A World on Fire, from Tehran to Caracas. Plus. . .

It’s Monday, January 12. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Olivia Reingold, Jed Rubenfeld, Dave Kansas, and Elliot Ackerman on the fallout from the ICE shooting in Minneapolis.

But first: A world on fire.

This year is off to a tumultuous start. Just over a week ago, Donald Trump woke everyone from their holiday slumber with the dramatic raid to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, who now sits in a cell in New York City.

In recent days, protests in Tehran that began two weeks ago have escalated considerably—and been met with a brutal response from the Ayatollah’s regime. Iranian authorities have shut down the internet—and opened fire on their own people. More than 2,000 protesters have reportedly been killed in the last three days.

Meanwhile, Russia has stepped up its strikes on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv apartment buildings and firing a new hypersonic missile deep into Western Ukraine last week.

What’s not yet clear, though, is how consequential all this will prove to be. Will Maduro’s ouster prove to be the end of that regime—or just a changing of the guard? Could the Ayatollah’s time really be up? And, what, if anything, will end the war in Ukraine?

These are the questions on our minds at the start of this week—and the ones our stories today, in one way or another, seek to address.

We start with Iran. Over the last 72 hours we’ve published must-read analysis of the situation by Roya Hakakian, Michael Doran, and Simon Sebag Montefiore. All of them assess whether these protests are different from the last attempts to oust the regime in Tehran. If you missed their pieces, read them here:

Eli Lake homes in on a more specific question: Will Donald Trump keep his promise to the Iranian people? The U.S. president has pledged that he would attack the regime if it started killing protesters. There is no doubt that is now happening and so, Eli argues, it’s time for Trump to take action. This, says Eli, is a “hinge point in Trump’s presidency.” Read his column:

For the latest news out of Iran, tune in to our livestream at noon ET today. As President Trump weighs his options, Rafaela Siewert will be talking to Michael Doran, Roya Hakakian, and Behnam Ben Taleblu. Tune in here.

From Tehran to Caracas, where, a little over a week after U.S. forces captured Maduro, things are remarkably normal. Writing for The Free Press today, Elliott Abrams, who served as Special Representative for Venezuela from 2019 to 2021, argues that “the regime is functioning internally exactly as it would have had Maduro been removed by a heart attack, and it is making the smallest concessions to Washington that it can.”

If Trump thinks this is the way to put Venezuela on a path to democracy, stability, and prosperity, he is sorely mistaken, says Elliott. And it leaves him wondering: Does the administration have a plan?

Trump’s main focus since the Maduro raid has been on Venezuela’s oil. On Friday, he gathered top oil CEOs at the White House to discuss investing in—and extracting black gold from—Venezuela. Most people are chilly on the immediate prospects for oil production in the country. We asked longtime Venezuela correspondent William Neuman to investigate. Here’s what he found:

Meanwhile, life for ordinary Venezuelans—especially those who dare criticize the regime—is as tough as ever. For a sense of the situation on the ground, read this anonymous account of the crackdown that followed Maduro’s capture:

For more on the Venezuelans resisting the Chavistas in power, tune in to the latest episode of Conversations with Coleman. Coleman talks to Venezuelan human rights leader Thor Halvorssen about the high stakes and uncertain transition now underway in his country. Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts:

The last stop in this tour of the world’s flashpoints is Kyiv. Aidan Stretch reports from the Ukrainian capital, half of which is without heat after the latest Russian barrage. Aidan writes of the damage wrought by the strikes, and describes their grim logic—to break Ukrainian resolve in the middle of the winter, and at a crucial stage in peace talks. Aidan investigates whether that strategy is working:

We’re celebrating a new year and new additions to our newsroom! For a limited time, enjoy 20 percent off a subscription to The Free Press.

The Killing of Renee Good

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents patrol a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 11, 2026. (Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images)

For all the international tumult of recent days, U.S. politics has been dominated by a singular incident: the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Soon after video of the shooting was released, we sent Free Press reporter Olivia Reingold to the Twin Cities. She returned with a dispatch from ground zero in the most contentious fight in the country right now: a battle over immigration, law enforcement, and deportations being fought on the streets of Minneapolis. Olivia talks to agents, activists, Good’s neighbor, and ordinary Minnesotans—all of them caught up in the biggest operation in ICE’s history. Read her story:

It feels like the whole country has seen the video of the fatal shooting, with people drawing very different conclusions about what it is they are watching. But what does the law say? We asked our legal columnist, Jed Rubenfeld, to weigh in:

Elliot Ackerman pushes back against one notion that has emerged in the wake of Good’s death: that Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot her, was justified in his decision to use lethal force because of an incident last year where he was dragged by a vehicle. Read his full argument on why trauma is no defense:

And finally, Minnesota native Dave Kansas tackles a question on the minds of many locals: How are we, yet again, at the center of things? It started with George Floyd, then the massive Covid-era fraud that returned to the headlines last year, the assassination of state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, the shooting at Annunciation Church, and now Good’s death. Why, Dave asks, does his home state keep making international news?

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is under investigation for congressional testimony on renovations at the Federal Reserve building. (Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)

• U.S. prosecutors are investigating Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over his testimony last year regarding the central bank’s renovation project. Powell said the Justice Department had sent grand jury subpoenas in a statement on Sunday night. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,” said Powell.

• The U.S. carried out large-scale air strikes on ISIS targets in Syria on Saturday, in response to the killing of two U.S. soldiers and one civilian interpreter by an ISIS gunman. Hundreds of American troops remain in Syria as part of a long-standing mission to combat ISIS.

• President Trump called for a one-year 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates, starting January 20. Current interest rates average over 20 percent, and supporters of the move say it will reduce credit card debt. Banks and issuers say it would reduce credit availability for riskier borrowers.

• The National Portrait Gallery swapped out a portrait and removed text that mentioned President Trump’s two impeachments and the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Last year, the White House included the caption in a list of examples of how the gallery director at the time was “highly partisan.”

• The Senate Appropriations Committee released a bipartisan package of funding bills that largely scraps cuts for scientific research President Trump called for last year. The president had proposed a 22 percent cut from $198 billion to $154 billion, but Congress’s current proposal includes only a 4 percent cut.

• New data shows that from January to November last year, about 335,000 federal workers left the government, representing about a 10 percent net reduction in the non-postal federal workforce. The vast majority quit or retired, while only about 11,000 were formally laid off.

• A suspect was arrested after Mississippi’s largest synagogue was damaged by arson early on Saturday. Founded in 1860, the congregation is the first in the state and was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1967.

• Bob Weir, guitarist and founding member of the Grateful Dead rock band, has died at 78. Weir kept the band’s legacy alive for the last three decades as one of the few core members left, and he was responsible for many of the band’s most enduring hits, including “Sugar Magnolia,” “One More Saturday Night,” and “Truckin’. ”

• At the Golden Globe Awards last night, Timothée Chalamet won Best Actor in a Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy for his role in Marty Supreme, and KPop Demon Hunters won Best Animated Motion Picture and Best Song. Hamnet won Best Motion Picture—Drama.