'I'm disabled!' Woman screams as masked ICE agents pull her through car window

Nicole Charky-Chami
January 13, 2026 
RAW STORY


Federal agents grab a woman to drag her away from her car, days after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 13, 2026. REUTERS/Tim Evans TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

A woman who was reportedly attempting to drive to a doctor's appointment was pulled out of her vehicle by ICE agents and taken into custody during a disturbing incident captured on video Tuesday in Minneapolis.

The incident happened amid heavy clashes between masked ICE agents and protesters following the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, near the area of 34th and Park streets in Minneapolis when a woman attempting to get out of the area was targeted as officers grabbed her and pulled her out of the window of her sedan.

The woman, whose name was not immediately known, yelled out "Get the f--- out of my car. I've been picked up by police before. I'm disabled, I'm trying to go to the doctor up there, that's why I didn't move."

The video was captured and shared by Amanda Moore, who was at the scene where protesters and agents clashed, yelling at each other while they pulled the woman from her car onto the concrete, using a knife to cut her out of her seatbelt.

"Today at 34 & Park in Minneapolis, a woman tried to drive down the street where a protest had broken out in front of a home ICE was raiding, saying she had a doctor apt to get to. ICE agents busted out her windows, cut off her seatbelt, and pulled her out before arresting her."

'Barbaric': Outrage after ICE agents drag screaming woman out of car window

Nicole Charky-Chami
January 13, 2026

RAW STORY


A woman reacts after she was dragged away from her car by federal agents who ordered her to leave the scene during an immigration raid, days after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Jan. 13, 2026. REUTERS/Ryan Murphy

The internet responded with outrage after a woman who was reportedly trying to drive to a doctor's appointment was pulled out of her vehicle by ICE agents and dragged into custody during a disturbing incident captured on video Tuesday in Minneapolis.

The woman, whose name was not immediately known, was driving near the area of 34th and Park streets while protesters and ICE agents were clashing in the street during an immigration raid following the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross last week.

She was attempting to drive out of the area when officers grabbed her and pulled her out of the window of her sedan. She yelled out "Get the f--- out of my car. I've been picked up by police before. I'm disabled, I'm trying to go to the doctor up there, that's why I didn't move."

Users on social media responded to the attack.

"They're telling her to go but one of them then breaks her window on the other side. wtf," cardiologist Siyab Panhwar, MD, wrote on X.

"This is all so unnecessary and our taxpayer dollars are funding this s--- show. Unbelievable," user Alejandra Gold wrote on X.

"They also could have just calmly told her to move and help clear the way[.] Instead they start screaming at her. Gets a little confusing to follow directions when masked men are screaming for you to move when you have nowhere to f---ing go. (Especially scary considered last week)," Cody Ump wrote on X.

"Why can't they calmly ask them to move? This seems very intentionally agitating. Roughing up Americans-what does this have to do with immigration enforcement? This appears to be an occupation. And if so are we in a Civil War?" An X user named Jules wrote on the platform.

"If you want to think ahead, just imagine the 2026 elections in Blue states if Trump orders ICE to make sure no illegals vote, ICE shows up at heavily D precincts and harasses, abuses, beats and arrests numerous potential voters. You think that might decrease turnout?" David Doak wrote on X.

"There has to be a better way for ICE to deal with these situations instead of multiple masked men yelling at her. This is barbaric behavior," X user Traci wrote on the platform.

47 Ways Trump Has ‘Made Life Less Affordable’ in Second Term

“Trump’s actions since taking office a year ago reveal a clear and consistent effort... to serve the interests of his billionaire and corporate backers,” said a co-author of the Economic Policy Institute report.

Federal employees rally in support of their jobs outside of the Kluczynski Federal Building on March 19, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois.
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jan 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


From “stripping collective bargaining rights from more than 1 million federal workers” to “denying 2 million in-home healthcare workers minimum wage and overtime pay,” President Donald Trump “has actively made life less affordable for working people.”

That’s according to a Tuesday report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which cataloged 47 key ways that the 47th president made life worse for working people during the first year of his second term.

Nearly Half of Americans Say Their Financial Security Is Getting Worse Under Trump

The think tank sorted the actions into five categories: eroding workers’ wages and economic security; undermining job creation; weakening workers’ rights; enabling employer exploitation; and creating an ineffective government.

“Many of the actions outlined here have impacts across categories,” the report notes. “Trump’s attacks on union workers, for example, reduce workers’ wages, weaken workers’ rights, and promote employer exploitation of workers.”

“Every dollar denied to typical workers in wages ends up as higher income for business owners and corporate managers.”

The first section highlights that Trump (1) cut the minimum wage for nearly 400,000 federal contractors, (2) ended enforcement of protections for workers illegally classified as independent contractors, (3) slashed wages of migrant farmworkers in the H-2A program, (4) deprived in-home healthcare workers of minimum wage and overtime pay, and (5) facilitated the inclusion of cryptocurrencies among 401(k) investment options.

On the job creation front, the president (6) paused funding for projects authorized under a bipartisan infrastructure law, (7) signed the Laken Riley Act as part of his mass deportation agenda, (8) revoked an executive order that created a federal interagency working group focused on expanding apprenticeships, (9) is trying to shutter Job Corps centers operated by federal contractors, and (10) disrupted manufacturing supply chains with chaotic trade policy.



In addition to (11) attacking the union rights of over 1 million government employees, Trump (12) delayed enforcement of the silica rule for coal miners, (13) proposed limiting the scope of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s general duty clause, (14) fired National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, (15) stripped work permits and temporary protections from immigrants lawfully in the country, and (16) deterred worker organizing with immigration enforcement actions.

Trump’s assault on workers’ rights has included (17) nominating Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who has pursued a deregulatory agenda, (18) illegally firing Gwynne Wilcox from the NLRB, (19) ending funding to fight human trafficking and child and forced labor globally, and (20) terminating International Labor Affairs Bureau grants.

