By KAITLYN HUAMANI, Associated Press Technology Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Trump administration has not shied away from sharing AI-generated imagery online, embracing cartoonlike visuals and memes and promoting them on official White House channels.

But an edited — and realistic — image of civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong in tears after being arrested is raising new alarms about how the administration is blurring the lines between what is real and what is fake.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s account posted the original image from Levy Armstrong’s arrest before the official White House account posted an altered image that showed her crying. The doctored picture is part of a deluge of AI-edited imagery that has been shared across the political spectrum since the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by U.S. Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis

However, the White House’s use of artificial intelligence has troubled misinformation experts who fear the spreading of AI-generated or edited images erodes public perception of the truth and sows distrust.

In response to criticism of the edited image of Levy Armstrong, White House officials doubled down on the post, with deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr writing on X that the “memes will continue.” White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson also shared a post mocking the criticism.

David Rand, a professor of information science at Cornell University, says calling the altered image a meme “certainly seems like an attempt to cast it as a joke or humorous post, like their prior cartoons. This presumably aims to shield them from criticism for posting manipulated media.” He said the purpose of sharing the altered arrest image seems “much more ambiguous” than the cartoonish images the administration has shared in the past.

Memes have always carried layered messages that are funny or informative to people who understand them, but indecipherable to outsiders. AI-enhanced or edited imagery is just the latest tool the White House uses to engage the segment of Trump’s base that spends a lot of time online, said Zach Henry, a Republican communications consultant who founded Total Virality, an influencer marketing firm.

“People who are terminally online will see it and instantly recognize it as a meme,” he said. “Your grandparents may see it and not understand the meme, but because it looks real, it leads them to ask their kids or grandkids about it.”

All the better if it prompts a fierce reaction, which helps it go viral, said Henry, who generally praised the work of the White House’s social media team.

The creation and dissemination of altered images, especially when they are shared by credible sources, “crystallizes an idea of what’s happening, instead of showing what is actually happening,” said Michael A. Spikes, a professor at Northwestern University and news media literacy researcher.

“The government should be a place where you can trust the information, where you can say it’s accurate, because they have a responsibility to do so,” he said. “By sharing this kind of content, and creating this kind of content … it is eroding the trust — even though I’m always kind of skeptical of the term trust — but the trust we should have in our federal government to give us accurate, verified information. It’s a real loss, and it really worries me a lot.”

Spikes said he already sees the “institutional crises” around distrust in news organizations and higher education, and feels this behavior from official channels inflames those issues.

Ramesh Srinivasan, a professor at UCLA and the host of the Utopias podcast, said many people are now questioning where they can turn to for “trustable information.” “AI systems are only going to exacerbate, amplify and accelerate these problems of an absence of trust, an absence of even understanding what might be considered reality or truth or evidence,” he said.

Srinivasan said he feels the White House and other officials sharing AI-generated content not only invites everyday people to continue to post similar content but also grants permission to others who are in positions of credibility and power, like policymakers, to share unlabeled synthetic content. He added that given that social media platforms tend to “algorithmically privilege” extreme and conspiratorial content — which AI generation tools can create with ease — “we’ve got a big, big set of challenges on our hands.”

An influx of AI-generated videos related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement action, protests and interactions with citizens has already been proliferating on social media. After Renee Good was shot by an ICE officer while she was in her car, several AI-generated videos began circulating of women driving away from ICE officers who told them to stop. There are also many fabricated videos circulating of immigration raids and of people confronting ICE officers, often yelling at them or throwing food in their faces.

Jeremy Carrasco, a content creator who specializes in media literacy and debunking viral AI videos, said the bulk of these videos are likely coming from accounts that are “engagement farming,” or looking to capitalize on clicks by generating content with popular keywords and search terms like ICE. But he also said the videos are getting views from people who oppose ICE and DHS and could be watching them as “fan fiction,” or engaging in “wishful thinking,” hoping that they’re seeing real pushback against the organizations and their officers.

Still, Carrasco also believes that most viewers can’t tell if what they’re watching is fake, and questions whether they would know “what’s real or not when it actually matters, like when the stakes are a lot higher.”

Even when there are blatant signs of AI generation, like street signs with gibberish on them or other obvious errors, only in the “best-case scenario” would a viewer be savvy enough or be paying enough attention to register the use of AI.

This issue is, of course, not limited to news surrounding immigration enforcement and protests. Fabricated and misrepresented images following the capture of deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro exploded online earlier this month. Experts, including Carrasco, think the spread of AI-generated political content will only become more commonplace.

Carrasco believes that the widespread implementation of a watermarking system that embeds information about the origin of a piece of media into its metadata layer could be a step toward a solution. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity has developed such a system, but Carrasco doesn’t think that will become extensively adopted for at least another year.

“It’s going to be an issue forever now,” he said. I don’t think people understand how bad this is.”

Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix and Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed to this report.

By STEVEN SLOAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Bill Cassidy didn’t simply criticize the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

Following the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti by a U.S. Border Patrol officer, the Louisiana Republican warned of broader implications for the federal government.

“The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake,” Cassidy wrote in a social media post, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security. “There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth.”

Trust is one of a president’s most valuable currencies, especially in a time of crisis. During his second term, President Donald Trump has persistently undermined the trust and credibility of major universities, national law firms and media and taken punitive actions against them. His supporters largely either endorsed those actions or stayed mum.

Now the credibility question is aimed at his administration. While the criticism is not directly aimed at the president by his supporters, it is a sign that trust is eroding over some of his most important policies. Administration officials gave one account of the shooting in Minneapolis and contemporaneous video provided a decidedly different one.

In the hours after Pretti’s killing, top Trump officials including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem were quick to cast Pretti as an instigator who “approached” officers with a gun and acted violently. But videos from the scene show Pretti being pushed by an officer before a half-dozen agents descend on him.

During the scuffle, he held a phone but is never seen brandishing the 9mm semiautomatic handgun police say he was licensed to carry. The administration has said investigations are ongoing, though information hasn’t yet emerged to support some of the provocative initial claims.

“We trust our national leaders to tell us accurately about the world that we don’t experience directly but about which they have knowledge,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “If someone is credible in that role, then their description of reality should match your perception of reality if you’re a dispassionate, fair individual.”

The White House seemed to try to ease the conflict Monday. Trump and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz spoke and both suggested their conversation was productive. Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who has been at the center of the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement surge nationwide, is expected to soon leave Minneapolis.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, meanwhile, sought to distance Trump from some of the initial claims about Pretti — including allegations that he was a domestic terrorist — noting they didn’t come from the president himself.

Still, lawmakers from both parties — including many Republicans — called for independent investigations and, perhaps most importantly, trust.

In calling for a “transparent, independent investigation,” Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, wrote to constituents online that “you’ve trusted me, and maintaining that trust matters.”

“I disagree with Secretary Noem’s premature DHS response, which came before all the facts were known and weakened confidence,” he wrote.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is pushing an amendment to a DHS funding bill that would force independent probes of DHS, ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. She hasn’t yet won GOP support for the measure but said in a statement “this isn’t a red or blue issue.”

“It’s about truth and accountability,” she said.

Feeding social media platforms with content

Trump and his team have spent much of his second term studiously feeding content to social media platforms to engage their most loyal supporters in ways that independent fact checkers have found to be distorted or baseless. During its immigration crackdown, the administration’s accounts have posted unflattering images of people being taken into custody.

The extent of efforts to manipulate images became clear last week when the White House posted a picture on its X page of civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong crying with her hands behind her back as she was escorted by a blurred person wearing a badge. The photo was captioned in all caps: “Arrested far-left agitator Nekima Levy Armstrong for orchestrating church riots in Minnesota.”

