resh snowfall hit Italy’s Alpine resort of Livigno less than a month before the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, where freestyle skiing and snowboarding events will be held, after officials raised concerns over reliance on artificial snow.
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has taken over the case of the fatal shooting of a woman by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis, amid growing tensions over the incident across the state.
Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Superintendent Drew Evans said in a statement that the BCA would no longer be involved in the investigation into the killing of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, 37, a mother of three who was shot dead by a federal agent in her car on Wednesday.
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“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 said on Thursday.
He added that while it had previously been agreed that the BCA would investigate the shooting, the US attorney’s office changed that.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Democratic attorney general, told CNN the FBI’s decision was “deeply disturbing.”
According to Ellison, state authorities could investigate with or without the cooperation of the federal government, adding that with the evidence he has seen so far, not all of which has been made public, state charges were a possibility.
According to the Washington Post, Good leaves behind her 15-year-old daughter and two sons, aged 12 and six.
State and federal officials have offered starkly different accounts of the shooting, in which an unidentified ICE agent shot Good, a US citizen, in a residential neighbourhood.
The ICE agent who shot Good was among 2,000 federal officers who President Donald Trump’s administration had announced it was deploying to the Minneapolis area in what the US Department of Homeland Security described as the “largest DHS operation ever.”
DHS officials, including the agency’s Secretary Kristi Noem, defended the shooting as self-defence and accused the woman of trying to ram agents in an act of “domestic terrorism.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, called that assertion “bulls***” and “garbage” based on bystander videos taken of the incident that appeared to contradict the government’s account.
Videos of the incident taken by bystanders and shared online appeared to show two masked officers approaching Good’s car, which was stopped on a Minneapolis street. As one officer ordered Good out of the car and grabbed at her door handle, the car briefly reversed and then began driving forward, turning to the right in an apparent attempt to leave the scene.
A third officer, who had been filming the scene before walking to the front of Good’s car, drew his gun and fired three times while jumping back, with the last shots aimed through the driver’s window after the car’s bumper appeared to have passed by his body.
The video did not appear to show contact, and the officer stayed on his feet, though Noem said he was taken to a hospital and released. Trump said on social media that the woman “ran over the ICE Officer”.
In the wake of Good’s killing, protesters took to the streets in Minneapolis to condemn the ICE agent’s actions and the wider ICE presence in the city, which has been met with frequent demonstrations.
On Thursday morning, about 1,000 demonstrators were at a federal building where an immigration court is housed, chanting “shame” and “murder” at armed and masked federal officers.
At least one protester was detained as federal officers armed with PepperBall guns and tear gas stood off with a large crowd of demonstrators, according to the AFP news agency.
Protests have taken place and are planned in New York City, Seattle, Detroit, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Antonio, New Orleans, and Chicago.
Demonstrations are also scheduled in smaller cities in Arizona, North Carolina, and New Hampshire later this week.
US Vice President JD Vance defended the actions of ICE agents in Minneapolis after a woman was fatally shot in her car on Wednesday. Vance claimed the media’s coverage of the incident was an ‘absolute disgrace’ and that the woman who was killed was there to interfere with the operation.
Some of Warner Bros Discovery’s biggest investors are split on Paramount Skydance’s sweetened offer for the storied movie studio owner, giving the smaller media company a fighting chance at winning over shareholders.
Investors have until January 21 to accept Paramount’s latest $108.4bn proposal, paying them $30 a share, an offer the Warner Bros board says is inferior to its agreement to sell to Netflix.
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Though the creator of, Stranger Things, is offering just $27.75 a share or $82.7bn, Warner Bros says the financing is more solid and that Paramount’s deal would leave the merged company with too much debt.
Alex Fitch, partner and portfolio manager for Harris Oakmark, which held about 96 million shares, or 4 percent of Warner Bros, as of September 30, agrees with the board.
“The value still isn’t clearly superior to what has already been agreed to with Netflix. A tie goes to the incumbent,” Fitch said in an email to Reuters.
Though Paramount’s offer, on its face, is higher, Warner Bros said it does not cover the $2.8bn breakup fee it would have to pay Netflix, $1.5bn in fees it would owe its bankers and another $350m in financing costs.
A smaller investor, Yussef Gheriani, chief investment officer of IHT Wealth Management, which has about 16,000 Warner Bros shares, said in an email that the board’s decision to reject Paramount’s offer makes sense as the increase in total value may not be worth breakup fees and borrowing costs. The deal would leave the combined company with $87bn in debt, Warner Bros said.
