By MATT O’BRIEN

Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics publicly demonstrated its humanoid robot Atlas for the first time Monday at the CES tech showcase, ratcheting up a competition with Tesla and other rivals to build robots that look like people and do things that people do.

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“For the first time ever in public, please welcome Atlas to the stage,” said Boston Dynamics’ Zachary Jackowski as a life-sized robot with two arms and two legs picked itself up from the floor at a Las Vegas hotel ballroom.

It then fluidly walked around the stage for several minutes, sometimes waving to the crowd and swiveling its head like an owl. An engineer remotely piloted the robot from nearby for the purpose of the demonstration, though in real life Atlas will move around on its own, said Jackowski, the company’s general manager for humanoid robots.

The company said a product version of the robot that will help assemble cars is already in production and will be deployed by 2028 at Hyundai’s electric vehicle manufacturing facility near Savannah, Georgia.

The South Korean carmaker holds a controlling stake in Massachusetts-based Boston Dynamics, which has been developing robots for decades and is best known for its first commercial product: the dog-like robot called Spot. A group of four-legged Spot robots opened Hyundai’s event Monday by dancing in synchrony to a K-pop song.

Hyundai also announced a new partnership with Google’s DeepMind, which will supply its artificial intelligence technology to Boston Dynamics robots. It’s a return to a familiar partnership for Google, which bought Boston Dynamics in 2013 before selling it to Japanese tech giant SoftBank several years later. Hyundai acquired it from SoftBank in 2021.

It’s rare for leading robot makers to publicly demonstrate their humanoids, in part because fumbles attract unwanted attention — such as when one of Russia’s first humanoids fell on its face in November. Robotics startups typically prefer to show off their research prototypes in videos on social media, offering them the opportunity to show the machines at their best and edit out their failings.

At the end of Monday’s live Atlas demonstration, which appeared flawless, the humanoid prototype swung its arms in a theatrical gesture to introduce a static model of the new product version of Atlas, which looked slightly different and was blue in color.

Crossover excitement from the commercial AI boom and new technical advances have helped pour huge amounts of money into robotics development, though many experts still think it’s a long time before truly human-like robots that can perform many different tasks take root in workplaces or homes.

“I think the question comes back to what are the use cases and where is the applicability of the technology,” said Alex Panas, a partner at consultancy McKinsey who helped lead a CES robotics panel that attracted hundreds of people earlier in the day. “In some cases, it may look more humanoid. In some cases, it may not.”

Either way, Panas said, “the software, the chipsets, the communication, all the other pieces of the technology are coming together, and they will create new applications.”

Humanoids don’t yet have enough dexterity to threaten many human jobs, though a debate over their effects on employment is likely to grow as they become more skilled. The same Georgia plant where Hyundai plans to test out Atlas was the site of a federal immigration raid last year that led to the arrests of hundreds of workers, including more than 300 South Korean citizens.

Kaohly Her, the newly sworn-in mayor of St. Paul, has announced several key hires who will serve as top staffers in her administration, including four assistant mayors.

Her will ditch precedent and abandon the traditional mayor/deputy mayor structure, opting instead to split city operations under the general purview of the four assistant mayors chosen from her transition team and former campaign staff.

The closest to a traditional deputy mayor is Erica Schumacher, a lifelong St. Paul resident and former staffer under former Mayor Chris Coleman and the Minnesota Senate DFL. Schumacher, who most recently worked in the office of Ramsey County Attorney John Choi, will be senior assistant mayor for Safety and Justice, overseeing the city attorney’s office, police, fire and emergency medical services, Emergency Management and the Office of Neighborhood Safety.

Nick Stumo-Langer will serve as assistant mayor for Housing, Economic Vibrancy and Infrastructure, overseeing Planning and Economic Development, Safety and Inspections, Public Works, Financial Services, the Office of Financial Empowerment, and Equal Economic Opportunity/Procurement. He has held staff positions with the Minnesota House DFL, Minneapolis City Council, Minneapolis Election and Voter Services, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and multiple campaigns.

Jodi Pfarr will serve as assistant mayor for People and Neighborhood Vitality, overseeing Parks and Recreation, Libraries, Water, Human Resources, the Office of Technology and Communications, and Human Rights. Pfarr, president of J Pfarr Consulting, is the former executive director of Emma Norton Services, a nonprofit that provides housing for homeless women and families. She has consulted for or held roles within the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities and the Ramsey County Attorney’s office. She is a former chaplain with the St. Paul Police Department.

