New York — A goddamn bitter 18°F with snow piling up like white grief, the kind of cold that bites through your bones and makes you question every life choice. Dress like you mean it or stay the hell home.

Kansas City — 12°F and the wind's a cruel bastard today, slicing through downtown like it's got a personal vendetta. The sky's a pale, unforgiving sheet of nothing.

Atlanta — A frigid damn 28°F, which for y'all means the city's basically shut down. Ice forming on magnolias like frozen tears on southern cheeks.

San Francisco — 52°F and drizzling that maddening mist that soaks through everything slowly. At least you can still feel your fucking face.

Detroit — 8°F. Eight. Single digits of pure Midwest suffering. The kind of cold that makes car engines whimper and souls question existence itself.

Sunday, January 25, 2026

Minneapolis burns with righteous fury as 3,000 federal agents occupy her frozen streets and a second citizen falls to their bullets. The climate screams louder while Trump's administration rips us from international treaties like a toddler tearing pages from books he'll never read. And a Texas judge decides drag queens are basically blackface—yes, really—while Democrats quietly strip anti-trans poison from funding bills. It's a lot. Breathe. We're here together.

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Editor's Note: The coldest day of the year hit Minneapolis yesterday; they showed up anyway—50,000 strong in subzero temperatures. That's not protest. That's love.

The smell of tear gas still hangs in the air on Nicollet Avenue, mixing with the acrid bite of arctic wind that hasn't let up for weeks. Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37 years old, an ICU nurse who spent his days keeping veterans alive at the Minneapolis VA hospital, is dead—shot multiple times by Border Patrol agents Saturday morning while witnesses say he was helping a woman who'd been pushed to the ground. His blood stained the snow less than two miles from where Renee Nicole Good was killed by ICE agents just seventeen days earlier. This is Trump's America now: a military-style occupation of an American city, 3,000 heavily armed federal agents terrorizing neighborhoods, using tear gas on families, detaining a five-year-old boy and his father, deploying flash-bangs against people whose only crime was standing outside their own homes. The Department of Homeland Security claims Pretti "violently resisted" and approached agents with a handgun. Multiple videos verified by major news outlets show something entirely different—a man holding a phone, his empty left hand raised, trying to protect someone who'd been shoved down. His parents, Michael and Susan Pretti, didn't mince words: "Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump's murdering and cowardly ICE thugs." NBC News Governor Tim Walz called it "a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government." Attorney General Keith Ellison promises to be in court Monday to end what he calls an "illegal and unconstitutional occupation." Senate Democrats have vowed to block DHS funding, and a partial government shutdown looms larger by the hour. Meanwhile, a massive winter storm sweeps toward the capital, shortening the legislative window to nothing. The Minneapolis Park Board closed every facility. The streets are empty except for mourners leaving candles at a growing memorial, their breath freezing in the negative-twenty air as they whisper Alex's name.

Feel that wrongness in the air? That unseasonal warmth that crept into December, the way January keeps swinging between brutal cold and eerily mild? The numbers are in, and they're ugly as hell: 2025 was the third-hottest year ever recorded, a mere 0.01°C cooler than 2023 and 0.13°C cooler than 2024's all-time record. The three-year running average for global surface temperature anomaly now sits at 1.52°C above pre-industrial baseline—likely the hottest three-year stretch in over 120,000 goddamn years. And what does the Trump administration do with this screaming emergency? It announced plans to withdraw the United States from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change entirely, pulling out of 65 international organizations because they "no longer serve American interests." Fuck the planet, apparently. Meanwhile, the new food pyramid unveiled by Health Secretary RFK Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins shoves meat and dairy products to the top, completely ignoring that livestock supply chains account for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The Arctic had its lowest December sea ice extent on record. Greenland saw nights that didn't drop below freezing—in January. Finland recorded its second-warmest year ever. And the richest 1% of humans generate enough emissions in a single year to cause 1.3 million heat-related deaths by century's end. This isn't climate change anymore. This is climate catastrophe, accelerating while the most powerful government on Earth actively makes it worse. Trump isn't just fiddling while Rome burns—he's pouring gasoline on the flames and calling it economic policy.

