Summary
Closing summary
Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find all of our live US politics coverage here. Here is a summary of the key developments from today:
The FBI executed a search warrant at the election office in Fulton county, Georgia for records related to the 2020 election. The warrant sought all ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton county, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls, according to a warrant obtained by the Guardian.
Congressman Joaquin Castro met with five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father at the Dilley detention center in Texas today. In a post on social media, Castro shared a photograph of Liam resting in his father’s arms. At a press conference later in the day, Castro said Liam seemed lethargic and added that “his father said that Liam has been very depressed since he’s been at Dilley.”
Two federal officers who fired their guns during the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti were placed on administrative leave on Saturday. An initial Department of Homeland Security review of the incident also made no mention of Pretti “brandishing” a gun.
Video recorded on 13 January in Minneapolis by the digital news outlet The News Movement, released on Wednesday, appears to show Pretti being tackled to the ground by another group of federal officers during an altercation 11 days before he was killed.
Donald Trump spent nearly an hour praising his administration’s new “Trump Accounts”, individual investment accounts for US children that will take effect in July as part of Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers came out in support of Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar, a day after she was attacked at a town hall event. At a press conference in Minneapolis today, Omar was joined by Democratic congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, who called for the impeachment of the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem.
A federal judge in Minnesota blocked the Trump administration from arresting and detaining the 5,600 refugees living in the state. He also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to release and return to Minnesota anyone already detained by the administration under the operation.
A separate federal judge in Minnesota canceled a contempt of court hearing for a lead ICE official, but also noted that the agency has failed to comply with nearly 100 court orders since 1 January.
Trump announced the formation of a new National Fraud Enforcement division of the justice department and nominated a justice department official, Colin McDonald, to lead it as a new assistant attorney general.
Attorney general Pam Bondi has said she is “on the ground in Minneapolis” and that federal agents have arrested 16 demonstrators in Minnesota after alleged assaults on federal law enforcement officers.
Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, laid out Democratic demands for policy changes for ICE, as he pushed for DHS funding to be separated from the other funding bills ahead of a looming shutdown at the end of this week. He also called for DHS secretary Kristi Noem and top Trump aide Stephen Miller to go.
The Ecuadorian government said that an ICE agent attempted to enter its Minneapolis consulate on Tuesday, but was prevented from coming in by staff working at the building.
Bruce Springsteen released a new song in response to what he described as “the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis”.
Marco Rubio has declined to rule out future US military action in Venezuela but insisted the Trump administration did not intend to take such steps, as he faced questions from lawmakers over Washington’s unprecedented intervention.
Trump has said a “massive armada” is heading to Iran and is ready to “fulfil its mission with speed and violence if necessary”.
The US Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged after its first rate-setting meeting of the year today, resisting enormous pressure from the White House to lower rates.
A new letter from the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Trump administration’s deployment of federal troops to six cities cost taxpayers $496m between June and December 2025.
The No Kings Coalition has announced it will hold another mass mobilization event on 28 March, centered around a flagship event in the Twin Cities.
Video appears to show altercation between Alex Pretti and federal law enforcement officers 11 days before he was killed
Video recorded on 13 January in Minneapolis by the digital news outlet The News Movement, released on Wednesday, appears to show Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse gunned down by federal agents on Saturday, being tackled to the ground by another group of federal officers during an altercation 11 days before he was killed.
According to the News Movement report, the newly discovered video of Pretti was recorded at East 36th Street and Park Avenue, in Minneapolis’ Powderhorn neighborhood, while the outlet was “filming a documentary about ICE activity”.
The video shows the man who appears to be Pretti shouting at federal officers and kicking the taillight of their vehicle as they move away. As the light breaks, the vehicle stops and agents descend on the man identified to CNN by a representative of Pretti’s family as Pretti. After several agents hurl Pretti to the ground, they fire chemical agents at the crowd of protesters and leave.
As Pretti stands back up, what appears to be a gun can be seen in his waistband.
What prompted Pretti’s anger at the agents that morning is not clear from the video, but Sahan Journal, a nonprofit news site that reports on immigrants and communities of color in Minnesota, reported that day that dozens of residents had showed up to protest and observe a federal immigration sweep in the area. On the same morning, just two blocks away, a young woman named Aliya Rahman was violently pulled from her car while trying to drive past federal immigration agents and roughly treated in an image that prompted widespread outrage.
Andy Larson, a Minneapolis resident who was observing the federal agents that morning, told Sahan Journal that day “that one protester kicked out the taillight of an ICE vehicle and was tackled to the ground up the road on Park Avenue and E. 36th Street.”
Nearly 20 minutes of video posted on YouTube that day by another witness to the incident gives a sense of the roiling anger in the neighborhood over the immigration enforcement operation, with cars honking and people blowing whistles to alert their neighbors to the presence of federal agents. Then Pretti arrives to curse at the agents for what they are doing and spits at their vehicle as they drive off, before kicking the taillight and then being tackled to the ground.
Rightwing influencers claimed that the video showed Pretti spitting on officers, but the second witness video, recorded from the opposite side of the street, shows that he spat on the vehicle only after the agent he had been shouting at had closed the door.
Updated
