The Headlines - Trump’s New Greenland Threat Outrages Allies, and China’s Birthrate Plunges

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Plus, chimney sweeps are making a comeback. Here’s what we’re covering:European Union Officials Lean Toward Negotiating, Not Retaliating, Over Trump Tariff Threat, by Jeanna Smialek and Anushka PatilIn Minneapolis, a Pattern of Misconduct Toward Protesters, by Stephanie Saul$1 Billion in Cash Buys a Permanent Seat on Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’, by Isabel KershnerChina’s Birthrate Plunges to Lowest Level Since 1949, by Alexandra StevensonWhy London’s Chimney Sweeps Are Enjoying a Resurgence, by Stephen CastleTune in every weekday morning, and tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Monday, January 19th. Here's what we're covering. President Trump's campaign to make Greenland part of the United States escalated this weekend, as he threatened to slap tariffs on European nations that don't cooperate with him. He announced he would hit some of the U.S.'s closest allies, including Britain, France, and Germany, with a 10% tariff starting in February, and he said he'd ramp it up to 25% in June, quote, until such time as a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland. The countries he targeted are all NATO members that have expressed solidarity with Denmark in the face of Trump's repeated demands that it should give up control of Greenland. They called the tariff threat intimidation and unacceptable. What we saw as soon as it happened was just an absolute scramble to find a solution.

There were bilateral calls between European leaders. There were calls between European leaders and the president of the United States. I think it was just an absolutely panicked uproar coming out of this. And we saw the ambassadors from across the European Union nations meet in Brussels on Sunday night for an emergency meeting. My colleague Gina Smilik covers the EU. She says that the block could retaliate with a drastic tool it's never used before, officially called the anti-coercion instrument. Unofficially, it's called Europe's trade bazooka.

And it could be used to slap restrictions on big American tech companies or other corporations that do a lot of business in Europe. Gina says that some officials, including the president of France, have suggested it's time to use it. But for now, the EU is leaning more toward negotiation than retaliation. So the Europeans have a good reason to want to talk this out, which is that they are extremely dependent on the United States for military capabilities, especially when it comes to NATO defenses and the war in Ukraine. They're relying on America for a lot of technology and a lot of support. They would ideally like to resolve this without a deeper rupture between the U.S. and Europe because that would have serious consequences here.

President Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. needs Greenland for national security purposes to push back against Russian and Chinese interests in the Arctic. In the past, the U.S. did have a large military presence on the island. It closed a lot of its facilities there after the Cold War, but the U.S. has the right to reopen about 16 bases in Greenland. Trump, however, has insisted that's not enough, saying ownership was important, quote, because that is what I feel is psychologically needed for success. In Minnesota, a federal judge has ordered ICE agents to stop using excessive force against protesters. Her ruling outlined a pattern of misconduct in how officers responded to incidents in December,

even before tensions escalated after the fatal shooting of Renee Good. In the case, plaintiffs described how they were hit with pepper spray without warning and surrounded by ice agents pointing semi-automatic weapons at them at close range. One woman described how she was put face down in the snow and then taken to a federal building where some of her clothes were removed, her wedding ring was cut off, and she was shackled. She was told she'd be charged with obstructing an officer, but no charges were filed. One legal scholar said,

The behavior evoked how police attacked civil rights protesters in the early 1960s. And a professor of criminology told the times that in his 45 years of studying use of force, quote, I've seen nothing like what we're experiencing today. In her ruling, the judge, who was appointed by President Biden, wrote that the agent's actions have had a chilling effect on First Amendment rights and ordered them not to retaliate against demonstrators. That federal order was a little ridiculous because that federal judge, judge came down and told us we couldn't do what we already aren't doing.

Christy Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, defended the agent's behavior on CBS yesterday. She denied that pepper spray incidents like the ones described in the court case were happening, even as she was shown a video backing up those accounts. We just saw video of chemical agents being used. We only use those chemical agents when there's violence happening and perpetuating, and you need to be able to establish law in order to keep people safe. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has told 1,500 active duty troops to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, after President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act there.

Defense Department officials tell the times the troops are part of an Army airborne division based in Alaska. Last week, the Pentagon also quietly alerted 200 Texas National Guard troops to be ready to deploy. Publicly, Trump has already appeared to back off from his initial threat to use the act, to send in troops, telling reporters on Friday that, quote, I don't think I need it right now. One Pentagon official acknowledged that change of tone, but said the military still wants to be prepared. And last update on the Trump administration.

New details have emerged about the president's plan to create an international board of peace. He'd originally floated the idea as a group of world leaders who would oversee the rebuilding of Gaza. Now it seems to have a much bigger scope that could stretch. to cover other conflicts, and there's a huge fee to join. Under a draft charter reviewed by the Times, Trump is hoping to sell permanent seats on the board for a billion dollars each. Several countries said they had received invitations, including Argentina, Canada, and Turkey, though it's unclear if any have agreed to join. The White House said the board would include, among others, Trump's son-in-law,

Jared Kushner, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Ajay Banga, head of the president of of the World Bank. In a social media post, the president called it, quote, the greatest and most prestigious board ever assembled at any time, any place. In China, new data out today shows that the country is facing a demographic crisis. The birth rate has plunged to a record low. And for the fourth year in a row, there have been more deaths than births, leaving the country's population smaller and older. China's known about this problem for years, and it's done a host of things to try to reverse the trend, but nothing is working at this point.

Alexandra Stevenson is the time Shanghai Bureau Chief. She says the country relaxed its infamous one-child policy a decade ago and is now using a whole bunch of tactics to encourage people to have two, even three children. So officials have offered cash for second and third children. They've promised subsidized housing. They've done even more invasive things like dispatch local officials to find out the family planning of recent married couples, one recent policy change, which wasn't explicitly aimed at boosting the birth rate, but was widely interpreted that way, was a decision to start taxing condoms and

contraception. It's kind of like across the board. There's been an all-out push, basically. And even the top leader, Xi Jinping, has called it a patriotic act to have a baby. In terms of why young people aren't having kids, we've been talking to a lot of people who express a sense of unease about the economy. Many young people now are in the gig economy, which means that they're delivering packages or delivering food, and it's not a consistent or steady income or lifestyle. And then for younger women, there is this sense that if you get married and you have a kid, you will lose all of your independence because there's this expectation still within society in China

that women run the household. So it's really a combination of both cultural and economic factors that are weighing on a lot of young people today in China. And finally. Potentially, chiminy, chim chimney sweep. As lucky can be. Potentially the world's most famous chimney sweep is the one Dick Van Dyke played in Mary Poppins.

Or below me, a kiss. And that's lucky to. In which he did an accent that was so bad, he actually apologized to the British people for it later. The other chimney sweeps, people may think of, less cheerfully, are the small children who were put to work cleaning out the flus in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's easy to think of chimney sweeps as a thing of the past.

After central heating became all the rage, the profession definitely shrank, but it didn't disappear entirely, and in London, it's now making a comeback. According to the National Association of Chimney Sweeps, demand is rising. It's likely a combination of high energy prices and the renewed popularity of wood-burning stoves, even though scientists say indoor fires can come with health risks. In some cases, people are reopening their fireplaces that may have been blocked off a generation before, and they need to be clean. To do it, the sweeps are using decidedly modern techniques, like sending cameras up the chimney's interior or using industrial vacuum cleaners to remove the soot and debris. Some even have drones buzzing overhead to check the state of the roof.

Given all the updates, the president of the Chimney Sweep Association said it might be more apt to call them chimney technicians. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.