Today is Thursday, Feb. 5, the 36th day of 2026. There are 329 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 5, 1994, white separatist Byron De La Beckwith was convicted in Jackson, Mississippi, of murdering civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963 and was sentenced to life in prison.

Also on this date:

In 1917, the U.S. Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, an act that severely curtailed Asian immigration and mandated immigrant literacy testing.

In 1918, more than 200 people were killed during World War I when the Cunard liner SS Tuscania, which was transporting over 2,000 American troops to Europe, was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland.

In 1971, Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell stepped onto the moon’s surface in the first of two lunar excursions.

In 1973, services were held at Arlington National Cemetery for U.S. Army Col. William B. Nolde, the last official American combat casualty in the Vietnam War before a ceasefire took effect.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, granting workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family emergencies.

In 2008, an outbreak of 87 tornadoes fired up across nine states, killing 57 people in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama during a span of 12 hours. One Arkansas twister left a 122-mile path of damage along the ground.

In 2017, Tom Brady led one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history, highlighted by a spectacular Julian Edelman catch that helped lift New England from a 25-point deficit against the Atlanta Falcons to the Patriots’ fifth Super Bowl victory, 34-28; it was the first Super Bowl to end in overtime.

In 2020, the Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial. Most senators expressed unease with Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine that prompted the impeachment, but just one Republican, Mitt Romney of Utah, broke party ranks and voted to convict. In 2021, the Senate acquitted Trump in a second trial for allegedly inciting the violent Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol.

In 2023, Beyoncé won her 32nd Grammy to become the most decorated artist in the history of the award.

Today’s birthdays:

• Tony-winning playwright John Guare is 88.
• Football Hall of Famer Roger Staubach is 84.
• Film director Michael Mann is 83.
• Racing Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip is 79.
• Actor Barbara Hershey is 78.
• Actor-comedian Tim Meadows is 65.
• Actor Jennifer Jason Leigh is 64.
• Rock musician Duff McKagan (Guns N’ Roses) is 62.
• Golf Hall of Famer Jose Maria Olazabal is 60.
• Actor-comedian Chris Parnell is 59.
• Actor Michael Sheen is 57.
• Country singer Sara Evans is 55.
• Actor-singer Darren Criss is 39.
• Actor Henry Golding is 39.
• Soccer star Neymar is 34.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Jaylen Crocker-Johnson had 22 points and seven rebounds to help Minnesota fend off a late surge by 10th-ranked Michigan State and secure a 76-73 upset on Wednesday night.

Cade Tyson scored 17 points and Langston Reynolds added 14 points and eight assists for the Gophers (11-12, 4-8 Big Ten), who broke a seven-game losing streak despite being outscored 22-9 over the final four minutes in a game in which they were 7 1/2 point underdogs according to MGM Sportsbook.

Coen Carr had 10 of his 16 points for the Spartans (19-4, 9-3) in the last three minutes, including a layup with 34 seconds left that cut the lead to 72-68, their closest margin since 7-3.

Trey Fort’s catch-and-shoot corner 3-pointer made it 73-71 with 20 seconds remaining, but Isaac Asuma sank both free throws to steady the Gophers, whose fans stormed the court after the final buzzer.

Spartans point guard Jeremy Fears Jr., who totaled 60 points over two games last week, had just 10 points on 4-for-11 shooting with 11 assists.

The Spartans were in a four-way tie for first place five days ago with Michigan, Illinois and Nebraska. All four teams are ranked in the top 10 in The Associated Press poll. After losing to the rival Wolverines on Friday, the Spartans have fallen into fourth.

The Gophers were overdue for a breakthrough, with three losses by three points or less during the skid. They were tied or leading in the final minute of regulation in five of them. Minnesota’s last win over an AP top-10 team was on Jan. 16, 2021, over No. 7 Michigan.

Moved to the bench with Jordan Scott starting for the first time, Spartans shooting guard Divine Ugochukwu hobbled off with an injury in the first half and didn’t return.

Up next

Michigan State: Hosts No. 5 Illinois on Saturday.

Minnesota: Hosts Maryland on Sunday.

