The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal is pushing back on the federal government’s account of the shooting death of Alex Pretti during a confrontation with immigration authorities in Minneapolis over the weekend.
The Journal, in an editorial published Sunday, called the incident “the worst … to date in what is becoming a moral and political debacle for the Trump Presidency.”
“Videos of an event aren’t always definitive, but this is how it looks to us,” the newspaper wrote. “Pretti attempted, foolishly, to assist a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by agents. Multiple agents then tackled Pretti, and he had a phone in one hand as he lay on the ground. An agent discovered a concealed gun on Pretti, and disarmed him. An agent then shot Pretti, and multiple shots followed.”
Top White House official Stephen Miller called Pretti “a domestic terrorist,” while federal immigration leaders have defended his shooting death.
“He was a nurse without a criminal record,” the Journal wrote, pushing back on Miller. “Pretti made a tragic mistake by interfering with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents, but that warranted arrest, not a death sentence. The agents may say they felt threatened, but it’s worth noting the comments over the weekend by police around the country who say that this isn’t how they conduct law enforcement.”
United States envoy Steve Witkoff says he and his colleague Jared Kushner have held “constructive” talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Israel continues its deadly bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip.
A US security agreement for Ukraine is “100% ready” to be signed, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said after two days of talks involving representatives from Ukraine, the US and Russia – indicating some progress was made. Further discussions are expected next weekend.
When we talk about our inability to pay attention, to concentrate, we often mean and blame our phones. It’s easy, it’s meant to be easy. One flick of our index finger transports us from disaster to disaster, from crisis to crisis, from maddening lie to maddening lie.
At least seven people are dead as the result of a monster winter storm in the US that has brought heavy snowfall and ice from the Gulf coast to the north-east, leaving more than one million in the south without power and cancelling more than 10,000 flights.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the 18-term delegate for the District of Columbia in Congress and a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, has filed paperwork to end her campaign for reelection, likely closing out a decades-long career in public service.
A private jet carrying eight people crashed during takeoff from the Bangor International Airport in Maine on the evening of Jan. 25, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