Chavez-DeRemer isn’t Trump’s only controversial pick for a key labor post. He’s also nominated (20) Jonathan Berry as solicitor of labor, (21) Crystal Carey as NLRB general counsel, (22) Scott Mayer as an NLRB board member, and (23) Daniel Aronowitz to lead the Employee Benefits Security Administration.

Trump has also (24) weakened workplace safety penalties for smaller businesses, (25) nominated Andrea Lucas as Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) chair, (26) revoked an executive order promoting strong labor standards on projects receiving federal funds, (27) appointed Elisabeth Messenger, the former leader of an anti-union group, to head the Office of Labor-Management Standards, (28) fired EEOC Commissioners Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels, and (29) conducted systematic worksite raids that punished workers rather than improving wages and working conditions.

The president’s various “deliberate actions to weaken the federal government” have included (30) politicizing career Senior Executive Service officials, (31) firing most staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, (32) nominating Brittany Panuccio as an EEOC commissioner, (33) and picking Project 2025 architect Russell Vought as Office of Management and Budget director.

He has also fired (34) Federal Labor Relations Authority Chair Susan Tsui Grundmann and (35) Merit Systems Protection Board Member Cathy Harris, and (36) tried to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, whose case is set to be argued before the US Supreme Court next week. Trump further (37) fired Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer over accurate economic data, and is attempting to shut down (38) the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and (39) the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

Additionally, the president (40) directed federal agencies to end the use of disparate impact liability, (41) put independent agencies under his supervision, (42) signed the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that transfers wealth from working families to the ultrarich, (43) proposed a rule that would make it easier to fire federal employees for political reasons, and (44) issued an executive order on apprenticeships that does not require the government to consult with labor groups.

Finally, since returning to the White House, the Republican has (45) gutted the federal workforce, (46) directed US Attorney General Pam Bondi to challenge state laws that would regulate artificial intelligence technologies, and (47) fired 17 inspectors general.

“Trump’s actions since taking office a year ago reveal a clear and consistent effort to make life less affordable for working people in order to serve the interests of his billionaire and corporate backers,” said report co-author Celine McNicholas, EPI’s director of policy and general counsel, in a statement.

“Every dollar denied to typical workers in wages ends up as higher income for business owners and corporate managers,” McNicholas added. “This growing inequality is what is making life so unaffordable for workers and their families today.”

EPI released the report as the BLS published its consumer price index data for December, which show a 2.7% year-over-year increase in prices for everyday goods and services.

WSJ editorial slams flailing Trump as Americans 'tread financial water'

Matthew Chapman
January 13, 2026 

RAW STORY

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board had a dire assessment of Trump's current economy: he's effectively fiddling while it burns, rather than deliver on any of the GOP's more conservative, growth-focused policies.

"Regarding prices, the consumer-price index came in somewhat hotter than expected with an increase of 0.3% in December and 2.7% over the past 12 months. Overall inflation isn’t rising, but it also isn’t coming down. Increases last month were especially notable for categories of goods and services that Americans buy on a regular basis like shelter (0.4%), medical care (0.4%), food (0.7%) and energy bills (1%)."

The sectors that saw the most inflation disproportionately hit lower-income Americans, the board noted. Worse still, earnings aren't getting any better, the board wrote.

"Real average hourly earnings rose 0.7% during the first five months of this year, but income growth has since stalled. For production and nonsupervisory workers, real average hourly earnings have declined 0.2% since May. The reason is a bump in inflation in the summer months that erased the gains from wage increases."

"This goes a long way to explain why so many Americans feel as if they are treading financial water," wrote the board — and it makes Trump's legal bullying of the Federal Reserve to try to lower interest rates look even more counterproductive, since the Fed isn't even at its inflation target yet and doesn't have room to lower rates to what Trump wants.

Instead, the board concluded, Trump is scrambling to try to implement price controls — something that has been tried and failed in previous inflation spells — most recently controls on credit card interest.

"The President has recently been rolling out a flurry of counterproductive policies worthy of Bernie Sanders in the name of reducing prices (see the editorial nearby on credit-card interest rates). But what the President really needs is what he promised in the campaign, which is rising real wages," wrote the board. "That means further reducing inflation and letting deregulation and tax policy drive faster economic growth and productivity. That will make everything more affordable."

'Worst case scenario': Expert warns economic 'crash' risk grows by the day under Trump

Nicole Charky-Chami
January 12, 2026 

RAW STORY

An economic expert Monday warned that a looming stock market crash could be on the horizon as the Trump administration shows its penchant for chaos.

Bloomberg economics columnist Clive Crook responded to questions over why the economy has not crashed and how despite policy disruptions and predictions of "doom" from experts and economists, the stock market appears to be still doing well — yet that could change.

Crook argued that given the Trump administration's sweeping policy changes, including tariffs and a rocky political situation unfolding both in and outside the United States, that Trump's policies have not yet been vindicated.

"The fact that the markets have done incredibly well is not really an endorsement of Trump's policies," Crook said.

"Don't misunderstand me: There are aspects of Trump's policies that the financial markets do — as it were, rationally — welcome rationally regard as pro-growth. In particular, lower corporate taxes and efforts at deregulation, those are pluses in the market's mind. But there are also negatives alongside: trade policy fiscal and monetary policy."

The result has been more complicated than it might appear, he added.

"On balance, it's hard to say how those will work out," Crook said. "And the other big thing that needs to be emphasized is the hope or the prospect that AI innovation will transform growth going forward, will transform productivity. So I'm not saying there are aren't reasons to be optimistic. All I'm saying is in this bundle of conflicting information and conflicting narratives, there are negatives which persist regardless of where the markets go. And as it were the disorder and the disruption that this administration really revels in, as that continues, the risk of a crash creating the worst case scenario, then that risk grows — grows over time."

Trump’s Losing Streak Continues as Jobs Report Shows Weak 2025 Labor Market


WASHINGTON - The latest jobs report shows the United States added 50,000 jobs in December 2025, and prior months revised down by a combined 76,000 jobs. The unemployment rate remains elevated at 4.4% and is near its highest levels of the past four years. The December report caps a year of sluggish job growth, with the fewest number of jobs added outside of a recession since 2003. Hiring slowed sharply over the course of 2025 as Trump’s erratic economic policies froze the labor market.