A photo posted by Noem’s account showed the same image with Levy Armstrong wearing a neutral expression.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, fueled false claims online that Haitians in an Ohio community were abducting and eating pets. Pressed on the issue, Vance said he was amplifying the claims to draw attention to immigration policies advocated by Democrats.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance said at the time, quickly clarifying that he “created the focus that allowed the media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by policies.”

Trump is hardly the first president to face questions about trust.

Presidents and credibility

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration was undone by his handling of the Vietnam War, which ushered in an era of broad skepticism about Washington. Just 38% of Americans said last year that they trusted the federal government’s ability to handle domestic problems at least a fair amount, according to Gallup polling. That’s down from 70% in 1972.

Once they leave the White House, presidents are often candid about mistakes that eroded their credibility. In his memoir, President George W. Bush wrote about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was a predicate for launching a deadly and costly war there.

“That was a massive blow to our credibility — my credibility,” he wrote. “No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn’t find the weapons. I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do.”

President Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan marked a turning point in his administration. And in her memoir of the 2024 campaign, his vice president, Kamala Harris, wrote of rejecting the Biden campaign’s talking points after his dismal debate performance.

“I was not about to tell the American people that their eyes had lied,” she wrote. “I would not jeopardize my own credibility.”

But none of that compares to the credibility challenge facing Trump, according to Barbara Perry, the co-director of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, who noted the sheer volume of lies and exaggerations that have emerged from his administration.

“Donald Trump is unique,” she said. “If you count up all of the times he has prevaricated, it would have to outweigh all other presidencies.”

By GARY FIELDS, JOSH FUNK and ED WHITE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — An air traffic controller felt a “little overwhelmed” by numerous aircraft around Reagan airport just minutes before an American Airlines jet collided midair last year with an Army Black Hawk helicopter, killing 67 people, an investigator said Tuesday at a National Transportation Safety Board hearing to determine the biggest factors in the crash.

During the hearing’s early stages, some themes emerged: The jet’s pilot had no warning about the helicopter, and airspace was crowded the night of Jan. 29, 2025.

“It will not be an easy day,” NTSB board member Todd Inman said in his opening remarks. “There is no singular person to blame for this. These were systemic issues across multiple organizations.”

Everyone aboard the jet, flying from Wichita, Kansas, and the helicopter died when the two aircraft collided and plummeted into the icy Potomac River. It was the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001.

The Federal Aviation Administration made several changes after the crash to ensure helicopters and planes no longer share the same airspace around the nation’s capital, and last week made those changes permanent. The NTSB will recommend additional action, and families of the victims have said they hope that leads to meaningful change.

NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said she couldn’t believe the FAA didn’t realize the helicopter route in use during the crash didn’t provide adequate separation from planes landing on Reagan’s secondary runway.

“We know over time concerns were raised repeatedly, went unheard, squashed — however you want to put it — stuck in red tape and bureaucracy of a very large organization,” Homendy said. “Repeated recommendations over the years.”

NTSB investigator Katherine Wilson said an air traffic controller felt a “little overwhelmed” when traffic volume increased to 10 aircraft about 10 to 15 minutes before the collision, but then “felt the volume was manageable when one or two helicopters left the airspace.”

Yet about 90 seconds before the collision, Wilson said, “traffic volume increased to a maximum of 12 aircraft consisting of seven airplanes and five helicopters. Radio communication showed that the local controller was shifting its focus between airborne, ground and transiting aircraft.”

The workload “reduced his situational awareness,” Wilson said.

NTSB investigators showed a video animation to demonstrate how difficult it would have been for the pilots in both aircraft to spot the other amid the lights of Washington. The animation also showed how the windshields of both aircraft and the helicopter crew’s night vision goggles restricted views.

Some people were escorted from the room, including two in tears, as an animation of the flights began. Several entered the auditorium wearing black shirts bearing the names of crash victims.

“I hope that we see a clear path through the recommendations they offer to ensure that this never happens again,” Rachel Feres, who lost her cousin Peter Livingston and his wife and two young daughters in the crash, said ahead of the hearing. “That nobody else has to wake up to hear that an entire branch of their family tree is gone, or their wife is gone or the child is gone. That’s what I hope coming out of this. I hope we have clarity and urgency.”

Whether that happens depends on how Congress, the Army and the Trump administration respond after the hearing. Victims’ families say they will keep the pressure on officials to act.

Young Alydia and Everly Livingston were among 28 members of the figure skating community who died in the crash. Many of them had been in Wichita for a national skating competition and development camp.

The NTSB has already spelled out many key factors that contributed to the crash and detailed what happened that night. That includes a poorly designed helicopter route past Reagan airport, the fact that the Black Hawk was flying 78 feet (23.7 meters) higher than it should have been, the warnings that the FAA ignored in the years beforehand, and the Army’s move to turn off a key system that would have broadcast the helicopter’s location more clearly.

Several other high-profile crashes and close calls followed the D.C. collision, alarming the flying public. But NTSB statistics show that the total number of crashes last year was the lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, with 1,405 nationwide.

Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska, and White reported from Detroit. AP Airlines writer Rio Yamat contributed from Las Vegas.

By Sarah Atwood, satwood@detroitnews.com

The University of Michigan will partly finance faculty research projects amid cuts to federal research funding, the university said.

The research funding program will begin this month and support projects across all three UM campuses — Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint, according to the announcement Friday in the University Record, a university-run faculty-staff news source. The program is meant to provide short-term support to help maintain research continuity, support research staff and remain competitive for future outside funding, UM said in the article.

A similar but separate program will be run through the university’s medical school.

“This program is not intended to replace federal funding or create a long-term safety net,” said Arthur Lupia, vice president for research and innovation in the article. “It is a targeted, one-time investment to help outstanding U-M researchers transition in a time of change and continue to do important work that serves the people of Michigan and the world.”

Researchers in charge of projects, known as principal investigators, can request up to one year of partial support under the program, the university said. Researchers can apply for up to 35% of the average annual direct cost that was originally requested in the researcher’s federal proposal, with a maximum of $150,000 per year. Central university support will cover up to half of the research cost, with the rest covered by the researcher’s school, college or unit.

All money must be spent at UM, the university said.

UM is among the nation’s top public universities in research spending. In 2024, UM’s annual research expenditures reached a record $2.04 billion — of that amount, federal funding accounted for $1.17 billion, for over half of the university’s total.

UM anticipates receiving $163 million less from the federal government through fiscal year 2026, budget projections approved by the Board of Regents in June show.

Michigan State University announced a similar funding program last April, called the Jenison Fund. The fund would provide strategic, targeted, time-limited assistance to graduate students who have lost funding and to faculty members experiencing disruptions in research funding, according to MSU.

Michigan State President Kevin Guskiewicz said a total of up to $5 million annually for the next three years would be allocated to the fund.

To date, the fund has awarded resources to 35 projects, MSU spokesperson Amber McCann said.

In October, Guskiewicz announced that 74 federally funded projects at MSU were ended by the federal government, with a multiyear impact estimated at $104 million. At the time, 86 projects were paused or affected by stop-work orders.

By AAMER MADHANI and STEVE KARNOWSKI

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump shifted toward a more conciliatory approach with Democratic leaders in Minnesota on Monday, a sudden change in tack following an outcry over the second fatal shooting by federal agents in the state this month during the administration’s nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

The about-face comes after Saturday’s shooting death of Alex Pretti by federal agents raised doubts — including from some Republicans — over how the Trump administration has gone about aggressively deporting migrants and confronting protesters opposed to the policy.

But it’s just the latest in a string of moments where Trump has first taken a maximalist position only to appear to later retreat.

Earlier this month, Trump repeatedly threatened Iran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force to squelch recent antigovernment protests. Human rights groups said thousands were killed, but Trump says he’s holding off on acting after he received assurances Tehran was suspending hundreds of planned executions.

