Plus, Vance says Minneapolis Democrats should cooperate with immigration enforcement and new research on ChatGPT and authoritarianism.
In today’s newsletter: A dangerous winter storm begins moving across the U.S., putting millions of Americans on watch for crippling ice, snow and record low cold. What to know about Trump’s “Board of Peace.” And Vance berates Democrats in a visit to Minneapolis.
Here’s what to know today.
Winter storm to bring heavy snow and brutal cold across U.S.
Dangerous winter storm to slam U.S. with ice, snow and life-threatening cold
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A massive winter storm is forecast to bring subzero temperatures and heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain to a large swath of the United States beginning today. At least a dozen states have declared states of emergency, with the National Weather Service forecasting that 170 million people will be hit by winter weather warnings between today and Sunday.
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The storm will stretch 2,000 miles across the country, from the Arizona-New Mexico border to upstate New York. Some major metros could see nearly a foot of snow, including Boston and Philadelphia.
Wind chills of as low as minus 50 degrees could cause potentially fatal hypothermia and frostbite, forecasters warn. “At these temperatures, frostbite can develop on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said. Here’s how to protect yourself from the freeze.
The dangerous conditions are expected to make travel hazardous and impact utilities. FEMA has prepositioned supplies and is deploying more than 200 call center specialists across the country, according to an agency document obtained by NBC News. It’s also coordinating with the Department of Energy as prolonged power outages are a possibility.
Texas’ power grid will be put to the test, five years after it infamously failed during another dire ice storm, which left millions without power in freezing temperatures and led to more than 200 deaths. But state officials and power company executives are hopeful infrastructure changes made since then will prevent a repeat of 2021.
Follow live updates on our blog and track the storm here.
What to know about Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ — including the U.S. allies who won’t be joining
Key U.S. allies reject Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ invite
President Donald Trump signed the charter of his “Board of Peace” yesterday, a new body he has billed as part of the solution to a series of global conflicts.
Major Western allies skipped the ceremony, with some voicing concerns about the possibility that it could replace the United Nations. Trump rescinded his invitation to Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney to join, in an escalating feud between the two leaders. More than 20 countries — many from the Middle East and Asia — have said they will join. Russia and China said they received invitations but have not yet accepted.
The charter says Trump will chair the board and can be replaced only through “voluntary resignation or as a result of incapacity, as determined by a unanimous vote of the Executive Board.” It also offers permanent membership for a $1 billion fee.
The president first proposed the entity to oversee the next phase of his Gaza peace plan, but the current charter has no direct mention of the enclave.
Related news:
- Analysis: The president’s bid to swallow up Greenland sowed distrust in European allies that will linger, foreign policy experts and officials said.
- Trump has mentioned possibly adding U.S. troops and more military bases in Greenland, two former U.S. officials said about a potential deal for the territory.
Vance says Minneapolis will be ‘less chaotic’ if local officials cooperate more with ICE
Vance defends ICE mission in Minneapolis
Vice President JD Vance conceded that federal officers have not been perfect in their handling of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis.
But he put the onus on state officials, saying the best way to reduce clashes around ICE operations would be for Democrats to cooperate with the Trump administration’s agenda.
Vance said he doesn’t need Gov. Tim Walz or Mayor Jacob Frey to agree with his policies, but that they should assist with them.
“What I do need them to do is empower their local officials to help our federal officials out in a way where this can be a little bit less chaotic and it can be a little bit more targeted,” the vice president said during a visit to the city.
He also told NBC News that “of course” law enforcement has made mistakes, but maintained that Democrats are impeding immigration operations.
ChatGPT can embrace authoritarian ideas after just one prompt, researchers say
Artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT can quickly absorb and reflect authoritarian ideas, according to a new report.
Researchers with the University of Miami and the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found that ChatGPT will magnify particular political views — especially those labeled as authoritarian — after seemingly benign user interactions. The behavior potentially enables the chatbot and users to radicalize each other.
Joel Finkelstein, a co-founder of the NCRI and one of the report’s lead authors, said the results revealed how powerful AI systems can quickly adopt and parrot dangerous sentiments without explicit instruction.
“Something about how these systems are built makes them structurally vulnerable to authoritarian amplification,” Finkelstein told NBC News. Chatbots can often agree with users’ viewpoints to a fault, but this insight into authoritarian tendencies is new, he said.
Read All About It
- The White House and China have signed off on a deal that would hand control of TikTok’s U.S. operations to investors backed by Trump.
- The U.S. terminated its partnership with the World Health Organization, raising concerns ahead of the agency’s annual flu shot meeting.
- Alex Honnold, known for his “free solo” ascent up Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan that featured in a 2018 documentary, will climb the Taipei 101 skyscraper today on live TV — with no rope.
- “Sinners” set an Oscar record with 16 nominations for this year’s Academy Awards, including best picture.
