Minnesota Sues to Stop Federal ‘Invasion,’ and Iranians Describe a ‘Blood Bath’

0:02From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, January 13th. Here's what we're covering.

0:13The deployment of thousands of armed mass DHS agents to Minnesota has done our state serious harm. This is, in essence, a federal invasion of the Twin Cities, and it must stop. The state of Minnesota is suing the Trump administration over the mass deployment of ICE agents there, claiming it has violated the U.S. Constitution and infringed on the state's rights. It comes as the administration has announced it's sending 1 ,000 more immigration officers to the state, on top of the roughly 2 ,000 other federal agents who are already there. The lawsuit asks the federal judge to block the deployments.

0:52Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said that even before the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent last week escalated tensions there. Residents had already been racially profiled, harassed, terrorized, and assaulted. Schools have gone on to lockdown. And some retail stores, daycares, and restaurants have actually closed because people are afraid to go out and to do their shopping, whether they're immigrants or whether they are citizens of many generations. Over the last month, across the Twin Cities, armed agents have marched through apartment complexes, demanding to see documents and handcuffing people.

1:30They've targeted construction workers at job sites and tackled a man on his lunch break near downtown as he repeatedly screamed he was a U.S. citizen. The Trump administration initially launched its widespread enforcement operation in Minnesota to target undocumented Somali immigrants amid a major welfare fraud scandal. It says the new surge is needed to allow agents to carry out their work safely. In a separate lawsuit, the state of Illinois also sued the administration yesterday over its ICE deployment there, saying the federal agents were, quote, imposing a climate of fear. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security called that suit baseless.

2:12Meanwhile, The Times has learned new details about the FBI investigation into Renee Good's death in Minneapolis. Sources say it seems increasingly unlikely that the federal agent who killed her will face criminal charges. They say investigators have been looking into the agent's actions and into the connections Good might have had to activist groups opposed to the administration's immigration crackdown. That focus appears to be in line with comments President Trump has made, in which he's repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that protesters opposed to his policies are part of a shadowy, violent network.

2:53Now, three quick updates from Washington. At the Supreme Court this morning, the justices will hear back-to-back cases involving transgender athletes, the first time the court has formally taken on that specific issue. The cases will test the constitutionality of state laws in West Virginia and Idaho that only allow students to participate in sports based on their sex assigned at birth, though rulings could have implications for 25 other states with similar laws. At the court, lawyers for the athletes will make the case that the laws violate the Constitution's equal protection guarantee, while lawyers for the states and the Trump administration will argue that the participation of trans female athletes undermines the years-long effort to increase opportunities for women in sports.

3:43Also, in a seismic shift at the Environmental Protection Agency, officials plan to overhaul how they set rules on air pollution. For decades, the EPA justified clean air rules around ozone and fine particulates by calculating the cost of their impact on people's health, taking into account things like days of lost work to asthma attacks. Now, under the Trump administration, the agency will only take into account how much it would cost a business to follow any regulations. The EPA says it will still be considering human health, even if it's not explicitly in its cost-benefit calculations. But the change could make it easier to repeal limits on pollutants from things like power plants and oil refineries.

4:32And the Times has learned that the U.S. used a secret plane painted to look like a civilian aircraft and armed with hidden weapons when it carried out its first strike on a boat carrying alleged drug traffickers back in September. Trump has claimed the U.S. is in an armed conflict with drug cartels, justifying the strikes. But use of that plane could constitute a war crime. Under the laws of war, combatants are prohibited from pretending to be civilians to trick adversaries into dropping their guard, a crime known as perfidy. The U.S. military also killed two survivors of that initial strike in what military law experts say could be another war crime.

5:14In a statement, the White House said the strike was, quote, fully consistent with the law of armed conflict.

5:24In Iran, witnesses say the government is carrying out a brutal crackdown on the protests that have been rocking the country. Authorities there spent the last five days shutting down the Internet and many phone lines to try and impose an information blackout. But the Times has been able to reach people over satellite internet connections who describe scenes of intense violence. They said they've seen snipers on rooftops in downtown Tehran shooting into crowds and security forces opening fire with machine guns. Hospital workers say protesters are coming in with skull fractures and gunshot wounds.

6:01One ER had 19 shooting victims in an hour. A businessman told the Times, I managed to get connected for a few minutes just to say it's a bloodbath here. One Iranian government official said he'd seen an internal report referring to at least 3 ,000 dead, civilians and security forces.

6:25Last night, undeterred by the crackdown, a large crowd gathered in Tehran once again. Footage from the BBC captured people chanting, death to the dictator, with gunfire in the background. Iranian officials have started claiming that the protests, which began late last month over economic woes, have been taken over by terrorists, and they are blaming the U.S. and Israel for fueling the unrest.

6:55It's a simple way to get a 360-degree set of tests at a low cost. In the U.S., a growing number of health and wellness companies are making a new pitch. We can test your blood. We pair the tests across 65 biomarkers. They're offering people a chance at lab tests without any kind of doctor visit or referral. That to me feels like the future of health care. The promises vary. Some say they can help catch cancer early. Others say they can help identify the source of hard-to-pin-down conditions. They're capitalizing, in some cases, on a growing skepticism of and frustration with the health care system.

7:34One company's website even promises, Ignored by most, tested by us. Several people who have paid for these kinds of tests tell the Times they were drawn to them after struggling with illnesses their doctors were unable to diagnose or resolve. Some medical professionals, however, worry that the companies are subjecting patients to costly tests they don't need, which could result in false positives and lead to unnecessary follow-ups or anxiety. And while many of the at-home tests these companies are offering are the same ones people might get at a doctor's office, some are going beyond that. Some companies are rushing to offer tests for autism, claiming they can predict a child's risk of developing it using a strand of hair or a mother's blood.

8:23While academic research labs across the country are working to find biological markers that could predict that, critics of the tests say they are not reliable enough to be offered commercially. They say the results could mislead parents who are already inundated with incorrect or unverified information about the neurodevelopmental disorder.

8:50And finally, in just a few weeks, the Winter Olympics will kick off in northern Italy. And in the last few days, the American figure skating lineup has been finalized. One of the skaters that made the men's team is 24-year-old Maxim Namov. It'll be his first time competing in the Olympics. And for the skating community, his qualifying was an emotional moment. Year after year, we talked about the Olympics. It means so much in our family. And it's what I've been thinking about since I've been five years old. After competing this weekend, he held up a picture of his parents, who were famed Russian skaters and later became coaches in the U.S.

9:30Last January, they were on the American Airlines flight that collided with a military helicopter near D.C., killing everyone on board. Like many of the victims, they were coming home from a skating camp. It means absolutely everything to me. And I know they're looking down, smiling and proud. Since the crash, Namav has been coaching some of the young skaters that his parents used to teach. He said he could imagine his dad telling him to keep fighting to Milan and not give up. And he said, quote, that's exactly what I plan on doing.

10:08Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow. Thank you.