In today’s newsletter: What to expect at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, as the Games officially get going. How immigration agents are using facial scanning to track targets and bystanders. And a new timeline details the moments before Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance.
Here’s what to know today.
Let the Games begin: Winter Olympics officially kick off with opening ceremony
Today is a big day at the Milan Cortina Olympic Games, as the figure skating begins, curling and women’s hockey continue — and of course the opening ceremony, which takes place at the San Siro stadium. The ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. ET (8 p.m. local time), with about 70,000 people expected to attend.
Expect to see performances from artists including tenor Andrea Bocelli, Grammy-winning singer Mariah Carey and Chinese pianist Lang Lang.
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“The process of making classical music and [of] the sports athletes are quite similar,” Lang Lang told NBC News before the ceremony. “A lot of hard work among many hours of practice. And then the moment comes, the glorious moment comes, you have to give everything.”
The event will also feature a segment celebrating fashion designer Giorgio Armani and a tribute to 100 years of the Olympics (complete with wooden skis).
Two cauldrons will be lit for the first time in history, one in Milan at the Arco della Pace (Peace Arch), and one at competition venue Cortina d’Ampezzo, in Piazza Dibona. Both are modeled after the intricate knot design of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Nodi Vinciani.”
More from the Games:
- Three-time gold Olympic medal winner Lindsey Vonn is listed to start downhill ski training today, ahead of competing at the Games despite sustaining an ACL injury in a recent crash.
- Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the American pair who won gold in 2022, took first place in the early ice dancing session with a score of 91.06.
- Speedskater Kristen Santos-Griswold is ready for redemption after a collision bumped her from medaling four years ago.
- The U.S. women’s hockey team dominated its matchup against Czechia, winning 5-1. Watch the full recap of Team USA’s early competitions here.
- The Finnish women’s hockey team had to postpone a game against Canada after a norovirus outbreak.
How ICE agents are using facial recognition technology to bring surveillance to the streets
Federal immigration agents flooding U.S. streets are using a new surveillance tool kit that is alarming civil liberties advocates, lawmakers and activists.
Agents are aggressively photographing faces of people they encounter in their daily operations using smartphones with sophisticated facial recognition technology and professional-grade photo equipment. Some of the images are being run through facial recognition software in real time.
In recent months, ICE and other DHS officials have scanned Americans in Minneapolis, Chicago and Portland, Maine, often without their consent. The use of these tools and tactics is setting a new standard of street-level surveillance and information collection that has little precedent in the U.S.
NBC News spoke with witnesses and verified more than a dozen videos in which immigration officers appear to be taking such photographs. Several people described it as an act of intimidation.
More on immigration:
- Congress is struggling to make progress in negotiations to avoid a DHS shutdown next week, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune swiftly dismissing Democrats’ proposed reforms.
- DHS plans to build mega warehouses to use as immigration detention centers, raising concerns among lawmakers, local residents and government contractors.
Search for Nancy Guthrie enters sixth day
Six days into the search for the mother of “TODAY” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, no suspects or persons of interest have been identified, authorities said.
Officials yesterday offered a timeline into the hours before Nancy Guthrie was reported missing Sunday afternoon. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said that Guthrie’s doorbell camera was disconnected at 1:47 a.m. that day and that software detected a person on camera at 2:12 a.m.
Sheriff Chris Nanos said officials believe Guthrie is “still out there” and confirmed that the blood found on the porch was hers.
Reports indicate that ransom notes referencing Guthrie have been sent to at least three news outlets, and one had a deadline of 5 p.m. yesterday. In a video statement posted near the deadline, Nancy Guthrie’s son Camron asked to speak to “whoever is out there holding our mother,” and urged them to reach out.
Follow live updates on our blog.
Tulsi Gabbard's office examined voting machines in Puerto Rico
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence says it obtained and examined electronic voting machines in Puerto Rico last year to look for possible security vulnerabilities. News of the move follows Trump’s calls to “nationalize” future elections.
Authorities in Puerto Rico voluntarily handed over the equipment to Tulsi Gabbard’s office, which sought to test it because of alleged “discrepancies and systemic anomalies,” a spokesperson said.
In its examination, the ODNI “found extremely concerning cyber security and operational deployment practices that pose a significant risk to U.S. elections,” according to the spokesperson.
But lawmakers and election experts are skeptical of the probe’s findings — and its intentions. Democrats in Congress say they fear the president is trying to use federal agencies to interfere with vote counting in the midterms.
Pablo Jose Hernandez, who represents Puerto Rico in Congress as a nonvoting member, criticized the actions as “political theater.”
In other politics news:
- The Trump administration asked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for the Washington region’s Dulles International Airport and New York’s Penn Station to be named after the president in exchange for releasing the federal funds required to build a long-delayed tunnel between New York and New Jersey, multiple sources told NBC News.
- Top Trump administration officials do not yet have clear guidance on what the president would hope to accomplish with military action in Iran, as U.S. and Iranian officials were indirectly meeting in Oman.
- The FBI invited state election officials to discuss “preparations” for the midterm elections.
- Republicans are on the brink of an internal clash over the Senate filibuster and Trump-backed SAVE act, which would overhaul election laws nationwide and require proof of citizenship to vote.
Senior general shot in Moscow in another attack on Russia’s military brass
A senior Russian military official was shot in Moscow and has been taken to hospital, authorities said.
Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, a deputy chief of Russian military intelligence, was shot several times by an unknown assailant in a residential building in the northwest of the capital, Russia’s Investigative Committee said. The alleged shooter fled from the scene, a statement said.
Alekseyev played a prominent role during the mutiny by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in the summer of 2023. He was filmed speaking to Prigozhin and later recorded a video calling the uprising a stab in the back of President Vladimir Putin and an attempted coup.
Read more about this latest attack on Russia’s top military brass here.
Read All About It
- Three people are dead and multiple people are injured after a car driven by an elderly woman crashed into a grocery store near UCLA.
- The parents of still-missing 8-year-old Camp Mystic victim, Cecilia Steward, are suing the operators of the summer camp.
- Can animals play pretend? It took a tea party with a bonobo to find out that humans are not the only species that can play along.
- The job market is off to a rough start this year, as new data on jobs and layoffs points to more job cuts and lackluster hiring plans.
- A Maryland man was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly showed up at the home of Russell Vought, White House budget director and Project 2025 co-author.
Staff Pick: The key to this Super Bowl quarterback's success? Being a little brother
Once the Super Bowl matchup was set, I pitched a story on Drake Maye, the Patriots’ quarterback, who had previously discussed roughhousing with his three older brothers as a kid. I had grown up wrestling with a little brother. I wanted to know more about the psychology, though. How had that experience shaped Maye?
To answer that, I tracked down Frank J. Sulloway, an expert on birth order. Sulloway wrote the 1996 book “Born to Rebel,” which asked questions such as, were younger siblings more or less likely to participate in the Copernican Revolution? In 2010, he’d also conducted a study comparing siblings who played professional baseball.
Sulloway educated me on Darwin, the science behind sibling rivalry, and how it influences little brothers. He said that younger siblings often take more risks, which perhaps explained a crucial play in the AFC Championship game. Watch for that in the Super Bowl, too.
— Tim Rohan, sports reporter and editor
NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified
This week we’ve been thinking about skin care nonstop. Not only did our editors talk to dermatologists to find the best retinol body lotions for firmer skin and test hundreds of products to find the best ones for sensitive skin, they also wrote an entire A-to-Z guide to the most popular skin care ingredients to make understanding product labels even easier.
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