Last week, Trump first announced plans to impose new tariffs on European allies that refused to go along with his calls for the U.S. to take control of the Arctic territory of Greenland — only to abruptly cancel the tariffs after saying he’d come to terms of the “framework” of an agreement. The White House offered scant details about the deal, which Trump announced the day after the stock market saw one of its worst days in months in response to his tariff threat.

Then on Monday, Trump’s administration changed up oversight of his immigration operation in Minnesota, and the typically bombastic Trump offered a warmer tone toward Gov. Tim Walz after speaking with the Democrat, saying he and Walz were now on a “similar wavelength.”

Some Republicans took issue with what happened in Minneapolis

It was a particularly jarring turnabout for Trump, who had promised to be uncompromising on carrying out mass deportations of undocumented migrants during his 2024 campaign — and because Trump has repeatedly scorched Walz and other Minnesota Democrats in personal terms for resisting his policies.

Trump said he had dispatched border czar Tom Homan to take charge. Meanwhile, senior Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino and some agents were expected to leave Minneapolis as early as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Trump declared on social media that Walz “was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I!” Later, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey confirmed that some agents would be leaving the city after he spoke with Trump — and suggested that the president seemed to be coming to the conclusion that the current state of federal operations was unsustainable. Homan and Frey were expected to meet Tuesday.

Trump’s change-up in Minnesota came after some Republicans questioned federal agents’ tactics in Saturday’s shooting as well as the White House’s response. Some high-ranking administration officials had branded Pretti a domestic terrorist even as videos of the encounter contradicted their narrative.

Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Chris Madel, a Minneapolis attorney, ended his GOP campaign in a surprise video announcement Monday, calling the recent immigration enforcement operation in the Twin Cities an “unmitigated disaster” and saying he no longer wanted to be a member of the party because of it.

Meanwhile, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been a strong supporter of Trump’s crackdown on immigration, offered measured criticism in an interview with conservative radio host Mark Davis, saying the White House needs to “recalibrate” what it was doing in Minnesota. Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott called on Trump to reset and de-escalate.

“At best, these federal immigration operations are a complete failure of coordination of acceptable public safety and law enforcement practices training, and leadership,” Scott said. “At worst, it’s a deliberate federal intimidation and incitement of American citizens that’s resulting in the murder of Americans.”

Trump had scorched Walz. Now, they’re on a ‘similar wavelength’

The president’s approach toward Walz, who served as Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, amounted to a sharp U-turn.

Just a day earlier, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, had derided Walz on social media as trying to “incite attacks on” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The White House social media team in a series of posts called the governor “a truly disturbed, unstable individual” and an “unhinged lunatic” who “rants and raves and lies.”

Miller also referred to Pretti, a nurse who worked at a Veterans Affairs hospital, as a “would-be assassin” while Homeland Security Kristi Noem labeled the ICU nurse as committing an act of domestic terrorism.

The White House sidestepped whether Trump agreed with his senior aides’ rhetoric or whether the administration would apologize for it.

“This incident remains under investigation,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “And nobody here at the White House, including the president of the United States, wants to see Americans hurt or killed and losing their lives.”

His response has been muted compared to other recent deaths

Trump’s response to the deaths of the two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis has been much more muted than reactions to political violence that he’s portrayed as targeting his own political movement.

After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, the president spoke to the nation from the Oval Office and called Kirk’s death “a dark moment for America.”

In November, Trump gave a national address after two National Guard members were shot in Washington by an Afghan national, one fatally. The guard members had been deployed to the nation’s capital as part of a federal mission to assist with local policing, and the president called the shooting “an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror.”

But the president has yet to speak directly to the nation about the deaths of Pretti and Renee Good, another U.S. citizen who was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this month. Trump has so far largely chosen to keep the public informed in the wake of Pretti’s death with social media posts.

Even as his comments Monday appeared to be aimed at turning down the rhetoric, Trump’s chief spokesperson, Leavitt, continued to blame Walz and other Minnesota Democrats for encouraging “left-wing agitators to stop, record, confront and obstruct federal officers who are just trying to lawfully perform their duties.”

“This is precisely what unfolded in Minneapolis on Saturday morning,” Leavitt added.

AP writers Josh Boak and Joey Cappelletti in Washington, Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed reporting. Karnowski reported from Minneapolis.

By BILL BARROW and NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press

Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped elicit a White House turnabout this week after bristling over the administration’s characterization of Alex Pretti, the second person killed this month by a federal officer in Minneapolis, as responsible for his own death because he lawfully possessed a weapon.

The death produced no clear shifts in U.S. gun politics or policies, even as President Donald Trump shuffles the lieutenants in charge of his militarized immigration crackdown. But important voices in Trump’s coalition have called for a thorough investigation of Pretti’s death while also criticizing inconsistencies in some Republicans’ Second Amendment stances.

If the dynamic persists, it could give Republicans problems as Trump heads into a midterm election year with voters already growing skeptical of his overall immigration approach. The concern is acute enough that Trump’s top spokeswoman sought Monday to reassert his brand as a staunch gun rights supporter.

“The president supports the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens, absolutely,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Leavitt qualified that “when you are bearing arms and confronted by law enforcement, you are raising … the risk of force being used against you.”

Videos contradict early statements from administration

That still marked a retreat from the administration’s previous messages about the shooting of Pretti. It came the same day the president dispatched border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota, seemingly elevating him over Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, who had been in charge in Minneapolis.

Within hours of Pretti’s death on Saturday, Bovino suggested Pretti “wanted to … massacre law enforcement,” and Noem said Pretti was “brandishing” a weapon and acted “violently” toward officers.

“I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign,” Noem said.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, an architect of Trump’s mass deportation effort, went further on X, declaring Pretti “an assassin.”

Bystander videos contradicted each claim, instead showing Pretti holding a cellphone and helping a woman who had been pepper sprayed by a federal officer. Within seconds, Pretti was sprayed, too, and taken to the ground by multiple officers. No video disclosed thus far has shown him unholstering his concealed weapon -– which he had a Minnesota permit to carry. It appeared that one officer took Pretti’s gun and walked away with it just before shots began.

As multiple videos went viral online and on television, Vice President JD Vance reposted Miller’s assessment, while Trump shared an alleged photo of “the gunman’s gun, loaded (with two additional full magazines!).”

Swift reactions from gun rights advocates

The National Rifle Association, which has backed Trump three times, released a statement that began by casting blame on Minnesota Democrats it accused of stoking protests. But the group lashed out after a federal prosecutor in California said on X that, “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.”

That analysis, the NRA said, is “dangerous and wrong.”

FBI Director Kash Patel magnified the blowback Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo.” No one, Patel said, can “bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple.”

Erich Pratt, vice president of Gun Owners of America, was incredulous.

“I have attended protest rallies while armed, and no one got injured,” he said on CNN.

Conservative officials around the country made the same connection between the First and Second amendments.

“Showing up at a protest is very American. Showing up with a weapon is very American,” state Rep. Jeremy Faison, who leads the GOP caucus in Tennessee, said on X.

Trump’s first-term vice president, Mike Pence, called for “full and transparent investigation of this officer involved shooting.”

A different response from the past

Liberals, conservatives and nonpartisan experts noted how the administration’s response differed from past conservative positions involving protests and weapons.

Multiple Trump supporters were found to have weapons during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump issued blanket pardons to all of them.

Republicans were critical in 2020 when Mark and Patricia McCloskey had to pay fines after pointing guns at protesters who marched through their St. Louis neighborhood after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And then there’s Kyle Rittenhouse, a counter-protester acquitted after fatally shooting two men and injuring another in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the post-Floyd protests.

“You remember Kyle Rittenhouse and how he was made a hero on the right,” Trey Gowdy, a Republican former congressman and attorney for Trump during one of his first-term impeachments. “Alex Pretti’s firearm was being lawfully carried. … He never brandished it.”

Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who has studied the history of the gun debate, said the fallout “shows how tribal we’ve become.” Republicans spent years talking about the Second Amendment as a means to fight government tyranny, he said.

“The moment someone who’s thought to be from the left, they abandon that principled stance,” Winkler said.

Meanwhile, Democrats who have criticized open and concealed carry laws for years, Winkler added, are not amplifying that position after Pretti’s death.

Uncertain effects in an election year

The blowback against the administration from core Trump supporters comes as Republicans are trying to protect their threadbare majority in the U.S. House and face several competitive Senate races.

Perhaps reflecting the stakes, GOP staff and campaign aides were reticent Monday to talk about the issue at all.

The House Republican campaign chairman, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, is sponsoring the GOP’s most significant gun legislation of this congressional term, a proposal to make state concealed-carry permits reciprocal across all states.

The bill cleared the House Judiciary Committee last fall. Asked Monday whether Pretti’s death and the Minneapolis protests might affect debate, an aide to Speaker Mike Johnson did not offer any update on the bill’s prospects.

Gun rights advocates have notched many legislative victories in Republican-controlled statehouses in recent decades, from rolling back gun-free zones around schools and churches to expanding gun possession rights in schools, on university campuses and in other public spaces.

William Sack, legal director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said he was surprised and disappointed by the administration’s initial statements following the Pretti shooting. Trump’s vacillating, he said, is “very likely to cost them dearly with the core of a constituency they count on.”

Associated Press writer Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

Waterford Township’s Police Chief said it’s not known if alcohol or drug use was a factor when the driver of a Pontiac G6 crashed into a Rochester Community Schools bus carrying children on Saturday morning and then died.

Police Chief Scott Underwood declined to release the name of the driver, a 38-year-old White Lake Township man. He was killed when he crossed the center lane of Huron Road near Josephine Street in Waterford Township  — just west of Telegraph Road — and collided head-on with the school bus shortly before 8 a.m., Underwood said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

None of the children were seriously injured, but a teacher who was on the bus was transported to McLaren Oakland Hospital for treatment of injuries that weren’t life threatening, Underwood said.

The Oakland Press has reached out to Rochester Community Schools for more information but hasn’t heard back yet.

Killer’s wife tied to 2024 murder, robbery of Rochester Hills businessman; criminal charges filed

By MIKE CATALINI and STEVE KARNOWSKI, Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The chief federal judge in Minnesota says the Trump administration has failed to comply with orders to hold hearings for detained immigrants and ordered the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear before him Friday to explain why he should not be held in contempt.

In an order dated Monday, Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz said Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, must appear personally in court. Schiltz took the administration to task over its handling of bond hearings for immigrants it has detained.

“This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result,” the judge wrote.

The order comes a day after President Donald Trump ordered border czar Tom Homan to take over his administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota following the second death this month of a person at the hands of an immigration law enforcement officer.

Trump said in an interview broadcast Tuesday that he had “great calls” with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Monday, mirroring comments he made immediately after the calls.

The White House had tried to blame Democratic leaders for the protests of federal officers conducting immigration raids. But after the killing of Alex Pretti on Saturday and videos suggesting he was not an active threat, the administration tapped Homan to take charge of the Minnesota operation from Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino.

Immigration agents were active Tuesday across the Twin Cities region, and it was unclear if officials had changed tactics after the shift in tone from the White House.

The streets appeared largely quiet in many south Minneapolis neighborhoods where unmarked convoys of immigration agents have been sighted regularly in recent weeks, including the neighborhoods where the two deaths occurred. But Associated Press staff saw carloads of agents in northeast Minneapolis, as well as the northern suburb of Little Canada.

Schiltz’s order also follows a federal court hearing Monday on a request by the state and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul for a judge to order a halt to the immigration law enforcement surge. The judge said she would prioritize the ruling but did not give a timeline for a decision.

Schiltz wrote that he recognizes ordering the head of a federal agency to appear personally is extraordinary. “But the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary, and lesser measures have been tried and failed,” he said.

“Respondents have continually assured the Court that they recognize their obligation to comply with Court orders, and that they have taken steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, though, the violations continue.”

The Associated Press left messages Tuesday with ICE and a DHS spokesperson seeking a response.

The order lists the petitioner by first name and last initials: Juan T.R. It says the court granted a petition on Jan. 14 to provide him with a bond hearing within seven days. On Jan. 23, his lawyers told the court the petitioner was still detained. Court documents show the petitioner is a citizen of Ecuador who came to the United States around 1999.

The order says Schiltz will cancel Lyons’ appearance if the petitioner is released from custody.

Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey. Associated Press writer Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

By SEUNG MIN KIM and HANNAH FINGERHUT, Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — President Donald Trump is headed to Iowa on Tuesday as part of the White House’s midterm year pivot toward affordability, even as his administration remains mired in the fallout in Minneapolis over a second fatal shooting by federal immigration officers this month.

While in Iowa, the Republican president will make a stop at a local business and then deliver a speech on affordability, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The remarks will be at the Horizon Events Center in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines.

The trip will also highlight energy policy, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said last week. It’s part of the White House’s strategy to have Trump travel out of Washington once a week ahead of the midterm elections to focus on affordability issues facing everyday Americans — an effort that keeps getting diverted by crisis.

The latest comes as the Trump administration is grappling with the weekend shooting death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse killed by federal agents in the neighboring state of Minnesota. Pretti had participated in protests following the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Even as some top administration officials moved quickly to malign Pretti, the White House said Monday that Trump was waiting until an investigation into the shooting was complete.

Trump was last in Iowa ahead of the July 4 holiday to kick off the United States’ upcoming 250th anniversary, which morphed largely into a celebration of his major spending and tax cut package hours after Congress had approved it.

Republicans are hoping that Trump’s visit to the state on Tuesday draws focus back to that tax bill, which will be a key part of their pitch as they ask voters to keep them in power in November.

“I invited President Trump back to Iowa to highlight the real progress we’ve made: delivering tax relief for working families, securing the border, and growing our economy,” Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, said in a statement in advance of his trip. “Now we’ve got to keep that momentum going and pass my affordable housing bill, deliver for Iowa’s energy producers, and bring down costs for working families.”

Trump’s affordability tour has taken him to Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina as the White House tries to marshal the president’s political power to appeal to voters in key swing states.

But Trump’s penchant for going off-script has sometimes taken the focus off cost-of-living issues and his administration’s plans for how to combat it. In Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Trump insisted that inflation was no longer a problem and that Democrats were using the term affordability as a “hoax” to hurt him. At that event, Trump also griped that immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation.

Although it was a swing state just a little more than a decade ago, Iowa in recent years has been reliably Republican in national and statewide elections. Trump won Iowa by 13 percentage points in 2024 against Democrat Kamala Harris.

Still, two of Iowa’s four congressional districts have been among the most competitive in the country and are expected to be again in this year’s midterm elections. Trump already has endorsed Republican Reps. Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Democrats, who landed three of Iowa’s four House seats in the 2018 midterm elections during Trump’s first term, see a prime opportunity to unseat Iowa incumbents.

This election will be the first since 1968 with open seats for both governor and U.S. senator at the top of the ticket after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst opted out of reelection bids. The political shake-ups have rippled throughout the state, with Republican Reps. Randy Feenstra and Ashley Hinson seeking new offices for governor and for U.S. senator, respectively.

Democrats hope Rob Sand, the lone Democrat in statewide office who is running for governor, will make the entire state more competitive with his appeal to moderate and conservative voters and his $13 million in cash on hand.

Kim reported from Washington.

By Adam Graham

agraham@detroitnews.com

If they came through town, Ken Settle photographed them.