Groundwork Collaborative’s Chief of Policy and Advocacy Alex Jacquez released the following statement:

“December’s job report confirms that Trump’s reckless trade policies and lifeless economy are costing Americans dearly. Working families face sluggish wage growth, fewer job opportunities, and never-ending price hikes on groceries, household essentials, and utilities. Despite the President’s endless attempts to deflect and distract from the bleak economic reality, workers and job seekers know their budgets feel tighter than ever thanks to Trump’s disastrous economic mismanagement.”

Job growth in 2025 fell far behind last year’s pace. Total job growth in 2025 was just 584,000, compared to 2 million jobs added in 2024 — a 71% slowdown.

Job gains remain narrowly concentrated in a small number of sectors. In December, job gains were concentrated in education and health services. Retail trade lost 25,000 jobs this holiday season, as budgets continue to be squeezed. The U.S. is shedding blue-collar jobs for the first time since the pandemic, with roughly 60,000 job losses in manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, and mining in 2025 while construction jobs stall out.

Long-term unemployment remains elevated. The number of people unemployed for six months or more remains at 1.9 million, increasing by roughly 400,000 compared to the year before. This points to rising financial strain for job seekers and growing unease among workers about job stability.

Official payroll statistics may overstate the number of jobs the economy is creating. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned in December that headline job gains may be overstated by as many as 60,000 jobs per month. This is because the Bureau of Labor Statistics has to estimate job gains and losses at new and closing businesses that are difficult to survey directly. The lackluster jobs reports throughout 2025 may paint an overly rosy picture of the labor market.

New hiring has ground to a halt. The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey data show that job openings fell to about 7.1 million in November from nearly 7.5 million in October, while the hiring rate dropped to 3.2 percent, one of the lowest levels since April 2020, when the pandemic-induced recession was underway. According to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, U.S. employers sharply pulled back on hiring plans in 2025. Announced hires fell to about 508,000, down 34 percent from nearly 770,000 in 2024, the lowest annual total since 2010, signaling much weaker employer confidence in expanding their workforce.

Single moms forced to quit jobs as child care funding vanishes overnight due to Trump

Lindsey Toomer, 

Colorado Newsline
January 13, 2026 

Without access to federal child care assistance, single mother Robbie Basham would have to leave her job to care for her son full-time.

“His quality of life would go down because I wouldn’t be able to pay for what we need to live,” Basham said.

A funding freeze on federal safety-net programs that support low-income families and their children will harm all families who seek child care in the state, providers and advocates said in a press call U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Lakewood Democrat, organized Tuesday.

The Trump administration froze $10 billion for the Child Care Development Fund, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and the Social Services Block Grant programs in Colorado, Minnesota, New York, California and Illinois. The states all have Democratic governors, and the funding freeze is seen by Democrats as punishment against states disfavored by President Donald Trump.

The Administration for Children and Families, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told the states they will not get money for the programs while the federal government conducts a “thorough review of the State’s use of funding for compliance and alignment with statutory requirements.”

Sharyl Boehm and Cheryl Gould, co-owners of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Discovery Center in Cañon City, have worked in child care for 30 years. The funding freeze will have “immediate and devastating consequences for families and educators at our facility alone,” Boehm said. She said 42 children and their families would immediately have their child care upended.

“These parents rely on child care assistance in order to work and support their families,” Boehm said. “The majority of our families in this rural area, it takes two. So both parents are working as hard as they can to pay the bills, and without child care, that doesn’t happen. It’s an impossible choice between employment and caring for their own children.”

Rocky Mountain Children’s Discovery Center has been caring for Basham’s son since he was 6 months old.

“They know about his fears, and they know how to comfort him, and they work with him in every way,” Basham said. “I will be one of the people that will not go to work because my son needs to be safe, and I know he’s safe at Rocky Mountain. ”

Parents have started posting on social media looking for anybody to care for their child, which Boehm said is “really scary” because people who are not licensed or qualified may end up providing child care. Gould said having fewer children in their center due to the funding cuts will affect their bottom line, and could also lead to employee furloughs.

These parents rely on child care assistance in order to work and support their families,” Boehm said. “The majority of our families in this rural area, it takes two. So both parents are working as hard as they can to pay the bills, and without child care, that doesn't happen. It's an impossible choice between employment and caring for their own children.
– Sharyl Boehm, co-owner of Rocky Mountain Children’s Discovery Center in Cañon City

“It really hits us in the heart to say to these families, ‘No, you can’t come because there’s no funding,’” Gould said. “
That’s just not right. Everybody knows somebody who is dependent on child care.”

Pettersen, a mother of two young children, said the $3 million being withheld for child care assistance will affect 27,000 children in Colorado, most of whom are under the age of 3. She said the federal assistance only goes to families whose income is less than $59,000 a year.

“Half of our state already lives in a child care desert, and we have one of the most expensive child care systems in the country,” Pettersen said in the virtual press call. “Colorado loses a billion dollars in revenue because of lack of access to child care, and 10,000 women have said that they would like to be in the workforce, but they can’t afford child care, and that has a huge impact on our economy.”

New burden for county staff

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat running for governor, filed a lawsuit with the other affected states that says the president does not have the authority to unilaterally freeze funding approved by Congress for the states. A judge issued a temporary order halting the funding freeze last week.

The sudden funding freeze undermines the stability of children and their families, as well as local and state economies, according to Heather Tritten, president and CEO of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a nonprofit policy and research organization. Colorado also uses CCDF funds to train and license all of its child care providers, she said.

“While the freeze is currently paused, this action should never have occurred,” Tritten said. “Children can’t vote.
They can’t run for office, and programs that support children should never be used in political gamesmanship.”

Colorado receives about $136 million in block funding for TANF, administered through Colorado Works, every year. In 2024, a Colorado family of three received a maximum monthly TANF benefit of $585, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty. Last year, the state was allocated about $140 million in federal funds to pay for care for children in low-income families, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Colorado’s federal assistance for child care is administered through counties, so the funding freeze adds an additional burden for county staff, Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, said. She said state agencies are working together to monitor the impacts of the funding freeze and supplementing with state dollars where possible.