— By DAVE CAMPBELL, Associated Press

EAST LANSING (AP) — Oluchi Okananwa scored 23 points, and the No. 22 Maryland women pulled away in the second half for an 86-70 win over No. 12 Michigan State on Wednesday.

Maryland (18-6, 6-6 Big Ten) led 43-33 at halftime and broke the game open in the third quarter.

Okananwa went 8 of 13 from the field and added four rebounds, five assists and a steal as the Terps shot 49% as a team.

Yarden Garzon added 16 points and five assists, Kyndal Walker scored 14, and Saylor Poffenbarger finished with 13 points, eight rebounds and four steals. Maryland forced 20 turnovers, which led to 23 points, while holding Michigan State to 4 of 15 from 3.

The Terps pushed the margin to 72-55 early in the fourth on Poffenbarger’s 3-pointer. Okananwa scored seven straight points soon after, including a layup and a deep 3-pointer that stretched the lead to 84-68 with under two minutes left. Maryland never allowed the Spartans to get within single digits in the final quarter.

Grace VanSlooten led Michigan State (19-4, 8-4) with 19 points, nine rebounds and four blocks. Kennedy Blair had 15 points and seven assists, while Jalyn Brown scored 13.

Up Next

Michigan State: The Spartans play Saturday at Penn State.

Maryland: The Terrapins visit Nebraska on Saturday.

ANN ARBOR (AP) — Syla Swords scored 28 points and Olivia Olson had 21 to help No. 8 Michigan pull away and beat Nebraska 88-76 on Wednesday night.

The Wolverines (20-3, 11-1 Big Ten) went on a 15-6 run to take a nine-point lead early in the fourth quarter and turned what was a closely contested game into a double-digit victory.

Michigan has won a school-record nine straight Big Ten games.

That streak will be put to a test Sunday at home against UCLA, the second-ranked team in The Associated Press women’s college basketball poll.

Michigan has been a top-10 team for a program-record 11 consecutive weeks. The Wolverines have reached the 20-win mark for the 20th time, including 12 seasons with coach Kim Barnes Arico.

The Cornhuskers (16-7, 5-7) fell to 0-6 against AP Top 25 teams this season.

Nebraska’s Britt Prince and Amiah Hargrove scored 16 each and Petra Bozan added 12 points.

The Huskers were competitive for two-plus quarters.

They led 25-24 after an opening quarter with eight lead changes and four ties. The Wolverines turned it over six times in the first quarter and gave it up on the first possession of the second quarter before taking better care of the ball and going on a 7-0 run to take a six-point lead.

Nebraska closed the first half with eight points in 1:01 to take a 44-42 lead and went ahead by six points early in the third quarter.

Michigan surged ahead by making 6 of 8 shots to end the third, taking a 69-64 lead on Swords’ third 3-pointer.

Ashley Sofilkanich finished with nine points and 13 rebounds for the Wolverines.

Up next

Nebraska: Host Maryland on Saturday.

Michigan: Hosts No. 2 UCLA on Sunday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Post sports section died Wednesday. Whether you blame natural causes or more avoidable factors, the loss for the D.C. area is immense.

The ramifications were felt almost immediately. Shortly after the newspaper eliminated its sports section while laying off a third of its staff, the hometown NBA team made a massive trade. The Washington Wizards agreed to acquire star Anthony Davis from Dallas. Over two hours after the news broke, there was still no mention of it on the Post’s online sports site.

Washington struggles for respect as a sports town, at times an afterthought compared to passionate Eastern cities like New York, Philadelphia and Boston. D.C.’s population, so the stereotype goes, is too transient, too consumed with politics to care about the local teams.

For decades, however, the Post treated sports as a vital part of life in the district. Whatever the rest of the country thought about Washington’s teams and fans, there was no better place to read about sports than the nation’s capital.

If you grew up in D.C. as a sports fan in the 1980s, the Post wasn’t necessarily the paper of Woodward and Bernstein. It was the paper of Boswell, Brennan, Feinstein, Wilbon and Kornheiser. More recently, it was the paper of Jenkins, Buckner and Kilgore.

“Growing up reading the Post, I didn’t realize it wasn’t like this in other cities,” ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt said on social media. “I didn’t know how lucky we were to enjoy giants of their craft.”

