WTF-Beta

In West Virginia:

Miracle escape artist dog found; shelter staff react to his impressive breakout

https://www.wsaz.com/2026/01/07/shelter-staff-react-dogs-impressive-escape/

On the lamb: 50 sheep break away from flock and storm German supermarket

Ewes and lambs coaxed out of store in Burgsinn after about 20 minutes, leaving trail of destruction in drinks section

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/08/runaway-sheep-storm-german-supermarket

More than a dozen House Republicans broke ranks with their party Thursday and voted for a Democratic bill to extend expired Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years without any restrictions.

Why it matters: It's a rare instance of Republican lawmakers defying President Trump — though the phenomenon has become less and less taboo in recent months.

Seventeen House Republicans voted with Democrats to extend the subsidies despite opposition from Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

The bill, which passed 230-196, now heads to the Senate, where Senate Majority John Thune (R-S.D.) has signaled he has no plans to bring it up for a vote.

https://www.axios.com/2026/01/08/trump-mike-johnson-aca-subsidies-republican

Another video has surfaced. Seen in The Intercept and I can only see it there, at least for now.

https://theintercept.com/2026/01/07/video-ice-shooting-civilian-minneapolis/

If you don't have an (free) Intercept account and want to at least read the article:

https://archive.is/6gfzg

So my guess that he might have lacked training doesn't seem to pan out. I heard on our local news that he had 10 years experience.

And last year, he had this experience. Certainly could have affected his response in this situation. Though I still can't see how shooting the driver stops the car from hitting him.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 is Jonathan Ross, the same officer who was dragged and injured by a fleeing driver in a separate incident last year, according to a person with knowledge of the case and verified by court documents.

On June 17, Ross was participating in an arrest of Roberto Carlos Munoz-Guatemala, a Mexican citizen, in Bloomington last year. Munoz-Guatemala had previously been convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct and had been put on a detainer by immigration officials. Munoz-Guatemala ignored the agents’ commands, including to fully roll down his car window, so Ross broke open his rear window and reached inside to unlock the door.

Munoz-Guatemala put the vehicle in drive and accelerated onto the curb, the charges said. Ross was dragged alongside the vehicle and twice fired his Taser as Munoz-Guatemala weaved back and forth “in an apparent attempt to shake” him from the car. About 300 feet down the road, Munoz-Guatemala re-entered the street and the force knocked the officer from the car.

The agent required 20 stitches for a deep cut in his right arm and another 13 stitches in his left hand, according to court documents. A jury convicted Munoz-Guatemala of assaulting a federal officer in December.

Hours after the shooting Wednesday morning, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the agent involved had “been dragged by a vehicle” in an earlier incident. At the time, she did not provide specific location details.

But she described the unnamed officer as “an experienced” agent who’d been in similar situations before and “followed his training.”

From the Star Tribune, local Minneapolis paper.

https://archive.is/Alwuw#selection-365.0-365.132

edit: Confirmed that he's a 10 year veteran, and a resident of Minneapolis.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/08/ice-agent-minneapolis-shooting

Weight and Health Benefits Vanish Fast after Quitting Weight-Loss Drugs, Study Finds

A new study finds that people who quit weight-loss medications, including GLP-1 drugs, regain weight four times faster than people who stop dieting or exercising

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-happens-after-you-quit-weight-loss-drugs-a-new-study-offers-some-clues/

So much for transparency and accountability. The fix is in.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) announced Thursday that it has "reluctantly withdrawn" from the investigation into the shooting of a woman by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.

The state investigative bureau said it was informed by the FBI that it would no longer have access to materials required for a "thorough and independent" review.

Minnesota BCA Superintendent Drew Evans issued a statement on Thursday morning saying on Wednesday, "after consultation with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI, it was decided that the BCA Force Investigations Unit would conduct a joint investigation with the FBI" into the death of Renee Nicole Good during an ICE operation in south Minneapolis.

"Later that afternoon, the FBI informed the BCA that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had reversed course: the investigation would now be led solely by the FBI, and the BCA would no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation," Evans continued.

"Without complete access to the evidence, witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative standards that Minnesota law and the public demands," he added. "As a result, the BCA has reluctantly withdrawn from the investigation. The BCA Force Investigations Unit was designed to ensure consistency, accountability and public confidence, none of which can be achieved without full cooperation and jurisdictional clarity."

https://www.foxnews.com/us/minnesota-bureau-criminal-apprehension-drops-out-ice-involved-shooting-investigation

@AndyD said in In Minneapolis:

BTW
Vance sucks big time.

