Global News Podcast - Woman shot dead by US immigration agent

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

The mayor of Minneapolis in the United States has strongly rejected the Trump administration's account of the fatal shooting of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the city. Jacob Frey said video of the incident directly contradicted assertions by the White House that the agent had shot Renee Good in self defence. Hundreds of people gathered in protest at the site of her shooting, lighting candles overnight. Video shows she was shot as she drove off when ICE agents were trying to stop her. Also: President Trump has said that Venezuela has agreed to use the proceeds from the sale of its oil to buy only American-made goods. A study in Britain indicates that people who stop weight-loss jabs put the weight back on much quicker than if they'd lost it by dieting. And Aldrich Ames, the most damaging CIA traitor in agency history, dies aged 84.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight.Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment.Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Chris Barrow, and at 430 GMT on Thursday the 8th of January, these are our main stories. The shooting dead of a woman by a federal immigration officer in the U.S. City of Minneapolis has sparked a huge row between the Trump administration and local officials over who's to blame. Donald Trump says Venezuela has agreed to buy only American goods with the money it will receive from a new oil deal. Our international editor gives us his assessment. of the changing world order. Also in this podcast,

these drugs are really helpful in losing weight, but they're not a silver bullet. So you really need to think about these as part of a much longer-term strategy. A new study suggests that people who stop taking weight loss jabs put weight back on much more quickly than if they'd been dieting. And in tennis, the wildest of wild cards. Most of her serves to not get over the net.

The balls are bypassing her, and at one stage, she doesn't seem clear on which side of the court to serve. A woman who could barely hit a serve loses almost every single point at a tournament in Kenya. First to Minneapolis in the United States. Say her name! Renee Good! Say her name! Renee Good! The chance of hundreds of people who've been attending a vigil for Renee Good,

a 37-year-old woman shot dead in a car by a federal agent from ICE, that's Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. The incident has sparked a row over who was to blame. Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Noam, claimed the woman had blocked the road with her car, then tried to run over officers. ICE agents repeatedly ordered her to get out of the car and to stop obstructing law enforcement,

but she refused to obey their commands. She then proceeded to weaponize her vehicle, and she attempted to run law enforcement officer over. This appears as an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism. The ICE officer fearing for his life and the other officers around him and the safety of the public fired defensive shots. He used his training to save his own life and that of his colleagues. But the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Fry, says that account of what happened isn't true and that immigration agents should leave the city. We've dreaded this moment

since the early stages of this ice presence in Minneapolis. They are not here to cause safety in this city. What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust. They're ripping families apart. They're sowing chaos on our streets. And in this case, quite literally killing people. David Willis is our North America correspondent.

Well, video of this incident, Chris, shows a maroon-colored SUV cutting through a crowd of federal agent vehicles on a suburban street. And as the SUV moves forward, an immigration official attempts to open the driver's side door. And at that point, the vehicle accelerates and narrowly missing another official in its path, another agent, who draws his weapons. and fires several shots. Now, the SUV then crashes into a part car, and it's since been revealed that the person behind the wheel, the victim of this incident, was 37-year-old René Good. Now, officials say that she was not the target of immigration enforcement activity at the time.

How can there be two very, very different characterizations of the events that took place, when even the video evidence that you suggest that, you know, it can be interpreted surely in any one way, no? Well, that's right. There are two starkly contrasting accounts of what happened, Chris. The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Fry, has accused those federal agents of sewing chaos in the city. The Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walts

blamed the incident on a federal administration that seeks to, as he put it, ferment fear. headlines and conflict. And Donald Trump weighed in as well, claiming that the agent in question acted in self-defense. He said the driver of the car viciously tried to run over the agent who seemed to have shot her in self-defense. The reason Mr. Trump goes on, these incidents are happening, is because the radical left is threatening, assaulting and targeting our law enforcement officers and ICE agents on a daily basis. But, It's true that hundreds of immigration enforcement agents have been sent to the state of Minnesota in the last month