“The funding ensures children are in safe, nurturing early learning environments while enabling parents to work,” Roy said. “They can also pursue education, but most of all, maintain economic stability.”

The state anticipates its federal funding to support child care will run out by Jan. 31.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com.

Texas oil workers sell possessions over fears of Trump's cheap Venezuelan fuel

Tom Boggioni
January 13, 2026 
RAW STORY

As oil flooded the market, demand went down, and as a result, oil prices

 have fallen below $30 a barrel. Photograph: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

Workers in Texas's Permian Basin oil industry are bracing for economic hardship as Donald Trump's Venezuelan invasion threatens to flood the U.S. market with cheap oil, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The region has already experienced pain from current low oil prices. Employees have seen paychecks reduced, oil-industry support businesses have cut back operations, and local restaurants and retailers have begun layoffs.

Trump has promised Americans he can reduce oil prices to $50 per barrel following the Venezuelan intervention. Permian Basin workers, anticipating further economic decline, are already liquidating assets in preparation.

Trump's goal of pushing prices below the $60 per barrel threshold necessary for comfortable worker livelihoods is already creating visible economic strain. According to the Journal's Konrad Putzier, "Restaurants are already less crowded, barbers are idling around waiting for customers and a host of businesses linked to the oil field are feeling squeezed. On the local Facebook Marketplace, shiny Ford F-150 pickup trucks are listed for sale at bargain prices."

Element Petroleum Chief Executive Taylor Sell grimly joked, "If you want a new jet ski, right now is the best time to buy."

The region faces a compounding crisis. Beyond the threat of cheap Venezuelan oil, Trump's tariffs have increased costs for materials including chemicals and steel tubes. As new wells face delays, oil-services workers are being laid off or experiencing reduced hours.

Kyle Patterson, engineering manager at drilling-fluid company Buckeye, ios already seeing layoffs at his firm and anticipates a personal pay cut. "You can't just sit around and wait for the market to come back," he told the Journal.

Restaurant owner Nemecio Torres, a Trump voter, has experienced significant business decline. His Cancún Grill in downtown Midland saw revenue fall approximately 30 percent year-over-year. He laid off five workers and has seen his personal income reduced by more than half. Torres recently instituted happy-hour specials to attract customers.

Torres expressed disappointment with Trump's economic impact: "We thought he was going to help the economy here in West Texas."

AOC unmasks Republican scheme to hide Congressional stock deals from public

Matthew Chapman
January 13, 2026 6:44PM ET
RAW STORY

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks during a "Fighting Oligarchy" rally with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in Denver, Colorado, U.S. March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt

House Republicans, led by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), have put out what they claim is legislation to put an end to congressional stock trading — but it does nothing of the sort, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said in a lengthy thread on X dismantling the bill. In fact, she argued, it could actually make certain kinds of congressional stock trades easier and less transparent.

The main problem, she wrote, is that the only thing the bill actually prohibits is buying new stocks after taking office — not holding or selling the stocks lawmakers already have.

"This is NOT a Congressional stock trading ban. It’s leadership’s attempt to kill the existing bipartisan proposal," wrote Ocasio-Cortez. "Bill is a set of new vehicles and loopholes written by and for the wealthiest members of Congress to evade tracking of their trades. It lets them continue to own, trade, and sell stock - but with less transparency so YOU can no longer track them."

The bill, as written, Ocasio-Cortez continued, "allows members with massive holdings to continue to own individual stock and buy using their dividends," and "creates new exceptions for member's spouses and child dependents to buy ON BEHALF OF OTHER PEOPLE" — all while letting millionaire lawmakers continue to sell the stocks they already own, whenever they want.

"If anything, this bill makes it harder for public trackers of member trades to follow member investment activity," she concluded. "And they are hoping that if the public can no longer track their trades, that you will think they are no longer trading."

At the same time as Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats criticize the Steil bill's half-measures and lack of transparency, many Senate Republicans appear opposed to any change to congressional stock trading rules altogether, putting it in doubt whether the bill could even be taken up by the Senate if it passes.

Proposals to ban members of Congress from trading stocks have cropped up for years, as the existing rules — which allow stock trading but require full public disclosure — have proven ineffective and are frequently ignored.

Earlier this week, Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), one of Congress's most notorious day traders, was exposed having purchased over $1,400 of stock in a supplier for artificial intelligence data centers, right around the same time he was pushing for tech companies to build more of these data centers in his own district. He denies any trading off non-public information, saying that his financial advisers made the purchase on his behalf without any input from him.

A startling line from this 1940s masterpiece has taken on a haunting patina under Trump

George Ayoub, 

Nebraska Examiner
January 13, 2026 




Nebraska’s high school curriculum standards do not make George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four mandatory reading. The state, however, allows latitude to local districts so the novel might show up on an English class syllabus because reading the book would cover many of the bases spelled out in Nebraska’s standards for critical reading.

For those who get that chance and those who already have, one line from Orwell’s masterpiece has taken on a haunting patina as it intersects with headlines from today’s and yesterday’s news: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

We call Orwell’s “doublethink,” accepting two contradictory ideas as in “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength,” cognitive dissonance, a psychological malady. Even as artificial intelligence challenges us to ferret out “slop” generated by large language models and deepfake videos, we can, for the most part, still believe what we see.

That’s why when a number of videos reveal the same thing — that a Minneapolis woman, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, does not appear to be trying to run over a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent when, claiming self-defense, he shot and killed her — our vision does not square with what the feds are feeding us. That includes a view from the shooter’s perspective.

In a federal rush to judgment — calling Good, “that woman,” a “professional agitator,” part of a “sinister left-wing movement” and in the act of committing “domestic terrorism” — the president, vice president, Homeland Security secretary and White House spokeswoman painted a picture the actual pictures do not support, essentially asking us to reject what we saw and heard.

We’ve been here before. The videotaped beating of Rodney King after a traffic stop following a high-speed chase in Los Angeles in 1991 stunned us. The grainy video shot from the balcony of a nearby apartment showed LAPD officers relentlessly pounding King with nightsticks.