The Post made Washington sports fans feel like they mattered. If those days are over, they should not be forgotten.

Best of the best

Before they became TV stars on “Pardon The Interruption” at ESPN, Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser were D.C. institutions at the Post. When Joe Gibbs’ 1991 team won its first 11 games on the way to Washington’s third Super Bowl title, Kornheiser’s “Bandwagon” columns — which combined his usual wit and irreverence with a cockiness befitting one of the best seasons in NFL history — became as memorable as the games themselves.

Before her own television career took off, Rachel Nichols chronicled the Capitals’ run to the Stanley Cup Final for the Post in 1998. John Feinstein was a reporter at the paper before and after his book on Bob Knight turned him into a famous author.

Christine Brennan covered football for the Post in the mid-80s. Now with USA Today, Brennan received the Red Smith Award for contributions to sports journalism from the Associated Press Sports Editors in 2020. The following year, Sally Jenkins — who was still at the Post — won it. The Post’s Shirley Povich received that honor back in 1983.

Thomas Boswell, the Post’s go-to columnist for all things baseball, was given the 2025 Career Excellence Award by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He was honored during Hall of Fame weekend last year.

A new era

The Post would never be confused with a tabloid sports section, but the headlines and layout moved into the 21st Century with panache.

Designer Brianna Schroer said she was part of this week’s cuts. Reporter Scott Allen, whose position was eliminated as well, posted a thread on social media of some of the sports section’s best front pages. They are a timeline of D.C. sports from the past 25 years — which included Major League Baseball’s return to Washington and long-awaited championships by the Capitals, Nationals, Mystics and Spirit.

The Post’s reporting on the organizational culture was part of Dan Snyder’s downfall as owner of the football team he renamed the Commanders. And as recently as last year, Candace Buckner (top sports columnist), Adam Kilgore (national beat writing) and Kent Babb (top long feature) were APSE award winners.

The Post balanced stories of national relevance with coverage of local interest. Andrew Beyer — the man behind the famous Beyer Speed Figures — was the paper’s horse racing columnist for nearly four decades.

If you wanted to read about the World Cup, Steven Goff, one of the country’s top soccer writers, was in the pages of the Post. If you wanted to know who had the best high school volleyball team in the area, the Post ranked them — part of extensive preps coverage that included the paper’s much-anticipated All-Met teams.

The future

Wilbon and Kornheiser did not address the Post’s action on Wednesday’s episode of “PTI,” but for those who recently lost jobs, feelings were understandably raw.

“The community loses. That’s real. The Sports page should be a place for conversation and debate without the vitriol from other areas. In Washington, that’s gone,” said columnist Barry Svrluga, who was laid off Wednesday. “Someone will fill the void. I hope it happens quickly.”

— By NOAH TRISTER, Associated Press

By DAVID KLEPPER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Close the cover on the CIA World Factbook: The spy agency announced Wednesday that after more than 60 years, it is shuttering the popular reference manual.

The announcement posted to the CIA’s website offered no reason for the decision to end the Factbook, but it follows a vow from Director John Ratcliffe to end programs that don’t advance the agency’s core missions.

First launched in 1962 as a printed, classified reference manual for intelligence officers, the Factbook offered a detailed, by-the-numbers picture of foreign nations, their economies, militaries, resources and societies. The Factbook proved so useful that other federal agencies began using it, and within a decade, an unclassified version was released to the public.

After going online in 1997, the Factbook quickly became a popular reference site for journalists, trivia aficionados and the writers of college essays, racking up millions of visits per year.

The White House has moved to cut staffing at the CIA and the National Security Agency early in Trump’s second term, forcing the agency to do more with less.

The CIA did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday about the decision to cease publication of the Factbook.

By ALEXANDRA OLSON and CLAIRE SAVAGE

NEW YORK (AP) — The federal agency for protecting workers’ civil rights revealed Wednesday that it is investigating sportswear giant Nike for allegedly discriminating against white employees through its diversity policies.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission disclosed the investigation in a motion filed in Missouri federal court demanding that Nike fully comply with a subpoena for information.

The EEOC sought the company’s criteria for selecting employees for layoffs, how it tracks and uses worker race and ethnicity data, and information about programs which allegedly provided race-restricted mentoring, leadership, or career development opportunities, according to court documents.