as part of this nationwide crackdown brought into effect by the Trump administration on illegal immigration has taken place. And another 2,000 federal agents are due to arrive this very week in the state, that state of Minnesota. And that has led to tension with local residents. as a result of which the governor, Tim Walts, has put the National Guard on standby in the event that protests break out there. David Willis. Donald Trump has announced that any money Caracas receives from oil sales will only be used to buy products made in America

and that he'll decide how the profits will be divided between the US and Venezuela. He also claims that the US taking control of Venezuela's oil reserves will bring prices down. So how will this affect the market price of oil? is our business correspondent. Donald Trump says it will come down because of an increased supply, you know, just working on a basic supply and demand premise. But the numbers don't really back that up.

Venezuela contributes less than 1% to the world's global oil supply. The supply in general is pretty high now. The US uses around 20 million barrels of oil a day. So we need to be talking about an enormous amount of oil to move the dial here. and that's just not the case. There is also, of course, a political dimension to all. We know Donald Trump is vulnerable on the economy, on the cost of living. The midterm elections are at the end of the year. And he will be wanting to show that he's doing everything possible to lower that cost of living, not least by bringing down the price of oil. China used to buy most of Venezuela's oil. So will they continue to do that? Or is it going to be tainted by the Donald Trump connection? Well, it looks like they won't be able to if the US is indeed controlling the oil supplies. The White House says it is.

China will find another supplier, probably a more expensive one. There's been reports of maybe Iranian oil, but it's a disruption for Beijing more than a proper economic blow because Venezuelan oil only made up of quite a small percentage of China's oil imports. What it does do, though, is it effectively severed a partnership that had been getting closer and closer for many years. Now, China had been pouring lots of money into Venezuela in exchange for this oil, and that displeased the White House. Marco Rubio has explicitly said that America's adversaries were operating in the Western Hemisphere, in Latin America, where the US should be calling the shots.

And you can see now with these increasing crackdowns on the so-called shadow fleets, transporting sanctioned oil to regimes like Russia, in Iran, other American adversaries, that this is something that the United States is taking very seriously. And as with all these sort of geopolitical machinations, a lot of it does boil down to this rivalry between Beijing and Washington. The oil companies themselves, presumably they have a say. It's all very well saying, you know, we'll take over. But the oil companies, they might not want to invest in this setup. Well, they've not said anything publicly. We know that the US Energy Secretary is meeting with them this week. The White House is very keen to get them on board. But they're going to want security guarantees.

They're going to want guarantees of political stability. We still don't really know who's, running things in Venezuela right now. These companies were kicked out in the late 2000s under Hugo Chavez when the oil industry was fully nationalized. They lost billions in assets. They're going to want guarantees on returns for the billions and billions they're going to have to invest. And the many, many years it's going to take to rebuild this industry that's fallen into disuse. Donald Trump says 18 months, experts say it's going to take a lot longer than that. And then there's the question of where are these profits going to go? Because these oil companies are going to be ultimately accountable to their shareholders much more than they will

be to the people of Venezuela. Then there's this question about Venezuela being forced to buy American-made products as a result of any profits that they might make. Can you see that working? It's an America-first policy, you know, that the White House is very openly pursued. The truth is really, we know so few of the concrete details here. There's a strong chance that the policy is still being worked out because on the one hand, The White House is saying American oil companies have the right to control the Venezuelan oil industry.