The Rolling Stones, Soundgarden, U2, Guns N’ Roses, David Bowie, Prince, Stevie Ray Vaughn, B.B. King, Kiss, Metallica, the list goes on. And that’s to say nothing of homegrown superstars like Alice Cooper, Madonna and Bob Seger.

For more than 40 years, Ken Settle was a fixture at local concert venues of every size, from small clubs to supersize stadiums. The acclaimed rock photographer died Monday, according to a post on his Facebook page. He was 66.

Settle, known for his poof of blond hair parted in the middle, was born in Trenton and grew up in Westland. He shot Bob Seger when he was just 11 years old, when the longhaired rocker was playing a softball game against the staffers from WRIF-FM (101.1). He asked Seger if he could take his picture and Seger agreed.

A few months later, Settle borrowed his father’s camera and popped off some shots of Creedence Clearwater Revival at Cobo Hall, and it was there that he was bitten by the rock photographer bug.

“I remember walking down the aisle on the main floor of Cobo to get a bit closer to the stage, and I took a handful of fairly blurry, not-so-good photos,” Settle told WCSX-FM (94.7) in 2023. “But the energy and excitement of live music at Cobo Arena was electric and it was such a thrill to try to capture that — even in my little kid’s way of doing so.”

From there, he shot a ton of early Seger shows, when Seger and his band were working their way up the local ladder, and Settle in turn became a staple in photo pits at local concerts from artists of all ranks. His work appeared in Rolling Stone, Creem, Playboy, People, Guitar Player and other publications across the globe, as well as locally in MediaNews Group’s Michigan publications, including The Oakland Press and the Macomb Daily.

“Ken was one of the best shooters ever,” says Scott Legato, a fellow rock photographer who shared photo pits with Settle over the last 20 years. “He was just a great guy. He had a big heart, and he loved his cats.”

In addition to his cats — he had several, and was known for taking in strays — Settle also had an extensive collection of guitars and amplifiers.

“Ken was awesome. Nice guy, always helpful, always great to be around,” says Chris Schwegler, a fellow photographer who shot concerts with Settle for years and considered him a good friend. He says he would talk to Settle two to three times a week and was just texting with him the other day, helping him out with a computer problem.

As a photographer, “Ken knew what looked good for a photo, no matter who the artist was,” says Schwegler. “He knew the shot he wanted to get, and he knew how to get it.”

Settle’s photo archives are vast, culled from thousands of shows, from Nirvana to Nicki Minaj, from Janet Jackson to John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen to Lil Wayne. His photos have been hung in Hard Rock Cafes around the world, and his shots were used in episodes of VH1’s “Behind the Music.”

He captured artists on stage from the 1970s through the 2010s, as photography went from film to digital, as artist rules went from shoot-the-whole-show to just the first three songs. His images are a history of live music in Detroit.

Settle came up shooting film and was a holdout on switching to digital for a long time, and that discipline made him a better photographer, says Legato.

“He had a good eye. He could anticipate the shot and get the shot,” he says. Legato helped convince him to go to digital, he says, but Settle “still had the mindset that he was shooting film.”

Friends say Settle had complained of experiencing shooting pain in recent weeks, but he was hesitant to go to the doctor.

He had slowed down from shooting rock concerts after COVID-19, but was still active on social media, and tributes poured into Settle’s Facebook page following news of his death.

Steve Galli, a fellow rock photographer who had known Settle since the late 1970s, said Settle was one of the best shooters in the business.

“He was known all over. When I started traveling out of state to cover music fests, other photographers would say to me, ‘You’re from Detroit, you must know Ken Settle,'” says Galli. “Photographers from all over the country associated Detroit with Ken Settle.”

When other photographers were gathered front and center in front of the stage at a concert, “he’d be way over on the side, getting an angle no other photographer was getting,” Galli says.

Galli says he remembers being in photo pits waiting for Settle to show up, wondering if he was going to miss the show, only to see him emerge from the backstage area, where he had been shooting portraits of the artists before the concert began.

“We were thinking he missed out, when it was us missing out,” he says.

Settle was always helpful to newcomers, Galli says, and would freely share information and tips of the trade with others.

“He was such a nice person, a really bighearted guy,” says Galli. “Ken was a legend.”

A jury found a man guilty of murdering a Cook County judge, following a seven-day trial during which prosecutors said the assailants watched the judge and his girlfriend for days before shooting and killing him in a robbery attempt.

Raymond Myles, 66, a longtime jurist at the county’s main courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue, died from his wounds after the shooting on April 10, 2017, outside his home on the Far South Side.

The slaying, believed to be the first of a judge in more than three decades, shocked his colleagues in the local court system and resulted in a sweeping police investigation.

Earl Wilson, 54, was convicted of murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery and armed robbery in the shooting in the 9400 block of South Forest Avenue. Wilson’s co-defendant, Joshua Smith, pleaded guilty in 2024 to armed robbery and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The trial unfolded at a branch courthouse in south suburban Bridgeview before DuPage County Judge Jeffrey McKay, who was appointed due to the potential for conflicts of interest if Myles’ fellow judges in Cook County were to hear the case.

Family members of Myles gathered in the gallery each day. His son, Raymond Myles Jr., testified during the trial’s first day, describing how he called home for a routine check-in and then learned his father had been killed.

“(I) broke down and cried,” the younger Myles said.

Wilson’s attorneys denied that he was involved in the shooting, arguing that the motive for the attack centered around Smith’s family. Smith’s father was previously married to Myles’ girlfriend, and was not happy about the divorce or her new boyfriend, they said.

“Nothing about this case is what it seems,” said Assistant Public Defender Takenya Nixon.

Myles and his girlfriend rose before sunrise each morning to go to the gym before work, and were heading out that morning when they were confronted by a gunman who took Myles’ girlfriend’s gym bag.

Prosecutors said the shooters believed the girlfriend, Venita Parrish, carried money in the bag, but it had no cash in it that morning.

It was still dark when Parrish and Myles left the home that morning, Parrish testified during the trial. That’s when she saw — in her peripheral vision — someone lurking on the side of the brick house.

“Please, hurry,” Parrish said on the recording of the 911 call. “Oh, my Lord, please hurry.”

She ran, then fell and started screaming, she said.

“He said, ‘B—-, shut up,’” she testified.

Myles rushed outside and exchanged words with the attacker before he was shot and killed. According to prosecutors, he pleaded with the shooters, saying: “You don’t have to do this.”

After his killing, court employees remembered Myles as a hardworking and friendly judge. He was a Cubs fan and wore a team jacket to work during the team’s 2016 World Series run.

“Everyone here is devastated,” then-presiding judge of the Criminal Division LeRoy K. Martin Jr. said at the time. “People know when a judge is fair.”

Myles earned his law degree from the University of Illinois and worked as a prosecutor and a private practice defense attorney before taking the bench in 1999.

For years, Myles presided over what was then known as bond court, the notoriously chaotic place for first appearances for new arrestees.

Among high-profile cases he oversaw in that role, Myles ordered William Balfour to be held without bail in the 2008 killings of three relatives of singer Jennifer Hudson and refused to grant a controversial gag order in the infamous murder of seven people at a Brown’s Chicken in Palatine.

A police investigation continues into a Jan. 23 traffic crash on I-75 in Bloomfield Township that resulted in the death of one man and serious injuries to his son.

According to the Bloomfield Township Police Department, Paul Locklear, 45, of Davison died Friday at Trinity Health Oakland Hospital, where he had been transported with serious injuries from the single-vehicle rollover crash, which happened shortly before 10 a.m. near South Boulevard. The driver of the vehicle, the man’s 18-year-old son, was also transported to Trinity Health Oakland Hospital with serious injuries and is expected to survive.

The vehicle involved was a 1999 Ford F350, police said.

Bloomfield Township Police Sgt. Nick Soley said multiple witnesses have come forward as requested by police. While drugs and/or alcohol use don’t appear to be a contributing factor, toxicology is pending from a blood draw on the driver which was performed with his consent, Soley said.

