身体对抗感染和修复组织的重要机制。它就像免疫系统的警示灯，但我们尚未学会正确解读。
这种不确定性导致了人们对炎症的误解，从而催生了过度简化的建议和可疑的疗法。实际上，管理炎症需要更复杂的策略，而不仅仅是单一的补充剂或“健康饮食”的小技巧。如今，科学家们正逐步理解这种复杂性。
在斯坦福大学和Mount Sinai等顶级学术医疗中心，新的临床项目正在测量患者随时间推移的炎症水平，试图定义“正常”炎症的范围以及何时会变得有害。目前，我们在体检时可能会问医生：“我的血糖怎么样？”“我的血压怎么样？”但很少有人会问：“我的免疫系统怎么样？”斯坦福大学免疫学家Bali Pulendran说：“即使我们问了，医生也会困惑地看着我们。”但他补充道：“我认为不久的将来，炎症可能会像血压或血糖一样，成为一种生命体征。”
然而，这个未来尚未到来。在它到来之前，任何声称能快速解决炎症问题的人，尤其是TikTok上的网红，都值得怀疑。
目前，真正专家对炎症科学的现状和未来有以下看法：
目前，我们还没有找到解决炎症的“万能药”。许多声称能有效治疗炎症的疗法，无论是天然的还是非天然的，都没有经过科学验证。正如Naik所说：“如果某种方法听起来太好，尤其是关于炎症的，那它很可能就是假的。”
在等待科学突破的同时，专家建议我们保持健康饮食，减少脂肪和糖分的摄入，多吃全天然食物。此外，定期锻炼已被证明有助于减少慢性炎症。
对炎症的过度关注反映了当今健康与养生讨论中的一个普遍现象：这是一个合理的关注点，但相关的信息过于简单化，为那些试图推销“万能疗法”的人提供了土壤。
Inflammation is on everybody’s minds these days, and it seems like wherever you look, someone is telling you how to reduce your inflammation, from influencers on your TikTok feed or Instagram reels to even US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It’s the subject of countless papers in scientific journals, and the focus of self-help guides and so many news stories — like the one you’re reading right now.
When White House officials announced their new dietary guidelines on Wednesday, they said their approach would help people reduce the “general body inflammation” that they blame for driving America’s chronic disease crisis.
You’d be excused for wondering if inflammation is the cause of all our ailments and reducing it is the skeleton key to a healthy life.
But the story is more complicated.
“Inflammation has become a catch-all culprit,” Shruti Naik, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told me. “It’s a convenient shorthand, but it flattens a very complex biology.”
Chronic inflammation is indeed on the rise, a phenomenon that researchers have linked to industrialization and modern life. But inflammation isn’t all bad — it’s actually one of the most important things your body can do to fight infections and repair tissue. It is a flashing signal from your immune system. We just aren’t very good at reading it yet.
That uncertainty has created a vacuum, filled by oversimplified advice and dubious cures. In reality, managing inflammation requires far more nuance than a single supplement or a “clean” diet hack.
And today, scientists are starting to figure out that nuance. At major academic medical centers like Stanford and Mount Sinai, new clinics are measuring inflammation in patients over time, trying to define what “normal” actually looks like — and when it becomes dangerous.
Right now, when we go in for a health check-up, we might ask our doctor, How is my blood sugar? What’s my blood pressure? But none of us asks, How is my immune system doing? “Even if we did, they would look at us perplexingly,” said Bali Pulendran, an immunologist at Stanford University.
But, Puledran continued, “I think the time will come, not so far in the future…when inflammation will become sort of a vital sign like a blood pressure or glucose.”
That future isn’t here yet. And until it is, anyone promising a quick fix for inflammation — especially on TikTok — deserves your skepticism.
Here’s what the real experts want you to know about the state of inflammation science right now — and where it’s going.
Even though inflammation is a process our bodies have always performed, our current fixation on “chronic” inflammation is new.
For most of our history, physicians focused on what they could see, like the red, puffy skin around an infected wound, the visible side effects of a medical problem.
But the world has changed. Now we can see the invisible processes of our bodies at the molecular level. Thanks to advances in genomics, cell sequencing and imaging, we’ve learned that inflammation is present within every tissue and every cell.
“Every cell in your body can experience inflammation. That means every cell can remember it,” Naik said.
For most of human history, inflammation has provided vital protection. In the time before modern medicine offered treatments like antibiotics, prescription drugs, medical devices and life-saving surgeries, the only defense your body really had against outside invaders was its own innate ability to counteract them. Inflammation was the engine for your immune system to fight back.