But at the same time, it will be paying Venezuela for this oil. It's still very much up in the air where this money is going to go, who this investment is going to come from, and crucially, when it's going to happen. Nick Marsh there, and it's not just Venezuela that the US has in its sights. The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he'll hold talks with Denmark next week about the future of Greenland. Donald Trump recently said he was considering using the military, to take it by force. Denmark, which has control over Greenland's foreign and defence policy,

has warned that any attack could see the end of the NATO military alliance. So why does President Trump want the territory? A question for our diplomatic correspondent, James Landell. Well, if you look at the map, the Arctic is a crucial geopolitical battleground. And as the ice melts, Trump claims that the seaways are crawling with Russian and Chinese ships. But it's not just about security. Greenland is also packed with valuable natural resources, including oil and critical minerals that the Americans want. And the new US national security strategy also highlights Trump's belief that the US should be able to dominate what he calls the Western Hemisphere. And that means the north as well as the south. So what are the president's options? Well, the US could attack the capital

nuke, even though Denmark has hardly any troops there. What we're talking about is political theater, really. They could have a single officer walk into downtown nuke and just claim that Greenland is now the possession of the United States. There's no armed force they need to quell or there's no local population that they need to attack. European leaders warned this week that any military action would fundamentally damage the transatlantic alliance. But today, Mr. Trump hit back, saying he doubted his NATO allies would be there for the US if it really needed them. We will always be there for NATO, he said, even if they won't be there for us. So if military action is less likely, what else?

Well, the US could buy Greenland, something the White House says is actively being considered. America's top diplomat says he'll discuss options with Danish officials next week. If the president identifies a threat to the national security of the United States, every president retains the option to address it through military means as a diplomat which is what I am now and what we work on we always prefer to settle it in different ways but buying Greenland would require the support of the 57,000 people who live there and polls suggest they may not be that keen there are two camps one wants to annex Greenland the other one wants to persuade and buy Greenland

and I would say that neither should happen Greenland is not for sale and Greenland will never be for sale A third option would be to offer the people of Greenland a special association agreement where the US would control their defence and they in return would get economic support. As for a fourth option, well, the US already has an air base in Greenland. It could simply send thousands more troops under an existing military deal. But for now, the US seems to want this Arctic snowscape for its own, whatever the cost. James Landell.

For more on this story, you can go on YouTube, search. for BBC News and click on the logo and then choose podcasts and Global News Podcasts. There you'll find more analysis on whether President Trump would use military force to take control of Greenland. And there's a new story available every weekday. So

what does all of this mean for America's role in the world and for everyone else? I asked our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, for his assessment. Well, if you look at the way that Donald Trump behaved when he came back to office for his second term, the phrase being used by his people

in Washington was that they were flooding the zone. In other words, there was just this bewildering fury of activity, closing down departments, firing people, cutting budgets, all that sort of thing. I think at the moment we're seeing not just a hemispheric, but a global version of that. And he's moving so quickly that it's causing consternation, I think, not just among adversaries, but among allies as well. And that's because they can't predict which way he's going. Is it just good judgment? Is it arrogance? Is it hubris overconfidence before a disaster?

We've talked about a new world order before, but do you feel like this is a new world order? What we're seeing now is really the starkest exposition, if you like, of the way that Donald Trump and his people regard power and the way that power is used and the way that America can use it. And I think there are some constants in the way that they've, behave even though he's super unpredictable. He believes strongly that America can use power with impunity. Now the record of America using power in moments like this, and I'm thinking particularly

after the 9-11 attacks in 2001 when Al-Qaeda attacked America, that ended really badly for the Americans. There was that mood then of we can do a great deal and look how strong we are. It was expressed differently. They believed in alliances in a sense. But the results in Iraq, And in Afghanistan were disaster in places, catastrophe and others. So he thinks, though, it's going to be different because he has great faith in the power of his will, backed up by raw American power. And he's surrounded by people who agree with him

and keep telling him he's right. I just wonder, as China and Russia, how will they be viewing these events? Chinese diplomats, I think, did about the last meeting with the former Venezuelan president before the Americans went in. just a matter of hours beforehand. They were in his palace and he was joking with them dressed in a nice suit, not in the prison garb that he's wearing now. And today, the tanker that the

