This Friday in The World This Week, we talk about the implications of a fatal week in Minneapolis, Iran & the "Armada" ultimatum and what Trump's goal is for Gaza.

The implications of a fatal week in Minneapolis

This week, video evidence and citizen journalism have shown their fundamental importance in holding governments to account. In this case, eyewitness footage stood up against the rapid-response accounts of the Trump administration in the hours following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, as government officials tried to define the story, framing Pretti as a domestic terrorist and would-be assassin – narratives which had little bearing on what we could see and hear. Two Border Force agents have since been placed on leave, and the issue is causing splits in the Republican Party and within the MAGA movement. It also brought a rare concession from President Donald Trump, who's more famous for the "attack as a form of defence" route. ICE operations now look set to be reduced in Minneapolis.

Iran and the 'Armada' ultimatum

It's been a week of final warnings for the Iranian regime. Time is running out, was the explicit threat spelled out on Trump's Truth Social, with a "massive Armada" of US military might making its way into the Arabian Sea. The USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, has now sailed into the strategic waters, leaving a binary choice: face the wrath of the US military for a second time in less than a year, or agree a new deal on the nuclear programme. This comes two weeks after an uprising was savagely suppressed, with the death toll of protesters now estimated to be in the tens of thousands. Iran's regime has hit back, saying they're waiting with "fingers on the trigger".

What's Trump's goal for Gaza?

It's also been the week that Israel held a final funeral for the last hostage in Gaza, Master Sergeant Ran Gvili, whose remains were identified by IDF troops in a search of a cemetery in Gaza City, and confirmed as his on Monday. It brought to a close a two year and four month-long search for the police officer known as the Shield, who was killed as he defended a Kibbutz during the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023. With neither war nor peace for the population in Gaza dealing with a bleak winter, we look at the next step of the Truce Plan: disarming Hamas. 

Produced by Gavin Lee, Théophile Vareille, Juliette Laffont, Alessandro Xenos.