‘Squatter’ pleads to drug charge

Pontiac teen charged in murder of Warren teen

Oakland County weed entrepreneur creates ‘CannaBiz Rescue’ reality show to help save struggling dispensaries in US

Cases advance against woman and son in London Thomas murder case

A Troy man who police described as a squatter was in Oakland County Circuit Court via Zoom on Monday where he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge involving drugs.

Devin Bushue, 35, faces up to a year in jail for one count of using a controlled substance. Prosecutors dismissed a charge of  possession of a controlled substance-methamphetamine/ecstasy — which carries a stiffer penalty.

Bushue was arrested Jan. 4 after police reportedly found him and a Shelby Township woman, Miranda Laight, 37, asleep in the basement of an apartment building in the 100 block of South Lovington Drive in Troy. Officers discovered the two while responding to a trespassing complaint, and after waking them up spotted suspected methamphetamine and a used syringe near where they had been sleeping, police said.

After Bushue and Laight were arrested, officers searched their belongings and allegedly found a small Ziploc baggie containing methamphetamine in Bushue’s bag and a syringe containing heroin in Laight’s bag.

Bushue is scheduled to be sentenced on March 2 by Judge David Cohen.

The case against Laight is still at the district court level. A preliminary exam is scheduled for Jan. 29.

Bushue and Laight are held in the Oakland County Jail with bond set at $7,500 for Bushue and $5,000 for Laight. The bonds have a 10% provision, meaning  Bushue can be released from custody if he posts $750, and Laight can be released from custody if she posts $500.

Cases advance against woman and son in London Thomas murder case

Pontiac teen charged in murder of Warren teen

Police seek public’s help to ID tire thieves

Oakland County weed entrepreneur creates ‘CannaBiz Rescue’ reality show to help save struggling dispensaries in US

By ISABELLA VOLMERT, The Associated Press

A former GOP gubernatorial candidate who once tried to unseat Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is seeking the office again, joining a crowded field of Republicans running in the battleground state.

Oakland County businessman Perry Johnson announced his second bid for governor Monday. His entrance to the race comes as the Republican candidates compete for President Donald Trump’s endorsement ahead of the Aug. 4 primary.

In a video advertisement released Monday, Johnson described Michigan’s government as inefficient.

“We need to shake up the system,” he said.

Johnson, a management consultant, was part of a slate of Republicans to run against Whitmer in 2022. His nearly $8 million bid ended when the state’s election bureau ruled he did not submit enough valid signatures required for nominating petitions. He also made a long shot bid for president ahead of 2024.

In announcing his campaign, Johnson told the Detroit News he plans to spend $9 million of his own money in the next two months.

Whitmer is term-limited and cannot run again. Candidates from both parties and one campaigning as an independent have lined up to replace her.

On the Republican side, Johnson joins the field that includes U.S. Rep. John James, former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, state Senate Leader Aric Nesbitt and former Michigan House speaker Tom Leonard.

On the Democratic side, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson are competing for the nomination.

The longtime Democratic mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, is running for governor but as an independent.

By STEVE DOUGLAS, AP Sports Writer

VASTERAS, Sweden (AP) — Maryan Hashi remembers the thoughts running through her mind when she began hitting the ski slopes in northern Sweden. As a Black woman from Somalia, she felt like an “alien.”

“Am I wearing the correct clothing for this? Does it fit? Do I look weird? Am I snowboarding correctly? Do they think it’s weird I’m on the slope?” she said. “But I carried on — I felt if I didn’t, I was never going to commit to anything in my life.”

A few years later, snowboarding is the 30-year-old student’s big passion and it is helping her integrate into her adopted country’s society better than she could ever have imagined.

What she’d love now is to see other migrants experiencing the same joy.

Immigration from Africa and the Middle East has transformed the demographics of Europe in recent decades. And while the growing diversity is reflected in many sports such as soccer — Sweden’s men’s national team has several Black players including Liverpool striker Alexander Isak — it hasn’t made a dent in winter sports.

At the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Sweden is sending a team made up almost exclusively of ethnically Swedish athletes, with NHL player Mika Zibanejad, whose father is from Iran, a rare exception. That hardly reflects the diversity of the Nordic country: About 2 million of its 10 million residents were born abroad, about half of them in Asia or Africa, according to national statistics agency SCB.

The lack of athletes of color at the Winter Olympics — and in winter sports in general — has been a recurring theme in the U.S., which is sending one of its most diverse teams to the Games. It hasn’t gotten the same attention in Europe.

The Olympic rosters of France, Germany, Switzerland and other European winter sports nations look a lot like Sweden’s: overwhelmingly white and lacking the immigrant representation seen in their soccer or basketball teams.

Researchers point to social, financial and geographical barriers, and believe a big cultural shift is needed for anything to change.

“It takes not years but decades,” said Josef Fahlen, professor of sport pedagogy at Umea University in Sweden.

Entering a ‘white’ sport

Hashi was 14 when she came to Sweden with her family in 2009. They settled in Skelleftea, a mining city around 770 kilometers (480 miles) north of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, where winters are long and temperatures can be extremely cold. She found it a culture shock and said it was “scary” to integrate with native Swedes because of language difficulties, so her friendship group consisted of fellow migrants from Somalia and other African countries.

Only in 2018 did she discover there was a ski slope five minutes from her home, after a co-worker suggested she try snowboarding as part of a pilot integration project run by the municipality.

“When you don’t have information or access or nobody around you does it — snowboarding is basically a white sport — and when you’re not correctly integrated into the community, you don’t know much about it,” Hashi said.

She initially felt out of place but grew to love her daily trips to the slope, even when numbers dwindled in the group. She even started to teach kids and her immigrant friends — those who’d been skeptical about Hashi doing an activity that’s “not our thing” — how to snowboard.

“I’ve made my mind up,” Hashi said, “that snowboarding is going to be a part of my family.”

The crucial role of parents

The single biggest influence on children getting into — and maintaining an interest in — a particular sport is their parents, according to Fahlen. That, he said, is the “simple” explanation for the lack of diversity in the ski slopes in Sweden and across Europe.

Pointing to Isak, whose parents are from Eritrea, or tennis players Mikael and Elias Ymer, whose parents migrated to Sweden from Ethiopia, he said the children of non-European immigrants are unlikely to be introduced to sports that their parents are not familiar with.

“Take the example of Isak finding his way into football — it makes total sense because football exists in Eritrea. Skiing doesn’t,” Fahlen said.

Fahlen regards the lack of diversity as not a “winter sports problem but a cultural issue” and said it’s important for kids to see winter sports athletes with a different skin tone.

“It’s a matter of horizon,” Fahlen said. “We need to show it’s possible to be a skier even if you might be from Tunisia or the West Bank.”

There are also financial and geographical factors at play. Immigrants in Sweden typically live in major urban areas, away from skiing hubs in the mountains, and are often in less-privileged economic positions. Participating in winter sports can be expensive because of the need to buy or rent equipment and clothing, and paying for travel and a ski pass.

Improving access for immigrants

Academics believe more needs to be done by winter sports to improve accessibility for immigrants and underserved communities.

“It’s a fact that the best integrative force in society is team sports and sports clubs, where kids can go to do useful things together with others,” said Stefan Jonsson, a professor in Ethnicity and Migration Studies at Linköping University. “There is so much research saying if we want social and ethnic integration, this would be the primary thing.”

Asked about its attempts to get more people from diverse backgrounds into skiing, Sweden’s ski federation said “we want to be better” and added that “inclusion is something we strive for.”

The federation is proud of its “Alla På Snö” (“Everyone On Snow”) program, which since 2008 has reached an estimated 30,000 children every year and offers students free equipment and access to slopes. Also boosting general accessibility is the growth of Sweden’s Leisure Bank project, where people can borrow sports equipment including skis and ski boots for free for 14 days. The founders equate the banks to public libraries.