Four of the officers went on trial for use of excessive force. Their defense centered on King posing a threat — that his erratic behavior and aggressive demeanor before the video justified the savage beating. But the images we saw were of a man offering no resistance being pummeled 33 times with night sticks, tased twice and kicked repeatedly for over four minutes. As you know, the officers were acquitted, and the City of Angels burned for the next five days.

In May 2020 a Minneapolis police officer knelt on the neck of George Floyd for nine minutes to restrain him after his arrest for passing a counterfeit $20 bill. The “restraint” killed Floyd. At the officer’s trial, part of his defense was that the kneeling was necessary and “objectively reasonable,” even when Floyd became motionless. Our eyes and ears saw something else, thanks to an alert citizen, as did the jury that convicted the police officer, sentencing him to over 30 years in prison.

Having just passed the five-year anniversary of a violent mob storming the nation’s Capitol to undo the results of a free and fair election because of a lie, we again are asked to disbelieve what we saw and heard. The White House website, updated just last week, insists the 2020 presidential election was rigged and now places blame for the Jan. 6 insurrection on U.S. Capitol Police for escalating peaceful protests into “chaos” and on Democrats who “staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election.”

The site goes on to accuse then-Vice President Mike Pence of “cowardice and sabotage” as he oversaw the eventual certification of the election results, his constitutional duty.

On his first day in office, the president pardoned more than 1,500 people for their role in riots that severely damaged the Capitol and risked undoing the republic.

Meanwhile, as of this writing, the FBI is blocking local authorities in Minneapolis from access to evidence as it investigates the killing of Good. The city’s schools closed for the balance of the week according to Minnesota Public Radio News after ICE agents showed up on a high school’s property, handcuffed two staff members and tackled people at dismissal.

As you recall, Winston Smith, Orwell’s protagonist in Nineteen Eighty-Four, works in the Ministry of Truth, where he alters historical tracts and documents to align the past with the Party’s current vision. Incumbent on all of us in today’s world where political, industrial, cultural, religious and technological leaders, with and without AI, commonly mislead, misinform and lie to their advantage, we must all be our own ministers of truth, our own debunkers of doublethink.

To that end, perhaps Nebraska high school curriculum standards should make Nineteen Eighty-Four mandatory. Better yet, today’s headlines should make it required reading for us all.

George Ayoub filed nearly 5,000 columns, editorials and features in 21 years as a journalist for the Grand Island Independent. His columns also appeared in the Omaha World-Herald and Kearney Hub. His work has been recognized by the Nebraska Press Association and the Associated Press. He was awarded a national prize by Gatehouse Media for a 34-part series focusing on the impact of cancer on families of victims and survivors. He is a member of the adjunct faculty and Academic Support Staff at Hastings College. Ayoub has published two short novels, “Warm, for Christmas” and “Dust in Grissom.” In 2019 he published “Confluence,” the biography of former Omaha World-Herald publisher and CEO John Gottschalk.

Trump's evil henchmen are clones of a horrific monster who died in disgrace

John Casey
January 13, 2026 

RAW STORY


White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller listens to Donald Trump. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

At first glance, Roy Cohn, Stephen Miller and Emil Bove share an eerie resemblance, though they hail from distinct eras of American dysfunction.

Cohn was a McCarthy-era fixer and Manhattan attorney who mentored the young Donald Trump then died in disgrace. Miller is Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff, to some his “prime minister,” to all the face and voice of Trump’s tyranny. Bove is now a federal judge, but before that was Trump’s legal counsel while Trump was indicted again and again. Oh, how I long for those days.

Different résumés, yes. But the same moral rot behind the same vicious visage.

They are fraternal, tyrannical triplets. They look alike. They speak alike. They operate alike. And most importantly, they thrive for the same reason: Donald Trump, who is, in the words of South Park, “f—ing Satan,” likes demonic despotic dudes, and asks for nothing more.

The vile Cohn was Trump’s most important early influence, not because he taught him the law, but because he taught him how to abuse it, evade it, and weaponize it against anyone in the way.

Cohn’s worldview was brutally simple: never apologize, never admit error, always counterattack harder. Appeal, appeal, appeal, until justice cries “uncle.” He had a viper tongue and a monstrous leer.

To Cohn, truth was irrelevant, institutions were weapons to be bent or broken, and loyalty to scumbags mattered more than reverence for legal scholars.


Roy Cohn advises Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1953. Picture: Los Angeles Times/Wiki Commons.

Like a fly to feces, Trump absorbed this crock of crap. In the decades since, he has surrounded himself with similar people. If Trump is the water pump, Bove and Miller are the outhouse.


Miller and Bove are near-Cohn clones, Cohn-esque pinheads with the same skull, ego, brain, and heart. Cohn preached brute force and illegality in the courtroom. Now Bove practices it while Miller reimagines it through Trump’s immigration and foreign policies, wielding cruelty as part of a 21st-century Lebensraum doctrine.

Trump selects a very specific enforcer archetype: someone who treats politics as destruction, law as an irrelevance, morality as a waste of time. These guys are willing to be hated, feared, and blamed. In fact, those traits aren’t flaws. They’re prerequisites. Miller and Bove crave insolence.

In a normal presidency, these qualities would be blasphemous, jail-inducing and worthy of impeachment. In Trump’s pigpen, they’re just mud to roll around in.


Miller’s role is not merely to craft immigration policy. It is to function as shock-and-awe made flesh. Miller says the quiet parts loud, proposes the harshest version of every policy, and luxuriates in the backlash.

Cruelty is not a byproduct. It is the point of Miller’s existence. While some men obsess over their appearance — clearly not Miller’s concern — he obsesses over wickedness. He feeds Trump’s “rule the world” fantasies and sermonizes imperialism in unblinking media appearances.

Cohn played the same ruthless role. He intimidated judges, threatened reporters, and crossed lines others would not approach. Cohn understood that power depends less on legality than on the willingness to violate norms, fast and furious, before anyone can catch up.