American seized in the North Atlantic was, the Russians said temporarily, but it was under a Russian flag. Now, interestingly, while the Chinese condemned what they, I think, correctly assessed to be a blatant violation of international law and the attacks on Venezuela, the Russians have been very muted about that tanker. Now, why is this? I think it's because both those big countries are eyeing Trump and they're thinking, hmm, I wonder what he's up to, not least, because if he believes there can be an American empire, then maybe he'll agree that there can be a Chinese empire in Asia. And maybe he'll agree with Russia that actually they deserve to have Ukraine. And they certainly deserve to have all of the territory that they're claiming in the formulations of possible ceasefire agreements. So I think they are probably now standing back.

There are smart, experienced people in Moscow and in Beijing, and they are thinking, what's in this for us? BBC International editor Jeremy Bowen. Still to come in the Global News podcast. He was responsible for at least 10 people being executed, jeopardized some 20 more who were imprisoned. He lived in a moral abyss. The CIA's worst ever traitor,

has died at the age of 84. New data published in the British Medical Journal suggests that people who stop taking weight loss jabs can put the pounds back on around four times faster than if they'd been dieting and exercising. The research from the University of Oxford was led by Professor Susan Jeb. She's been speaking to our health reporter Jim Reid.

What this research has shown is these drugs are really helpful in losing weight, but they're not a silver bullet. They're not a magic solution forevermore. When people stop the treatment, the weight goes back on surprisingly quickly. So you really need to think about these as part of a much longer term strategy to help you control your weight. One of the messages that came through is that people on these kind of drugs are going to need more support to come off them. Whilst people were taking these weight loss medications, those people who also had a good behavioural support program, helping them to reset their diet and physical activity, actually were much more successful and they lost four and a half kilos more weight

than those people who didn't have that extra support. Unfortunately, that behavioural support whilst they were taking the drugs did not seem to protect them against weight regain later. And that suggests that if treatment stops, people are going to need some other help. the moment, I don't think we know what is the best option, but there's lots of research ongoing so that we'll be able to give people advice on how best to maintain their weight loss in the future. And can I ask you one question about what your research showed around the other markers to your health and how quickly they returned to baseline? Because this wasn't necessarily just about weight, right? This was about cardiovascular and other issues.

So when people lose weight, we see that all the risk factors for high, heart disease improve quite markedly and very quickly. So blood pressure comes down, blood glucose control improves, cholesterol reduces. And that's fantastic news because it's what helps improve your health and reduce your long-term chances of heart disease. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, if you put weight back on, then those problems return. So we really do need to find a way of consolidating that weight loss in order to also preserve those long-term health benefits too. You mentioned it's not a silver bullet for individuals, presumably the same thing will go for the health service here. And there was some suggestion that this might not be as cost effective as potentially

some people might hope. For people with severe and complex obesity, these treatments really are incredibly important and they're going to be a very good way to help them improve their health. but they may well need to be continued long term. For people with less severe obesity, it's questionable whether these will be cost effective and what we should probably be doing is really ensuring we give other people access to other cheaper forms of support.

We know that many dietary programs are actually very successful and although you perhaps lose a little bit less weight than you do with the drug treatment, you may keep it off for longer. So I think we need to use these drugs in a very intelligent way, focusing them on the people with the greatest clinical need, but ensuring that other people also have access to other treatments that can help them manage their weight.

Professor Susan Jeb, and her study comes as separate research from University College London and the University of Cambridge found that people prescribed the new generation of weight loss drugs may be vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies and muscle loss. While pupils in Western countries returned to school after the Christmas break, in Gaza, many children are going back to school for the first time in more than two years. Most of the Strip's 658,000 school-aged children have had no formal education since the outbreak of war with Israel in October 2023.

According to the UN Children's Agency UNICEF, over 97% of schools have been damaged or destroyed. But after a so-called ceasefire was announced, and despite hunger, shortages and displacement, many Palestinian families are choosing education first. Shai Mahalil's been following their stories. Walking in a straight line, there are small arms rusting on each other's shoulders. Pupils are beaming as they head into a tented makeshift school in Gaza City.

