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For 10 hours, a Chinese village sat in the dark – and a pig dangled from the sky.

A farmer, who was using a drone to transport a pig to a slaughterhouse, had accidentally shut down the local power supply after the drone's rope carrying the animal became tangled in an electrical line.

Images shared on social media showed the silhouette of the pig suspended in the air against a grey sky, dangling limply from the drone above, as bemused onlookers gathered below.

The farmer, who has not been identified, said the remote location of his village in Tongjiang county, Sichuan province, makes it difficult to transport pigs by vehicle, prompting him to use drones instead.

On Jan 24, he set out to airlift several pigs from the mountainous area.

The first attempt ended abruptly when the pig became suspended mid-air after the rope attached to the drone caught on a high-voltage power line – turning "when pigs fly" from an expression into a logistical problem.

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The farmer blamed poor visibility for the mishap. He had planned to transport more than 10 pigs throughout the day, but had to abandon the project.

An employee from the local power supply authority said the village experienced a 10-hour blackout as a result. "We sent 12 workers to repair the line. The repair costs are about 10,000 yuan (£1,100)," she was quoted as saying.

Local authorities said the farmer is suspected of breaking the law by operating the drone in a no-fly zone.

"We are still collecting evidence. If he is confirmed to have breached the law, he will face an administrative punishment and need to compensate for electricity equipment losses," an officer said.

The use of drones in agriculture is widespread in China's rural areas, although their role does not typically extend to suspending pigs above electricity lines.

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By Nate Raymond

Feb 6 (Reuters) - A divided federal appeals court upheld on Friday the Trump administration's policy of placing people arrested in its immigration crackdown in mandatory detention without ​an opportunity to be released on bond.

The decision by a conservative 2-1 panel of the ‌New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals marked the first time an appeals court had upheld the policy and came ‌despite hundreds of lower-court judges nationally declaring it unlawful.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the ruling on social media as dealing "a significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn."

The ruling is expected to impact thousands of people as the court's jurisdiction covers ⁠Texas and Louisiana, which are dotted ‌with detention centers and house the most immigration detainees.

Other appeals courts are slated in coming weeks to take up the issue, which the U.S. Supreme Court may ‍ultimately need to resolve.

Under federal immigration law, "applicants for admission" to the United States are subject to mandatory detention while their cases proceed in immigration courts and are ineligible for bond hearings.

Bucking a long-standing interpretation of the law, the U.S. ​Department of Homeland Security last year took the position that non-citizens already residing in the United ‌States, and not only those who arrive at a port of entry at the border, qualify as applicants for admission.

The Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice, issued a decision in September that adopted that interpretation, leading to immigration judges nationally employed by the department to mandate detention.

A flood of lawsuits ensued from people arguing they were wrongly detained. Among them were the plaintiffs ⁠in the cases before the 5th Circuit, Mexican nationals Victor ​Buenrostro-Mendez and Jose Padron Covarrubias, both of whom had convinced ​lower-court judges they were wrongly denied bond hearings.

But U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones said the administration's re-interpretation of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 ‍was correct.

"The text says what ⁠it says, regardless of the decisions of prior administrations," she wrote for the panel's majority, which included two judges named by Republican presidents.

U.S. Circuit Judge Dana Douglas, who was appointed by ⁠Democratic President Joe Biden, dissented, saying the Congress that passed the 1996 law "would be surprised to learn it had also ‌required the detention without bond of two million people."

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; ‌additional reporting by Kristina Cooke; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

The killings of anti-ICE protestersRenee GoodandAlex Prettiprompted outrage in Minneapolis, both for their deaths and the immediate response of federal officials to call both terrorists.

The political backlash that resulted lowered the temperature from the Trump administration – with even the president himself saying, "Maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch" – along with seesawing promises from federal officials over how they would investigate the deaths.

But looming is the question of whether the federal immigration officers who pulled the triggers in both cases actually broke the law, a question that will come down to complicated issues that are much harder to define than the outrage that prompted calls for accountability. Any criminal or civil case will revolve around the legal standards around use of force and what was in those officers' minds as they pulled the trigger.

"Whenever we're talking about use of force, it's not like there's a single rule that we apply," said Seth Stoughton, a criminal justice professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law and former police officer. "There are a number of different rules."

Courts must determine what an officer thought when pulling the trigger

Under a standard established by the Supreme Court nearly four decades ago, shooting a suspect – even one who is unarmed – does not violate the Constitution if the officer reasonably thought the actions of the suspectpresented"imminent danger of death or serious physical injury."

"The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight," Justice William Rehnquist wrote in theGraham v. Connor decisionin 1989.

To figure out how much danger the officer perceived at the time of a shooting requires evidence, says Alex Reinert, director of the Center for Rights and Justice at the Cardozo School of Law.

"You're going to need as much evidence as you can about what was happening in that space and time," Reinert told CNN. "You're going to need videos, any eyewitness statements, anything that could best illustrate the officer's perspective in the moment."