I hadn't heard his remarks from today until just a few minutes ago. I watched about 10 seconds' worth.

His record of being an idiot is intact. In record time.

@Steve-Miller said in I bought myself a Christmas present:

What will be your inaugural recipe?

I’m hoping for cornbread!

No cornbread yet. I started with some sauteed vegetables, and then some breaded pork cutlets. The pan is really non-stick and the food cooks up beautifully.

It is pretty heavy, however, especially when I hold it with one hand, tipping it, and scraping the contents into a bowl. Definitely a weight lifting exercise, at least for me.

A 12 inch skillet would probably be too heavy.

@AndyD I've seen most Fred and Ginger movies (pretty big fan here) but not Follow the Fleet, so that routine was new to me. And yes, great dress. And music. And dancing.

Watching White Christmas is an holiday tradition in our household. My mom loved the movie and now that she's gone it feels like a little way to preserve a tradition.

There are many great dance scenes. This is one of my faves:

Link to video

@Rontuner said in In Minneapolis:

It is important to consider that the ICE agents that have worked for many years used to follow procedures and protocol to assure that there was probable cause and warrants issued before taking anyone into custody. Plenty were deported on a regular basis.

This new ICE is acting like well-funded government-sponsored (Rebublican only) bounty hunters. Instead of procedure and protocol, warrants and research - agents are awarded cash bonuses for capturing people and placing them into the government (Republican only) system where they are presumed guilty until proven innocent. We've witnessed all sorts of random people being gathered, injured and murdered - and the first defense used by ICE and the government (Republican only) is to lie over and over.

How'd we get here? Three branches of government, where the executive branch is in charge of enforcing laws. We now know if the entire executive branch (Republican) decides what laws to ignore, and how to interpret existing laws and is willing to ignore the judicial branch (after all, who enforces what the judicial branch interprets?) it can lead to these results.

Good points about the rewards system in place for ICE agents. It really is a bounty program. And the rules of engagement have completely changed; there pretty much aren't any rules.

One other thing I thought of - how could shooting the driver of that car have prevented the agent from being hit? The momentum would carry the vehicle forward and he would have gotten clobbered anyway.

The only rational decision is, as the retired police chief said, to get out of the way. And worry about apprehending the perpetrator later.

Teaching the tango, from Scent of a Woman.

Link to video

This song was on the radio when I was just driving home. Made me think of this scene in the bar in the movie Michael.

Video quality isn't the best, but fun anyway.

Link to video

Great idea, @bernard ! I was thinking we need some good news. I even had that Avelo article queued up to post a little later. You got there first!!

From another eyewitness. My bolding.

Emily Heller was in the middle of making breakfast when she heard whistles – a signal residents have used to warn their neighbors about the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers – and agents quarreling with protesters on her street.

Without time to put on her shoes, Heller ran outside and saw a convoy of ICE agents on her street, yelling at a woman in an SUV who appeared to be blocking them from passing.

Moments later, the woman, Renee Nicole Good, 37, was fatally shot.

“My life is forever changed from having witnessed this,” Heller said.

Heller told CNN Good “was totally peaceful” before the agents began yelling at Good to move and “aggressively” approached her vehicle.

An ICE agent then tried to open her car door as another stood nearby. “She reversed a little bit,” Heller said, and then turned her wheels to begin pulling away.

“And then they went up to her car and started trying to open her door, and that’s when I’m sure she got spooked and tried to flee,” Heller said. “So she reversed a little bit and then angled her wheels so she could drive away. And as she was trying to move forward, one of the ICE agents stepped in front of her vehicle and reached across the hood and fired his weapon about three or four times and shot her in the face.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-law-enforcement-involved-ice-related-shooting-minneapolis-rcna252812

From the woman who did the video. Local reporting from MPR. Conflicting orders from the agents?

An eyewitness told MPR News that ICE agents gave conflicting orders to a driver in south Minneapolis on Wednesday, with one agent ordering her to drive away from the scene where an ICE vehicle was stuck in a snowbank while another yelled for her to get out of her car as he reached for the door handle.

The scene ended with an agent shooting into the car, killing the woman.

Caitlin Callenson said she was walking down Portland Avenue with her partner when she saw who she assumed were Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“They tried to zoom their car out of the snowbank but were just stuck,” she said.