For two years, Gaza was more accustomed to children screaming in pain. Now, the buzz of classrooms full of pupils is back. This makeshift school stands on the ruins of an old one, destroyed by Israeli strikes. For a few hours a day, it offers something rare. Structure and relative safety, a glimpse of the lives they once knew. 14-year-old Naima al-Azmer and Ritha al-Aa Harp

were students here before the war. The thing I miss most about returning to school is having a better space for learning, like more classrooms, as it's so tight here, and being in a solid room, rather than a tent. This isn't really a school now. It's made of tarps and tents.

Before we were in a proper school building and we used to study every day. Now it's every other day. The thing I miss most about school before is my teachers, my friends and the education. As they restart school, their smiles carry something fragile, but powerful, the sense that life might finally begin to move forward, despite the continued suffering. Run by UNICEF, the school brings together children from the original classrooms

and those displaced by war. It doesn't teach the full Palestinian curriculum, just the basics. English, Arabic, and maths. Classes run in three shifts, trying to reach thousands of children who were forced to flee again and again, while tens of thousands more, still have no access to education at all. The school's principal, Dr. Mohamed Sa'eich Heber, says despite the efforts, they're unable to accommodate everyone. We only have six classrooms in one shift. We have a neighbouring camp next to the school. It has displaced people from the north and from East Gaza.

There is a large number wishing to register in this school, but we can't take them. So much is still missing. UN spokesperson Jonathan Crick stands outside one of the tents of the UNICEF Gaza City School and points to what the children still don't have. Education supplies have not been prioritized to enter the Gaza Strip. So what I'm talking about is paper, notebooks, pens, erasers, rulers. We have been asking for a long time that these school supplies can enter the Gaza Strip and they haven't been allowed in.

It's the same for mental health toy kids that can be used to do mental health activities and recreational activities with the children. These are also supplies that cannot end up. enter for the moment. An Israeli security official referred us to the Prime Minister's office who did not respond to our questions. Despite the ceasefire, Israel's bombardment of Gaza continues with almost daily strikes in response to what it says are Hamas violations of the deal.

But still, these children keep coming to class. Kulud Habib is a teacher at the school in Gaza City. She explains why being here is paramount to the lives of Gazans. Education. There is no debate that it is the foundation of our lives as Palestinians. It is our capital in this life. We lose homes. We lose money. We lose everything. But knowledge is what we invest in our children. So much has been taken away from them. Their homes, their safety, their loved ones.

What remains is a belief that learning still matters. That it's a lifeline to a future they still dare to imagine. Thank you. That report by Shima Khalil. Oldrich Ames was the worst traitor in the history of the CIA. He was jailed for life in 1994 for giving the Soviet Union the names of at least 10 Soviet agents who were working with American intelligence during the Cold War, which led to them being executed for treason.

It was a hugely damaging breach of security, not least because Ames was head of the CIA's Soviet counterintelligence branch. The US government banned the press from talking to him, But prison staff didn't get the message, so they allowed the Washington Post reporter Pete Early to interview him. And he's been speaking to my colleague James Menendez. Like all these spies, he wanted to tell his story because it gave him a chance to rationalize and justify

and talk about how it's just a game and it's just a matter of us catching them and them catching us. He minimized that completely. How did he rationalize sending so many agents to their deaths? His attitude was, look, I betrayed my country. The U.S. was going to try to catch me, and if they caught me, I'd be in prison the rest of my life. And the same was true about the Soviets who had volunteered to help us. And so in his eyes, it was either them or him. And he claimed that he picked out three people who the Russians had tried to send us that he knew weren't real spies. And he gave those names to him. And then it dawned on. him that once he had gotten paid by the KGB, our spies over there would see his name, recognized that he was in the CIA and a traitor and turn him in. And so then he immediately went and gave the Russians the names of every one of the U.S. assets that were working for us,

