American singer-songwriters are taking up the protest torch like their forebears Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, releasing tracks featuring searing criticism of Donald Trump and homage to Minneapolis residents killed this month by federal immigration agents.Eighty years after folk icon Guthrie scrawled “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his guitar, his musical heirs are savaging President Donald Trump on his immigration crackdown, his renamed Department of War, the US attack on Venezuela, Republican opposition to health care subsidies, and Washington’s glaring failure to tackle American poverty.This week, after two US citizen residents of Minneapolis were fatally shot in January by federal officers, folk and protest singers unveiled scalding musical assaults on the establishment.A musical collective called the Singing Resistance has taken to the streets and churches of Minneapolis, singing about love and community but also about their call to “abolish ICE,” the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency at the heart of aggressive operations in the Minnesota city and elsewhere.Other protest singers are embracing today’s most reliable pathway to getting music into young people’s ears: Instagram and TikTok.”Genuine American Hero,” a folksy, guitar-driven track by little-known musician Joseph Terrell about the death of Renee Good at the hands of a federal agent, has quickly become an anti-ICE anthem, generating millions of views online.”He keeps us safe and snatches us inside our homes and offices, yes he’s a genuine American hero,” Terrell sneers of Good’s killer who “shot her in the face in her SUV.””I wrote it on Monday because I’d been stewing in anger about ICE,” Terrell posted on Instagram, adding he was stunned by the reception it received.”I’m glad it’s been reaching yall as we try and make sense of this moment.”- ‘Join ICE’ -Folk musician Jesse Welles has been reaching a far larger audience. Over the past year, the shaggy-haired guitarist and singer has emerged as a modern-day protest troubadour, collaborating with Baez, selling out concert halls, and soaring to rarified fame on social media.His songs’ videos have racked up more than 200 million views on TikTok alone. He has been nominated for four Grammy’s this year, including Best Folk Album.”Join ICE, boy ain’t it nice. Join ICE, take my advice. If you’re lacking control and authority, come with me and hunt down minorities,” Welles, 33, sings in a satirical twang.With civil unrest and outrage churning in Minnesota and elsewhere, some established musical stars, most notably Bruce Springsteen, are getting in on protest art.On Wednesday the rock icon released “Streets of Minneapolis,” a fiery song about the fatal shootings there and “King Trump’s private army” wearing “occupiers’ boots” as they carry out the president’s mass deportation campaign.Some emerging artists have parlayed ferocious ICE criticism into a growing following, including country singer Bryan Andrews, who has garnered millions of views on TikTok for his songs and outspoken commentary about the conservative MAGA movement, ICE raids and the killings in Minneapolis.But mainstream country music, with its conservative legacy, is less likely to embrace protest calls to arms, especially after star Zach Bryan faced backlash last year for his politically charged “Bad News.”The song offered not-so-subtle condemnation of ICE operations and earned criticism in Nashville — and reproach from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who called the track “completely disrespectful.”

The surge of immigration detention flights at Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport spurred plane spotter Nick Benson to shift from tracking rare and unusual aircraft to cataloging the removal of detainees from Minnesota.Through a telephoto lense fixed to a tripod set up on a frozen, wind-swept corner of an airport carpark, Benson watched shackled detainees being loaded onto a flight chartered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”It’s a charter flight operated by global crossing airlines on behalf of what we would call ‘ICE air,'” he said. “It’s the network of airplanes and airlines that are moving deportees around in the United States, from cities all across the United States to detention facilities.”In January so far there have been 39 flights that have taken 2,282 migrants out of Minnesota according to Benson’s count, with multiple daily flights at the height of the Trump administrations surge of immigration arrests in Minnesota this month.By contrast in January 2025 there was just one such flight a day.Benson, a jolly, plaid-wearing midwesterner brimming with enthusiasm for planes, said he was spurred to action by what he described as the cruelty of US President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.He said he had witnessed elderly detainees who needed assistance climbing the stairs to the aircraft, as well as one individual who was still wearing their Amazon work uniform.”That doesn’t make any sense,” he said as he tracked the loading of an aircraft with 40 detainees Wednesday.He logs each removal flight, updating a database and sharing his findings with campaign group the 50501 Movement.”This is the only source of real time information on how many people are actually leaving Minnesota right now,” he said as the state is in the grip of unprecedented sweeps to arrested undocumented people.Nationwide, ICE operates thousands of such flights a year, both to move detainees around the United States like with Wednesday’s charter, as well as deporting people to other countries — sometimes nations other than their own.- ‘Worst of the worst’? -From January 20 to December 31, 2025, there were 13,446 immigration enforcement flights, of which 2,138 were deportation flights, ICE Flight Monitor reported.Benson, an aviation data analytics professional, said tracking the flights had been complicated by the Department of Homeland Security, which charters aircraft from private companies, having flight data withheld from the public. “It’s the same mechanism that, like Taylor Swift and Elon Musk use to maintain privacy. It’s unusual,” he said.Benson, 41, said the vast majority of flights have been destined for El Paso in Texas on the southern border with Mexico.El Paso is home to the vast Camp East Montana detention center, a makeshift tent facility that has been beset by claims of substandard conditions and at least three migrant deaths since it opened in August.The Department of Homeland Security said only “for operational security, ICE does not release information concerning deportation flight schedules.”The airport did not respond to a request for comment.Previously the department at the forefront of executing Trump’s deportation drive has defended the flights as necessary to remove undocumented immigrants guilty of crimes that make them the “worst of the worst.” Minneapolis airport was the scene of a tense protest last week by religious leaders demonstrating against the operation of ICE flights from the facility, with organizers reporting that around 100 clergy had been arrested.”ICE has even been arresting airport workers while they are on the job,” said one of those who protested, reverend Mariah Furness Tollgaard of Hamline Church United Methodist.”What this administration and ICE are doing in Minnesota is not abstract policy — it is shattering families, traumatizing children, and spreading fear through our neighborhoods.”

