Sen. Rand Paul calls for ‘independent investigation’ into Alex Pretti killing

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is turning up the heat on federal officials after Border Patrol agents killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis over the weekend.

Paul, who is chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, called for an investigation into the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, in a social media post Tuesday.

Border Patrol agents shot Pretti multiple times on Saturday after they wrestled him to the ground when he inserted himself between a woman who was pushed down and the agent who shoved her.

The Kentucky senator wrote expressing dismay at comments about Pretti, who was armed but did not appear to pull his firearm during the altercation, made by top Trump administration officials like Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

—Lexington Herald-Leader

University of Idaho victims stabbed a combined 150 times, according to new details

The four University of Idaho students violently murdered by Bryan Kohberger were stabbed a combined 150 times, according to a report.

Kohberger in July pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in connection with the grisly killings of 21-year-old Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, their housemate Xana Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, also 20. Authorities found all four students dead from fatal stab wounds on Nov. 13, 2022 inside a Moscow home not far from campus.

According to unsealed autopsy findings obtained by People, Kernodle sustained approximately 67 stab wounds, and evidence suggested she moved around the room — an apparent bid to fend off Kohberger — during the attack.

Her boyfriend, meanwhile, was stabbed 17 times. He suffered one stab wound to the upper chest; four stab and incised wounds to the scalp face and neck; six incised wounds to the upper extremities; and six stab and incised wounds of the lower extremities.

—New York Daily News

NOAA speeds up process to grant deep-sea mining permits

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, with the support of many congressional Republicans, is looking to boost deep-sea mining as a way to counter Chinese dominance of critical minerals supply chains.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a final rule on Jan. 21 that would speed up the process companies must go through to receive exploration licenses and commercial recovery permit applications under a 1980 law.

The move has drawn skepticism over concerns about largely unproven technology and its potential impact on the environment, including from the Republican delegates who represent three U.S. territories in the Pacific Ocean.

The NOAA rule would let applicants seek both the license and permits at the same time. NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs said in a statement that the move would enable “U.S. companies to access these resources more quickly, strengthening our nation’s economic resilience and advancing the discovery and use of critical seafloor minerals.”

—CQ-Roll Call

Russia hits Odesa as attacks on Ukrainian energy system widen

Russian forces hit the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa as part of a wave of strikes on energy infrastructure that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a threat to diplomatic efforts to end the war.

The overnight attack — some 165 drones targeting cities from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east — focused on Odesa, where more than 50 unmanned aerial vehicles hit energy targets and injured dozens, Zelenskyy said Tuesday on social-media platform X.

The Kremlin has exploited winter conditions, with temperatures across Ukraine plunging well below freezing and families struggling to maintain heat and water supplies, to cripple the war-battered nation’s energy system. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have meanwhile held a series of U.S.-brokered meetings as they struggled to move forward a peace initiative sought by President Donald Trump.

“Every such Russian strike erodes the diplomacy that is still ongoing and undermines the efforts of partners who are helping to end this war,” Zelenskyy said. He called on U.S. and European allies to pile pressure on Moscow: “Without pressure on the aggressor, wars do not stop.”

—Bloomberg News