Airline Cuts Ties With ICE Over Deportation Flights

At least one airline has decided to stop flying for ICE.

Avelo Airlines, the primary commercial air fleet that has carried out the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, canceled its contract with the federal government on Tuesday. In an email to employees, CEO Andrew Levy said that Avelo’s arrangement with the government had only offered “short-term benefits” at a cost to the company’s long-term reputation.

“We moved a portion of our fleet into a government program which promised more financial stability but placed us in the center of a political controversy,” Levy wrote in the email, obtained by CNBC. “The program provided short-term benefits but ultimately did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs.”

Protests took place across the country at Avelo’s commercial bases when the company signed on to work with ICE back in May.

In an attempt to salvage its business, Avelo said in its new announcement it would no longer work with the agency and would close its base outside Phoenix on January 27. But significant damage must have already been done to the company’s financials, as it announced it would additionally shutter Avelo bases at North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham and Wilmington airports, slashing jobs and canceling commercial flights in the process.

“With the closure of the Mesa base, government flying has concluded. For the record, there was never a contract with DHS, ICE or the federal government,” company spokesperson Courtney Goff told NBC Connecticut.

But ICE still has several other companies it can turn to to unceremoniously ship people out of the country, such as CSI Aviation, a charter service that subcontracts flights from GlobalX and Eastern Air Express. The Department of Homeland Security awarded CSI more than $673 million for the 2026 fiscal year.

Did President Donald Trump even watch a video of the ICE shooting in Minnesota before he started spreading lies about the victim?

Speaking to a group of New York Times reporters Wednesday, Trump claimed that Renee Good, a driver who was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent, “didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over.” 

To make his point, Trump trotted out a video he’d already shared to Truth Social earlier that day. The video, taken from a distance, was slowed down to isolate the sound of three gunshots, audible above a witness screaming, “No!” 

The video, however, did not appear to show a federal officer being run over or injured in any way. But in his post, Trump had inexplicably claimed that it was “hard to believe [the officer] is alive” after the incident.

The reporters quickly pointed out that Trump’s cherry-picked video didn’t even support his own fictitious claims. 

“Well,” Trump stammered. “I—the way I look at it …” It seems he could not summon an explanation as he watched the footage he’d boosted to millions of people.  

“It’s a terrible scene,” he said at the end of the video. “I think it’s horrible to watch. No, I hate to see it.”

Trump’s reaction “suggests that no one had shown the video to Trump before he posted about the shooting,” Aaron Reichlin-Melchick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote in a post on X Thursday.

The video Trump posted, which went on to be shared by other prominent right-wing figures, did not include footage of moments before the shooting when Good, who was blocking traffic, waved the agents by and urged them to “go around!” 

Instead of pulling around, the ICE agents swarmed her vehicle, pulling on the doors, and demanding she “get out of the fucking car!” One witness even said that another officer ordered her to leave. When she attempted to drive away from the group of officers, the officer standing in front of the vehicle shot her in the head at least three times. 

Trump’s video also did not include footage of ICE agents dismissing a man who identified himself as a physician and asked to check Good’s pulse as she sat motionless in her crashed vehicle. 

After an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good just yards from her home in Minneapolis on Wednesday, federal agents are now upping their aggression against the Minnesotans protesting her painfully unjust death.

CNN has reported that federal agents are using pepper balls and a “gas-like substance” against protesters outside of the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis. People can be seen on video fleeing from a large cloud of gas as CNN’s Ryan Young said officers “deployed the substance.” One man could be seen on his hands and knees, overcome by the effects of the gas.

President Trump has falsely claimed that Good was trying to hurt the ICE agents on Wednesday. “She behaved horribly,” he said. “And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over. She ran him over.”

But after being shown the video, even he had to admit that it was a “terrible scene.” Nevertheless, federal agents have only cracked down harder on people as they protest the government-supported killing of their neighbor.

Federal Medicaid subsidies could be at risk for millions living in Minnesota, thanks to the executive branch’s latest attempt to punish state residents for a fraud scheme that was caught and handled years ago.

Speaking with Fox Business Wednesday, Mehmet Oz—the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—claimed that billions of dollars for the public health care system was in jeopardy, in Minnesota and elsewhere.

“Well, sticking to the narrative that it’s cold in Minnesota, this is the tip of the iceberg,” Oz said.

The Department of Health and Human Services paused $185 million in aid to Minnesota after right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley alleged there was a sprawling fraud scheme taking federal funds from Minnesota-based day care facilities.

As evidence, he visited a slew of day care centers, arguing that closed sites were fraudulently accepting funding. It would later emerge that elements of Shirley’s report were incorrect or inadequately reported: At least two of the centers featured in his video had been closed for several years, Minnesota’s Department of Children, Youth and Families told NewsNation late last month.

More than a dozen schemes have popped up in Minnesota’s safety net programs in recent years, many of them involving members of the state’s Somali population. But they haven’t gone unchecked: More than 90 Minnesotans were charged in federal fraud investigations that began under the Biden administration, at least 60 of which have resulted in convictions.

