Veteran federal prosecutors in Minnesota resign after pressure from Justice Department leaders to investigate the widow of Renee Macklin Good, the woman killed by an ICE agent, raising new questions about political interference.
President Trump takes his economic message on the road, pitching affordability as voters remain frustrated by high prices.
And while gas prices have dipped, rising heating costs, grocery prices, and stubborn inflation show why relief still feels out of reach for many families.

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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Rebekah Metzler, Gigi Douban, Krishnadev Calamur, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.

It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.

We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.

And our Supervising Producer is Michael Lipkin.

(0:00) Introduction
(02:19) Minnesota Prosecutors Quit
(06:10) Trump in Detroit
(09:52) Inflation Report

(FOX 9) – Several Minnesota lawmakers are backing an effort signed by more than 50 Democrats in the House of Representatives to impeach Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem stemming from accusations of obstructing Congress and violating public trust.

Noem impeachment effort

What we know:

A total of 53 House Democrats have co-signed a bill set to be introduced by U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (Illinois).

Tensions have risen in the Twin Cities following the shooting of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of ICE officer Jonathan Ross. The shooting has sparked protests across the city, including outside the regional ICE headquarters.

In December, the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge, bringing more than 100 federal agents into the Twin Cities.

In January, the Department of Homeland Security launched a new 30-day surge, bringing a reported force of 1,500 ICE officers and 600 Homeland Security investigators into the state with an aim at tackling fraud.

According to Noem, the total has since increased to more than 2,000 agents presently operating within the state.

In the months prior to the focus on Minnesota, the Trump administration also sent additional troops to cities such as Portland, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Dig deeper:

The articles of impeachment that are set to be formally introduced on Jan. 14, 2026, will accuse Noem of three counts:

• Obstruction of Congress: Stemming from members of Congress being denied entry to DHS facilities and for withholding congressionally appropriated disaster relief funding.
• Violation of public trust: Allegedly denying ICE detainees due process and violating the First and Fourth amendments.
• Self-dealing: Stemming from reports that Noem awarded $220 million in contracts to a firm run by her spokesperson’s husband.

What they’re saying:

“Secretary Kristi Noem is an incompetent leader, a disgrace to our democracy, and I am impeaching her for obstruction of justice, violation of public trust, and self-dealing. Secretary Noem wreaked havoc in the Chicagoland area, and now, her rogue ICE agents have unleashed that same destruction in Minneapolis, fatally shooting Renee Nicole Good,” said Rep. Kelly in a statement on her official website. “From Chicago to Charlotte to Los Angeles to Minneapolis, Secretary Noem is violating the Constitution while ruining — and ending — lives and separating families. It’s one thing to be incompetent and dangerous, but it’s impeachable to break the rule of law.”

Minnesota Reps. Angie Craig and Betty McCollum also plan to support the impeachment efforts.

“Secretary Noem should be fired. If she is not, I support impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate for her obstruction of Congress and violation of public trust,” said Rep. McCollum in a statement. “This past year, Americans in cities across the United States have felt the chaos and terror of Secretary Noem’s Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Secretary Noem has demonstrated that she is unable to enforce immigration law in a peaceful and ethical manner. Her deployment of unprofessional, poorly trained, masked immigration agents has put our neighbors in danger of physical harm.”

Minnesota’s Democratic lawmakers, along with mayors Jacob Frey and Kaohly Her, along with Gov. Tim Walz, have also been vocal critics of DHS immigration enforcement efforts in the wake of the shooting of Renee Good.

DULUTH — The University of Minnesota Duluth received a visit from University President Rebecca Cunningham last week, just days before the start of the spring semester.

Cunningham’s Northland visit included meetings with several local legislators, as well as stops at some of the system’s regional facilities.

The trip was capped off with a forum hosted at UMD on Friday. Cunningham and UMD Chancellor Charles T. Nies met with college community members and discussed the university’s new strategic roadmap, outlining upcoming initiatives and opportunities at UMD and across the university system.

“We have these five wonderful campuses that serve different students with different interests in different study and learning environments,” said Cunningham in a sit down with the News Tribune, “and we’re working together in really just new and exciting ways.”

Back in October, the university unveiled its new strategic plan, Elevating Extraordinary 2030, which outlines its goals and mission over the next five years. Building on the last strategic plan, which concluded in 2025, the university’s next phase will be guided by five main areas of focus: preparing and engaging students, innovative learning, serving communities, advancing research and investing in the local workforce.

“The strategic roadmap … really gives us the framework and the structure to say we’re doing this, not only because we know it’s good for our students,” said Nies, who co-chaired the development committee for the new plan, “but it’s also helping to advance the mission and the programming for the University of Minnesota, across all campuses.”

How each of the five main university campuses puts the elements of the strategic plan into action will likely look a little different at each school, Nies said, but having a set of system-wide goals will also create more opportunities for campus partnerships and shared resources.

One of the overall facets of the strategic plan focuses on serving the community through the development of health care and health research, which has led to “exciting” investments in the university’s medical programs, Cunningham said.

Earlier this year, the UMN’s Medical School Duluth Campus expanded to a four-year program, opening new opportunities for students looking to focus their education in areas such as rural health, family medicine and Native American health.

The UMN School of Dentistry, which trains more than 70% of Minnesota’s practicing dentists, is also planned to undergo changes, Cunningham, said as the university looks to restructure and renovate the school.

However, the university’s top priority right now is reaching an agreement on continued funding and support for the state’s largest medical school.

In November, the University of Minnesota rejected a proposed deal between Fairview Health Services and University of Minnesota Physicians, the clinical practice for the school’s faculty. While the $1 billion deal would have provided funding and support to the medical school for the next 10 years, the university objected to the proposal, claiming a lack of involvement in negotiations and that the university’s control over the medical school would be greatly reduced under the new plan.

Contributed / University of Minnesota Duluth

All parties have since returned to the negotiating table, with the help of a Minnesota Attorney General-appointed mediator.

“We’re in mediation right now, and I expect that we’ll come to a solution that works for all three parties here,” Cunningham said. “The university remains very committed to rural health care, and once that gets sorted, we can continue to look to other plans and phases. … There’s lots of opportunities for next conversations and next partnerships, but my first job of business is to sort out our partnership with Fairview.”

Among those “next conversations” are discussions about the proposed medical center in downtown Duluth, a project that has been under discussion since 2022.

The idea to expand current health care services and training options in Duluth through a new academic health center has received

continued support

from the city since it was first proposed. While Essentia Health and Aspirus St. Luke’s have

offered locations

for the potential medical school campus, Cunningham says the plan still requires some more thought.

“The university is still interested in exploring that opportunity, and it remains in our five-year plan that we worked with the regents on last June,” Cunningham added. “We plan to continue to explore the opportunities … for what the right opportunity is for medical education here, and how we could expand that.”

Expanding medical education efforts go hand in hand with local initiatives, like

the Duluth Promise,

Nies said. Focused on creating career pathways in fields with high workforce demands, Duluth Promise is a coalition of local schools and industry groups, including UMD, Duluth Public Schools and the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce.

The initiative launched last year and has since narrowed its focus to health care careers.

“It fits in rather nicely with some of the overall focuses of our strategic plan,” Nies said. “We’re creating a pathway from kindergarten to med school right here in Duluth. … We’ve got a lot of strong partnerships here, and we’re going to really lean into that strength as we move forward. There’s a lot of great things ahead.”