The texture of this victory feels strange in your hands—rough with compromise, smooth with relief. Democrats successfully stripped every anti-trans rider from the final appropriations bills this week, removing provisions that would have banned hospitals from providing gender-affirming care to trans youth, threatened funding for schools supporting trans students, and mandated exclusion of trans athletes from sports including chess and esports. Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly trans person in Congress, worked relentlessly alongside Democratic leaders to excise the poison from legislation funding Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, Homeland Security, Defense, and Transportation. The bills are "strikingly clean." Trans people can breathe—for now. But then there's U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, Trump's favorite judicial attack dog, who ruled that West Texas A&M's drag show ban doesn't violate the First Amendment because—and I wish I was making this up—drag is basically like blackface. The ruling claims student organizers "failed to convey a specific message" and that because past performances "simulated sexual acts," restricting them was justified. Transgender journalist Erin Reed called the comparison "particularly egregious," noting that "blackface was created by white performers to dehumanize a marginalized group," while "drag emerged from marginalized communities themselves as a form of self-expression, community building, and survival." Kacsmaryk has built his career on rulings targeting LGBTQ people and abortion rights. This one just says the quiet part loud: they think our existence is inherently offensive.

Life Survival: Lorde's words cut through the frozen Minneapolis air like a blade of truth. The neighbors delivering food to immigrant families too terrified to leave their homes understand this. The clergy kneeling on airport tarmac to pray for the detained understand this. The 50,000 souls who marched in subzero temperatures understand this. Fear exists either way. Silence doesn't make you safe—it just makes you alone with your terror. Speak. Show up. The only thing more dangerous than raising your voice is swallowing it forever.

When "allyship" turns out to be clout-chasing bullshit — The hockey podcast Empty Netters became darlings of the LGBTQIA+ community for their enthusiastic coverage of the gay romance series "Heated Rivalry," with the hosts gushing over romantic scenes and becoming faces of "positive masculinity in sports culture." Their YouTube views exploded 50-fold. Awful They sold merch. They interviewed cast members. Then text messages emerged showing host Dan Powers privately calling the show "trash" made by "losers" and "cowards" that "panders" and "checks inclusivity boxes." The backlash has been swift and brutal, with fans calling it "peak hypocrisy" and accusing the brothers of "grifting" off queer content they secretly despised.

Thousands of Minnesotans prove neighbors still means something — Beyond the massive Friday protests, something quieter and more radical has been happening across Minnesota: a grassroots network of community resistance that puts federal agents to shame. Neighbors are delivering groceries to families too scared to leave their homes. Parents and community members stand guard outside schools, daycares, and immigrant-owned businesses. Hundreds of everyday people have joined Signal chats tracking ICE movements, showing up to document arrests with phones and whistles and their physical presence. "There are people who are scared to go outside," said St. Paul resident Guy Hammink. "I feel like there's an obligation for those people to stand up for those who are being targeted."

This beekeeper might have cracked the climate-proofing code — With 60% of managed beehives in the U.S. lost last year—yes, sixty goddamn percent— Earth.Orgone innovator has designed flood-resistant hives that could give our pollinators a fighting chance against the climate chaos drowning their colonies. The Beekon hive floats, essentially, offering first-line defense against the increasingly common floods that have devastated bee populations in hurricane zones. "The threats pollinators face really cannot be overstated," said designer Borowski. "We are fighting to give our pollinators a first defense against the flooding that threatens to wipe them out." Earth.Org Given that one-third of global food production depends on pollination, this isn't just about bees—it's about whether we eat.

Science says shut the hell up about your goals — TikTok's "Move in Silence" trend turns out to have hardcore psychological backing. NYU researchers found that people who kept their goals private worked on tasks for an average of 45 minutes, compared to just 33 minutes for those who announced their plans. The twist? The announcers felt closer to finishing despite doing 25% less work. Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer explains that talking about your intentions creates "identity symbols" in your brain that give you a "premature sense of completeness"— Upworthyyour brain literally thinks you've already done the thing just because you said you would. So maybe stop posting about the novel you're writing and actually write the damn thing.

Competitive trash-picking is the sport we didn't know we needed — Japan's SpoGomi has transformed litter collection into an honest-to-god competitive sport, with teams of three racing to collect the most garbage within designated areas and time limits. The 2025 World Cup in Tokyo drew teams from 33 countries, with Japan's "Smile Story" claiming the championship after hauling 75 kilograms of waste. Cigarette butts are the crown jewels of competitive trash-picking, earning maximum points. My Modern Met No running allowed—this is about strategy, teamwork, and making the planet marginally less disgusting. Roughly 440,000 pounds of trash have been collected since 2008. The real winner, as they say, is always the planet.

