Julia Ainsley (2:07)

That's right. So as we understand it, this is coming from dhs. The state is trying to collect as much evidence as they can to do their own independent investigation. But the first details came from DHS, from their spokeswoman, who told us that around 6:50pm local time in Minneapolis, there was an attempt by immigration officers. We don't yet know whether this was ICE or Border Patrol, which is also unusual. But there were federal immigration agents that were making a traffic stop in an attempt to arrest a Venezuelan man. They said the law enforcement officer caught up to the subject on foot when he tried to flee the vehicle. And the subject resisted arrest and began to violently assault the officer. They said while the subject and law enforcement were in the struggle on the ground to other people came out of a nearby apartment and also attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom. And then, fearing for his life and safety, as he was being ambushed by three people, the officer fired defensive shots. The initial subject was hit in the leg. And we understand that the officer and that person hit in the leg, who was the man they were attempting to arrest in the first place, are now both in the hospital being treated for their injuries.

Yasmin Basugin (3:19)

So since the shooting of Renee Nicole Goode to now, there has been a mounting sense of tension between federal personnel on the ground and protesters. Right. The president has now threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. What would that mean?

Julia Ainsley (3:40)

Yeah, that's right. I mean, things have really been escalating. And what we've seen from the White House is this growing tension with Minnesota and Minneapolis Democratic leaders that they say the reason they're there and the reason this is so chaotic is because the state leaders won't cooperate and help them find the immigrants and work with them. There's sanctuary city and sanctuary state. And of course, Waltz has pushed back and the mayor has vehemently pushed back about the presence of ice. Now, the president is talking about using the Insurrection Act. Now, the Insurrection act goes back to the early 1800s, and it's supposed to be the president's way to get around the Pose Accomitatus act that keeps the government from using the military to enforce domestic law within the boundaries of the United States. This would allow him to get around those prohibitions by declaring that what's happening in this Minneapolis area either needs to repel an invasion or suppress an insurrection. And so you can guess that he would probably say that there's an insurrection happening not just by the people, but also by the government. And what that would look like is they would be deploying the military, likely the Federal National Guard, and into Minneapolis. In this case, they would be allowed to use their guns and handcuff people. And that would be a historic change in the way law is enforced in the United States, especially in cases like this. And, of course, there would be legal challenges about whether or not this is really an insurrection that the President cannot suppress through any other means.

Yasmin Basugin (5:11)

We talk about Minneapolis, and understandably so, because of the shooting of Renee Nicole Goode and what is happening on the streets there. But ICE agents are everywhere across the country. Right now, walk us through where we're seeing the surges of ICE agents.

Julia Ainsley (5:25)

Well, we see surges pop up of ICE and Border Patrol agents in some places that aren't necessarily first announced. Of course, we saw just after the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, there was Border Patrol presence in Portland. We're also hearing from local leaders who talk about when ISIS present in their cities such as Lewiston, Maine, that they might have a surge there. The mayor of Lewiston says that he hears hundreds of agents are on their way there. The thing I want to point out, Yasmin, is that ICE is typically located around the country. It's not new. ICE has likely been in your region. They have 25 field offices around the country. They've been doing work through previous administrations. It's a matter of these surge forces where they bring people in from other regions and they do an over a targeted operation that's meant to arrest a lot of people in a short period of time and really meant to make a splash.

Yasmin Basugin (6:16)

We have seen the ads on TV from ICE recruiting new agents join ICE.

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Yasmin Basugin (6:23)

I want to talk about the qualifications required to become an ICE agent and the kind of training that they get because you've reported on this AI tool that they're using to recruit folks. What is it?

Julia Ainsley (6:34)

Yes. So this AI tool was used to scan the resumes of applicants. So the recruitment campaign is part of a huge government contract. Really fancy marketing. But what they used AI for was to scan through more than 150,000 applications and to put people into two categories. They were either gonna be have law enforcement experience or not have law enforcement experience. Because as they argue, and they've argued previously, this isn't new to the Trump administration that someone who's coming from either another federal agency or a local police force, they don't need as much training as someone who's absolutely new to law enforcement. So someone who's totally new to law enforce goes to an eight week course in Georgia, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. They have to pass physical fitness tests. They have to pass a comprehensive legal exam on immigration law and the Fourth Amendment and then also how to handle a gun. All those things are done in person at the training center. So what happened is this AI tool went through more than 150,000 resumes. And of the people that they decided had law enforcement experience, they went ahead and sent them to a four week virtual course and then out to a field office. And they missed that eight week in person experience at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. And the AI tool made a mistake. It incorrectly saw the word officer. We don't know if it was trained to do this by a human being, but if they saw the word officer, even if it's I was a compliance officer or I want to become an ICE officer. So they didn't have that in person interaction. They didn't have teachers who were looking at them, figuring out if they were ready to pass them along. They did the online course and then they went out to their field office. And then. So this started in August, this flaw. It wasn't caught until mid fall, around late September, early October. And then in mid November, ICE starts pulling people back out of the field offices they were already deployed to because they were incorrectly sent there without the proper experience. They are then now sending them to the eight week program. But of course there are questions about who might have slipped through the cracks. And we do not know how many of those who went to the field offices were actually sent onto the streets without proper training. So there's some concern about the numbers of people who are now on the streets or out in ICE field offices who were not properly trained in how to be a law enforcement officer.

