The Concrete Jungle is about to feel like an Arctic tundra.
Bone-chilling temperatures will make staying outdoors a threat to life and health this weekend in the New York metro area, meteorologists and officials said.
According to the National Weather Service, New York City and surrounding areas are likely to experience the coldest temperatures of the year so far, especially Saturday night into Sunday. The agency has issued an extreme cold warning for that period.
NWS meteorologist David Stark said an “Arctic cold front” will move in Saturday morning, bringing a brief window of snowfall before the temperatures start to plummet.
“We're going to start the day in the lower 20s, and then it looks like by early evening we could be down [to] around 10 degrees,” he said.
Lows are predicted to be around 5 degrees by early Sunday morning. They’ll be made all the worse by high gusts.
Subzero wind chills make for dangerously cold weekend in NYC area, officials warn
Far-right influencer and US Senate candidate arrested for damaging anti-ICE sculpture
The far-right influencer and US Senate candidate Jake Lang has been arrested after recording himself damaging an anti-ICE sculpture at Minnesota’s capitol amid the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s crackdown there.
On 5 February, Lang, who received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump over his role in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, posted a video on X of himself kicking down the sculpture, which was made from ice – as in, frozen water. His efforts changed it from reading “Prosecute ICE” to “Pro ICE”, referring to the federal agency.
Local authorities arrested Lang that same day and jailed the Florida resident on suspicion of criminal damage to property, which is classified as a felony.
A veterans organization, Common Defense, had commissioned the ice sculpture and installed it on the steps of Minnesota’s state capitol in St Paul. The group had obtained permits for the display.
“I gave eight years of my life in service to this country in the military,” Common Defense’s communications director, Jacob Thomas, said in a statement, as reported by the local news station Fox 9. Referring to the constitutional right to free speech, Thomas’s statement continued: “For a [January 6] insurrectionist to destroy our display is an attack on the First Amendment veterans like me fought to defend.”
Pentagon to cut ties with Harvard over ‘wokesters ’, ending training, programs and fellowships
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said the Pentagon is ending all military training, fellowships and certificate programs with Harvard University, marking the Trump administration’s latest escalation against the Ivy League school.
“The @DeptWar is formally ending ALL Professional Military Education, fellowships, and certificate programs with Harvard University,” Hegseth said in a statement posted on X, labeling Harvard as “woke”.
Hegseth, a former Fox weekend host, attacked the university as “one of the red-hot centers of Hate America activism”.
“Too many faculty members openly loathe our military; they cast our armed forces in. a negative light and squelch anyone who challenges their leftist political leanings,” said Hegseth, who made no mention of the masters in public policy he earned from Harvard’s John F Kennedy school of government.
“With some exceptions,” Hegseth added, “the Ivy League as a whole has pervasive institutional bias and a lack of viewpoint diversity, including the coddling of toxic ideologies that undercuts our mission.”
“That is why, in two weeks’ time, components of all of our departments – army, navy and air force – will evaluate all existing graduate programs for active-duty service members at all Ivy League universities and other civilian universities,” he added.
JD Vance mercilessly booed at Olympics as US athletes denounce Trump admin
Vice President JD Vance was reportedly booed at the Milan Cortina Winter Games as U.S. Olympians denounced President Donald Trump's administration.
A video shared on social media showed the audience booing Vance as the camera panned by him during the Opening Ceremony on Friday.
"Those are a lot of boos for him," one announcer noted.
At a press conference, members of the U.S. figure skating team were asked about the Trump administration's use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to crack down on migrants.
"I feel heartbroken about what's happened in the United States when, you know, I'm pretty sure you're referencing ICE and some of the protests and things like that," freestyle skater Chris Lillis told reporters. "I think that as a country, we need to focus on respecting everybody's rights and making sure that we're treating our citizens as well as anybody with love and respect."
"It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think. It's a little hard," skater Hunter Hess agreed. "There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren't."
Trump’s racist post about Obamas is deleted after backlash despite White House earlier defending it
President Donald Trump shared a clip of former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama appearing as apes in a late-night Truth Social post on Feb. 5 before taking it down the following day amid bipartisan pushback.
The roughly minute-long video centered on footage discussing unsubstantiated voter fraud allegations in the 2020 presidential election before briefly flipping to the clip of the Obamas.