Neither specifically targets immigrants, however. For Hashi, it’s a missed opportunity to widen the talent pool.

“Open the door for us,” Hashi said. “We’re going to take care of the next generation for you.”

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

By DAVE SKRETTA, AP Sports Writer

The moment Amber Glenn stepped onto the ice at figure skating’s world championships, fans began to wave American flags, from the lowest rows inside TD Garden to the highest rafters, where the jerseys of Boston’s sporting greats hang in honor.

It seemed a fitting backdrop to her program: Glenn is the three-time reigning U.S. champion, one of the current faces of figure skating, and as the daughter of a police officer and a proud native Texan, patriotism flows through her as thick as oil.

Yet the stars-and-stripes weren’t the only flags flying high that night.

Scattered throughout the sellout crowd at the last worlds before the Milan Cortina Olympics were the equally conspicuous rainbow flags that for nearly 50 years have signified pride within the LGBTQ+ community. They started popping up at Glenn’s competitions a year earlier, when she carried one across her shoulders in celebration of her national championship.

“I saw them,” Glenn acknowledged later, long after her performance, “and I was proud to see both of those flags flying.”

Glenn, who identifies as pansexual, never sought to be an icon within the queer community.

In fact, she didn’t come to grips with her own sexuality until she had been through the wringer, including a stint in a mental health facility spent working through depression, anxiety and an eating disorder. Glenn didn’t come out publicly until letting it slip during an interview a half-dozen years ago, and then thought with horror, “I haven’t even told my Catholic grandma yet!”

Yet as the 26-year-old Glenn reflected on her journey in an interview with The Associated Press, she expressed a profound sense of gratitude for having experienced it within the tight-knit figure skating world. For decades, the sport has provided a progressive sort of safe space for those within the LGTBQ+ community, some of whom still may be trying to realize their authentic selves.

“I’m so, so grateful that I grew up in skating, because I grew up in Texas, and luckily it was Dallas, which was still a bit more forward,” Glenn said. “Plus, I was homeschooled. So I had to figure out a lot of things on my own, coming from that background.

“But as I ventured out to competitions, you know, outside of Texas,” Glenn continued, “I ended up seeing this community and these people around me, and they were some of the top coaches and really good skaters. I was like, ‘Oh, OK. This is OK.’ It made me realize, ‘OK, there are people who are fans of me that would probably feel even more connected if they saw someone like them.’”

The long and winding road

It hasn’t always been that way in figure skating, a sport where success and failure is quite literally a judgment call, and looks, attitude and mannerisms all matter in the scores. Throughout the 1900s, and even into the ‘80s and ’90s, women often were encouraged to be more effeminate, and male counterparts were told to embrace their masculinity.

It wasn’t until Rudy Galindo came out in a book released shortly before he was crowned U.S. champion in 1996 that walls began to crumble. Three-time U.S. champion Johnny Weir, now a lead analyst for NBC’s coverage of the Olympics, said later that Galindo gave him the confidence to come out in 2011, and ultimately embrace who he was both on the ice and off.

Eventually, other prominent skaters came forward, some of whom had never publicly acknowledged their sexuality. Each had their reasons, whether personal, political or simply the desire to give back to the community.

As the U.S. team was preparing for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, former Olympic champion Brian Boitano was picked to be a part of the delegation. At the time, the Russian government was under fire for an anti-gay “propaganda” law passed in June 2013, and Boitano told the AP that he never considered coming out until he was chosen to represent his country again.

“They know how private a person I am,” Boitano said, “and that this was a big move for me.”

Success on big stages

While LGBTQ+ athletes compete in just about every sport, what might set figure skating apart — at least, presently — has been their success on the biggest stages, whether they be international competitions, the world championships or even the Olympics.

In 2018, former U.S. champion Adam Rippon not only became the first openly gay man to make the Olympic team but the first to capture a medal at the Winter Games, earning bronze as part of the team event. Four years later, Timothy LeDuc became the first non-binary Olympic athlete by teaming with Ashley Cain-Gribble in the pairs event at the Beijing Games.

“I grew up in a very conservative environment,” explained LeDuc, a two-time U.S. champion, who went into coaching after stepping away from competition. “Sometimes just seeing someone like you in that community is what you need to feel comfortable in yourself. That continued in my journey, where I saw a lot of queer people in my life.

“Even in high school, there was one or two queer people,” LeDuc said, “but it was always figure skating where I found my community.”

Where things stand

Glenn had just won her first elite-level Grand Prix event in Angers, France, in November 2024, when Donald Trump won the presidential election in the U.S. She remembers watching the results scroll across the TV screen.

Glenn’s heart sank, thinking about what it would mean for the LGBTQ+ community.

Two months later Trump signed an executive order defining “sex” in federal policy as a binary, biological concept unchangeable from birth. It was the first move made by an administration that has been accused of targeting the rights and recognition of the LGBTQ+ community, such as rolling back protections in education, healthcare and housing. The administration pitched the changes as a way to protect women from “gender extremism.”

“Both of my grandpas were in the military. I was raised in Texas, a proud American,” Glenn told AP. “It was so disheartening. It made me feel even closer to the community around me, because we had to come together to try and protect ourselves.”

Those feelings continue among many in the LGBTQ+ community.

One of the reasons that fan-favorite Jason Brown, a two-time Olympian, came out in an Instagram post five years ago was to provide support to those who may feel uncomfortable — skaters, of course, but also coaches, choreographers and even fans.

“I hope I can leave the sport a little better for the next athlete, or make someone more comfortable to step up and be who they are,” Brown said. “There are so many people out there that love and support that community, and they want them to feel safe and seen and accepted. I think that my biggest message is, ‘Know how supported you are.’”

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

By DANIELLA MATAR, AP Sports Writer

MILAN (AP) — When Lucas Pinheiro Braathen tells people in Brazil that he represents the country in Alpine skiing, he says they don’t believe him.

They just might if he wins Brazil’s first Winter Olympics medal next month.

“When I meet someone new (in Brazil) … it’s always this mindblowing moment and it always sparks a very interesting conversation,” Pinheiro Braathen said with a smile in a recent interview with The Associated Press in Milan. “And funny enough, I actually think it’s those interactions that maybe prove the most how fulfilling it is for me to represent Brazil in something like skiing because it just shows me how foreign it is. So that’s really fun.”

If Pinheiro Braathen does finish on the podium, it would also be a first Winter Olympics medal for any South American country, something he wasn’t aware of.

“I mean thanks you just added a whole other layer of pressure so I’ll happily bring that along,” he laughed. “The greater the challenge, the greater the difference that I can bring and I believe it is the more pressure you feel, the bigger the difference that you can create.”

Pinheiro Braathen’s mother is Brazilian and his father is Norwegian. He had raced for Norway until abruptly retiring on the eve of the new season in 2023, only to come back a year later representing Brazil.

The 2023 World Cup slalom champion has already racked up a series of firsts under his new flag, becoming the first Brazilian skier to finish on a World Cup podium last year before claiming the country’s first victory this season to add to his five for Norway.

“I simply try to capitalize off of that pressure and channel it into my performance because, yes, it makes the days leading into the competition extremely challenging because you know you have something greater to live up to rather than just the possibility of a great result,” Pinheiro Braathen said.

“But it is exactly that that enables you to become the version of yourself where you can beat every single other athlete at that start gate and so, as I said, pressure is privilege. It is my most important currency.”

Snow samba

Pinheiro Braathen likes to entertain. When he got his first podium result for Brazil, he celebrated with a samba dance. His reaction after claiming his first win was more visceral, as he fell to his knees and screamed “yeah!” with both arms in the air.