Yet, apparently incensed by Shirley’s report, the White House ushered a scourge of ICE agents to descend upon the city—though their presence has only caused more problems.

On Wednesday, an ICE agent in Minneapolis shot and killed a 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Good, just a few blocks from her home. Video footage of the attack suggested Good was attempting to comply with the masked agents’ orders to drive away, but one member of the deportation agency opted to shoot her several times in the face, instead.

Eyewitnesses to the shooting told MPR News that Good posed “no threat” to the agents.

Donald Trump has already cut off $10 billion in funding for social services such as childcare and aid for poor families in five blue states, including Minnesota.

Donald Trump and JD Vance want you to know that not abiding federal agents may result in your death.

Less than 24 hours after a federal immigration officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, the vice president was already positing that the shooting should be used as a kind of litmus test for political office.

“Every congressional democrat and every democrat who’s running for president should be asked a simple question: Do you think this officer was wrong in defending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over?” Vance wrote in a post on X.

“These people are going to try to arrest our law enforcement for doing their jobs. The least the media could do is ask them about it,” he added.

Trump also attempted to defend Good’s murder by sharing a clip from Fox News’s Hannity, where contributor Nicole Parker argued that deadly force was justified when “a vehicle is coming at you and is being used as a weapon.”

But it’s not clear that Good tried to “run over” an ICE agent at all, or that Good’s vehicle was being used as a weapon.

Vance shared one slow-motion clip of the incident making the rounds on right-wing internet that appeared to show Good driving toward an agent who was standing in front of her car.

This video does not include footage of moments before the shooting when Good, who was blocking traffic, waved the agents by and urged them to “go around!” Instead, the ICE agents swarmed her vehicle, pulling on the doors, and demanding she “get out of the fucking car!” When she attempted to drive away from the group of officers, the officer standing in front of the vehicle shot her in the head at least three times.

Republican Representative Wesley Hunt claimed on NewsNation Wednesday night that Good’s death was “completely avoidable” if only she had followed the instructions of the ICE agents—who descended out of an unmarked vehicle and did not attempt to identify themselves.

“The bottom line is this, when a federal officer gives you instructions you abide by them and then you get to keep your life,” Hunt said. “And it is clear that she tried to use her vehicle as a weapon, mow over an ICE agent, and now she is dead.”

President Trump is planning on having the U.S. control Venezuela for years.

“Only time will tell,” Trump told The New York Times in an interview released on Thursday morning. “We will rebuild it in a very profitable way.... We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil. We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.”

This indefinite timeline that Trump is working with only worsens this wanton might = right approach to the most oil-rich, historically left-leaning nations in the world.

The Times attempted to clarify, asking the president for a specific timeline, from three months to a year.

“I would say much longer,” Trump replied.

This comes just days after Trump declared the U.S is in charge of the country—although it appears that the Venezuelan government is still functioning, as it swore in Maduro-supporting Vice President Delcy Rodríguez on Monday.

Even still, the bravado and basic disregard for global sovereignty that has defined this attack, kidnapping, and incoming occupation is likely only the beginning of a long string of problems for Venezuelans, and people across the world—just as Trump promised.

Hours after an ICE agent shot and killed a legal observer in Minneapolis, the Trump administration announced plans to invest in even more ICE activity.

In a sit-down interview with Fox News Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance revealed that he expects “deportation numbers [to] ramp up” as the agency increases hiring in the coming year.

“I think we’re going to see those deportation numbers ramp up as we get more and more people online, working for ICE, going door to door, and making sure that if you’re an illegal alien, you’ve gotta get out and apply [for citizenship] through the proper channels,” Vance told the network.

Vance’s timing couldn’t be worse, especially considering that the administration’s commitment to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s growth was already in the works.

Last week, internal documents obtained by The Washington Post revealed that the deportation agency had earmarked $100 million for online advertisements over the next year, hoping to draw gun rights advocates and military enthusiasts into its ranks.

The agency’s so-called “wartime recruitment” strategy involves a nationwide hiring spree that aims to take on as many as 10,000 new officers across the country.

That massive expenditure is practically a drop in the bucket of ICE’s 2026 budget allotment, however. Congress virtually tripled the agency’s budget this summer when it passed Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, jumping its appropriations from roughly $9.6 billion to $30 billion. (At the same time, the Republican-controlled legislature insisted that it was fiscally necessary to take a hatchet to Medicaid, gutting billions of dollars from the critical public health care program.)

Meanwhile, Minneapolis residents are still reeling from an agent’s decision to shoot dead a 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Good, who had been sitting in her car just a few blocks from where she lived.

“That’s so stupid” that she was killed, Donna Ganger—Good’s mother—told the Minnesota Star Tribune. Good leaves behind her 6-year-old son, whose father died in 2023 at the age of 36.

“There’s nobody else in his life,” the child’s paternal grandfather told the Tribune. “I’ll drive. I’ll fly. To come and get my grandchild.”

Do MAGA Republicans believe that people who list their pronouns in their bio deserve to be shot in the head?

Donald Trump’s army of right-wing shills rushed Wednesday night to defend a federal immigration officer who shot and killed a U.S. citizen—by complaining about the victim’s online presence.

