WATCH: DHS report says two agents shot Pretti; Rep. Ilhan Omar attacked at event
New details this morning in the Minneapolis shooting. Federal records now show two officers fired during the confrontation that killed Alex Pretti, not one. What Congress was told, and why President Donald Trump’s comments about guns are raising new questions.
Plus, the pressure intensifies on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Democrats want her out, and now two Republicans are calling for her resignation.
And a violent disruption at a Minneapolis town hall. Rep. Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unknown substance during a public event.
These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Wednesday, January 28, 2026.
Notice to Congress says two federal officers fired shots at Pretti
New details are coming to light in the deadly immigration officer-involved shooting in Minneapolis.
Two federal officers fired their weapons at 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Petti during Saturday’s confrontation, according to a notice sent to Congress on Tuesday.
The disclosure follows a review by the Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which analyzed body-camera video and agency records.
By law, CBP must notify congressional committees within 72 hours of any death in custody.
The notice claims Pretti resisted when officers tried to take him into custody, a key point now under scrutiny after video of the encounter surfaced.
According to the report, an officer shouted, “He’s got a gun!” before a Border Patrol agent and a CBP officer each fired their weapons.
The document does not say Pretti attempted to reach for his weapon.
Asked about the shooting, President Donald Trump criticized Pretti for carrying a gun despite the administration’s repeated defense of Second Amendment rights.
“Certainly, he shouldn’t have been carrying a gun. But all of… hey look, bottom line, everybody in this room would view that as a very unfortunate incident,” Trump said. “Everyone, unless you’re you’re a stupid person. Very, very unfortunate incident. I don’t like that he had a gun. I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines. That’s a lot of bad stuff. And despite that, I say that’s a very unfortunate incident.”
The report does not say whether rounds from both weapons struck Pretti. It does say CBP personnel “cut Pretti’s clothing and provided medical aid to him by placing chest seals on his wounds.”
ABC News reports top White House adviser Stephen Miller says the administration is now “evaluating” why CBP agents may not have followed protocol leading up to the shooting.
Meanwhile, the commander who led the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Greg Bovino, has left the city.
Trump replaced Bovino with border czar Tom Homan following public backlash over Bovino’s unsubstantiated claim that Pretti had planned to “massacre” law enforcement officers.
Homan will report directly to the president. Reports indicate Homan met with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday.
Trump backs Noem as House Democrats escalate impeachment threat
The political fallout from Minneapolis is spreading, and it’s now hitting inside the president’s own party.
Trump made it clear on Tuesday that he’s standing by Kristi Noem, brushing off questions about her future in his administration after the deadly ICE and Border Patrol-involved shootings.
“I think she’s doing a very good job,” Trump told reporters.
But for the first time, the criticism is coming from his own party.
Two Republican senators, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, are now calling on Noem to resign.
Tillis said he has no confidence in her leadership, calling her decision-making “unacceptable” for a cabinet secretary.
Murkowski was blunt, saying Noem “should go.”
The break comes as Democrats sharpen their threat.
In a statement on X, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is warning the White House: fire Noem or she’ll face impeachment.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Jeffries said.
That threat marks a shift.
Democrats had been cautious about impeachment just days ago but support is now surging, with more than 140 House Democrats backing articles introduced by Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly.
Kelly first announced her impeachment resolution after the killing of Renee Good earlier this month.
The effort accelerated after the shooting of Alex Petti over the weekend.
On the Senate floor Tuesday, minority leader Chuck Schumer unloaded on Noem, demanding she be fired.
“Kristi Noem is a liar. She’s vicious. She’s also incompetent,” Schumer said. “Donald Trump must fire her at once before another American is killed under her watch.”
But as for the reality of impeachment, the numbers are still daunting. Republicans control both chambers. In the House, Democrats would need at least three GOP votes to pass impeachment.
So far, no Republican has backed removal in the House.
And even if it cleared that hurdle, conviction in the Senate would require a two-thirds vote.
Rep. Omar sprayed with unknown substance during attack at town hall
A man is in custody after spraying an unknown substance on Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., during a town hall in Minneapolis Tuesday night. Security quickly tackled the man and took him into custody.
Minneapolis police say the suspect, identified as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, is now booked into the Hennepin County jail on a charge of third-degree assault.
Authorities say Omar was not injured.
When local leaders urged her to leave the event and get medical attention, she refused.
In a post on social media afterward, Omar said, “I’m a survivor, so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz also weighed in, appearing to link the attack to the current political climate.
In a statement, Walz said, “The cruel, inflammatory, dehumanizing rhetoric by our nation’s leaders needs to stop immediately.”
When questioned by a reporter about the attack, Trump said he had not heard about it. In response, he said, “She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.” His remarks came just hours after he had verbally attacked Omar during a speech in Iowa.