But now that we do have these things, our bodies exist in a state of evolutionary confusion.
A baseline level of high inflammation may have made sense when life was short and pathogens were everywhere. But today, people live longer than ever and have access to modern medicine. (There is growing evidence, too, that inflammation increases with age; scientists call this “inflammaging.)
“Inflammation is always induced when there is a problem. Sometimes there is nothing to protect from — but it’s induced anyway, and then it makes matters worse,” Ruslan Medzhitov, an immunobiologist at the Yale School of Medicine, told me. “For thousands of years, the immune system evolved to deal with infections. Suddenly, the world changed, but the immune system did not.”
At the same time that our inflammatory drive is working overtime, the environment around us has changed dramatically. Studies have found that more industrialized countries tend to have higher rates of chronic inflammation than less developed countries — cultures that are more steeped in environmental pollution and artificial substances that didn’t even exist a hundred years ago.
And nothing has changed more in these societies, scientists say, than what we eat.
Foods that interfere with your metabolism can increase inflammation — especially foods high in unhealthy fats and sugar. These are the same types of foods that have contributed to modern health problems like obesity, heart disease, and high blood pressure, all of which are linked to higher levels of inflammation.
Ultra-processed foods are also associated with higher rates of chronic inflammation: At its most basic level, inflammation starts when the body detects unusual presences. Processed foods are chock full of ingredients that our bodies would have considered strange just a few decades ago.
So that inflammation is happening more isn’t that surprising. This is our body reacting to new stimuli. But when should we reduce it?
There are at least three different kinds of inflammation — and most of them are actually good. The first, acute inflammation, occurs when you have an illness or an infection and is an important protective layer that your body provides itself. That is not the kind of inflammation that we want to reduce.
And then there is homeostatic inflammation, which keeps your immune system at the ready and allows your tissues and organs to repair themselves — the same process that allows your muscles to rebuild stronger after lifting weights. It’s necessary for your body, and it definitely isn’t the kind of inflammation we want to get rid of.
The kind of inflammation that scientists are concerned about is chronic low-grade inflammation above those levels that are necessary for a healthy functioning body. This is the kind of inflammation that can be brought on by a poor diet or by environmental pollution or by an infection that lingers for a long time. (Researchers think that long Covid, for example, may be associated with persistent inflammation even after the acute infection has subsided.) Over just the past decade, investigators have detailed how this low-grade chronic inflammation can cause damage to people’s tissue and organs at the cellular level over the long term.
Scientists are still figuring out when this kind of inflammation is the cause of a disease and when it is simply a symptom.
Obviously, when inflammation is a response to an injury, virus or bacteria, it is a symptom. But chronic metabolic diseases and even cognitive problems associated with aging may be the result of persistent and unresolved inflammation: Atherosclerosis, the hardening of arteries that is associated with high blood pressure and heart disease, for example, is one common condition that seems to be caused by long-term inflammation. Researchers are also investigating whether dementia and Alzheimer’s disease may be the outcome of an overly inflamed brain.
From person to person, we still don’t have the full picture. It’s not possible to say that you or I at any given time have too much inflammation. Your individual baseline for a healthy amount of inflammation, and when that crosses over into something unhealthy, is the next frontier of inflammation science.
So what would it take to get there?
First, researchers would need to figure out how to establish personal baselines.
We have only recently identified biomarkers — such as cytokines, the immune-signaling proteins, and metabolites produced by the gut microbiome — that can tell us how much inflammation an individual person actually may have. But as with a lot of things in medicine these days, our ability to measure something does not mean that we necessarily know how to interpret it.
So you might be able to find a doctor willing to order a test that measures your own cytokines. But whether the results are really a cause for concern or simply what’s normal for you is not yet clear.
“Biomarkers are always a proxy. Sometimes they’re a good proxy, sometimes they’re very generic,” Medzhitov told me. “It’s a very gray area still. We know the answers at the extremes — but not in the middle.”
“There is no magic bullet. If something sounds too good to be true, especially when it comes to inflammation, it probably is.”
That’s why teams at Stanford, Mount Sinai, and other top academic medical research centers have begun what are called human immune monitoring programs, which will allow scientists to collect the longitudinal data that can start to tell them what is normal for different individuals with different backgrounds and health histories.
If you see a doctor at a major academic research hospital, you can inquire about whether they have such a program and if you could participate. From the patient’s perspective, you would be committing to a series of blood draws and possibly providing other types of samples (your saliva and stool) over an extended period of time. The samples would then be measured by new technology that can detect inflammation biomarkers. By collecting data over an extended period of time, scientists can see how your inflammation changes after an infection or after you receive a medical treatment or a vaccine.