And then there’s Evil — sorry, Emil — Bove. He fits Trump’s corrosive mold perfectly. His value lies in being, as Trump would say, a “sleazebag” attorney. He pushed conspiracy theories disguised as legal arguments to their absolute breaking point. He taunted judges, dared courts to challenge Trump, and lied in depositions and in open court — under oath — just like his client.

Now, astonishingly, he’s a federal judge.

He is plainly, unequivocally unqualified. His entire career showcases the traits the position demands one not have: belligerence, partisanship, a staggering lack of judicial temperament.


A federal judge is supposed to be an independent arbiter, guided by restraint, humility, and respect for the rule of law. Bove laughs at such quaint notions. He is about loyalty and aggression. Always and forever. He disdains the norms that protect judicial independence. The court has adjourned on his petulance and incompetence.

These bozos thrive because they lack honor, decency, humility, or, most glaringly, truth. Loyalty tests are endless. Media outrage is constant. Legal jeopardy is routine. In this ecosystem, they become role models. Like robots, they churn out their own replacements. The insidious Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s White House press secretary, is a Miller disciple.

Cohn ended up disbarred, dying alone, loathed and disgraced. But that was the 1980s. In this Trump era, Cohn would be basking at Mar-a-Lago. Miller is a hero to his MAGA minions. He boasts 1.6 million followers on X. Think about it. So many people hang on his every post, each packed with cruelty, fabrication, and garbage.


Emil Bove attends Manhattan criminal court in New York. JEENAH MOON/Pool via REUTERS

And Bove? He is Trump’s representative on the federal bench — which is, of course, illegal. But who cares? Bove attends Trump rallies and events, sparking ethics complaints. Critics argue such attendance violates the code of conduct for federal judges, which bars political activity and even the appearance of impropriety, especially so soon after confirmation and despite prior ethical concerns.

A watchdog group has formally asked the Third Circuit’s chief judge to investigate and potentially discipline Bove for placing partisan loyalty above judicial neutrality. Blah, blah, blah. All this protestation matters not, because Bove’s response to all of it is a big FU.

Even the aesthetic similarities between the three matter. The severe expressions, clipped speech, and utter lack of warmth project authority without empathy. These are badges of honor bestowed by their narcissist-in-chief.

The thread, and threat, of their inhumanity proves they are not aberrations. They are continuations. Roy Cohn didn’t disappear when he died. His ethos simply evolved, metastasizing into Stephen Miller and Emil Bove.

There were once the Three Stooges, whose slapstick and bawdiness prompted laughter. Cohn, Miller and Bove are Trump’s three stooges, but they aren’t eliciting laughter. They spur terror.

When cruelty, propaganda, and law enforcement align, comedy dies and horror begins.

John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”

'Just a pathetic little man': Stephen Miller lambasted as columnist refuses to hold back

Nicole Charky-Chami
January 13, 2026 
RAW STORY



A columnist Tuesday revealed how White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has influenced the policies under the Trump administration — and why he wants people to fear him.

The Guardian's Arwa Mahdawi described how Miller, "the driving force behind the Trump administration’s most extreme policies," is craving immense power, but "is ultimately still just a man."

Some of President Donald Trump's aides have even reportedly begun referring to Miller as "prime minister." Behind the scenes, he has being credited with orchestrating the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and has hopes to remove birthright citizenship.

Despite these moves and wielding this power, Miller is simply one person, the writer argued.

"While the ghouls hellbent on bringing authoritarianism to America, and misery to their self-declared enemies, may think of themselves as demi-gods, they are, ultimately, just mere mortals," Mahdawi wrote.

Miller, the architect of Trump's anti-immigrant policies, including the family border separations during the first Trump administration, even bonded with his wife Katie, a right-wing podcaster, about their harsh stance. And although his own family escaped persecution in Europe as Jewish refugees, something his uncle has publicly slammed Miller for, Trump's "mastermind" has continued to push for these "aggressive tactics."

And he has one goal in mind, Mahdawi argued.

"What people like Miller want most of all is for us to fear them; that’s why they’re all so obsessed with talking about strength and force and power," Mahdawi wrote. "And, yes, we should all be afraid of Miller’s brutish vision of the world. We should be worried about what Miller is doing.

"But we should also make sure to laugh at him; there is nothing thin-skinned authoritarians hate more than being laughed at. And we should never forget that, amid all the trappings of office, Stephen Miller is ultimately just a pathetic little man. One who really likes mayonnaise."

The final dig is in response to Miller's wife revealing on her podcast that her husband eats mayonnaise by the spoonful.

'Ever since hearing that podcast, I’ve had intermittent intrusive thoughts of Miller standing barefoot in the luminous light of a fridge spooning mayonnaise into his mouth, straight from the jar," Mahdawi wrote.

" ... I think the reason the mayonnaise anecdote has stuck with me is because it’s a reminder that while Miller may be in a position of extraordinary power, he is ultimately still just a man, one who likely has grease stains on his T-shirts."

'Utterly chilling': Stephen Miller's 'glaring' Fox News interview sparks outrage

Robert Davis
January 13, 2026 

RAW STORY


White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaks at a memorial service for Charlie Kirk. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

One of President Donald Trump's top aides sparked outrage on Tuesday after he claimed that immigration agents enjoy "federal immunity" while they're doing their jobs on Fox News.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller joined Fox News host Will Cain on "The Will Cain Show" to discuss the Trump administration's ongoing deportation operations. The interview happened at a time when the operations are facing increased scrutiny following the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

During the interview, Miller said immigration agents that anyone who tries to stop them from performing their jobs is committing a "felony," a claim that legal experts disputed.

"You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one—no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist—can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties," Miller said.

Political analysts and observers reacted on social media.

"He’s not a lawyer," public defender Eli Northrup posted on X. "There is no blanket 'immunity' for criminal behavior. States can and should hold federal officers accountable."

"Not just false, utterly chilling. Saying you have a free pass to murder people," Norman Ornstein, political scientist and contributing editor at The Atlantic, posted on X. "The law and constitution are clear. States can arrest federal officials who violate their laws." Period.