and he completely closed down our eyes and ears in Moscow for quite a long period. He was responsible for at least 10 people being executed, jeopardized some 20 more who were imprisoned. He lived in a moral abyss. It was all transactional. He had a fellow who was a good close friend to his. He had recruited, as a matter of fact, and he turned that guy over to the KGB. They didn't execute him. He escaped the country. He got to Canada. He called Ames, and they were good friends and told Ames, you know, he wanted to get back in the United States. And what did Ames do? He called the KGB and told him, hey, this is where he is in Kenneth.

Was it just for the money? Was that his motivation, do you think? Yes, he was leaving his first wife and was madly in love with Rosario, this flamboyant Latino from Columbia. And he needed $50,000 to get rid of the divorce and marry Rosario. He'd said, the truth is, I did it. it for love and also grandiosity, becoming this international man of mystery, I get effect history, etc. He wanted to be somebody and he couldn't believe anybody was ever going

to catch him. What gave him up in the end? Was it just his levels of spending? Yes, it was the levels of spending and good detective work. And also, he covered his tracks well. Pete Early, the author of Confessions of a Spy, the real story of Aldrich Ames. Professional tennis tournaments, including grand slams like Wimbledon, have wild card entries, which have spaces in the draw usually reserved for players like local stars or perhaps big names that have fallen out of the rankings. They certainly bring in big crowds, but they haven't managed to qualify through the normal route. One, however, has turned out to be wilder than most. She's a 21-year-old Egyptian called Hadjar Abdul Qadar, whose first round match at an

international tennis federation event in Nairobi is quite something to behold, especially because the prize money for the tournament is $30,000. Footage on the ITF website shows her struggling to hit the ball. Her German opponent, ranked 1,026th in the world, dropped only three points in her six-love, six-love win, and unbelievably two of them were double faults. So just how bad was it? James Kumarasami put that question to Tamara Pren,

a sports writer with the British Daily Mail newspaper. It feels unprecedented to me, and I'm sure it will have felt unprecedented to so many tennis fans, watching it. To say it's a standard far away from what you would expect at any level on any of the tennis tours internationally is an understatement, I think, for all of those people who say, oh, I could beat top 10 players. You maybe don't have a chance of doing that, but you could have a chance of getting at least a set against Aved al-Qaeda. How could something like this happen?

Wild cards are given at the discretion of the tournament organizers. So in this case, that was tennis, Kenya, rather than the ITF. And they can be given for all sorts of reasons. Perhaps you want to give an opportunity to a promising junior who doesn't otherwise have the ranking points to make it into the main draw. Or someone who is going to really pack in the crowds and comes with their own historic achievements to their name. This is somewhat unusual and I think it remains a mystery. I believe it's due to a late dropout and then Abd al-Qaeda offered as an alternate

but the question is why was her name in the mix at all if that's her skill level? It's quite baffling to watch most of her serves to not get over the net. Balls are bypassing her and at one stage she doesn't seem clear on which side of the court to serve and has to be told where to stand by her opponent.

This is not just first performance nerves. This is something more, something bizarre really, isn't it? Totally. That is why people have questions because it seems she doesn't fit any of the requirements that people might understand from a discretionary wildcard. There are very few details about her on her ITF player profile. This appears to be her first professional match. So you can't say, oh, perhaps this is just a terrible case of tournament nerves. It's really hard to understand where they got the information.

to make the decision. Sports journalist Tamara Pren. And that's all from us for now. There'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcasts later on. If you'd like to comment on this podcast and the topics we're covering, do send us an email. Our address is Global Podcast at BBC.co.uk.

This edition was mixed by Nick Randall. The producers were Paul Day and Nikki Varico. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Chris Barrow. And until next time, thanks for listening. Goodbye. You know,