That could allow you to play a small part in figuring out what normal inflammation actually looks like and what is actually a cause for concern.
We are inching toward a future in which we can measure and track inflammation in every patient in the same way we measure and track blood pressure and blood sugar at every primary care appointment. It could serve as an early warning system for certain kinds of health conditions that are not always obvious or measurable through other means; Medzhitov told me that we might be able to get to a point where it becomes a diagnostic tool: Once an inflammation metric has reached a certain threshold, it’s a clear sign that the patient has a specific health problem.
“I can envision a future where inflammation is a pre-symptomatic warning sign — something you notice before you feel sick,” Naik said.
That is what inflammation care could soon look like — but not yet.
Scientists are investigating the anti-inflammatory properties of GLP-1 drugs; their ability to reduce inflammation may explain why they are associated with a wide range of health benefits, such as reducing the risk of dementia and heart disease and more. But proving that effect and establishing the actual biological mechanism that makes it happen is the subject of ongoing research. Is it the result of lifestyle changes and better diet? Or is it the result of how GLP-1 medications affect the brain, which does help to manage inflammation throughout the body? A combination of lifestyle and biological effects?
The future of inflammation care is still in the lab — not on TikTok, where influencers are promoting sea moss as a treatment for inflammation, promising it’ll help to clear up your skin and improve your digestion.
“A lot of the remedies that are touted, whether they’re natural or not, have not been tested. Just because someone makes an awesome video…does not mean there is evidence behind it,” said Naik. “There is no magic bullet. If something sounds too good to be true, especially when it comes to inflammation, it probably is.”
In the meantime, the best advice from the real experts on how to maintain good health is pretty simple: Don’t fixate on the inflammation you can’t see, and instead focus on maintaining a healthy diet, low in fats and sugars, with a lot of whole foods and unprocessed ingredients. They also recommend getting regular exercise, which has been shown to reduce chronic inflammation.
The obsession with inflammation is symptomatic of so much of our health and wellness discourse these days: It is a reasonable area of concern, but the messages about what’s good and what’s bad have become too simplistic — fertile ground for grifters trying to sell you on a cure.
2026-01-08 06:20:00
2026年1月7日，明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯市发生了一起由美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）特工开枪致死一名女性的事件。尽管事件的具体情况尚不清楚，但视频显示该特工在女子驾车离开时开枪射击。现实情况是，特朗普总统的司法部几乎不可能对这名特工提起联邦指控。特朗普已经在自己的社交媒体TruthSocial上声称，该特工是出于“自卫”而开枪的。不过，如果进一步调查发现该射击行为没有法律依据，州检察官可能会对涉事特工提起谋杀指控。
美国最高法院的共和党多数派使得私人公民很难起诉违反法律的联邦执法人员。然而，联邦执法人员是否能被起诉并定罪违反州刑法，仍存在疑问。直到最近，法律对联邦官员在执行公务时违反州刑法的行为提供了保护。1890年的标志性案例In re Neagle裁定，一名联邦特工在担任最高法院法官保镖时开枪杀人，不能被州法院以谋杀罪起诉。但2025年6月，最高法院在Martin v. United States一案中推翻了这一观点，认为Neagle案的保护范围并非绝对。
Martin案确立了一个模糊的规则：只有当联邦官员的行为“在履行联邦职责时是必要且适当的”，他们才能受到保护。因此，如果涉事特工违反了明尼苏达州法律，那么州检察官是否能够成功起诉，将取决于法院是否认为该行为是“必要且适当”的。
此外，一项联邦法律允许州检察官对联邦官员或其代理人的刑事案件进行起诉，但该案件可能被移送到联邦法院审理，而这些法院由保守派共和党人主导。明尼苏达州的联邦案件通常由第八巡回上诉法院审理，该法院11名法官中有10名是由共和党人任命的。任何第八巡回法院的裁决都可能被上诉至最高法院，而最高法院目前由六名共和党任命的大法官掌控。
综上所述，虽然法律并未完全阻止明尼苏达州检察官起诉该特工，但成功起诉的可能性仍然很低。此外，Martin案是一个较新的裁决，其规则模糊，且任何针对联邦移民特工的起诉都不可避免地带有政治色彩。因此，最终法院是否会公正审理此案，仍存在不确定性。
A federal officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday, shortly after the Trump administration deployed thousands of immigration agents to the city. Although the full circumstances of the killing remain unclear, video of the shooting shows an officer opening fire on the woman as she drove away.
