Salem News Channel

A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned top FBI fugitive is expected to appear in federal court Monday on charges he allegedly ran a billion-dollar multinational drug trafficking ring and orchestrated multiple killings. Ryan Wedding, 44, turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City last week and was flown to Southern California after a yearlong effort by authorities in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Colombia and the Dominican Republic to arrest him. Wedding is scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court in Santa Ana, California. No attorney was listed for him on the court docket Monday morning. U.S. authorities believe the former Olympian, who competed in a single event for his home country in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, had been hiding in Mexico for more than a decade. He was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list last March when authorities offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction. Authorities say Wedding moved as much as 60 tons of cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Canada and Southern California and believe he was working under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful drug rings. He was indicted in 2024 on federal charges of running a criminal enterprise, murder, conspiring to distribute cocaine and other crimes. The murder charges accuse Wedding of directing the 2023 killings of two members of a Canadian family in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment, and for ordering a killing over a drug debt in 2024. Last year, Wedding was indicted on new charges of orchestrating the killing of a witness in Colombia to help him avoid extradition to the U.S. Wedding was previously convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and sentenced to prison in 2010. Online records show he was released from Bureau of Prisons custody in 2011. In Canada, Wedding faces separate drug charges dating back to 2015. The 2024 indictment says Wedding ran a billion-dollar drug trafficking group that was the largest supplier of cocaine to Canada. The group obtained cocaine from Colombia and worked with Mexican cartels to move drugs by boat and plane to Mexico and then into the U.S. using semitrucks, the indictment said. It said the group stored cocaine in Southern California before sending it to Canada and other U.S. states.

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Many U.S. residents are facing another night of below-freezing temperatures and no electricity after a massive winter storm dumped more snow in Northeast and left parts of the South coated in ice. The colossal storm halted air and road traffic in many areas and sent temperatures plunging. At least 29 deaths were reported in states hit by the winter weather. As the work week began, the heaviest snow fell from New York northward into New England. That's after heavy ice snapped branches and power lines in the South, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without electricity. Arctic air was spreading in behind the storm and some communities in New York saw record-breaking subzero temperatures.

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The Minnesota Chaos Continues

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A senior Border Patrol commander and some agents are expected to leave Minneapolis as early as Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The expected departure of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who has been at the center of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement surge in cities nationwide, comes as President Donald Trump dispatched border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to take charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Bovino’s departure marks a significant public shift in federal law enforcement posture amid mounting outrage over the fatal shooting of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents. His leadership of highly visible federal crackdowns, including operations that sparked mass demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and Minneapolis, has drawn fierce criticism from local officials, civil rights advocates and congressional Democrats. Criticism has increased around Bovino in the last few days after his public defense of the Pretti shooting and disputed claims about the confrontation that led to his death. In other developments, Trump declared that he was now on a “similar wavelength” as the governor following the second fatal shooting by federal immigration officers this month.

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Minnesota Is Getting Worse for the Trump Administration

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The White House said on Monday that President Donald Trump does not want to see people getting hurt or killed on the streets of the United States but will not back down from efforts to deport "violent criminal illegal aliens" from Minnesota. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt briefed reporters after the killing of 37-year-old nurse, Alex Pretti, on Saturday by federal officers drew outrage from Americans. It was the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen in Minnesota this month. "Let's be clear about the circumstances which led to that moment on Saturday. This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota for weeks," Leavitt said. Video from the scene, verified by Reuters, contradicts the Trump administration's account that immigration agents fired in self-defense after Pretti approached them with a handgun. Footage shows Pretti holding a phone -- not a gun -- as agents wrestle him to the ground. It also shows officers removing a firearm stored near his waistband after he was subdued, moments before they fatally shot him. Pretti was a licensed gun owner. Leavitt said Trump "will never back down from his promise to deport violent criminal illegal aliens and make America safe again, and he welcomes all cooperation in that effort." Democratic leaders have fiercely opposed the Trump administration's surge of immigration agents to Minnesota, which they have characterized as a lawless invasion that puts public safety at risk. Massive street protests have also been held in below-freezing temperatures. Leavitt called on Minnesota political leaders to turn over illegal immigrants in jails to federal authorities, along with any illegal aliens with active warrants or known criminal histories for immediate deportation. She said Trump wants Congress to immediately pass legislation ending policies that some cities have in providing sanctuary to undocumented border crossers.

