Reuters World News - Minnesota, Nobel medal, Powell and remote-controlled tanks

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act over Minnesota’s anti-ICE protests. Trump accepts the Nobel medal from Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. And the Fed’s Jerome Powell might have a trump card when his term as chair ends. Plus, the U.S. Army reveals a high-tech tank built for the gaming generation. Listen to Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Find the Recommended Read here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Kim Vannell in Wanganui, New Zealand. It's Friday, January 16th. Today, Trump threatens to use the Insurrection Act in Minnesota. Machado hands over her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump. The Fed's Powell might have an ace up his sleeve when his term ends. And the Detroit Auto Show reveals a new gamified army tank. This is Reuters' World. World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. President Donald Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to deploy military forces in Minnesota. It follows days of sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent protests there.

In Minneapolis, demonstrators confronted ICE agents. Elsewhere, protesters hurled rock. ice and fireworks clashing with law enforcement agents who fired tear gas late into the night. Protests escalated after federal agents shot a Venezuelan man in the leg as he tried to flee detention. That followed the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen last week. Our photographer Liam Millis has covered protests in civil unrest across the country for years and is on the ground in Minneapolis. We caught up with her in her car yesterday to get a sense of the situation on the ground following Wednesday night's shooting. When I showed up, there was an incredible amount of tear gas and flashbangs and angry neighbors

who were coming out of their homes because there was clouds of chemical irritants, this gas floating around. And then he did have some people who were showing up to protest who were just yelling at the federal officers. So I would say that what I'm seeing is just a very volatile, unpredictable situation. I presented the President of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize. Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corino Machado telling reporters she gave her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Trump at their meeting at the White House. A White House official has confirmed that Trump intends to keep the men.

Trump on social media called it a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Now, there's been a lot of talk about who is going to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve, but less has been said about what Powell will do once his term as chair ends in May. You see, Powell's separate seat as a Fed governor doesn't expire for two more years, and the recent threat of a criminal indictment by the Department of Justice may have changed his calculus. Our Fed reporter Howard Schneider has been looking into it and what it would mean if Powell decides to stick around. Usually when the chair turns over, when the four-year term ends,

unless they're reappointed, which Powell will not be in this case, the chair also clears that of their board seat. It's kind of in the spirit of democratic transition, and you know what, they get to pick a chair, the new president gets to pick a chair, no reason for me to hang around. It's worked that way since the 1950s. But this has not been a normal relationship.

And what happened over the weekend, last Friday in particular, with the Fed being subpoenaed, has kind of raised the stakes all around. And folks who are sort of thinking through the possibilities now here are wondering, well, is he going to walk away from this under a cloud? Is he going to walk away from this institution? If he thinks this is how the president is going to treat other governors, other Fed shares, you know, with the threat of the criminal justice system kind of intervening at any point. they don't like the outcomes they're getting. That's a pretty compelling situation to say you're going to retire as much as you might want to at age 72 and pursue your post-retirement passions, be with your family, plenty of options, right?

Or do you stay in that governor's job and fight? And the thing is right now that board's pretty split. And Powell has never said publicly what he's going to do. When he's asked about it, he says, I'm worried about my job as chair and serving that term out. and not tipping his hand at all. If you're in the mood for some more econ and finance news to round out your week, check out our Market's sister podcast, Morning Bid. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts.

Federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania have charged 26 people with rigging bets on college and Chinese professional basketball games. The scheme allegedly started in 2022 with bribing players in China's professional league to underperform, then expanded to US college basketball last season, with players paid to make sure that teams fell short of the projected spreads. It's the latest in a wave of sports betting scandals since legalisation. Two of the defendants were already facing charges in a separate NBA bet-rigging case. A South Korean court has sentenced former president Yun Sukyol to five years in prison.

It's for charges including, obstructing attempts to arrest him, following his failed bid to impose martial law. Yun's lawyer says he plans to appeal. Separately, Yun faces a number of other trials, including on a charge of masterminding insurrection. Protesters have asked the court to give him the death sentence on that charge, with a ruling scheduled for February. Meanwhile, hundreds of South Korean firefighters were battling a major fire in an area often described as sole largest remaining shantytown. Guryong Village is a pocket of ramshackle housing

in the otherwise upmarket Gangnam District. The makeshift homes are often densely packed together and built with highly flammable materials. The area is due to be redeveloped into high-rise residential buildings. Four astronauts are back on Earth after a medical emergency cut their International Space Station mission short. It's the first time a crew rotation has been

terminated early in the International Space Station's 25-year history. NASA hasn't identified which astronaut was affected or what the condition was. It's unclear how this might impact NASA's preparations for its upcoming Artemis 2 launch, aimed at orbiting the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions of the 1970s. Now, if you've ever played a driving sim, the US Army says you're already halfway to operating its newest tank. It's rolled out its new Abrams Tank prototype at the Detroit Auto Show, designed to mimic gaming platforms. Reporter Keir Johnson checked it out.

It's called an M1E3 tank. And it's this massive green vehicle with a very long imposing turret that comes from the front of it. And at the top, there's all of these components. There's several guns, all this military hardware that comes out of the top of it. And there's cameras all of it. around on the sides. They lift the top of it, and then you go down into this quarters, which three people can fit down there.

So they have controllers on each one of the seats and these kind of gaming-like chairs. And the gaming aspect isn't an accident. I spoke to Colonel Ryan Howell. The digital controls now mirror the gaming environment. The training time is significantly reduced. A 13-year-old could probably learn how to drive this thing faster. than I could, truthfully. And that's exactly what we want. He said that they're very familiar with the soldiers in the military because they already are using this for their downtime. So it kind of

cuts down the training period because they already have the basic skills to maneuver their gaming systems. The tank hadn't been upgraded since the 1970s. But Kea spoke with the U.S. Army's chief technology officer, Dr. Alexander Miller, who says this new tank now includes high-tech robotics and drone components. He said that the robotics and drones are just playing a big part in our warfare capabilities on our strategy, that these things are going to be leading the way so that our soldiers don't have to. America's next first battle should not be humans first.

It should be us trading blood for steel, and it should be our robots going in first. This is a war machine, and it has more technology than any of us can even imagine. The army says the tank will now undergo safety testing protocol before final production is finalized. And for today's recommended read, to Chile, which is preparing to create a national park at its southernmost tip where the Americas meets the Antarctic. A link to the story and the photos is in the description. and from the Antarctic to the Arctic for a recommended listen for your weekend. On assignment heads back to Nook to find out how the clash between Copenhagen and Washington, D.C.

is impacting Greenlanders. That pod drops on Saturday morning. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters, seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.