The 25-year-old admits he has no clue what he would do if he was to succeed in Bormio, where the men’s Alpine ski racing will take place at the Olympics.

“If you achieve immense success in something that you’ve dedicated your life to, at least for me, it is impossible to curate what those moments look like,” Pinheiro Braathen said. “It is truly whatever you feel that sees the light of day and that’s what I think is so beautiful about those moments and it is simply what I chase every single day waking up. Yet another day getting to experience that feeling.”

Pinheiro Braathen is one of skiing’s most vibrant personalities, known for painting his fingernails and having a taste for fashion. He brings to the slopes the energy of Brazil and the discipline of Norway, having spent much of his childhood in both countries.

“I’m a person of cultural duality,” he said. “Two perspectives always presented from birth and so for me I always find that I’ve never been living a life where I’m only presented to one reality, one culture or one way of living. It’s always been these polar opposites and so I think that has shaped me to become who I am today and how I want to live my life.

A father’s love

Pinheiro Braathen has a close relationship with his father, Björn Braathen. So much so that he named the reindeer he won as part of the traditional winner’s prize at the World Cup in Levi after him.

It was his father who introduced him to skiing, when he was 4 or 5, though Pinheiro Braathen didn’t take to it initially.

“I bought everything for him, like shoes, like boots and skis and everything, and we went out and he would complain the whole time,” Braathen said. “Like “I’m cold, I’m not cut out for this, I’m freezing,” and, “I’m Brazilian and this is not for me.”

A love for the sport eventually arrived. Braathen, who also serves as his son’s team manager, doesn’t mind that his son switched allegiances.

“As a Norwegian, people expect me to feel very bad about that, but I don’t,” he said. “It’s my son and I just want him to be happy.”

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

By STEPHEN WHYNO

Jack Eichel in the fall of 2021 still did not believe he and the rest of the world’s best hockey players would be going to the Olympics in Beijing a few months later, even after the NHL reached an agreement to do so.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Eichel said at the time.

His skepticism proved to be prescient, as pandemic scheduling issues led the league to withdraw.

Eichel is part of a generation of NHL stars who have never gotten the chance to play in the Olympics. Unlike players of the past — before the league allowed its stars to take part — Eichel, fellow American Auston Matthews, Canadians Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon and many others of their vintage grew up expecting to go to the Games. The NHL, after all, played in five consecutive Olympics from 1998 2014.

Owners opted against sending players in 2018, and missing out in 2022 became a sad result of circumstances largely out of stakeholders’ control. The 12-team tournament in Milan is a moment many have been waiting their entire careers for.

“It’s awesome,” Eichel said before this season, perhaps willing to exhale. “It’s something that we’ve wanted for a while.”

Construction delays bring more questions

Not so fast, Jack.

Out of his control are construction delays at the main hockey arena, a longstanding worry. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman began raising concerns all the way back in 2023, before the deal was reached to send players in 2026 and ’30.

“We have been given assurances that the building will be ready,” Bettman said in February 2024. “We’re relying on those assurances. There’s a lot of construction that remains to be done on that building. I think they only recently started. But we’re being told by everybody not to worry. But I like to worry, so we’ll see.”

Those worries have persisted, and work continues on locker rooms and other facilities at Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, which is set to host the majority of the men’s games beginning Feb. 11. The women’s tournament begins there Feb. 5.

Test games in January left league and players’ union officials pleased about the condition of the ice, though even that has been a matter of consternation after rinks were made more than 3 feet shorter than NHL players are used to. That will change aspects of play but won’t keep the NHL out of the Olympics as long as everyone involved agrees the surface is safe.

What players missed out on

Connor Bedard, the 2023 No. 1 pick who just missed out on making Canada’s roster for Milan, is so young at 20 that he does not even have a favorite Olympic memory. He was 4 when idol and fellow countryman Sidney Crosby scored the “golden goal” to win on home ice in Vancouver in 2010 and 9 when T.J. Oshie gave the U.S. a shootout victory over host Russia in Sochi in 2014.

Canada’s Macklin Celebrini, drafted first in 2024 and at 19 the second-youngest men’s hockey player at the Olympics, has only gotten to dream about the possibility of representing his country on this stage.

“That’s the pinnacle, just the best on best, all the special moments that have happened at the Olympics, the history,” Celebrini said. “There’s just a little bit more energy around it. It’s bigger than yourself.”

In all, 12 NHL players are back at the Olympics after participating in the 2014 Games, the last time the league went and it was a true best-vs.-best tournament. The group includes Crosby and Drew Doughty for Canada; Gabriel Landeskog, Erik Karlsson and Oliver Ekman-Larsson for Sweden; Mikael Granlund and Olli Maatta for Finland; Radko Gudas and Ondrej Palat for Czechia. There are no Americans on that list.

“It’s a cherry on top of athletic life,” Gudas said. “Twelve years ago when we went to Sochi was such a great experience that I wish I can do that again. I was that much more sad that we couldn’t go the last two times, so for me I think it’s a great feeling to be able to do that.”

American defenseman Zach Werenski at 28 is old enough to remember Crosby’s goal in 2010, and four years later he was watching Oshie’s heroics with other members of the U.S. National Team Development Program. Four of his teammates from back then are also set to go to Milan — Matthews, Matthew Tkachuk, Charlie McAvoy and Noah Hanifin — to finally have their Olympic moment.

“The significance of that, the build-up, we’ve waited a long time for this,” McAvoy said, “so it’s going to be incredible.”

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

By Melody Baetens, The Detroit News

DETROIT — Change your perspective heading into the new year with a visit to Detroit’s new Museum of Illusions.

The attraction debuted on Woodward in the Himelhoch building near Grand Circus Park in early December. It’s the 67th Museum of Illusions that has opened around the world. Each location features exhibits and artwork specific to the city.

In Detroit, there’s a vibrant mural of what looks like a Motown singer with eyes that are always locked on you, and a “reversed room” inspired by the auto industry. Look for the illusion that makes you look like you’re sitting on — or hanging from — the marquee of the historic art deco Majestic Theatre a few blocks up Woodward.

“We have received the warmest welcome from the Motor City,” said Museum of Illusions CEO Kim Schaefer at a museum preview in December. “We feel like we are truly family here.”

“We’ve been around for a decade now and this is number 67 and we are proud of being all over the globe,” she said, adding that the museum is filled with “nods to the beautiful, vibrant, historic nature of what makes Detroit so special. We’re excited to be here.”

The first Museum of Illusions opened in Zagreb, Croatia, a decade ago, and it has become the largest and fastest-growing chain of privately held museums in the world.

The wheelchair-accessible, hands-on museum is set up like a path, with guests taking about an hour to get through and experience everything, depending on how crowded it is. Visitors are invited to touch, climb and take plenty of photos.

Your camera is as essential to your visit as your eyeballs, because some of the illusions aren’t fully effective until you see your photo. This includes the Beuchet Chair, which places two people in a room for a forced-perspective trick that works best once a third person takes a photo. The museum walls give tips on taking the best photographs.

Others don’t require a camera, like the giant pinscreen, a full-body-size version of the famous desk toy; strike a pose, press yourself into it and then view your impression on the other side. Gaze at the grid illusion and see dancing black spots that aren’t really there. Like many of the installations, the museum offers text that explains the science behind it.

Hold on tight in the vortex tunnel, which is a stationary platform with a revolving tunnel around it that makes you feel like you’re spinning into oblivion. (Just close your eyes to recenter yourself.)

Like any museum, there’s a gift shop, which is a whole Woodward-facing storefront. They sell Museum of Illusions apparel and giftable toys that challenge the mind. The museum is rentable for weddings, birthdays, corporate team building and field trips.

If you go

Museum of Illusions

Open 10 a.m. daily

1545 Woodward, Detroit

moidetroit.com

Admission starts at $24.72

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