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The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three accompanying warships have arrived in the Middle East, bringing a renewed potential that President Donald Trump could opt to order airstrikes on Iran over its crackdown on protesters. The carrier, along with three destroyers, “is currently deployed to the Middle East to promote regional security and stability,” U.S. Central Command said Monday on social media. The strike group was in the Indian Ocean, Central Command said, and not in the Arabian Sea, which borders Iran. It will bring thousands of additional service members to the region, which has not had a U.S. aircraft carrier since the USS Gerald R. Ford was ordered in October to sail to the Caribbean as part of a pressure campaign on then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Trump told reporters last week that the ships were sent to the region “just in case.” “We have a massive fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it,” he said. Trump earlier had threatened military action if Iran carried out mass executions of prisoners or killed peaceful demonstrators during a crackdown on protests that began in late December. At least 5,973 people have been killed and more than 41,800 detained, according to activists. The official Iranian death toll is far lower, at 3,117 dead. More recently, Trump appeared to have backed away from possible action, claiming Iran halted the hangings of 800 detained protesters. He has not elaborated on the source of the claim, which Iran’s top prosecutor called “completely false.” However, Trump appears to be keeping his options open. On Thursday aboard Air Force One, he said his threatened military action would make last year’s U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites “look like peanuts” if the government proceeded with planned executions of some protesters. In addition to the aircraft carrier, the U.S. military said the Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet now has a presence in the region. Analysts who follow flight-tracking data have noticed dozens of U.S. military cargo planes also heading to the region. The activity is similar to last year when the U.S. moved in air defense hardware, like a Patriot missile system, in anticipation of an Iranian counterattack following the bombing of three key nuclear sites. Iran launched over a dozen missiles at Al Udeid Air Base days after the strikes.

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NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte insisted on Monday that Europe is incapable of defending itself without U.S. military support and would have to more than double current military spending targets to be able to do so. “If anyone thinks here … that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the U.S., keep on dreaming. You can’t,” Rutte told EU lawmakers in Brussels. Europe and the United States “need each other,” he said. Tensions are festering within NATO over U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. Trump also said that he was slapping new tariffs on Greenland's European backers, but later dropped his threats after a “framework” for a deal over the mineral-rich island was reached, with Rutte's help. Few details of the agreement have emerged. The 32-nation military organization is bound together by a mutual defense clause, Article 5 of NATO’s founding Washington treaty, which commits every country to come to the defense of an ally whose territory is under threat. At NATO’s summit in The Hague in July, European allies — with the exception of Spain — plus Canada agreed to Trump’s demand that they invest the same percentage of their economic output on defense as the United States within a decade. They pledged to spend 3.5% of gross domestic product on core defense, and a further 1.5% on security-related infrastructure – a total of 5% of GDP – by 2035. “If you really want to go it alone,” Rutte said, “forget that you can ever get there with 5%. It will be 10%. You have to build up your own nuclear capability. That costs billions and billions of euros.” France has led calls for Europe to build its “strategic autonomy,” and support for its stance has grown since the Trump administration warned last year that its security priorities lie elsewhere and that the Europeans would have to fend for themselves. Rutte told the lawmakers that without the United States, Europe “would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the U.S. nuclear umbrella. So, hey, good luck!”

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Today, Josh breaks down the latest ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis, where an agent fatally shot one of the individuals involved in the unrest. Josh explains why this flashpoint fits the broader Democratic playbook—weaponizing chaos, feeding the narrative machine, and turning criminals into martyrs—while noting that the facts still matter and the investigation is ongoing. Josh is then joined by Michael Doran, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, for a wide-ranging discussion on Iran, the administration’s next moves, and the broader fight for sanity on the Right. Doran also offers a bold prediction about what Iran’s leadership could look like one year from now.

