Several demonstrators taken into custody Saturday after marking killing of Minnesota woman by immigration officer

Police arrested several demonstrators Saturday outside a federal building just south of Minneapolis, breaking up a protest marking the one-month anniversary of a Minnesota woman’s death at the hands of an immigration officer.

Renee Good was killed on 7 January as she was driving away from immigration officers in a Minneapolis neighborhood. Her death and the killing of another Minneapolis resident, Alex Pretti, just weeks later have stoked outrage nationwide over Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Rights group says growing authoritarianism and abuses in US, Russia and China threaten global rules-based order

The world is in a “democratic recession” with almost three-quarters of the global population now living under autocratic rulers – levels not seen since the 1980s, according to a new report.

The system underpinning human rights was “in peril”, said Philippe Bolopion, executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), with a growing authoritarian wave becoming “the challenge of a generation”, he said.

Judge is considering a temporary order after agents used teargas on protesters during a weekend demonstration

A judge is considering temporarily restricting federal officers’ ability to use of force during protests in Portland, Oregon, after agents used teargas on a crowd that included children during a protest over the weekend.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on Saturday in what Keith Wilson, the city’s mayor, described as a peaceful demonstration “where the vast majority of those present violated no laws, made no threat and posed no danger” to federal agents.

In Trump’s first term, activists focused on lobbying and voting. Now tactics are shifting to nonviolent civil disobedience

On 24 January, Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents while he was helping another civilian in Minneapolis who had been knocked to the ground – just weeks after an ICE agent killed Renee Good. In response to this second killing of a Minnesotan, demonstrations spread across the United States to protest the Trump administration and its ultra-violent immigration enforcement tactics.

Minneapolis has been in a state of sustained protest. Its general strike on 23 January mobilized tens of thousands of Minnesotans to participate in an economic blackout and march in the streets. Solidarity protests, strikes and marches also took place across the country, including the Free America Walkout, which involved more than 900 local actions across all 50 states on the anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration.

Lemon’s lawyer said he was taken into custody after attending protest in which demonstrators disrupted a church service earlier in January

• Who is Don Lemon, the ex-CNN anchor arrested over a Minnesota church protest?

• US politics live – latest updates

Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, was arrested late on Thursday on charges that he violated federal law during a protest at a church in Minnesota earlier this month.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Lemon, said that Lemon was “taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards”.

A chance encounter reminded me: there are two ways to look at what’s happened in Minneapolis

One of the few advantages of being as conspicuous as I am is that many people come up to me whom I don’t know, to talk about what’s happening in America. It’s like a free-floating focus group.

On Monday morning, I was at a restaurant counter finishing my breakfast when a middle-aged man sat down next to me and said he didn’t want to intrude. (He just had, so I put down my knife and fork, wiped my mouth with my napkin, and turned toward him.) He wanted me to know that although he’d been a lifelong Republican, the events of the past weeks had caused him to leave the Republican party.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

Wave of demonstrations comes a day after thousands marched through Minneapolis streets to protest ICE

Large protests spread across US cities on Saturday – including Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island – after 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a registered nurse living in Minneapolis, was shot dead by federal agents.

The wave of demonstrations come just one day after thousands marched through the streets of Minneapolis to protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Protesters again braved the extreme cold to speak out against the agency and show support for Pretti and others who have been harmed by the surge of immigration agents who have flooded the city in recent week.

Federal agents release chemicals into the air and arrest people after shooting and killing a 37-year-old man

• Minneapolis shooting – latest updates

• Man killed in Minneapolis by federal agents identified as VA nurse Alex Pretti

“I’m 70 years old and I’m fucking angry,” the man yelled as clouds of chemicals hung in the subzero air in Minneapolis, capturing the sentiment of a city that’s now seen two people killed by federal agents in less than three weeks.

Agents shot and killed a 37-year-old US citizen at about 9am on Saturday, with other observers watching and videotaping their actions, in an area called Eat Street, a corridor of largely immigrant-owned restaurants and businesses.

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Talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States have begun in Abu Dhabi, according to the United Arab Emirates’ ministry of foreign affairs.

The UAE is hosting a rare set of trilateral talks, bringing together negotiators from Russia, Ukraine, and the US. The talks have started today, and are scheduled to continue over the next two days.

This shocking moment is the outcome of a political, institutional and media environment that is not far off Britain’s

There is not much that can still shock about Donald Trump’s second administration. But the killing of Renee Good earlier this month by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer, as well as the regular, often violent confrontations that ICE stages on US streets, show so much that is unravelling in plain sight. The rule of law, the freedom to protest, and even the right to walk or drive in the streets safely without being assaulted by the state, seems to exist no longer in the towns and cities where ICE has made its presence felt. The most disturbing aspect of all this is how quickly it has happened. But for a government agency such as ICE to become the powerful paramilitary force that it is, several factors need to be in play first. Only one of them is Donald Trump.