Yasmin Basugin (8:51)

So is it fair to say that there are ICE agents out on the streets that may not be properly trained and that this is a reflection possibly of this surge in hiring at ice, the lack of training?

Julia Ainsley (9:08)

It is certainly a reflection of the surge in hiring. They needed to hire 10,000 between August and the end of the year of 2025. Whether or not those people actually made it out onto the streets is unknown.

Yasmin Basugin (9:21)

And they offered $50,000 in signing bonuses to new recruits.

Julia Ainsley (9:25)

That's right. Now, that's meaning that they would have to get through the program and actually be hired and start their work.

Yasmin Basugin (9:30)

Is that new? Were we doing that?

Julia Ainsley (9:32)

Totally new? Yes, very new.

Yasmin Basugin (9:34)

I mean, that's an attractive offer for a lot of individuals out there, especially in a tough job market that we're dealing with right now. I wanna circle back to Minnesota because we have the President threatening the Insurrection act as we talked about. A spokesperson for the Minneapolis mayor responded in a statement saying, quote, minnesota needs ICE to leave, not an escalation that brings additional federal troops beyond the 3,000 already here. Is there any way this can be de escalated?

Julia Ainsley (9:58)

That may even be a better question for our White House colleagues or people who know the psyche of Trump. Because when you look at the way Trump engages in conflicts, think about what's happened in Venezuela. There's an inordinate amount of pressure that the president is willing to put on any entity until they cry uncle. Those are the words Susie Wiles used to explain the strategy of Venezuela before they arrested Maduro. And it's similar here in a way that they keep sending more and more people and increasing those arrests. And that despite the fatal shooting, despite the protest, that seems to only be adding fuel to the fire rather than causing any kind of reflection or maybe a consideration to pause.

Yasmin Basugin (10:43)

Julia Ainsley, thank you.

Julia Ainsley (10:45)

Thank you.

Yasmin Basugin (10:48)

All right, we are going to take a very quick break. And when we are back, Houston, we have our astronauts. How NASA Crew 11 made their way back to earth after a serious medical situation.

Julia Ainsley (10:59)

That is next.

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Yasmin Basugin (12:38)

Welcome back to here's the sue from NBC News.

Tom Costello (12:40)

Dragon SpaceX we see splash down.

Yasmin Basugin (12:43)

That's NASA Crew 11 landing in the waters of San Diego early this morning.

Tom Costello (12:48)

On behalf of SpaceX and NASA, welcome home crew 11.

Yasmin Basugin (12:52)

SpaceX Dragon, it's so good to be home. The four astronauts were brought home early from the International Space Station after what NASA is calling a quote, serious medical situation with one of the astronauts on board. With the crew safely now back on Earth, we are learning more about why the mission ended. So I'm gonna turn to the guy who knows everything about aviation and space. Here at NBC News, Tom Costello. Do you wanna go to space? Do you have ambitions to have ever gone to space?

Tom Costello (13:20)

My wife would love to send me to space. Are you kidding me? One way trip, you look at these incredible images of, you know, of the Earth and what we all like to experience. Absolutely would love to experience that.

Yasmin Basugin (13:31)

Yeah, me too. I have to say, before we get into what actually took place up there, this seemed to be overnight, this picture perfect return to Earth for these astronauts. Walk me through what we saw.