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On the Brink of War with Iran?

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Minneapolis Police Not Supporting ICE? 

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Is the USA Readying Itself for War against Iran?

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What Should the Christian Response be to Minnesota?

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Israel says the remains of the final hostage in Gaza have been recovered, clearing the way for the next phase of the ceasefire that stopped the Israel-Hamas war. Monday’s announcement came a day after Israel’s government said the military was conducting a “large-scale operation” in a cemetery in northern Gaza to locate the remains of Ran Gvili. The return of all remaining hostages, living or dead, has been a key part of the Gaza ceasefire’s first phase. Gvili’s family had urged Israel’s government not to enter the second phase until his remains were recovered and returned. Hamas says it now has committed to all terms of the ceasefire's first phase.

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The Northeastern U.S. is getting the last brunt of a massive winter storm that dumped snow, sleet and ice across much of the southern and eastern U.S. over the weekend. The colossal storm halted air and road traffic in many areas and sent temperatures plunging. At least 18 weather-related deaths have been reported. As the work week began, the heaviest snow fell from New York northward into New England. That's after heavy ice snapped branches and power lines in the South, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without electricity. In the meantime, arctic air was spreading in behind the storm and some communities in New York saw record-breaking subzero temperatures.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’ office says call with President Trump was ‘productive.' A Monday morning call between President Donald Trump and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz about fatal shootings by immigration officers appears to have been well-received by both sides. “The Governor made the case that we need impartial investigations of the Minneapolis shootings involving federal agents, and that we need to reduce the number of federal agents in Minnesota,” Walz's office wrote in a release. Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both Minnesota residents and U.S. citizens, were fatally shot and killed by federal immigration officers in separate incidents in Minneapolis. Trump agreed to talk to the Department of Homeland Security about ensuring the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is able to conduct an independent investigation, Walz’ office said, and also agreed to look into either reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota or working with the state “in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals.” Trump wrote in a social media post earlier Monday that the two “actually” seem to be on the same page in wanting to work together on immigration issues in Minnesota. He said the people the administration is seeking “are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession” and Walz “very respectfully, understood that.”

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The Federal Aviation Administration says seven people were killed and a crew member survived with serious injuries when a private business jet crashed in a snowstorm at Maine’s Bangor International Airport. The Bombardier Challenger 600 carrying eight people crashed on takeoff Sunday night as New England and much of the country grappled with a massive winter storm. The airport, about 200 miles north of Boston, shut down after the crash. Snowfall was heavy in many parts of the country at the time, and accumulation was beginning in Bangor. The jet was registered to a corporation that shares the same address as a law firm in Houston, Texas.

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A massive winter storm is wreaking havoc on travel across the United States. Airlines canceled more than 11,400 flights on Sunday as snow, sleet, and ice swept from the Rockies to New England. Aviation analysts say this is the worst single day of cancellations since the pandemic, grounding nearly 30 percent of U.S. departures. Major airports in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. were hit hardest, and travelers should expect delays to continue for several days as crews work to recover.

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Iran has issued a stark warning to the United States, unveiling a mural in central Tehran depicting a damaged U.S. aircraft carrier and signaling serious consequences if the U.S. launches a military strike. The mural’s unveiling comes as the USS Abraham Lincoln and accompanying warships are deployed to the region. President Donald Trump says the fleet’s movement is a precautionary measure, as tensions between the two nations continue to escalate.

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At least 18 weather-related deaths have been reported as snow, sleet, and ice swept from the South up through the Northeast, grounding flights, knocking out power and creating treacherous conditions on roads. Authorities say the fatalities are tied to dangerous travel, power outages and plunging temperatures, and emergency officials are urging people to stay off the roads and take precautions as cleanup and recovery continue.

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