Liam Ramos is home, the Grammys stood on the right side of history, and the Sinaloa cartel detail everyone missed in the Epstein files
Three stories that explain where the country is headed, and what they’re trying to hide
We’re starting the week with a rare bit of better news, even as the larger picture stays brutal: Liam Ramos is home, the Grammys showed a spine, and the Epstein files contain a detail most people missed.
It’s finally February. After a month that felt like three years, here’s what we’re tracking this week:
Liam Ramos returns home
After becoming a devastating symbol of the political reality in the United States, five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father have returned to Minneapolis. They arrived home on Sunday after being released from an immigration detention center in Texas. Both were held there for more than a week after ICE agents used Liam Ramos as bait to arrest his father.
According to U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro, “Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack. Thank you to everyone who demanded freedom for Liam,” Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, said in a post on X. “We won’t stop until all children and families are home.”
The Latino politician added that he personally picked them up from the detention center and brought them back to Minneapolis. Their release came after a U.S. judge on Saturday ordered Liam and his father freed. The judge stated, “The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”
The Grammys are on the right side of history
A week after taking the country’s most important stage, Bad Bunny made history. The Puerto Rican singer won Album of the Year for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” the first Spanish-language Album to win the top prize. The artist also won the Best Urban Album award. Benito used the platform to denounce ICE and dedicated his award to immigrants and Puerto Rico.
“We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans,” Bad Bunny said, after using the phrase “ICE out,” which has been repeated as a call to end the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Other artists, such as Billie Eilish, also used their moments on stage to denounce the government’s anti-immigration policies. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” the singer said. Similarly, the Best New Artist award went to Olivia Dean, who said, “I am up here as the granddaughter of an immigrant.”
Other artists who spoke out included Kehlani and Gloria Estefan. Finally, in her tribute to Roberta Flack and D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill returned to the Grammy stage, filling the scene with Black artists and celebrating their impact on the music industry.
The Sinaloa Cartel in the Epstein files?
In the dump of Epstein documents released by the Department of Justice last week, the Sinaloa Cartel appears as a footnote. While everyone focused on other atrocities revealed in the documents, we couldn’t help but notice a complaint that claims there were “high-profile sex parties and dealings with cartels.”
The news comes a year after several media outlets reported that a Mexican security chief claimed U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration made a deal allowing 17 drug cartel family members to enter the United States.
“Mexico’s security chief confirmed Tuesday that 17 family members of cartel leaders crossed into the U.S. last week as part of a deal between a son of the former head of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Trump administration,” the Associated Press reported in May 2025.
Independent reporting by journalists such as Luis Chaparro confirmed that Mexico’s security chief, Omar Hamid García Harfuch, said that 17 family members of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is imprisoned in the United States, had crossed into America.
“Seventeen members of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s family, including a daughter and Ovidio Guzmán’s mother, surrendered to the FBI this weekend at one of the international bridges between Mexico and the United States,” Chaparro said in May 2025. “According to reports from our sources, the family surrendered to the FBI at noon last Friday at the San Ysidro border port in Tijuana. And according to the same sources, among these people are Griselda López, Ovidio’s mother, several nephews, a grandson named Archivaldo, and a daughter of “El Chapo”, along with a son-in-law of the drug trafficker. It is currently unknown why they surrendered, but the fact that they turned themselves in to agents who were already waiting for them is probably linked to the deal Ovidio Guzmán allegedly made with the United States government last week. The family reportedly arrived with several suitcases, at least two brand-name suitcases for each member, and between them all, they were carrying more than $70,000 in cash.”
For those of us who have been following the news closely, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots. In the complaint within the Epstein files, the people mentioned alongside the Sinaloa Cartel include President Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Robin Leach.
Excellent reporting on that Epstein/Sinaloa footnote, thats the kind of detail most outlets just gloss over. The timing with those 17 family members crossingthe border really does feel like puzzle pieces that don't quite fit the official story. Ran into a similar pattern back when covering border politics where the real story was always in what didn't get headlines.