On a frigid night in Canada’s oil capital, Jordan Fritz joined a rally of thousands for a separatist movement once considered a sideshow, but which is now drawing interest from US President Donald Trump’s allies.”We need the Americans’ support,” said Fritz, a burly, bearded man with the flag of Alberta — western Canada’s oil-rich province — draped around his shoulders. “We need pipelines here in Alberta. We need them to be built. We need them to flow oil, and if the Canadian government isn’t going to help us with that, I’m sure the Americans will,” Fritz told AFP at a Calgary roadhouse.  Unlike the decades-old, highly organized independence movement in French-speaking Quebec province, Alberta’s fractious separatist camp has not previously threatened Canadian unity.Western Canadian resentment of eastern political elites is not new, but political scientist Frederic Boily said the idea of an independent Alberta only began to crystallize around 2018.Albertans broadly opposed then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, viewing his climate-conscious government as hostile to an oil and gas sector crucial to the local and Canadian economies. “It was at first mainly an economic idea, about no longer paying for the rest of Canada,” Boily, a professor at the University of Alberta, said of Alberta’s independence movement.Trudeau is gone, replaced by Prime Minister Mark Carney — an Albertan who has backed initiatives to support the oil industry, drawing scorn from environmental groups.But despite those shifts, the Alberta independence push is more prominent than ever and may secure the right to a referendum this year.Elections Alberta has approved a citizens’ petition initiative from a group called the Alberta Prosperity Project.If the group collects 178,000 signatures by May 2, they will be on track to secure an independence vote this fall.- ‘Natural’ US partner -Current polling indicates the separatists would lose. A January 23 Ipsos survey found just 28 percent of Albertans would vote to secede.The possible significance of interventions from Washington remains unclear, but Boily said: “It’s certain that the agitation south of the border has an impact on what is happening in Alberta.”US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered veiled backing for Alberta’s independence last week.”Alberta has a wealth of natural resources, but they won’t let them build a pipeline to the Pacific,” Bessent said.”I think we should let them come down into the US, and Alberta is a natural partner for the US. They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people.”Earlier this month, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon had the Republican-supporting writer Brandon Weichert on his podcast. “Alberta is the linchpin,” Weichert told Bannon. “They’re getting out of the Canadian union, they are going to become an independent state. We’re gonna recognize them.”- All about oil -Some at the roadhouse rally wore cowboy hats. Others, like Jesse Woodroof, had on baseball caps that said “Alberta Republic.”Woodroof told AFP his ancestors arrived in what is now Canada “hundreds and hundreds of years” ago.He voiced concern about “immigrants pouring into this country,” and implied that a sovereign Alberta would take a different approach.Jennifer Wiebe — her daughter resting against her chest — said: “Alberta could be more prosperous and free on our own.”While the views expressed may vary, conversations about Alberta independence typically circle back to oil.Right-wing Premier Danielle Smith, an outspoken oil industry advocate who despised Trudeau’s leadership, has said she supports “Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada.” Speaking on her weekend radio program, Smith implied the motivation for independence has diminished because Ottawa appears open to a new pipeline.”I’m forging a new relationship with Canada. We’ve got a new leader, we’ve got a new prime minister… and we seem to have common cause on trying to get a new pipeline built,” she said.The leader of the separatist Bloc Quebecois, Yves‑Francois Blanchet, drew smirks with his May critique of Alberta’s prospective independence.”The first idea is to define oneself as a nation,” he said, adding nations need “a culture of their own.””I am not sure that oil and gas qualifies to define a culture.”