Hnu Vang, Her’s former campaign director, will be the assistant mayor for Staff and Strategic Partnerships, effectively serving as chief of staff and director of operations within the mayor’s office. Vang work experience includes staffing Minnesota House DFL Leadership, the Minnesota Senate DFL, the Office of Congressman Dean Phillips, the Office of Congresswoman Angie Craig, and multiple political campaigns.

Irene Kao will serve as city attorney. Kao recently led the legal team at the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency as it implemented the state’s $1.3 billion affordable housing package in 2023. She previously worked for the League of Minnesota Cities, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the Minneapolis law firm of Goetz & Eckland and Macalester College, where she was an assistant dean of students. She has also served as an adjunct faculty member with the Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

Cedrick Baker will lead the Office of Neighborhood Safety. Baker, who was recently the chief of staff for the McKnight Foundation, is a former chief of staff for the St. Paul Public Schools and equity manager for the Metropolitan Council. He is a doctoral candidate in organizational leadership at the University of Minnesota.

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Marcus Owens will be the director of the Office of Financial Empowerment. Owens is the founder of Nawe, Inc., a financial and strategic planning consulting firm for nonprofits, which has worked closely with the Pohlad Family Foundation, Girls on the Run MN, African Economic Development Solutions, the GroundBreak Coalition and other agencies. He was previously the chief executive officer of the African American Leadership Forum and the Northside Economic Opportunity Network, as well as an employee relations consultant at Target.

Matt Wagenius, Her’s campaign spokesperson, will serve as executive director of Public Affairs and Communications. He is a former staffer with the Minnesota House DFL, Gov. Tim Walz and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. He runs North Star Digital, which provides communications and fundraising consulting for Democratic political campaigns across the country.

A vehicle collided with an eastbound light rail train shortly after noon Monday at University and Prior avenues in St. Paul.

A Metro Transit spokesman said the Green Line train had the right of way. The driver of the car was cited for failure to obey traffic devices, the spokesman said.

Two train passengers were taken to the hospital with back pain.

Regular train service had been restored by Monday afternoon.

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By ANDERS KONGSHAUG, CLAUDIA CIOBANU and STEFANIE DAZIO

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday an American takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. Her comments came in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed call for the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island to come under U.S. control in the aftermath of the weekend military operation in Venezuela.

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The dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas to capture leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife early Saturday left the world stunned, and heightened concerns in Denmark and Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of the Danish kingdom and thus part of NATO.

Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens Frederik Nielsen, blasted the president’s comments and warned of catastrophic consequences. Numerous European leaders expressed solidarity with them.

“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday. “That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War.”

20-day timeline deepens fears

Trump called repeatedly during his presidential transition and the early months of his second term for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has not ruled out military force to take control of the island. His comments Sunday, including telling reporters “let’s talk about Greenland in 20 days,” further deepened fears that the U.S. was planning an intervention in Greenland in the near future.

Frederiksen also said Trump “should be taken seriously” when he says he wants Greenland. “We will not accept a situation where we and Greenland are threatened in this way,” she added.

Nielsen, in a news conference Monday, said Greenland cannot be compared to Venezuela. He urged his constituents to stay calm and united.

“We are not in a situation where we think that there might be a takeover of the country overnight and that is why we are insisting that we want good cooperation,” he said.

Nielsen added: “The situation is not such that the United States can simply conquer Greenland.”

Ask Rostrup, a TV2 political journalist, wrote on the station’s live blog Monday that Mette previously would have flatly rejected the idea of an American takeover of Greenland. But now, Rostrup wrote, the rhetoric has escalated so much that she has to acknowledge the possibility.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen holds a press conference in Nuuk, Greenland, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. (Oscar Scott Carl/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

Trump slams Denmark’s security efforts in Greenland

Trump on Sunday also mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.

“It’s so strategic right now,” Trump had told reporters Sunday as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”

He added: “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

But Ulrik Pram Gad, a global security expert from the Danish Institute for International Studies, wrote in a report last year that “there are indeed Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic, but these vessels are too far away to see from Greenland with or without binoculars.”

U.S. space base in northwestern Greenland

Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled this weekend by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON.”

“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark’s chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump’s influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

The U.S. Department of Defense operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland. It was built following a 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States. It supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

On Denmark’s mainland, the partnership between the U.S. and Denmark has been long-lasting. The Danes buy American F-35 fighter jets and just last year, Denmark’s parliament approved a bill to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil.

Critics say the vote ceded Danish sovereignty to the U.S. The legislation widens a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.

Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Dazio from Berlin.