CNN 5 Things

From CNN, I'm Eryn Mathewson with the Five Things you need to know for Thursday, February 12th.

'A shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security is all but certain. That's because Democratic senators voted to block a funding bill for DHS, and the move could impact whether employees at agencies like FEMA, TSA, and the Coast Guard get paid. Senators are now leaving Washington for a week-long recess, preplanned. But GOP leader John Thune says they'll return if Democrats and the White House can reach a deal on changes to federal immigration enforcement tactics. Now, ICE has been funded through 2029. So, Democratic Senator Peter Welch says holding up funding will do little to prevent the ICE and CPB operations that concern his party most. Instead, he argues Democrats should focus on the policy at hand.

Should the president, should Homeland Security, should Kristi Noem be implementing this policy of mass deportation? Only 14% of the people who have been picked up and brought into custody have serious criminal records. So what you're seeing is that this wholesale demand by Kristi Noem that they reach quotas, like 3,000 a day, is that people are being picked up were completely innocent, including U.S. Citizens.

We've got more news coming up, including a major blow to a longstanding U.S. Climate policy.

The federal government needs to pay for what they broke here. You don't get to break things and then just leave without doing something about it.

'That's Minnesota Governor Tim Walz at a news conference earlier today. He announced plans for state-subsidized loans to small businesses, which he says took a hit financially because of the immigration enforcement crackdown. He also called on the federal government to, quote, do more. Now, this is the first public comment from Walz since the White House border czar announced "Operation Metro Surge" was ending in the Minneapolis area. CNN has asked the White house for comment on Walz's statements.

A federal judge has blocked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's attempts to punish Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. So here's what happened. Hegsath tried to demote and discipline the Arizona lawmaker after he and other Democrats appeared in a video urging U.S. Service members and the intelligence community to refuse legal orders. Hegsith called that move seditious. But the judge disagreed, ruling that Hegsuth's actions were unconstitutional and retaliatory. Kelly applauded to the decision and responded with this video.

This might not be over yet because this president and this administration do not know how to admit when they're wrong. However hard the Trump administration may fight to punish me and silence others, I'm gonna fight 10 times harder.

Now, the Justice Department is expected to appeal.

The Trump administration has dealt a setback to climate protections in the US. It repealed the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate climate pollution, saying, quote, it has nothing to do with public health. CNN's Ella Nilsen explains.

'So Eryn, the Trump administration repealed the so-called endangerment finding, which found that six greenhouse gasses could be categorized as dangerous to human health under a bedrock U.S. environmental law. This is considered the federal government's most powerful tool to regulate climate pollution. The administration also overturned key pollution rules for vehicles on Thursday alongside it. The Trump administration is arguing that EPA legally doesn't have this authority, and Trump called the policy disastrous. Trump's actions will kick off a long legal battle that could go all the way to the Supreme Court. Environmental and public health groups are already promising to sue.

The search for Nancy Guthrie is on day 12. We'll tell you where it stands.

Savannah Guthrie has posted a clip of an old home video and a family photo to Instagram today. It appears to show her and her older sister, Annie, as children with their mother, Nancy Guthrie, sitting on a bed of flowers with the words, "Our lovely mom, we will never give up on her." Nancy Guthrie has now been missing for almost two weeks. And the latest evidence recovered by investigators includes multiple gloves. And TMZ says it received a second email demanding Bitcoin in exchange for information on Guthrie's kidnapper. CNN has not been able to independently verify the note and it has reached out to the Pima County Sheriff's Department for comment.

That's all for now. For more updates on Guthrie and everything else you heard today, check out cnn.com. Our next episode drops at 7 a.m. Eastern.