Tom Costello (13:45)

We'll start yesterday at 5:20pm Eastern time. They pulled back from the International space station. So four crew members climbing into their SpaceX Dragon capsule for the 10 and a half hour trip back to Earth. And then they in fact began the deorbit burn very early this morning, splashing down off the coast of San Diego at about 3:41am Eastern Time. Immediately they were met by the SpaceX recovery ship. And if you saw any of the video, you may have noticed that they, each individual crew member was brought out of that SpaceX capsule and they seemed a little wobbly. That's normal. They had been up in space for five months, right? So that doesn't speak to any particular medical issue. Each one of them is put on a stretcher, kind of wheeled out and away. They got a quick evaluation there on site with a doctor on board the ship, then put on a helicopter and flown to San Diego and a hospital there. All four of them. Now keep in mind, of course, it's the middle of the night, they are all exhausted. One of them is suffering from a medical issue. So they decided let's put them all in the hospital for a day or so, give them some rest, give them some fluids if they need it. Mostly you usually do need fluids after you've been in space. And then they will tomorrow, Friday, send them all to Houston and Johnson Space center for a full post flight evaluation and then the medical treatment that the astronaut needs.

Yasmin Basugin (15:08)

Who are the astronauts? How many Americans were on board?

Tom Costello (15:11)

Two Americans. And you've also got a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut. Zena Cardman was the commander of Crew 11. She's the only female member of the team. And then separately you've got Mike Fink, who's a veteran Astronaut, he was the pilot of Crew 11 and then on station he became the space station commander. So when they pulled away from the station, he had to relinquish command, hand over command to his Russian colleague on station.

Yasmin Basugin (15:39)

So, so now that they are home, what do we know about what caused the medical evacuation? Is NASA sharing anything and, or who was affected? If, if it was either of the Americans on board?

Tom Costello (15:52)

Officially on the record? No. NASA is not telling us which astronaut has suffered a medical condition or what that condition is. They've been very, very closely guarded on this, trying to protect the, the astronauts medical privacy as required by law. But also as at NASA, we do know that it's not a physical injury. And then during the news conference this morning at 5:45am I found this comment rather interesting as they were again asked by reporters what was the condition. And this was the answer, I'm going to quote it here. And it comes from the deputy administrator at NASA. He said, I would say we don't know at this point. I mean this is something that could have happened on Earth, you know, completely outside the microgravity environment. At this point. I don't think we know that. We. In other words, what he's saying is we don't know whether this could have happened on Earth or whether it was something that developed because of the microgravity environment. So that has of course got everybody talking about well, what could that have been?

Yasmin Basugin (16:53)

That gives us though clues that it is in fact likely physical and not mental.

Tom Costello (16:58)

Oh, there. I don't think there's ever been any suggestion that this is mental. Let me tell you how this all went down a week ago. We heard the conversation, but the space to ground radio call, the space station got on and asked mission control quickly can you dial up and go on to video conference from our module here on station? What was interesting is the call did not come from Zena Cardman, the commander, it came from the Japanese astronaut. He speaks fluent English, but it's a little difficult to understand. And he said we need to have the flight surgeon come up twice. He said we need the flight surgeon. And then 24 hours later we get the notice that NASA is bringing them home. So if you then look at yesterday, on Tuesday, rather we had, as I mentioned, the change of command ceremony on the space station. Mike Fink, again, the pilot who was the space station commander, he seemed to have a lot of energy. And as he handed over command to his Russian colleague, everybody was there. Xena Carbon was also there in the shot. She was a little more Muted. As. As you might have noticed, this is.

Yasmin Basugin (18:03)

An unprecedented moment because in the 25 years that NASA has sent astronauts to the International Space Station, a crew has never returned early. You mentioned the flight surgeon. You mentioned the call that came in from the space station asking to speak with the flight surgeon multiple times.

Tom Costello (18:21)

Yeah.

Yasmin Basugin (18:21)

How serious does a medical situation need to be in order to order a return of astronauts?

Ted Danson (18:27)

A.

Yasmin Basugin (18:28)

And how are they medically monitoring these astronauts?

Tom Costello (18:33)

So not only is it the first time that they have come back prematurely from the space station because of a medical issue, but it's the first time in NASA history. You go all the way back to the very first space flights. Apollo, Mercury. Never before had they cut a mission short because of a medical issue. Now, to your question about what exactly is the procedure, protocols, et cetera, on station? They actually have a pretty well equipped medical setup on the station that includes a defibrillator, for example, it includes ultrasounds. All of these astronauts have a degree of medical training that is probably somewhere between EMT and paramedic. They've all spent time in an ER learning. They can all start an iv, they can do suturing, all with the help of the surgeon who's down on the ground giving them advice, telling them, you need to start this iv, this medication. So they can do an awful lot. Listen, they have dealt with kidney stones, where quite literally, they can dissolve the kidney stones because they have the right meds. They've dealt with somebody who had a blood clot before. They've got clot busters on station. So this was clearly something that was beyond their capability on station. And they did not feel that they could wait another month until they were supposed to come back to Earth. They needed to get that astronaut down sooner.