She said other ICE vehicles showed up, leading neighbors to believe it might be an ICE enforcement action. People showed up, and some began blowing whistles.

“People in our neighborhood have been terrorized by ICE for six weeks. We want our neighbors safe, and so when we see a group of ICE vehicles, people in the community are showing up and saying, ‘This is not OK,’” she said.

Callenson said one person — the woman who was shot a short time later — drove her vehicle perpendicular to the lanes of traffic on Portland Avenue, south of the ICE vehicles. By that point, Callenson said, the vehicle stuck in snow had been freed.

“Some of them were leaving, and they just went around her, but ICE gave her orders to leave, while at the same time, another ICE person said, ‘Get out of the car,’ and he reached for her door handle. And then there was an ICE agent in front of her vehicle. So it was difficult for her to leave, as she'd been ordered to do,” Callenson said.

“She turned her steering wheel toward the right. The person was grabbing her door handle, the ICE officer who was in front of her vehicle shot once from the front and twice from the side, hitting her maybe three feet away at the max. Because she was shot, and she was already trying to leave, her foot was on the accelerator, and she crashed into a telephone pole.”

After the shooting, Callenson said a neighbor identifying himself as a doctor asked if he could render aid to the woman who shot but was told by ICE agents to stand back. She said emergency responders’ vehicles couldn’t get past ICE vehicles, so firefighters and other first responders had to walk to the injured woman.

Callenson said she saw the ICE agent who fired the gunshots walk away to the north and get in an ICE vehicle.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/07/shooting-south-minneapolis-ice-agents-federal-operation

This account is kind of supported by the video, where she waves a car around her.

A bystander runs to the crashed vehicle. The ICE agent who did the shooting walks at a relatively slow pace towards it and then comes back, not in a hurry.

The typical response of a trained police officer would be to quickly render aid to the person they had just shot. They'd be running to the car. The ICE guys basically just all stand around. I take that as another sign of lack of training.

@AndyD said in In Minneapolis:

If a law enforcement officer asks you to get out of the car, will you?

It's not about me. Or you. Would either of us have been in the car trying to protest ICE activities? I can answer for myself: Based on what's happened with the ICE goons in the US, I would not take the risk. I would not have been blocking a street with my car. Call me a coward.

But neither of us was there.

I've already tried to outline what would be normal law enforcement protocols here. So has @jon-nyc . US is apparently not UK, though I wonder if it's really the case that a UK policeman would use deadly force on someone who responded in the way that Ms. Good did.

So for the hypothetical discussion, let's add some context, that of the perspective of US citizen who has been following what's happening here. ICE agents have not been treating protestors well in other interactions around the country. Even at the incident in question we see ICE agents spraying pepper spray directly into the faces of protestors.

This was their enemy:

They have refused the requests of members of the clergy to see detainees so they can pray with them.

And in my town, this happened:

https://abc7chicago.com/post/us-postal-service-worker-pushed-ground-trying-intervene-arlington-heights-immigration-arrest-landscaper-video/18096836/

So let me flip the question: Given that additional information, would you get out of the car /follow commands given that ICE has been behaving badly on a regular basis?

And, if you were an agent whose orders weren't followed immediately, what would your next step be?

@AndyD said in In Minneapolis:

What will a jury think?

Well, there was this case here in Chicago. Never got to a jury; judge threw out the case.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/21/us/marimar-martinez-shooting-case-what-we-know

And this, from yet another police chief:

In each of the recent ICE shootings, the government has claimed the officer was acting in self-defense.

Other reporting shows, however, that law enforcement experts have long warned against shooting into cars, and most of the nation’s major cities have banned the practice.

“Bad idea. Bad to do,” said Carmen Best, the former Seattle police chief, in a 2021 interview with the Times. “If you think the vehicle is coming toward you, get yourself out of the way.”

@andyd - Apparently you and I have very different takes on what happened and how things played out. It certainly is the case that had the agents and/or Ms Good acted differently that things could have gone a different direction. With what I know now, I place the responsibility for the outcome much more on the agents than on her. You seem to be indicating that the blame is all on her because she didn't follow an order. Given the factual information I have, including the videos and eyewitness interview from MPR, I couldn't disagree more.

Doesn't seem likely that further discussion without additional facts coming to light will yield anything helpful to either of us.

Love, wtg.

@jon-nyc I didn't know that.

And from that Minnesota Reformer link:

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a Wednesday press conference that they have yet to see information indicating that the shooting was justified