The Week Magazine January 30, 2026

On occasion, the world’s biggest gathering of global elites can produce more than hot air. The World Economic Forum, held annually at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, was where Nelson Mandela shook hands with then–South African president F.W. de Klerk in 1992—marking the beginning of the end of apartheid. Eight years later, Davos served as the springboard for Gavi, a vaccine alliance that has inoculated over 1 billion children, and in 2005 the forum produced a landmark report on gender equality. It was the site of climate activist Greta Thunberg’s famous “Our house is on fire” speech in 2019, and promoted a vision for “stakeholder capitalism” in 2020. Say what you want about its optics, but Davos can be a useful weather vane for revealing which way the global…

What happened President Trump this week sparked a transatlantic crisis by sharply ramping up his demands for a U.S. takeover of Greenland—before abruptly shifting gears and announcing he’d struck the “framework of a future deal” on the Arctic territory with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Over a tumultuous week, Trump unnerved European leaders with his threats to acquire the semiautonomous Danish territory (population 57,000) “one way or another,” and to slap 10% tariffs on eight NATO nations that opposed annexation. In a text to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, he linked his push to acquire Greenland to being snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize and said he no longer felt an “obligation to think purely of Peace.” Addressing a packed conference hall at the World Economic Forum in Davos,…

What the “framework of a future deal” will look like is not yet clear, said Emily Davies in The Washington Post. But the deal is “likely to fall far short of the full sovereign possession” of Greenland that Trump had previously insisted on. Denmark’s top diplomat said the U.S. “would not ‘own’ the island,” and, as NATO secretary general, Rutte “is not empowered to negotiate the transfer of territory” from one member to another. Trump’s “backpedaling” on Greenland has brought some “relief” to European leaders, said Eli Stokols and Diana Nerozzi in Politico. But “there is also an awareness that he could reverse himself,” said one European official, adding, “Trump’s promises and statements are unreliable, but his scorn for Europe is consistent.” So while the immediate crisis may have passed,…

What happened The Trump administration escalated its crackdown in Minnesota this week by launching criminal investigations into the state’s top Democratic officials, as anger surged in the Twin Cities over immigration agents’ hard-line tactics. The Justice Department is probing whether Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have conspired to impede ICE’s operations; the White House issued subpoenas seeking documents from the pair, as well as from St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, and others. Frey accused President Trump of weaponizing the DOJ, while Walz called the investigation a “partisan distraction” from calls for accountability after Minneapolis resident Renee Good was shot dead by an ICE agent (see Talking Points, p.16). Customs and Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, whose agents are working with ICE,…

■ Students at Louisa County High School in Mineral, Va., love to revive older vehicles in their automotive technology program. The cars are then donated to single mothers through Giving Words, a nonprofit. The students work on about five cars a year. “They get real shop experience,” said teacher Shane Robertson. And they turn it into a precious gift. “It’s not just about the car,” said Jessica Rader, a single mother of three children, after recently receiving a refurbished 2007 Toyota Prius. “It’s about community.” ■ A tiny miracle occurred in Washington, D.C.’s National Zoo this past summer. Zoo officials revealed recently that, unbeknownst to the keepers, a painted river terrapin hatched from an egg that its mother had made in a camouflaged nest in the corner of its enclosure.…

ICE’s operation in Minneapolis is looking “more and more like a siege on a city than an effort to enforce the law there,” said Zeeshan Aleem in MS.now. Eleven days after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good on a residential street, masked immigration officers broke down the door of St. Paul resident ChongLy Thao—a 56-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen with no criminal record—and dragged him out at gunpoint in handcuffs and boxer shorts in subfreezing conditions. He was released an hour later. Shawn and Destiny Jackson, both 26 and both American, were driving home from a child’s basketball game when ICE blasted their car with tear gas and stun grenades, forcing them to perform CPR on their 6-month-old baby. Local police chiefs are reporting that their own off-duty officers—the…