The image of the Obamas, which appeared to have been generated by artificial intelligence, showed the bodies of two apes whose faces have been replaced by that of the former president and first lady. They appeared to be in a jungle with apes flying in the background.
The White House initially dismissed criticism that the video was racist, and said it is from a meme depicting Trump and the Obamas as characters from the Lion King. Trump does not appear in the video, which he posted just before midnight on Feb. 5 with no accompanying text.
But by noon ET on Feb. 6 ‒ after the post had been up about 12 hours ‒ it no longer appeared on Truth Social. A White House official told USA TODAY on Feb. 6 a White House staffer had erroneously made the post and that it was taken down. Trump personally ordered the post be removed, a second White House official said.
The video was among more than 60 posts and reposts from Trump's Truth Social account made during a rapid flurry of activity that started at 10:36 p.m. ET on Feb. 5 and ended 12:25 a.m. ET. Yet a close Trump ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the president had no knowledge of the post and that a staffer let Trump down.
A small group of trusted White House officials have access to the president's social media accounts. A 2024 documentary, "Art of the Surge: The Donald Trump Comeback," showed Trump dictating to Natalie Harp, executive assistant to the president, what to write in one of his posts.
Judge rules Texas anti-ESG law is unconstitutional
A federal judge this week determined that a Texas state law that seeks to prevent state funds from being invested with financial firms that boycott fossil fuel companies is unconstitutional.
Texas federal Judge Alan Albright, an appointee of President Trump, found that state law S.B. 13 was a violation of the First and 14th amendments.
“SB 13’s application to protected speech is ‘substantial,’” he wrote in a decision published Wednesday, adding that this makes it “unconstitutional and unenforceable.”
He found the law to be too broad, saying it “permits the State to penalize companies for all manner of protected expression concerning fossil fuels.”
West Bank: Ongoing Invasions And Violations
Israeli occupation forces carried out a series of invasions across several West Bank towns on Wednesday, firing toxic tear gas into residential areas, causing dozens of suffocation injuries, and abducting two brothers from the Jenin district.
In al‑Mughayyer, northeast of Ramallah, Israeli forces invaded the town and fired large quantities of toxic tear gas toward homes and residential neighborhoods.
Witnesses said the gas spread quickly between houses and along internal roads, leading to widespread suffocation, particularly among children and the elderly.
Local sources reported that soldiers deployed through several neighborhoods, heightening fear among residents as gas filled the streets.
The invasion is part of a pattern of continuous violations targeting the town, including repeated incursions, the firing of gas and live ammunition, and attacks by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers.
Ukraine Returns 157 Soldiers, Civilians in First POW Exchange of 2026
On Thursday, Feb. 5, Ukraine and Russia carried out a prisoner exchange that resulted in the return of 157 Ukrainians from Russian captivity, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“Ours are home – 157 Ukrainians,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram, calling the exchange especially significant as it took place after a long pause in swaps. He said those freed included soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, and the State Border Guard Service, as well as civilians.
“Most of them had been in captivity since 2022,” the president said, thanking everyone involved in organizing the exchange and Ukrainian forces whose actions help sustain Ukraine’s negotiating position.
Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said the swap was the first prisoner exchange of 2026 and the 71st since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
ICE chartered Palestinian deportation flights on Trump family friend’s jet
A new Guardian investigation has revealed a secretive and politically sensitive US government operation to deport Palestinians arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
A private jet owned by Florida property tycoon Gil Dezer, a longtime business partner of Donald Trump, has twice flown Palestinian men from Arizona to Tel Aviv.
Private jet owned by Florida property tycoon Gil Dezer has twice flown Palestinian men from Arizona to Tel Aviv, the Guardian found –
Dezer is also a Trump donor, friend of Donald Trump Jr and member of the Miami branch of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.
Former US officials and immigration lawyers said the flights – and Israel’s assistance in returning Palestinians to the occupied territory – marked a shift in policy driven by the Trump administration’s aggressive mass deportation campaign.
US officials did not answer questions about the cost of the two recent flights to Israel but, according to ICE, chartered flight costs have ranged between nearly $7,000 and more than $26,000 per flight hour in the past. Aviation industry sources estimated the flights to and from Israel would have cost ICE from $400,000 to $500,000.
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