Realistically, there’s virtually no chance that President Donald Trump’s Justice Department will bring federal charges against the officer who killed this woman. Trump already claimed on TruthSocial, his personal social media site, that the officer shot the woman in “self defense.” (The officer could potentially be prosecuted after Trump leaves office.)
But many local officials are quite upset about this incident. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey gave a press conference Wednesday afternoon where he told US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.” If further investigations reveal that the shooting was not legally justified, state prosecutors could potentially charge the officer responsible with a homicide crime.
The Supreme Court’s Republican majority has made it very difficult for private citizens to sue federal law enforcement officers who break the law. But can a federal officer actually be charged with, and convicted of, violating a state criminal law?
Until fairly recently, the law was favorable to federal officials who allegedly violate state criminal laws while they carry out their official duties. The seminal case, known as In re Neagle (1890), held that a deputy US marshall who shot and killed a man could not be charged with murder in state court, because this federal officer did so while acting as a bodyguard for a US Supreme Court justice.
Last June, however, the Supreme Court handed down Martin v. United States (2025), which held that Neagle does not always protect federal officials who violate state law. The rule announced in Martin is vague, so it is unclear how it would apply to the shooting in Minneapolis. But the gist of the ruling is that a federal officer is only protected if they can demonstrate that “their actions, though criminal under state law, were ‘necessary and proper’ in the discharge of their federal responsibilities.”
If the officer responsible for the Minneapolis killing broke Minnesota law, in other words, any prosecution against them would turn on whether the courts decide shooting this woman was a “necessary and proper” exercise of the officer’s official duties.
There is one other potential complication. A federal law provides that state criminal charges against “any officer (or any person acting under that officer) of the United States or any agency thereof” may be removed from state court and heard by a federal judge. This statute does not prevent state prosecutors from bringing charges or from prosecuting a case. But it does ensure that the question of whether Neagle applies to this case would be decided by federal courts that are increasingly dominated by conservative Republicans.
Federal cases out of Minnesota appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, a very conservative court where 10 of the 11 active judges were appointed by Republicans. And, of course, any decision by the Eighth Circuit might be appealed to the Supreme Court, where Republicans control six of the nine seats.
All of which is a long way of saying that, while the law does not absolutely preclude Minnesota prosecutors from filing charges against this officer, it is far from clear that those charges will stick.
The facts underlying the Neagle case are simply wild. David Terry was a lawyer and former chief justice of the state of California, who had served with US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field while the two were both state supreme court justices. At the time, federal justices were required to “ride circuit” and hear cases outside of Washington, DC. And so, Field wound up hearing a dispute about whether Terry’s wife was entitled to a share of a US senator’s fortune.
At the court proceeding, where Field ruled against Terry’s wife, Terry punched a US marshal, brandished a bowie knife, and was jailed for contempt of court. After his release, he and his wife continued to threaten Field’s life, and so, the attorney general ordered Deputy Marshal David Neagle to act as Field’s bodyguard.
Then, Terry attacked Field while Field was traveling through California by train, and Neagle shot and killed Terry.
Given these facts, it’s unsurprising that the Supreme Court ruled that California could not bring charges against Neagle for this killing. The case involved a physical attack on a sitting justice! And, besides, Neagle acted within the scope of his responsibilities as Field’s federally appointed bodyguard.
135 years later, however, the Court decided Martin. That more recent decision focused on language in the Neagle opinion that suggested that its scope may be limited. Neagle, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in Martin, arose from concerns that “California could frustrate federal law by prosecuting a federal marshal “for an act which he was authorized to do by the law of the United States.” Protecting Field was something that “it was [Neagle’s] duty to do.” And, in shooting Terry, Neagle “did no more than what was necessary and proper.”
Thus, Gorsuch extracted a rule from Neagle that federal officials are only protected from state law when their actions “were ‘necessary and proper’ in the discharge of their federal responsibilities.”
In the wake of Martin, Minnesota may very well be able to prosecute the officer responsible for the Minnesota killing. As a general rule, federal law enforcement officers are not authorized by the law of the United States to shoot people without justification. So, if it turns out that this killing was legally unjustified, federal courts may conclude that the officer’s actions were not necessary and proper in the discharge of his official duties.
That said, Martin is a fairly new opinion, and the rule it announced is vague. And any prosecution against a federal immigration officer would be unavoidably political. So, it is unclear whether the judges who hear this case would approach it as fair and impartial jurists or as partisans.