Warnings ignored before midair crash, NTSB faults FAA and Army systems
Two days before the one-year anniversary, the National Transportation Safety Board officially documented the failures of Flight 5342 on Tuesday, and their assessment was straightforward.
This crash had warning signs and was preventable.
At Tuesday’s hearing, investigators reviewed the final moments before the collision near Reagan National Airport involving an American Airlines regional jet from Wichita, Kansas, and an Army Black Hawk helicopter, which resulted in 67 deaths.
The NTSB chair, Jennifer Homendy, zeroed in on what she called a stunning safety gap in the airspace: “How is it that no one, absolutely no one, in the FAA did the work to figure out there was only 75 feet, at best, 75 feet of vertical separation between a helicopter on route 4 and an airplane landing on runway 33?”
The hearing also outlined missed opportunities at the tower that night, including a controller handling both airplane and helicopter traffic and investigators noting that a conflict alert was triggered just seconds before impact. However, Flight 5342 was never warned about the helicopter.
Homendy reiterated a point the NTSB has emphasized for years: the technology to mitigate this risk is available, but the FAA has not mandated its implementation. She said a relatively inexpensive GPS-based system called ADS-B in could have provided crews with almost a full minute of warning before the collision.
Then there was what happened after the crash in the water. Responders described arriving at the Potomac River and realizing early-on the plane carried children, some of them figure skaters returning home after a national competition.
“Very early on, when the crash occurred, especially when we were on scene, we realized there were a lot of children on that airplane. It was the number one goal for I think both us and fire, and everyone recovering was the dignity and the quick recovery of the victims,” D.C. Metropolitan Police Harbor Patrol Lieutenant Andrew Horos said.
Dive teams repeatedly searched the river bottom for days, then weeks and months, trying to find anything to give to grieving families.
“We returned for days and weeks and months afterwards to comb the bottom of the Potomac River to get anything we could back for the families. Personal effects were super important to us,” D.C. Metropolitan Police public safety scuba diver Robert Varga said. “Each one felt like a treasure. Some things to stick out in my mind is a male wedding ring that I found on the bottom. I know we found a number of ice skates.”
The NTSB’s final report is due soon, but Tuesday’s message was clear: the risk was understood, solutions were available, yet 67 people still lost their lives.
UPS retires MD-11 fleet, replaces with Boeing 767s after crash
Nearly three months after a cargo plane crash in Louisville, Kentucky, that killed 15 people, UPS is moving to retire an entire aircraft type from its fleet.
The November crash occurred just after takeoff when an engine separated from a UPS cargo plane, causing the aircraft to crash in a fiery plunge just outside Louisville’s international airport.
Three people on board and 12 others on the ground were killed after the plane struck an auto salvage yard and an auto parts business.
Investigators later confirmed the aircraft was a 34-year-old MD-11, built in 1991 and originally designed as a passenger plane before being converted for cargo operations.
The FAA discovered structural cracks in the airframe that had not been detected during routine maintenance, prompting the agency to ground all MD-11s operated by UPS and FedEx.
Now, UPS says it will retire its entire MD-11 fleet and replace those planes with 18 new Boeing 767 aircraft over the next year.
Doomsday Clock reset: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists move clock to 85 seconds to midnight
The world is now closer than ever to so-called “Doomsday.” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight on Tuesday.
The clock is a metaphor for humanity’s proximity to self-annihilation, with midnight representing global catastrophe. This is the closest the clock has ever been to midnight since it was created in 1947 by a group of scientists, including Albert Einstein.
The group cited several growing threats, including the risk of nuclear war, the accelerating impacts of climate change and the potential dangers of rapidly advancing human-made technologies, including artificial intelligence.
In 2025, the clock was set at 89 seconds to midnight. And a reminder that the clock can move back if conditions improve.
It has occurred eight times before, most significantly at the end of the Cold War when the countdown was reset to 17 minutes to midnight in 1991.
More from Straight Arrow News:
More than a million dropping Obamacare after federal ACA subsidies end
As Congress continues to debate extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, states are seeing more people cancel their insurance. Multiple states reported drops in coverage, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Subsidies for health care plans expired at the end of last year for those using the ACA, sometimes referred to as Obamacare, after lawmakers couldn’t agree on extending the subsidies. This has caused insurance prices to dramatically rise for those on the plan, with nonprofit health group KFF stating the average estimated increase for subsidized enrollees was 114%.
Lawmakers are working on a bipartisan deal to use a spending bill to change parts of the health care system, focusing on the middleman accused of increasing drug prices. However, that deal may be in jeopardy as Democrats refuse to vote on a spending bill that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement after agents killed Alex Pretti. Read the full story now>
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
