Today's Top Stories from NBC News

SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 2026

In today's newsletter: The ICE shooting in Minnesota follows weeks of attacks by President Donald Trump on the state and its Gov. Tim Walz. Elon Musk's X faces backlash after its Grok AI model creates sexual deepfakes. And a college student fights an insurance denial to get a prosthetic foot.

Here's what to know today.

▼ The Lead

Trump's focus on Minnesota boils over with ICE shooting

(Ben Brewer / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis this week sparked national outrage, divided federal and local officials and drew thousands into the streets in protest.

The incident came after weeks of scrutiny, verbal attacks and even conspiracy theories directed at Minnesota and its Governor Tim Walz by President Donald Trump and his allies.

Exactly why the president has been fixated on Minnesota isn't clear, though local officials and political strategists have cited his long-running — and unsuccessful — attempts to win the state and his personal disdain for Walz.

Many said it's a case of the president going after deep-blue cities in part because of their immigration policies.

A central focus of the administration's attacks has also been a yearslong fraud investigation by the Justice Department that has involved some members of the state's Somali community.

For residents, the result of all the attention has largely been disgust, fury and exhaustion.

"They're trying to break us," said Democratic state Rep. Emma Greenman, whose district is roughly a mile from where the shooting occurred.

Minnesota is "a successful story of multiracial democracy and immigration — and it inherently represents a threat to authoritarian power," she added.

Read the full story here.

More Minnesota shooting news:

New cellphone video filmed by the ICE officer who killed Good shows the moments leading up to the shooting.

The ICE agent involved in the incident, Jonathan Ross, spent years working for the government and serving in the military.

Demands for ICE accountability are growing, but the Trump administration's cutbacks to federal agencies leave fewer options for investigations into misuse of force.

President Donald Trump says his push to take control of Greenland is driven by "national security", but the proposal has alarmed residents and unsettled U.S. allies.

Trump argues that Greenland is critical to reinforcing control of the Arctic against possible threats from Russia and China, and said yesterday, "We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not."

He's denied that the opportunity to exploit the territory's vast mineral resources is a factor, but some around him are eager to say so.

"This is about critical minerals. This is about natural resources," then-Congressman Mike Waltz, who would later become Trump's national security adviser, said last January.

America's designs on Greenland go back to 1867, when then-Secretary of State William H. Seward contemplated annexing it.

Fast-forward to 2019, when Trump first said he wanted to buy the territory in a "real estate deal", but few took his remarks seriously.

But despite a strong joint statement from European powers this week, most experts agree with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller's blunt assessment that "nobody's going to fight the U.S. over the future of Greenland."

Read the full story here.

X limits some sexual deepfakes after backlash, but the Grok AI model still makes them

Elon Musk's Grok artificial intelligence model appears to have been partially restricted from making sexualized deepfakes after blowback from users and regulators.

X had been flooded in recent days with thousands of nonconsensual images generated by Grok AI, often targeting women and sometimes children.

Three Democratic senators urged Apple and Google to remove X and Grok from their app stores.

Hours later, X adjusted how the Grok reply bot operated, restricting its image generation to paying premium subscribers and limiting what images it can create.

But in the Grok tab on X and on the stand-alone app and website, the system can still create sexualized deepfakes.

Read the full story here.

Indiana routs Oregon to advance to College Football Playoff championship

Riding a nearly perfect first half and aided by a torrent of self-inflicted mistakes by Oregon, the Indiana Hoosiers won their College Football Playoff semifinal last night in a 56-22 rout to continue their stunning rise from doormat to dominance.

Indiana, the Big Ten champion and the playoff's top seed, will play 10th-seeded Miami for the national championship on Jan. 19 on the Hurricanes' home field.

There, the Hoosiers' Fernando Mendoza will attempt to become the first quarterback to win both the Heisman Trophy and a national title in the same season since LSU's Joe Burrow in 2019.

We covered all the action here.

▼ Quiz Time

Why did NASA announce it will bring back four astronauts aboard the International Space Station?

A. A medical issue

B. A food shortage

C. Mechanical problems

D. Budgeting issues

Find out the answer and test your knowledge of this week's most-read stories. (The answer to the question is also at the bottom of this newsletter.)

Take the news quiz

▼ Read All About It

The Washington National Opera announced that it's leaving the Kennedy Center, where it has performed for decades, in the latest high-profile departure following Trump's efforts to reshape the iconic venue.

California is completely free of drought for the first time in 25 years, following winter storms that lashed the state with rain and snow.

A neighbor of the slain Ohio couple called 911 days before their killings to report someone "smashing on my door."

The CDC reported that the nationwide rate of kids and teenagers hospitalized with flu is the second highest in 15 years for this point in the season.

U.S. job growth in 2025 was concentrated almost entirely in health care and social assistance, while sectors like manufacturing and transportation saw declines, reinforcing concerns that labor demand has narrowed.

▼ Staff Pick

College student fights an insurance denial to get a prosthetic foot

When 15-year-old Gabrielle Guerrero lost part of her foot after an off-road vehicle accident, a custom prosthesis allowed her to walk again pain free.

But six years later, after it had worn down beyond wear, Gabrielle's insurance denied her coverage for a new prosthesis, one that she desperately needed to walk across the stage at her college graduation. Her mother paid the $7,500 cost.

Insurance denials for prosthetic devices are not uncommon, with some plans calling them "medically unnecessary."

The latest installment of NBC News' "Cost of Denial" series looks into Gabrielle's personal experience — and uses it to illuminate a much wider pattern, showing how coverage decisions routinely push families to shoulder crushing costs and force patients to fight for the most basic needs.

— Rufina Chow, platforms intern

Read the rest of Gabrielle's story here.

▼ NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified

Cold weather calls for practical upgrades. Our editors rounded up the best winter sales at Home Depot and Columbia, from tools and heaters to outerwear built for real conditions. If you've been putting off a few home improvements, this is a smart weekend to tackle them.

Sign up to The Selection newsletter for hands-on product reviews, expert shopping tips and a look at the best deals and sales each week.

Thanks for reading the Morning Rundown. Today's newsletter was curated for you by Kayla Hayempour, Josh Feldman, Rufina Chow and Mark Hodge.

By the way, the answer to the quiz question above is... A medical issue.

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