Life Survival: Walker's words land different when federal agents are demanding exactly that—silence, compliance, the denial of community, the erasure of presence. The friends showing up at airport terminals, the clergy getting zip-tied for singing hymns, the teachers calling in sick to march—they're refusing the demand. Growth doesn't happen in isolation. Growth happens in the showing up, the bearing witness, the stubborn insistence that your neighbors deserve protection even when protecting them puts you at risk. Anyone asking you to shrink isn't offering friendship. They're offering a smaller cage.

The cold seeped into Alex Pretti's bones every winter morning on his walk to the Minneapolis VA hospital, where he'd spend twelve-hour shifts keeping veterans alive in the ICU. He grew up in Green Bay, played football at Preble High School, sang in the Boy Choir, earned his Eagle Scout badge. After getting his biology degree from the University of Minnesota, he worked as a research scientist before deciding he wanted to help people more directly, returning to school to become a registered nurse. He was thirty-seven years old. He had never been arrested. His entire criminal record consisted of traffic tickets.

On Saturday morning, Alex walked toward a woman who'd been shoved to the ground by federal agents. Witnesses say he was checking on her, trying to help. He had his phone in one hand. His other hand was raised. Multiple verified videos show what happened next: agents swarmed him, wrestled him down, punched him. Then came the gunshots—multiple rounds fired while he lay on the frozen ground. NPR

The Department of Homeland Security claims he "approached" officers with a 9mm handgun and "violently resisted." They say the agent who killed him was "highly trained" with eight years of experience. They showed reporters a photo of the gun they say they recovered. What no video shows is Alex holding that weapon. What no video shows is him threatening anyone.

His parents had warned him two weeks ago: protest if you must, but don't engage, don't do anything stupid. He promised them he knew that. PBS "He cared about people deeply," his father told the AP, "and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis." NPR

This is what Trump's Operation Metro Surge has wrought: the largest immigration enforcement operation in American history, 3,000 federal agents occupying a single American city, two citizens dead in seventeen days. Off-duty Minneapolis police officers have been racially profiled by federal agents demanding their IDs at gunpoint. A family driving around a protest was tear-gassed; their six-month-old baby was hospitalized. A five-year-old boy was detained alongside his father—school officials say federal agents used the child as "bait" to draw family members out of their home.

Senator Amy Klobuchar watched the videos. "When I hear the officials from the Trump administration describe this video in ways that simply aren't true, I just keep thinking, your eyes don't lie," she said. "Law enforcement is based on trust, and we have had a total breakdown of trust."

Top White House advisor Stephen Miller, hours after the shooting and before any investigation, called Alex Pretti a "domestic terrorist" who "tried to assassinate federal law enforcement." The parents of the ICU nurse who spent his career saving veterans' lives had a different description for the men who killed their son: "Trump's murdering and cowardly ICE thugs." NBC News

At a growing memorial on Eat Street, mourners leave candles and flowers in a circle, their breath freezing in negative-twenty temperatures. Further down the street, crowds gather despite the cold that bites through every layer. They're not going home. They're not staying silent. They learned that from their neighbors.

Groundhog Day approaches, and honestly who gives a shit — Punxsutawney Phil, America's most overpaid rodent meteorologist, will emerge February 2nd to pretend weather forecasting is voodoo performed by frightened woodland creatures. With the Met Office predicting 2026 temperatures between 1.34°C and 1.58°C above pre-industrial average—the fourth consecutive year above 1.4°C—perhaps we should ask Phil if he's noticed his shadow getting shorter because THE PLANET IS COOKING. But sure, let's gather around a groundhog like it's still 1887 and science hasn't been invented yet. Thanks, Trump, for making "trust rodent fortune-tellers over climate scientists" basically federal policy.

Life Survival: Camus wrote those words in the aftermath of fascism, in the shadow of resistance. They echo now through frozen Minneapolis streets where showing up to protect your neighbors is treated as insurrection by people who've never understood what freedom actually costs. Existence itself becomes rebellion when power demands your disappearance. The trans kid who gets out of bed. The immigrant family who refuses to hide. The ICU nurse who walked toward a woman who'd been knocked down instead of away from her. Freedom isn't permission. It's the thing you practice with your body, your presence, your stubborn insistence on being exactly who you are.

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