Top Items:
John Hanna / Associated Press:
Democrat Taylor Rehmet wins a reliably Republican Texas state Senate seat, stunning GOP — Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a special election for the Texas state Senate on Saturday, flipping a reliably Republican district that President Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024.
Discussion:
CNN, The Message Box, Washington Post, The Hill, Salon, Daily Mail, Fox News, Reuters, CBS News, Raw Story, The Independent, MS NOW and Washington Examiner
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J. David Goodman / New York Times:
Democratic Upset in Deep Red Texas District Rattles Republicans — A Democrat won a state legislative special election in a district that President Trump carried by 17 percentage points, unnerving Republicans in Texas and beyond. — In an upset that rattled Republicans in Texas and beyond …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, RedState, The Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, NewsMax.com, Fox News and The Texas Tribune
Owen Auston-Babcock / NBC News:
Democrat Christian Menefee wins special election for vacant, deep-blue House seat in Texas — Menefee will serve the remainder of the term won in 2024 by the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died almost a year ago. — Listen to this article with a free account
Discussion:
NOTUS, HuffPost, New York Times, Axios, Associated Press, Lone Star Left, Fox News, The Hill, Politico, Roll Call, CNN and The Texas Tribune
G. Elliott Morris / Strength In Numbers:
Blue wave watch: Democrat flips Trump +17 Texas Senate seat in 32-point swing
Discussion:
The Status Kuo, Blue Virginia, Good Politics/Bad Politics, Raw Story and Political Wire
David Nir / The Downballot:
Texas Democrats score landslide upset in race Trump badly wanted to win
Texas Democrats score landslide upset in race Trump badly wanted to win
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, KERA News and The Hill
Kurt Streeter / New York Times:
How Alex Pretti's Death Became a National Tipping Point — Several factors converged to force a remarkable shift in the federal government's aggressive efforts in Minnesota. — Renee Good was killed on Jan. 7. Alex Pretti on Jan. 24. Federal agents killed both of them …
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Annie Gowen / Washington Post:
Thousands of new ICE watchers hit the streets after two killings
Discussion:
The Guardian
Rachel Leingang / The Guardian:
'We're fighting for the soul of the country': how Minnesota residents came together to face ICE
'We're fighting for the soul of the country': how Minnesota residents came together to face ICE
Discussion:
The Atlantic
Wall Street Journal:
‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company — $500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips — Four days before Donald Trump's inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly signed …
Discussion:
Raw Story and To the Contrary, more at Techmeme »
Madison Fernandez / Politico:
Immigration takes center stage in New Jersey special election … The attacks come as voters across the country — especially Democrats — express concern about ICE's tactics and federal agents killing two U.S. citizens amid protests against the administration's immigration efforts.
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Nicholas Riccardi / Associated Press:
What a swing House district in Colorado shows about Republicans' immigration fallout in the midterms — Like many Donald Trump voters, Miranda Niedermeier is not opposed to immigration enforcement. She was heartened by initial moves from the Republican president in his second term that she saw …
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Elora Mukherjee / New York Times:
Liam Ramos Was Just One of Hundreds of Children at This Detention Center. Release Them All. — The arrest and detention of Liam Conejo Ramos, the Minnesota 5-year-old in a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack, has drawn the attention — and the ire — of the nation.
Discussion:
Washington Post, No More Mister Nice Blog and WAGA-TV
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CNN:
Judge orders 5-year-old Liam Ramos and his father be released from immigration detention
Judge orders 5-year-old Liam Ramos and his father be released from immigration detention
Discussion:
Axios, MPR News, KARE-TV, HuffPost, Mother Jones, MS NOW, KSTP-TV, KDFX-TV, Associated Press, Fox News, Washington Examiner, The Gateway Pundit, NewsMax.com, RedState, Straight Arrow News, The Post Millennial, Mercury News, TMZ.com, TheGrio, Raw Story, The Hill, Scripps News and CBS News
G. Elliott Morris / Strength In Numbers:
Democrats hit historic high in Fox News Poll as GOP loses ground on key issues — Plus: Trump's approval among independents falls to a record low, and the issue landscape shifts ahead of 2026. Your weekly political data roundup for February 1, 2026. — This is my weekly roundup …
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Julia Manchester / The Hill:
Trump questions if GOP can overcome voters' ‘psychological’ midterms hurdle
Nicholas Confessore / New York Times:
They Said They Weren't Close to Epstein. New Documents Show Otherwise. — Materials released by the Justice Department revealed that leading business and political figures had enduring relationships with the disgraced financier. — They said they didn't really know Jeffrey Epstein that well.
Discussion:
HuffPost, NBC News and Lawyers, Guns & Money
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Timothy Snyder / Thinking about:
Ethnic Cleansing in Ohio? — In the schools and churches of Springfield, Ohio, people are making hasty preparations for a “large deportation” promised by the president. To all appearances, and according to local sources, the city is two or three days away from a federal ethnic cleansing …
Discussion:
Blaze Media
Madeleine Moore / Salem Reporter:
U.S. citizen injured by federal agents in Salem who demanded to see “papers,” union says — A woman who's a U.S. citizen needed medical help Thursday, Jan. 29, after federal agents pulled her from her car after demanding to see her “papers,” one of the state's largest unions said Saturday.
Heather Cox Richardson / Letters from an American:
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on social media this morning: — “Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare & the right to vote.
New York Times:
Despite ‘Wrong’ Comments, Gun Rights Groups Say Trump Has Their Back — Activists criticized the president after he blamed Alex Pretti for carrying a gun in Minneapolis before federal agents killed him. But there is little sign of a lasting rupture. — In 1980, 19 states did not allow residents to carry concealed firearms.
Discussion:
NewsMax.com and Politico
Meg Anderson / NPR:
Minnesota citizens detained by ICE are left rattled, even weeks later — It's a video many saw on social media soon after it happened: Officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, dragging a woman out of her car and forcing her to the ground. — The woman in the video is Aliya Rahman …
Amanda Chu / Politico:
RFK Jr. is now a wellness guru for Republicans in Washington … Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has turned GOP policy orthodoxy on its head with his attacks on food and pharma. — He's also turning Republicans into advocates of eating more vegetables, drinking raw milk and eschewing pharmaceuticals.
Brittany Gibson / Axios:
Resistance erupts over ICE's warehouse buying spree — A massive buyer has entered the market for commercial warehouses, sparking furious local protests: — The Department of Homeland Security has scouted dozens of locations to retrofit into ICE detention centers.
Wall Street Journal:
Trump Jokes About Suing Warsh if He Doesn't Lower Interest Rates — President later says he didn't extract any concessions from the Fed nominee — President Trump joked during a speech Saturday night that he would sue Kevin Warsh, his nominee to chair the Federal Reserve, if he didn't lower interest rates.
Discussion:
New York Post, New York Times and Drezner's World
Financial Times:
Xi Jinping calls for China's renminbi to attain global reserve currency status — Latest commentary details ambitions for ‘powerful currency’ to play a greater role in trade and forex — Xi Jinping has called for the renminbi to become a global reserve currency, in some of his clearest comments …