- “Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie were selected for the Milano Cortina Olympic torch relay.
Staff Pick: Kyiv is freezing in the dark as Russian strikes leave Ukraine’s capital powerless
I have covered the war in Ukraine for nearly four years, including Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid that bring darkness and cold every winter. But the outages in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, have now continued since Jan. 9 — the worst such crisis the capital and the wider Kyiv region have experienced since the full-scale invasion in early 2022.
It comes amid a cold snap, with night temperatures last week dipping as low as -4 Fahrenheit. Kyiv residents told us they are keeping warm by wearing thermal underwear and using power generators, but the reality is that many still don’t have heat. The electricity only comes back for several hours a day (and mostly at night), during which they scramble to cook, clean and do laundry.
Some have said the long stretch of dark and cold nights is adding massively to the mental toll of the last four years, with peace still a distant prospect — even as Ukraine and Russia hold joint peace talks today with the U.S., the first trilateral meeting since the invasion.
— Yuliya Talmazan, digital news reporter
NBCU Academy: Here, ‘Throw Like a Girl’ means power — not an insult
In Redding, California, a small Northern California town surrounded by mountains and open fields, professional discus thrower Elena Bruckner kept noticing one thing: an absence of female athletes.
Throwing events in track and field were practically invisible to most young girls in Shasta County. For Bruckner, a former collegiate-record breaker and Olympic Trials finalist, that gap felt personal.
“I already knew there was a lack of throws coaches,” Bruckner said. “I knew this would be an amazing place to provide something that’s free and accessible for them.”
Her solution became “Throw Like a Girl,” a free clinic at Simpson University created to introduce girls to discus, shot put, and give them the confidence that comes with discovering their own strength.
NBCU Academy is a free, award-winning education program for developing new skills and advancing careers in journalism, media and tech.
NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified
Winter is the best time to catch up on all the shows you’ve been meaning to watch. If you don’t know where to start, our editors put together a guide of the best streaming services of 2026. If you’re looking to upgrade your current viewing experience, we rounded up the best TVs to shop right now and make a solid argument for buying a TV antenna in the 21st century.
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Thanks for reading today’s Morning Rundown. Today’s newsletter was curated for you by Kayla Hayempour, with contributions from Rufina Chow. If you’re a fan, please send a link to your family and friends. They can sign-up here.
Trump Mocks Climate Change Concerns Ahead of Historic Winter Storm. Here’s Why That’s Wrong
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President Donald Trump, who has long expressed skepticism of the scientific consensus on climate change, again brushed aside concerns on Friday by falsely implying that the massive winter storm set to hit much of the U.S. this weekend contradicts the evidence that the planet is getting warmer.
“Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday. “Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain — WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???”
The storm is forecasted to bring damaging ice, heavy snowfall, and gusty winds that could impact more than 230 million people across the country from Friday through Monday. At least 14 states, as well as Washington, D.C., have declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm, which has been named Winter Storm Fern by The Weather Channel. The coming inclement weather has raised alarms about dangerous cold, prolonged power outages, and travel disruptions, with forecasters warning that the storm could prove catastrophic.
Read More: How To Stay Safe and Warm In Extreme Cold Weather
But the idea that brutal winter conditions of this kind mean that climate change isn’t happening, as Trump suggested, is a misconception.
“As a proud ‘environmental insurrectionist,’ it’s frustrating to have to explain this every winter,” says Christopher Callahan, a professor of climate science at Indiana University Bloomington. “The Earth still has seasons, and we’re going to have winter weather no matter what happens with climate change.”
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As Callahan explains, the planet is titled on its axis, which is why we get seasons—there are periods of the year when the northern hemisphere is facing away from the sun, which is when that hemisphere experiences winter, while the southern hemisphere experiences summer. And even amid climate change, the Earth still has day-to-day weather events.
“Because climate change is ultimately a longer-term phenomenon, you can have blips around that trend; you can have ups and downs around a longer-term increase in temperature,” Callahan says. “So it’s totally reasonable for us to still have individual storms or individual weather events even though, overall, the planet’s climate is warming.”
Experts agree that, on average, climate change is leading to shorter and milder winters. Research also indicates that climate change can make some extreme weather events—including heat waves, heavy rainfall, severe floods, droughts, extreme wildfires, and hurricanes—more intense and more frequent. Some experts have hypothesized that climate change may be making winter storms more intense as well, though there’s still a “genuine scientific debate” on that, according to Callahan.
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But what scientists do agree on, he says, is that, as the planet’s atmosphere gets warmer, it carries more moisture, which leads to more precipitation being released, including snow.“For every degree warmer, you get about 7% more moisture holding capacity in the air, and so we certainly see this happening in summer (with) extreme rain,” Callahan says. “So you could imagine situations in which winter storms have more precipitation and, therefore, more snow than they did before.”