Yasmin Basugin (19:51)

The consequences, though, of making that decision, I think are interesting as well, which is twofold. The cost of bringing astronauts home early. What is that? And also is it taken into consideration how it could feasibly compromise the mission of these astronauts to bring them home early?

Tom Costello (20:06)

These are NASA engineers. They are nothing if not thorough. They do calculate the dollars and cents, but they also calculate the cost to the mission. In this case, Crew 11 had been on station for five months, so they had done five months of their six months of science that was required of them. So they worked through an awful lot of that already. The other issue, though, is going to be how does this impact staffing on the space station and the next scheduled mission? They like to have seven people on station at all times. They prefer to have more Americans on than just one. So they now need to get Crew 12 up there, a full complement onto station. However, the next scheduled mission is supposed to be Artemis 2 going on that huge loop around the moon. Does that now mean that in fact Crew 12 has to take priority because you gotta resupply, restaff the station, and therefore does the Artemis 2 mission around the moon slide? Early today, Jared Isaac, the NASA chief, said right now they're still working on parallel paths. I think they can do both.

Yasmin Basugin (21:13)

Tom Costello, thank you. Maybe that mission to Mars will come one day.

Tom Costello (21:19)

Oh, I think it's coming, but I'm not going to be.

Yasmin Basugin (21:21)

No, I mean for you. For me?

Tom Costello (21:22)

No, no, no, no. I'm going to be on a beach in Hawaii. No way.

Yasmin Basugin (21:26)

Me too. You and me both.

Julia Ainsley (21:28)

Thanks, Tom.

Yasmin Basugin (21:31)

All right, let's get to some headlines. On the last day for ACA open enrollment in most states, the Trump administration is announcing its own plan aimed at lowering health care costs. It's called the Great Health Care Plan. The administration says it'll help lower prescription drug prices, redirect government subsidies from insurers to consumers, and expand price transparency requirements. The plan largely restates proposals that the president has pitched before. And some of the provisions would require congressional approval, raising questions about whether and how quickly they could be implemented. European allies are sending troops to Greenland, a signal to President Trump as he doubled down on his threats to conquer or purchase the semi autonomous Danish territory. Denmark said it's also surging military presence in and around Greenland, including sending additional aircraft, ships and soldiers. This comes just a day after top diplomats from Denmark and Greenland met with the Trump administration, where they, quote, agreed to disagree. They remained in Washington today to meet with senators, including Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski and Maine independent Angus King. California is launching an investigation into Elon Musk's company Xai and Grok, after Grok's artificial intelligence model produced thousands of sexualized images of women and children. California AG Rob Bonta said that the investigation will look at the proliferation of non consensual sexually explicit material produced by Grok, which he says are being used to harass women and girls across the Internet. NBC News has reached out to X and Grok for comment. Last week, X appeared to have limited image generation and editing to paying subscribers. 26 people allegedly involved in rigging college basketball games in the United States and professional ball in China are being indicted. Federal prosecutors say the conspiracy dates back to September of 2022 and largely involved point shaving, where someone is paid to manipulate the margin of victory. They say the scheme involved more than 39 players on more than 17 different NCAA men's basketball teams. The accused allegedly fixed or tried to fix at least 30 games for millions of dollars in bets. U.S. attorney David Metcalfe announced the indictments in Philadelphia today.

Tom Costello (23:49)

When criminals pollute the purity of sports by manipulating competition, it doesn't just imperil the integrity of sports betting markets and imperils the integrity of sport itself and everything that sports represent to us. You know, hard work, determination and fairness.

Yasmin Basugin (24:06)

The suspects face a slew of charges, including alleged bribery in sports, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and aiding and abetting. And speaking of a rigged game, soccer fans are calling foul over the price of World cup tickets. FIFA is staging its largest ever World cup this year with 48 soccer teams playing in 16 cities across North America. And analysts saying it's also shaping up to be the most expensive World cup in history. Seat Prices range from $700 to $8600, and they're going for even more on the resale market. FIFA has tried to quell some of the backlash by adding a limited number of $60 tickets for federations to distribute to their biggest fans. But a lot of people are still not happy, just crazy. We have to remortgage, get loans. Just nobody has that sort of spare money. It's just been unfair. Still, FIFA says it's received more than 500 million ticket requests so far. So maybe people really are refinancing to make it work. All right, that's gonna do it for us. And here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Dasugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you tomorrow.

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