Fox News’s Jesse Watters was careful to cast Renee Good—despite being a white woman and mother—as a political enemy from the opposing side of the culture war.

“The woman who lost her life was a self-proclaimed poet from Colorado—with pronouns in her bio,” Watters said. “A 37-year-old white woman named Renee Good. The Daily Mail says she leaves behind a lesbian partner and a child from a previous marriage. She was a disrupter though she considered herself a legal observer, but there’s no evidence she had a law degree.”

Laura Loomer, the Trump acolyte who pretends to be a reporter, also seemed to struggle to swallow Good’s Instagram profile.

“‘She/her’ Literally every time,” Loomer wrote, including a screenshot of Good’s Instagram profile, beside a picture of someone who was not Good.

Loomer also seemed to have an entirely separate problem with Good. “An aggressive communist carpet muncher who FAFO,” she wrote in a separate post.

The health secretary neglected to inform a critical group of individuals when he decided to overhaul the child vaccination schedule: his own staffers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Vaccine experts at the agency were “blindsided” by Robert F. Kennedy Jr’.s brisk efforts Monday to radically narrow the parameters for which vaccines the government would recommend for children, current and former CDC staff told The Washington Post.

That revamp included stripping recommendations for immunizations against influenza, rotavirus, hepatitis A, and meningococcal diseases that result in meningitis. Instead, those vaccines will only be recommended to children considered at “high risk” of contracting the illness or if a doctor recommends it.

The decision was not informed by emerging scientific evidence and did not undergo a typical review process, but nonetheless went into effect immediately.

“The abrupt replacement of the immunization schedule by one designed for another context and healthcare system has been done with no scientific justification,” Demetre Daskalakis, a former director of the agency’s center on immunization and respiratory diseases, told the Post.

Private and federal health insurance plans have signaled that they would continue to cover the cost of childhood vaccines through 2026, though several major insurers did not elaborate on how they would manage the Health Department’s shifting guidance in subsequent years.

Prior to Kennedy’s meddling, the schedule included 17 immunizations that were universally recommended for all children. The new schedule shrinks that pool to 11 vaccines.

Top officials within the Department of Health and Human Services released a memo regarding the changes Monday, declaring that the switch-up was in no small part due to public mistrust of vaccines and national public health initiatives in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kennedy, a virulent vaccine skeptic, told the American public before he was confirmed that he would not let his personal feelings about immunizations shape the nation’s public health policy. In an April interview with CBS News, Kennedy reaffirmed that he was “not going to take people’s vaccines away from them.”

But that’s exactly what he’s done.

Since Kennedy took the reins at HHS, he has replaced independent medical experts on the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel with a hodgepodge of vaccine skeptics. He warned against the use of the MMR vaccine during Texas’s historic measles outbreak, recommending that suffering patients instead take vitamins. And he founded his new directive for America’s health policy—the “Make America Healthy Again” report—on studies generated by AI that never existed in the real world.

The 71-year-old has a lot to gain from pushing disinformation about the jab: The more doubt and division that Kennedy sows, the more money he’ll make. Ahead of his appointment, Kennedy disclosed that he made roughly $10 million in 2024 from speaking fees and dividends from his vaccine lawsuits. He’s also made cash from merchandising handled by his nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, which bungled its response to a 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa so badly that it resulted in the deaths of at least 83 people, the majority of whom were children under the age of 5.

As a reminder: Since their invention, vaccines have proven to be one of the greatest accomplishments of modern medicine. The medical shots are so effective at preventing illness that they have effectively eradicated some of the worst diseases from our collective culture, from rabies to polio and smallpox—a fact that has possibly fooled some into believing that the viruses and their complications aren’t a significant threat to the average, health-conscious individual.

Meanwhile, Kennedy is running DHS with practically zero relevant experience. He has not worked in medicine, public health, or the government—instead, he is guided only by a pocketful of conspiracies that America’s foremost health experts have already thoroughly debunked.

President Donald Trump was desperate Wednesday to justify a federal immigration officer shooting a U.S. citizen multiple times—but video footage of the incident showed just how indefensible it really was.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump shared a “horrible” news clip that showed a federal immigration officer shooting a driver who’d blocked traffic on a suburban street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The video, taken from a distance, was slowed down to isolate the sound of three gunshots, audible above a witness screaming, “No!”

“The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense,” Trump wrote.

“Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital,” he wrote, referring to the officer. The video Trump shared, however, does not appear to show anyone being hit by the victim’s car, and the federal officers are not visible.

Another video taken from a closer angle showed the officer who fired his weapon standing, seemingly completely unharmed as the car initially drove away. A photograph of the officer showed him feet away from the car when he fired. It is not hard to believe that the officer is still alive; it’s not entirely clear that he was ever in danger. The driver, however, a U.S. citizen and apparent legal observer, is reportedly deceased, though the president did not bother to mention it.

“The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis,” Trump wrote. “They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!”

Members of the Trump administration have already leapt to declare the shooting as a thwarted attempt at “domestic terrorism.”