The bottom line, in other words, is that the law governing when federal officers may be charged with state crimes is quite unclear. So, it is uncertain whether a prosecution against this particular officer would succeed — even assuming that a state prosecutor could convince a jury to convict.
2026-01-08 04:00:00
2026年1月7日，明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯市在联邦执法行动中发生了一起疑似ICE特工开枪事件，一名女子被联邦执法人员射杀。这起事件发生在一辆试图逃离联邦移民官员的车辆上，至少有一名官员近距离向车内连开数枪，导致车辆短距离内撞车。据明尼阿波利斯官员和美国国土安全部确认，车内驾驶员被击毙身亡。
这一暴力事件的发生背景是，自去年以来，联邦移民官员开始以军事化方式部署到美国城市，引发了一系列视频记录，显示移民官员对美国人使用过度武力。例如，去年在芝加哥，海关与边境保护局（CBP）官员射杀了一名女子，最初政府指控她“伏击”执法人员，但后来在司法部要求下，案件被驳回，且该女子幸存。
此外，问责问题也备受关注。据Vox记者Ian Millhiser报道，美国最高法院多次裁定将ICE等移民官员置于法律之上，即使他们在面对旁观者和平示威者时表现出明显严重的暴力行为。
特朗普政府对此事件的回应是，国土安全部官员，包括部长克里斯蒂·诺姆，将此次事件描述为“国内恐怖主义”行为，并称其为对ICE官员的袭击。然而，这一说法并未得到事件有限视频证据的支持。但这也符合特朗普政府一贯的宣传叙事，即联邦移民官员经常面临威胁。事实上，有联邦法院曾明确驳斥过这一说法。
为何ICE会出现在明尼阿波利斯？据称，这是特朗普政府所谓的“美国最大规模移民行动”，而这一部署是在共和党人对明尼苏达州和明尼阿波利斯的移民群体持续表达不满之后进行的。最近，右翼媒体利用明尼苏达州福利欺诈丑闻制造话题，其中大部分被指控的人员是索马里裔美国人。特朗普和其他人借此机会攻击明尼阿波利斯的整个索马里裔社区。明尼阿波利斯所在的双城地区是美国索马里移民最多的城市之一。
2024年12月，特朗普在内阁会议上攻击索马里移民，称他们为“垃圾”，并表示“我不希望他们待在美国”。他还称明尼苏达州是“欺诈性洗钱活动的中心”。
A woman was fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis on Wednesday, just days after the Trump administration deployed thousands of new immigration agents to the city.
What happened? This is a breaking news story, and more details will almost certainly continue to emerge. What we do know is based on local reporting collecting video and eyewitness accounts from the scene, including multiple angles of the shooting:
What’s the context? This kind of violence has seemed all but inevitable since federal immigration officials began military-style deployments to US cities last year, resulting in a tide of videos capturing excessive use of force against Americans by immigration agents.
In one similar incident last year, Customs and Border Protection agents in Chicago shot a woman who the government initially accused of “ambushing” them, only for the case to later be dismissed with prejudice at the request of the Justice Department, meaning it cannot be brought again. The woman survived.
There’s also the question of accountability, or the lack thereof: As Vox’s Ian Millhiser reports, the Supreme Court has repeatedly acted to place ICE and other immigration agents above the law even in cases of clearly egregious, violent conduct toward bystanders and peaceful protesters.
How is the Trump administration responding? In confirming the shooting, DHS officials, including Secretary Kristi Noem, have described it as “an act of domestic terrorism” and an attack on ICE officers. It’s important to emphasize that Noem’s characterization of the shooting is not supported by the limited video of the incident.
However, it’s also consistent with a narrative that the administration has attempted to drive in public statements and court filings, one that portrays federal immigration officers as constantly under threat. In at least one instance, that narrative has been explicitly debunked by a federal court.
Why was ICE in Minneapolis? The DHS presence in Minneapolis, which administration officials have described as the “largest immigration operation ever,” comes after weeks of Republican outrage focused on Minnesota and Minneapolis immigrant communities.
Most recently, right-wing media has seized on a welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota as an opportunity for viral content; most of the alleged perpetrators charged in the scandal are Somali Americans, and President Donald Trump and others have used the story to attack Minneapolis’s Somali community writ large. (The Twin Cities area, including Minneapolis, is home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the US.)
In December, Trump attacked Somali immigrants in a Cabinet meeting, calling them “garbage” and telling reporters that “I don’t want them in our country.” He also described Minnesota as “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”