American rock hero Bruce Springsteen dived into the outrage over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown with a fiery song released Wednesday that pays tribute to two protesters fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis.Springsteen said the song “Streets of Minneapolis” was a response to “state terror” in the northern US city, rocked by the actions of armed federal officers that have stoked vociferous local protests.”I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city” in the state of Minnesota, The Boss wrote on his Instagram page.”It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good,” the 76-year-old wrote, referring to the two US nationals killed this month. Pretti died after a scuffle with agents on a snowy Minneapolis street on Saturday. “Stay free,” Springsteen added.The “Born to Run” and “Badlands” singer has often been willing to criticize President Donald Trump with very blunt language in interviews and at performances, and the anthemic song he released online Wednesday pulls no punches.It refers to the several thousand immigration agents who descended on Minneapolis as “King Trump’s private army” wearing “occupiers’ boots” and with “guns belted to their coats” as they undertake Trump’s push to deport undocumented immigrants.”There were bloody footprints where mercy should have stood, and two dead left to die on snow-filled streets: Alex Pretti and Renee Good,” he sings in the opening verse.The chorus: “Oh Minneapolis I hear your voice, crying through the bloody mist. We’ll remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis.”The song’s title echoes the 1994 classic “Streets of Philadelphia,” Springsteen’s haunting ballad about people living with AIDS.For decades, Springsteen has been revered by rock fans in the United States and beyond for his man-of-the-people guitar music and socially conscious, working-class anthems like “Born in the USA,” “The River,” and “Rosalita.”During the 2024 election campaign that led to Trump’s second presidency, Springsteen threw his support behind Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, and said Trump was running to be an “American tyrant.”At that time he said of Trump, “He does not understand this country, its history or what it means to be deeply American.”Trump has in recent days sought to tamp down the furor over the violence in Minneapolis and has shuffled the leadership of immigration agents deployed there, putting a less confrontational figure in charge.But on Wednesday he warned the mayor of Minneapolis that he is “playing with fire” with his refusal to cooperate with federal authorities.

Tesla reported a 61-percent drop in fourth-quarter profits on Wednesday due to lower auto sales and increased expenses as CEO Elon Musk ramps up technology investments.The results conclude a turbulent year for the electric vehicle maker that included a controversial Musk stint in Donald Trump’s White House and a shareholder vote in November to award the outspoken CEO a pay package worth as much as $1 trillion in anticipation of massive technology breakthroughs at Tesla. Profits came in at $840 million in the quarter ending December 31, down from $2.1 billion a year earlier. Revenues were $24.9 billion, down 3.1 percent.Lower profits had been expected after Tesla reported a drop in fourth-quarter and full-year auto deliveries early in January. A company presentation cited a litany of other factors. These included higher restructuring costs, increased research and development funding for AI pursuits, the drag from higher tariffs and a decline in revenues tied to emission tax credits following Trump’s reversals on US environmental policies.Musk opened a conference call by saying he was committed to “very, very big investments” to realize the mission of working to ensure “the best future,” an “era of abundance” where the “environment is great, nature is great, and people can have whatever they want.”Chief Financial officer Vaibhav Taneja said the 2026 capital spending budget would be “in excess of $20 billion,” more than that double the $8.5 billion last year.Musk said Tesla plans to wind down production of the Models S and X luxury EVs and will convert plant capacity in Fremont, California to build humanoid robots.Tesla’s outlook did not include a projection for its expected 2026 auto sales, saying it would depend partly on “aggregate demand for our products.” In its January 2025 earnings release, Tesla projected a return to growth in vehicle sales. But Tesla’s 2025 auto sales fell nine percent, reflecting increased competition from rivals and blowback to Musk’s embrace of Trump and far-right political figures.- Unrealistic timing? -Shares of Tesla rose sharply in the second half of 2025 after Musk left the White House in spite of weaker financial results shrugged off due to Tesla’s perceived growth potential.Musk has touted Tesla’s technological prowess on artificial intelligence and autonomous driving as a decisive advantage against rivals that justifies the company’s lofty stock market valuation. The company describes itself as in “transition from a hardware-centric business to a physical AI company.”At the World Economic Forum earlier this month, Musk described self-driving cars as “essentially a solved problem at this point,” adding that the robotaxi service will be very widespread in the United States by the end of 2026.Musk has also spoken optimistically about the expected growth in revenue tied to subscriptions of the driver-assistance “FSD” program. Many analysts have learned to take Musk’s utterances with a grain of salt after earlier predictions about the nearness of fully autonomous driving didn’t come to pass.CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson characterized Wednesday’s results as better than expected, pointing to revenue gains from Tesla’s energy generation and storage business and the company’s confirmation of the buildout of Cybercab and other big projects targeted for 2026.Stil, “execution risk is high as Tesla has its work cut out to deliver on its promises and justify the company’s lofty valuation in the face of challenging EV demand and growing competitive threats,” Nelson said. Included in Wednesday’s earnings press release, Tesla disclosed that it entered into an agreement on January 16 to invest $2 billion in Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence venture.A “framework” accord “builds upon the existing relationship between Tesla and xAI by providing a framework for evaluating potential AI collaborations between the companies,” said Tesla, adding that the investment agreement is expected to close in the first quarter.Tesla shares rose 1.7 percent in after-hours trading.