But Matthew Halbower of Pentwater Capital Management, which said it owns more than 50 million shares, feels differently. He told Warner Bros Chairman Samuel DiPiazza in a letter sent on Wednesday that the board “breached its fiduciary duty” to shareholders by rejecting Paramount’s offer out of hand, saying it was a better deal and had a better chance of clearing regulatory scrutiny.
Warner Bros’s board “is choosing not to inquire about what improvements Paramount is willing to make to its offer,” he said in the letter, which was reviewed by Reuters. If Paramount does eventually further improve its $30-per-share offer, the Warner Bros board should at least talk with the suitor, or his firm will not support any Warner Bros directors at their next election, Halbower wrote.
Mario Gabelli, whose Gabelli Funds holds about 5.7 million shares of Warner Bros, according to LSEG data, said he is “likely” to sell his shares to Paramount. He said its all-cash offer is more straightforward and would have a faster path to regulatory approval.
“At the moment, Paramount has a superior bid,” Gabelli told CNBC. “Netflix has to simplify their bid.”
Harris Oakmark, which is Warner Bros’ fifth-largest shareholder, remains open to changing its position. “If they [Paramount] come back to the table with a clearly superior offer, we have full confidence that the WBD board will engage,” Fitch said.
It is not often that a marquee media asset like Warner Bros, which owns HBO Max, comes to market, sparking a bidding war. Its extensive content library includes Harry Potter and the DC Comics universe. Its HBO Max streaming service recently acquired the US and Australian distribution rights to the runaway hit, Canadian hockey romance, Heated Rivalry.
Warner Bros’s top three shareholders are the large passive fund managers Vanguard, State Street and BlackRock, together controlling some 22 percent. All three are also among the top 10 investors in Paramount and Netflix.
Saudi-backed “National Shield Forces” were seen deploying in Aden a day after separatist leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi fled Yemen for the United Arab Emirates. The city has been at the centre of al-Zubaidi’s Southern Transitional Council (STC).
An Israeli attack on a tent in southern Gaza has killed at least three Palestinians and wounded three others, local rescuers say, as Israel continues to bomb the coastal enclave despite an October ceasefire.
The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza said on Thursday that its teams recovered the bodies of three slain residents after the Israeli military bombed a family’s tent in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis.
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Three others were wounded, including one person who suffered critical injuries, the agency said in a post on Telegram.
Separately, Israeli fire killed an 11-year-old Palestinian girl named Hamsa Housou in northern Gaza’s Jabalia area.
Her uncle, Khamis Housou, said he woke up to screaming in the family’s building. “I saw Hamsa lying on the floor and blood coming out of her nose and mouth,” he said.
The attacks come as Israel has continued its military assault on Gaza despite a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement that came into effect on October 10.
At least 425 Palestinians have been killed and 1,206 others wounded in Israeli attacks since October 11, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.
At the same time, hundreds of thousands of displaced families have been sheltering in makeshift tent camps across Gaza after their homes were destroyed in Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory.
Israel has refused to allow a free flow of shelter supplies into the Gaza Strip, despite warnings from the United Nations and humanitarian groups that Palestinians are suffering amid a series of deadly winter storms.
Encampments have been flooded due to heavy rainfall in recent weeks, prompting calls from Palestinians for better tents, blankets and warm clothes.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said this week that Palestinians in Gaza were suffering from “respiratory infections, wound complications [and] skin diseases” as a result of harsh living conditions.
Babies are also “suffering from severe cold”, the group said, “all the while Israel continues to block or delay the entry of vital supplies like tents, tarpaulins, and temporary housing”.
Meanwhile, Israel has moved to block international aid groups, including MSF and the Norwegian Refugee Council, from operating in the Strip.
Israel has revoked the operating licences of 37 aid organisations for failing to comply with new regulations that require them to provide detailed information on staff members, funding and operations.
Experts say those requirements contravene humanitarian principles and follow a longstanding Israeli government campaign to vilify and ultimately impede the work of aid groups providing assistance to Palestinians.
On Thursday, the Reuters news agency reported that MSF, Medecins du Monde Suisse and the Danish Refugee Council said the Israeli authorities refused to allow their international staff to enter Gaza this week.