While that is the standard that would be considered in a civil case, local investigators are also looking into whether any state laws were violated.

In the immediate aftermath of Good's shooting, the head of Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said being cut off from that kind of information could be fatal to its own investigation ofJonathan Ross, the ICE officer who shot her.

"Full access to evidence, witnesses and information is necessary to meet the investigative standard that Minnesota law and the public demands; without it, we cannot do so," saidBCA Superintendent Drew Evans.

But by the time of Pretti's killing – and with public anger rising – the tone of state officials hardened, promising a serious inquiry, whatever the challenges.

"Minnesota's justice system will have the last word on this," Gov. Tim Walz said January 24. "It must have the last word."

Local investigators and prosecutors have not said what state charges they might consider in these cases. Vice President JD Vance appeared to argue there could be no state prosecution of a federal agent.

"You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action – that's a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity," Vance said in a January 8 news conference at the White House shortly after Good's shooting.

Legal experts scoffed at the claim, and Reinert said any suspect who gets charged with a crime in Minnesota would normally be extradited to face the allegations there.

"I would expect the same to happen here if we are a nation governed by the rule of law," Reinert said. "If that doesn't happen, then that will be a different challenge to overcome."

Supreme Court has been 'sympathetic' to officers

Last year in the case Barnes v. Felix, the Supreme Courtsaid unanimouslythat in a civil lawsuit alleging excessive force, all the circumstances leading up to a law enforcement shooting must be considered, not just how the officer felt at the moment the trigger was pulled, and there is no time limit.

That means in the Pretti shooting, the defense could point out he had been involved in aviolent clashwith immigration officers 11 days before he was killed.

It also means in the Good shooting, a judge could consider whether Ross' assessment of the threat may have been affected by his vehicle stop of a suspect six months earlier, wherevideo showedhe was dragged down the street and injured.

"If the officers could step out of the way of the car and that would be just as safe and effective as shooting, or maybe even safer and more effective than shooting, then that could play into this determination of whether the use of force was reasonable," said Stoughton.

The Barnes case, which involved an officer who climbed onto the running board of a suspect's vehicle and fatally shot him as he tried to drive away, has some parallels to the death of Good, where video shows Ross firing into the vehicle.

It also shows the tough audience which may be faced if a case ever gets to the conservative-dominated Supreme Court.

A concurring opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and cosigned by three other justices showed sympathy toward officers confronting a suspect inside a vehicle who is driving away.

"The point here is that when a driver abruptly pulls away during a traffic stop, an officer has no particularly good or safe options," Kavanaughwrote.

"The Supreme Court's doctrine with respect to officer use of force is, in general, very sympathetic," said Reinert.

Law enforcement reform has touched many police departments, but not ICE

Past killings of people by law enforcement in the Minneapolis area – includingGeorge Floyd,Daunte WrightandPhilando Castile– prompted the mostfervent callsfor reform in use of force training in the past 25 years.

The city of Minneapolisagreedto a court-supervisedslate of reformsas part of a deal with the Justice Department in the waning days of the Biden administration. Five months later, it wasscuttledby the Trump administration, although the city has promised to continue reforms.

"We will implement every reform outlined in the consent decree because accountability isn't optional,"Mayor Jacob Freysaid in May.

The Minneapolis police chief says the difference between their policies on dealing with protesters and what federal officers have been doing is immediately clear.

"Some of the things that are happening are not right," Chief Brian O'Haratold CNN's Shimon Prokupecz. "And then you see, you see these videos over and over again … it's certainly not the way we train police."

Border czar Tom Homan, the new leader of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, promised last week to focus their attention away from protesters and back onto immigrants – especially those with criminal records.

"We are not surrendering the president's mission in immigration enforcement," Homan said. "Let's make that clear. Prioritization of criminal aliens doesn't mean that we forget about everybody else."

While the Supreme Court has established its own standard of "reasonableness" for use of force, that doesn't prevent state and local governments from making tougher rules.

In Washington state, some of the most sweeping police reforms werepassed in the wake of George Floyd's murder, including requiring recruits in all departments across the state to get the same standard use of force training. The man in charge of the program says it is critical that law enforcement not see the people they encounter as the enemy.

"Officers must remain mindful that they derive their authority from the community, and unreasonable force degrades the legitimacy of that authority," said Richard Peterson, use of force training manager for the state's Criminal Justice Training Commission.

Before there was consistent training across more than 300 law enforcement agencies in Washington, it was hard to hold officers to a consistent "reasonable" standard when many of them had very different training programs, Peterson told CNN.

"In the past, people would just teach you tactics or moves but wouldn't really understand their legal authority. So, we had to switch that way of thinking," he said.

Critics of actions taken by immigration officers – particularly Border Patrol agents – have argued they're not trained for what they now face in major US cities compared to regular police officers.