ICE may look as if it came out of nowhere, but the sort of authoritarianism that results in these crackdowns never does. It takes shape slowly, in plain sight, in a way that is clearly traceable over time. First, there needs to be a merging of immigration and security concerns, both institutionally and in the political culture. Established in the wake of 9/11, ICE was part of a government restructuring under President George W Bush. It was granted a large budget, wide investigative powers and a partnership with the FBI’s joint terrorism taskforce. The work of enforcing immigration law became inextricably linked to the business of keeping Americans safe after the largest attack on US soil. That then extended into a wider emphasis, under Barack Obama, beyond those who posed national security threats, and on to immigrants apprehended at the border, gang members and non-citizens convicted of felonies or misdemeanours.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Demonstrations against the Iraq war proved protest works. Now we must halt destruction before it more powerfully starts

In spring 2004, Gen Anthony Zinni uttered about Iraq the dreaded words in US politics: “I spent two years in Vietnam, and I’ve seen this movie before.” A year after George W Bush’s declaration of “mission accomplished” – when the war had hit its peak popularity at 74% – the invasion had descended into quagmire, marked by a raging insurgency, the Abu Ghraib torture scandal and US casualties nearing 1,000. For the first time, a majority of Americans judged the war a “mistake”. In this, they echoed what millions of Americans, predicting fiasco, had been saying since before its start.

By the summer of 2005, with Iraq exploding in civil war, public support further eroded. Vietnam comparisons abounded. Running against the war, Democrats had blowout wins in the 2006 midterms. The new Congress empaneled the bipartisan Iraq study group, which concluded that the war had to end. Its fate was sealed by the election of Barack Obama, who made good on his pledge to withdraw US troops (though US forces later returned to take on the Islamic State).

Jeremy Varon is the author of Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War: The Movement to Stop the War on Terror (University of Chicago Press, 2025)

Colvin, who died this week, made a stand on an Alabama bus nine months before Rosa Parks. When we met, her message about the struggle was clear

“In life, there’s the beginning and the end,” John Carlos, the African American sprinter who raised his fist in a black power salute from the podium of the 1968 Olympics, once told me. “The beginning don’t matter. The end don’t matter. All that matters is what you do in between – whether you’re prepared to do what it takes to make change. There has to be physical and material sacrifice. When all the dust settles and we’re getting ready to play down for the ninth inning, the greatest reward is to know that you did your job when you were here on the planet.”

Claudette Colvin, who died earlier this week in a hospice in Texas, did her job while she was here on the planet, although it was several decades before her physical and material sacrifice was acknowledged. On 2 March 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, aged just 15, Colvin took a stand and refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman.

Gary Younge is a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester

Demonstrators took to cities including Salt Lake City and LA to voice outrage over ICE’s fatal shooting of Renee Good

• Minneapolis mayor urges FBI to include state officials in Renee Good inquiry

Thousands of people took to the streets across the US this weekend to express their outrage over the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an immigration officer, even as the head of homeland security, Kristi Noem, pledged on Sunday to send “hundreds more” federal agents to the city.

Demonstrators in Minneapolis marched toward the residential street where Renee Good, a 37-year-old American citizen and mother of three, was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer on Wednesday while driving away in her car.

Most people join social movements to try to change the world, but many also find community and a greater sense of purpose

When Lani Ritter Hall’s beloved husband of more than 40 years, Gus, died in 2022, she felt a bit unmoored. Taking care of him had been the thing that got her out of bed in the morning, and with him gone, the 76-year-old felt she’d lost her purpose.

That is, until she found organizing.

In cities and towns across the US, murals, statues and performances brought a focal point to collective action

While acting on your moral convictions can be risky, it can also feel profoundly good

In the eleven months since Donald Trump took office – during which he has unleashed unprecedented assaults on the checks and balances of American democracy – there has been a wave of warnings and advice from activists, writers and scholars who have either fought against authoritarian regimes or studied them closely. A common thread runs through much of their guidance: Americans, especially those in positions of power, must find the courage to stand up for what is right, even when doing so carries personal risk.

Yet few have addressed the harder questions: how does one become courageous? How much of courage is innate, and how much is learned? And what can we do to help people find the courage to act?

Yaqiu Wang is a Chinese human rights researcher and advocate. She is currently a fellow at University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression.

Rosa Park’s story is about courage. But, lest one forget, it is also a story about breaking the law

It was 70 years ago when four African Americans were sitting in the fifth row of a bus in Montgomery. As one white man had to stand towards the front, the driver asked the four to get up and move towards the back of the bus. Three did; one did not – the rest is history. Or so many American kids might think when they first read the story of Rosa Parks in school.

It is a story of courage, but, lest one forget, it is also a story about breaking the law. And the question for us today is what civil disobedience means in an era when the federal government is signaling its readiness severely to punish even perfectly legal dissent.