As Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues its “Operation Metro Surge” infiltration of Minnesota, more than 2,000 ICE operatives and about 1,000 other federal agents have made more than 2,400 arrests since the operation began in late 2025, and tear gassed protesters. Last week, an ICE agent shot and killed local resident Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old US citizen. In response, the state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities’ local governments sued the US government and several officials this week to stop the operation.
… reported on a contract justification published in a federal register on Tuesday that says 31 ICE vehicles currently operating in Minnesota “lack the necessary emergency lights and sirens” to be “compliant” with regulations. Meanwhile, the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe allowed a fundraising campaign claiming to fund a potential legal defense for Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot Good, to remain live—despite company rules that GoFundMe has enforced in the past banning fundraisers connected to violent crimes.
An investigation by … found that an FBI agent’s sworn testimony in federal court in Minnesota in December contradicts claims Ross made under oath about whether a man they were trying to interview had asked to speak to his attorney. The FBI agent’s testimony also raises questions about whether Ross failed to follow his training during the incident in which he shot and killed Renee Good.
The situation in the Twin Cities is still rapidly evolving and … has context on what to do if ICE invades your neighborhood as well as an analysis of why ICE agents can seemingly kill with impunity in the US today
In other news, analysis of hundreds of records obtained by … shows that US intelligence on Tren de Aragua—the Venezuelan gang that President Donald Trump has described as mounting an “invasion” in the US—was thin, describing disjointed, low-level crime in the US rather than a coordinated terrorist threat.
Following a flood of graphic AI-generated imagery—including images that appeared to depict minors—the social media platform X said it has placed more restrictions on its sister AI platform Grok’s ability to generate explicit images. Tests show, though, that Grok’s “undressing” problem isn’t solved on the tool’s website and app, and the updates on X have merely created a patchwork of inadequate guardrails.
Researchers disclosed findings this week that hundreds of millions of audio devices that use Google’s one-tap Fast Pair Bluetooth protocol—from 17 models of headphones, earbuds, and speakers—need a security patch to prevent wireless hacking, eavesdropping, and even, in some cases, location tracking. Meanwhile, a major Verizon outage this week knocked out large swaths of cellular and mobile service in the US for hours, including some access to 911 calling. And former US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Jen Easterly announced this week that she will become CEO of RSAC, which puts on one of the most prominent US security conferences.
And there’s more. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.
US Hackers Reportedly Triggered a Blackout in Venezuela Ahead of Military Incursion
Among all the nations in the world whose state-sponsored hackers have honed the capability to turn off the lights with a cyberattack, only Russia has been confirmed to have taken that brazen step, hacking another nation’s power grid to cause a blackout—until now. Amid the surprise military operation that seized Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro and his wife, the US appears to have crossed that rubicon, too.
In the aftermath of the air strikes and on-the-ground military operation that arrested Maduro and killed as many as a hundred people in Caracas earlier this month, President Trump hinted at a cyberattack that blacked out the country’s capital city. “It was dark, the lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have,” Trump said in a news conference hours after the operation.
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