"Among the most glaring issues of this statement: qualified immunity, which is what ICE officers are covered under, does not shield them from prosecution for *unlawful conduct, civil rights abuses, or excessive force," Evan Rosenfeld, deputy digital director at The Bulwark, posted on X.

This deeply damaged psychopath is now Trump's role model

Thom Hartmann
January 13, 2026

COMMON DREAMS


Donald Trump arrives back at the White House. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon

This past week, Donald Trump demanded that the Pentagon produce an invasion plan for Greenland, an action that would have world-changing consequences to the benefit of Vladimir Putin and the detriment of Europe, democracy, and America. He followed that by suggesting that Marco Rubio should be the next president of Cuba, the same way Putin had promised his generals and oligarchs that they could have Ukraine.

Step-by-step it appears that Trump is trying to turn America into Russia. We saw the latest and most gruesome example this weekend as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — who shot her puppy in the face and bragged about it — went on national TV to defend Jonathan Ross shooting Nicole Good in the face, then calling her a “f------ bitch.”

What’s becoming increasingly clear to Americans — which is why so many millions were in the streets this weekend — is that Trump is trying to use ICE as his own private version of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a secret, unchallengeable police force loyal to him rather than the law, whose job is to terrify and pacify the population so they won’t object to having their pockets picked and their freedom taken.

And his threats against Greenland are designed to break up NATO, fulfilling Putin’s deepest desire, which could ultimately lead to the disintegration of the Atlantic alliance and eventually to the military domination of Europe by Russia.

Both Putin and Trump appear to want the thorn in their sides of the example of a democratic Europe to fail, thus making the world safe for looter-mentality strongman autocracies.

I used to think that Trump always did whatever Putin told him to, during both his administrations and even before, because Putin was blackmailing him or dangling billion-dollar Trump Hotel Moscow opportunities in front of him.

While both of those options are still pretty likely, increasingly I’m seeing that Trump is doing what Putin suggests because he wants to be like Putin. And he wants America to be like Russia.

These two men are deeply damaged psychopaths who never matured emotionally because of the psychological trauma of their childhoods.

They think alike, as do most dictators in history, men who feel fundamentally insecure and get their feeling of safety by dominating others. Abusers who were abused and now inflict abuse.

As a result, they both delight in killing people via their militaries.

They get high by terrorizing people with their secret police and militias.

They both hate and fear a free and open press and any sort of legislative or judicial power that may constrain them.

They both have corruptly made billions from their political positions, both use public monies to shower wealth and opportunity on their friends, and both wield the police and judicial powers of their nations to punish their enemies. Trump’s most recent is Fed chair Jerome Powell.

Other dictators throughout history have shared these same characteristics. Hitler was an abused, unwanted child, much like Trump and Putin. Saddam Hussein, Benito Mussolini, and Francisco Franco were all the victims of violent alcoholic fathers who beat them and their mothers, growing up in severely dysfunctional families.

Historian Brian Junkermeier notes that, “Stalin’s father was so violent, that on more than one occasion, he physically abused Stalin to the point where he would have blood in his urine for several days.”


All of these men grew up to be abusers, not just of their family members but of their entire nations.

Most Americans, not being psychopaths who survived cruel childhoods, don’t understand and can’t identify with these impulses. But it’s a safe bet that many of the people who’re enthusiastically answering the ICE recruiting call to “reclaim our nation” from Black and brown people and democracy-loving liberals also share Trump’s and Putin’s propensity for violence.

After all, it wasn’t until Renee Nicole Good told Jonathan Ross that she wasn’t mad with him and was leaving — a statement that she was in control and was leaving her abuser, the exact moment when most abusive husbands who kill their wives take that final step — that he fired three times into her head and called her a “fuckin’ bitch.”

It’s a classic abuser’s move, particularly against women.

Meanwhile, a handful of emotionally stunted rightwing billionaires who are democracy-skeptical are right there with Trump, using their financial power to promote autocracy and oligarchy. Many have had their worldview twisted by the power their own wealth gives them.

Robert Caro once noted:

“Power doesn’t corrupt. Power reveals. When a man is climbing, when he needs votes, when he needs allies, he is careful. When he has power, he no longer needs to be careful — and then you see who he really is.”

In that, he’s echoing Lord Acton’s famous 1887 observation:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Trump, the billionaires he surrounds himself with (13 in his cabinet, over a hundred others as major donors), and the police-state toadies like Miller, Noem, Vance, Homan, Patel, Bavino, etc are — based on observable behaviors and statements — almost universally opposed to democracy.

They’re trying to normalize turning America into an oligarchy with the First Family making billions in their first dozen months and their secret police openly killing people in the street and then blaming their victims on national television.

The danger with this is that oligarchy, as I point out in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy: Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class, is a transitional form of government that rarely lasts more than a generation or two. It’s so unstable because when the people realize the oligarchs are ripping them off and essentially stealing the nation’s wealth for themselves, they tend to rise up and loudly object.

That’s what we’re seeing with the No Kings and other protests here in America.Average Americans know that when modern GOP-driven Reaganomics started in 1981 fully two-thirds of us had a good, middle-class life with a single paycheck but today it takes two paychecks to barely reach that level, which is why the middle class has collapsed down to fewer than half of us.

They know that the top 1% has extracted more than $50 trillion from working class people over the past 44 years via Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts and the destruction of the union movement.

They know that when Reagan came into office a home cost three times the average salary and today it’s ten times a single salary (or five times a two-income household’s income).

They know their parents went to college for free or cheap and they’re now indebted for half or more of their lives.

They know that healthcare and health insurance used to be affordable when hospitals and health insurance companies were required to be nonprofits, and are now a massive trillion-dollar annual wealth-extraction scheme that’s making people like Rick Scott and Dollar Bill McGuire richer than the pharaohs.

So, when the morbidly rich seize power and rip off the working class, history shows that people rise up against the new oligarchy, leaving Trump and his billionaires with two choices.