"The Border Patrol is absolutely, without question, the wrong fit to police in an urban area," said former Customs and Border Protection commissionerGil Kerlikowske, who served during the Obama administration.

The Trump administration insists its immigration forces are well prepared for its task – now armed with $75 billion in funding, through 2029.

"Many of our agents have backgrounds in the military or law enforcement, and Border Patrol agents receive extensive federal law enforcement training at (Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers) just as ICE officers do," aDHS spokesperson said. "The disgusting attempts by the media to say these agents are not trained to enforce the law is shameful and laughable."

It is unclear if use of force training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers has changed since President Trump's second inauguration, but the division has confirmed reprioritizing a "surge" of training for more than 10,000 new immigration personnel, compressing training time – cutting it in half from 16 down to eight weeks.

No matter what is in the training sessions orpolicy manual, Stoughton said the most powerful message officers receive is from the top. Homan'spromiseto operate in a way that is "safer, more efficient, by the book"contrasts with a presidentwho has said agents "are allowed to do whatever the hell they want" to belligerent protesters and an ICE director whobraggedthe administration has "taken the handcuffs off the cops."

"It doesn't really matter what the policy says on the books. What matters is the policy that is enforced by supervisors," Stoughton said. "What matters is the message that agents and officers get from their supervisors about whether trained behavior is going to be rewarded or whether it's going to be disparaged on the street in the field."

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The first gold medal of the 2026Milan Cortina Winter Gameswas awarded on Saturday at the men's downhill race.

On a picture-perfect day in Bormio, Swiss racer Franjo von Allmen powered through the challenging course in 1 minute, 51.61 seconds.

His time was good enough to withstand the challenge of Italy's Giovanni Franzoni, who finished 0.2 of a second behind von Allmen to take the silver medal. Franzoni's teammate, Dominik Paris, had a fast run to take bronze and knock Marco Odermatt of Team Switzerland off the podium.

The highest-ranked American in the men's downhill was Kyle Negomir, who finished 10th.

Sweden goes 1-2 in women's skiathlon

Team Sweden has a strong showing at the women's 10km+10km skiathlon, taking gold and silver on Saturday at Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Val di Fiemme, Italy.

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Frida Karlsson powered to the top of the podium, covering the 20-kilometer course (just a little more than 12 miles) in 53 minutes, 45.2 seconds.

Her teammate, two-time reigning world champ Ebba Andersson, crossed the finish line 51 seconds later. Heidi Weng, of Norway, took bronze.

Either a Swedish or Norwegian woman has won the skiathlon gold medal in the last five Winter Olympics.

Jessie Diggins of Team USA finished eighth, more than three minutes behind Karlsson.

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Fernando Mendozawill not throw at the upcomingNFL combine.

The formerIndiana footballquarterback shared the news while appearing in person on ESPN's "The Pat McAfee Show" on Friday, Feb. 6 from Media Row at Super Bowl 60 in Santa Clara, California.

For his reasoning,the Heisman Trophy winnersaid he wants to throw at theHoosiers' pro day on March 4instead, where he can help give his "guy the best chance" at making an impression in front of NFL executives and turning a few of their heads.

"At the combine, you're throwing to different receivers, it's a whole different thing," Mendoza said. "And I want to make sure I give my guys the best chance. I want to throw at pro day with my guys, with my running backs and be there with the boys.

"The combine, I don't think throwing's going to be a priority just because it's such a quick turnaround."

REQUIRED READING:Fernando Mendoza was 'declined walk-on offer' at Miami. He just beat Canes for national title

Mendoza put together a career-high season in his lone year atIndiana, where he led the Hoosiers to a perfect 16-0 season and the program's first national championship title. In 16 games, Mendoza threw for 3,535 yards and 41 touchdown passes, while running in seven touchdowns, which includes a12-yard score on fourth downin the national championship game vs. Miami.

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He's the widely consensus projected No. 1 overall pick in April's NFL draft by NFL draft analysts, includingUSA TODAY Sports' Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz.Should Mendoza go No. 1 to the Las Vegas Raiders, he'd be the first Hoosiers' player taken with the top overall pick since the then-Cleveland Rams took Corby Davisin the 1938 NFL Draft.

He mentioned during his appearance that he's begun training in California.

"It's been a great process. Everybody always says when I watch interviews or ask former NFL players, like you guts, they say, 'Hey, this is an eight-week interview. You've got to give it your all, limit the distractions and really lock in because where you go and how you set yourself up in front of these GMs and in front of these teams is going to change your life forever,'" Mendoza continued.

"So, I'm making sure to put my head to the grindstone, and like you said, I wanna help my guys (so) at pro day, throw to the boys."

The NFL combine is set to run from Sunday, Feb., 23 to Monday, March 2 in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium, with on-field workouts starting on Thursday, Feb. 26.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Fernando Mendoza throw at Indiana pro day, not NFL combine