They can, like they did in the face of FDR’s overwhelming popularity and success with the New Deal, simply retire from politics and just go back to making money and running their businesses (1933-1981).
Or they can, like they did in Russia two decades ago (and are doing today in numerous other countries including Iran and Venezuela), come down on the protestors with an iron fist, a steel-heeled boot (to paraphrase Grover Cleveland), led by state power and a brutal secret police and intelligence force.

Trump and the hard-right billionaires who made him president appear to be betting option number two will work out for them as well as it did for Putin.

It’s up to us and the politicians we’ve elected to represent us to make sure they don’t succeed and our nation returns to the rule of law.

History tells us how this moment will end if We the People hesitate.

Autocrats like Trump don’t stop because they suddenly find a conscience; they stop when institutions push back, when laws are enforced by judges and the military refuse illegal orders, and when ordinary people refuse to be intimidated into silence.

Russia didn’t fall into tyranny overnight. It slid there step by step, excuse by excuse, “reasonable step away from law and order” by reasonable step, until the police and military were no longer servants of the law but enforcers of loyalty, and regime-aligned billionaires became untouchable partners in plunder.

America is standing at that same fork in the road right now.

Either we insist — loudly, relentlessly, and electorally — that no president is above the law, that no secret police may operate without accountability, that no billionaire may buy immunity, and that democracy is not optional…or we allow fear, exhaustion, and cynicism to finish the job Trump has begun.

This is quite literally a battle over whether the United States remains a democratic constitutional republic or becomes another cautionary tale taught to future generations who inevitably and naïvely ask how a free people could have let it happen.

The choice is still ours, at least for the moment. But history makes one thing clear: once the jackboot is fully laced, it rarely comes off without blood.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

Greece airspace shutdown exposes badly outdated systems

By AFP
January 13, 2026


Flights were grounded or delayed for several hours - Copyright AFP Sakis Mitrolidis

John HADOULIS, Yannick PASQUET

A deeply embarrassing systems failure which forced Greece to close its airspace for several hours with pilots unable to speak to air traffic control, has exposed badly outdated communication systems at Athens International Airport — one of the world’s top travel destinations.

Flights had to be diverted to neighbouring countries with thousands of travellers hit after the “unprecedented” technical malfunction on January 4, which baffled experts.

Even more than a week after the chaos, questions as to what sparked the glitch — and how the system returned online — remain unanswered, with a report expected this week.

According to the Greek civil aviation authority, the YPA, the malfunction began at 8:59 am (0659 GMT) when multiple radio frequencies serving Athens airspace were hit by continuous “noise” interference.

The agency’s transmitters began sending out “involuntary signal emissions”, YPA said.

As technicians raced to radio relay stations on top of mountains near Athens and further afield to locate the problem, planes were essentially flying blind, experts said — unable to communicate with air traffic controllers — until the incident began to gradually abate four hours later.

“Hundreds of flights were directly affected — those in contact with air traffic control or already in the air that changed their route,” Foivos Kaperonis, a board member of the Greek air traffic controllers association (EEEK), told AFP.

Athens International Airport handled over 280,000 flights last year, an average of over 760 a day.

Officials have insisted that Athens airspace was quickly cleared of traffic, and that flight safety was not compromised.

The system returned to full operation at 5 pm (1500 GMT), with flights restored 45 minutes later, the YPA said.

No signs of a cyberattack or intentional sabotage were detected, YPA said. And nothing suspicious was found at the relay stations.

Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis later confirmed there was “no sign” of a cyberattack.



– ‘Flying deaf’ –



“We have an exact picture of what happened. What we don’t yet know is how it happened,” Michael Bletsas, one of Greece’s top computer engineers and head of the Greek cybersecurity authority, told state TV ERT.

Planes “may have flown ‘deaf’ for a short while… but under no circumstances was there a flight safety problem,” he said, with pilots still having their radar.

“Every system fails at some point,” said Bletsas, who is on the committee investigating the incident.

Kaperonis is much less sanguine.

“Air traffic controllers could see the aircraft on the radar display, but they could neither hear the pilots nor speak to them,” he said.

“In other words, if two aircraft had been on a collision course, controllers would not have been able to give them instructions,” he said.

George Saounatsos, the head of the YPA, said a report on the incident by a hurriedly-convened investigative committee would likely be delivered this week.

“It was a rare event — it’s hard for this to happen again, even statistically,” he told Open TV.

A major infrastructure overhaul costing 300 million euros ($350 million) is currently underway, which includes digital transmitters that will be delivered this year, Saounatsos said.



– ‘Outdated’ systems –



Greece’s junior transport minister has admitted the airport’s communications systems should have been upgraded “decades” earlier.

“These are systems we know are outdated,” Konstantinos Kyranakis told Action24 TV.

The Athens airport tower radar dates from 1999, air traffic controllers note.

“Clearly, systems that should have been replaced decades ago, cannot be replaced in nine months,” Kyranakis said, who was appointed in March.

Four different transport ministers have held the portfolio since 2019 when conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to power.

Bertrand Vilmer, an aeronautics expert and consultant at Paris-based Icare Aeronautique, said Athens’ largely analog-based systems “are robust, but ones for which there’s no longer really any possible maintenance because they’re old.”

Last month the European Commission referred Greece to the EU Court of Justice for failing to put in place measures to design and publish performance-based navigation (PBN) procedures at Greek airports that should have been in place five years ago.

Air traffic controllers, who have clashed with YPA for years over staff and infrastructure shortages, insist that the January 4 incident was a debacle waiting to happen.

They say that the incident is particularly concerning in a country heavily reliant on tourism that has seen record visitor numbers in recent years.

“The air traffic control unit where the problem appeared handles up to nearly 5,000 flights per day during the summer season,” Kaperonis said.

Air traffic controllers require “long rest periods” due to the difficulty of their job, Vilmer said.

YPA and the transport minister’s office did not respond to questions.

Athens International Airport last year handled nearly 34 million passengers, an increase of 6.7 percent over the previous year.

Critics have also noted that Greece’s worst rail disaster, when two trains collided in 2023, killing 57 people — which brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets to protest — was also partly caused by chronic infrastructure and staffing failings.