In a statement, Nike said the company has worked to cooperate with the EEOC and the subpoena “feels like a surprising and unusual escalation.”

“We have shared thousands of pages of information and detailed written responses to the EEOC’s inquiry and are in the process of providing additional information,” Nike said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.”

EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas has moved swiftly to target diversity and inclusion policies that she has long criticized as potentially discriminatory, tightly aligning the agency with one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities.

Nike appears to be the highest profile company the EEOC has targeted with a publicly confirmed, formal anti-DEI investigation. In November, the EEOC issued a similar subpoena against financial services provider Northwestern Mutual.

“When there are compelling indications, including corporate admissions in extensive public materials, that an employer’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion-related programs may violate federal prohibitions against race discrimination or other forms of unlawful discrimination, the EEOC will take all necessary steps — including subpoena actions — to ensure the opportunity to fully and comprehensively investigate,” Lucas said in a statement.

The disclosure comes two months after Lucas posted a social media call-out urging white men to come forward if they have experienced race or sex discrimination at work. The post urged eligible workers to reach out to the agency “as soon as possible” and referred users to the agency’s fact sheet on DEI-related discrimination.

The investigation against Nike, however, does not stem from any worker complaint against the company. Rather, Lucas filed her own complaint in May 2024 through a more rarely used tool known as a commissioner’s charge, according to the court documents. Her charge came just months after America First Legal, a conservative legal group founded by top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, sent the EEOC a letter outlining complaints against Nike and urging the agency to file a commissioner’s charge.

America First Legal has flooded the EEOC with similar letters in recent years urging investigations into the DEI practices of major U.S. companies. It is unclear how many other companies the EEOC may be targeting through such commissioner’s charges. The EEOC is prohibited from revealing any charge — by workers or commissioners — unless it results in fines, settlements, legal action or other such public actions.

Lucas’ charge, according to court filings, was based on Nike’s publicly shared information about its commitment to diversity, including statements from executives and proxy statements. The charge, for example, cited Nike’s publicly stated goal in 2021 of achieving 35% representation of racial and ethnic minorities in its corporate workforce by 2025.

Many U.S. companies made similar commitments in the wake of the widespread 2020 racial justice protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man. Companies have said such commitments are not quotas but rather goals they hoped to achieve through methods such as widening recruitment efforts and rooting out any bias during hiring process.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employers are prohibited from using race as a criteria for hiring or other employment decisions. Lucas has long warned that many companies risk crossing that line through DEI efforts that would pressure managers to make race-based decisions.

In its statement, Nike said it follows “all applicable laws, including those that prohibit discrimination. We believe our programs and practices are consistent with those obligations and take these matters seriously.”

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By LISA MASCARO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday it will be a few days before a government funding package comes up for a vote, all but ensuring the partial federal shutdown will drag into the week as Democrats and Republicans debate reining in the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement operations.

Johnson signaled he is relying on help from President Donald Trump to ensure passage. Trump struck a deal with senators to separate out funding for the Department of Homeland Security from a broader package after public outrage over two shooting deaths during protests in Minneapolis against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The measure approved Friday by the Senate would fund DHS temporarily, for two weeks, setting up a deadline for Congress to debate and vote on new restrictions on ICE operations.

“The president is leading this,” Johnson, R-La., told “Fox News Sunday.”

“It’s his play call to do it this way,” the speaker said, adding that the Republican president has “already conceded that he wants to turn down the volume” on federal immigration operations.

Johnson faces a daunting challenge ahead, trying to muscle the funding legislation through the House while Democrats are refusing to provide the votes for speedy passage. They are demanding restraints on ICE that go beyond $20 million for body cameras that already is in the bill. They want to require that federal immigration agents unmask and identify themselves and are pressing for an end to roving patrols, amid other changes.

Democrats dig in on ICE changes

“What is clear is that the Department of Homeland Security needs to be dramatically reformed,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Jeffries said the administration needs to begin negotiations now, not over the next two weeks, on changes to immigration enforcement operations.

“Masks should come off,” he said. “Judicial warrants should absolutely be required consistent with the Constitution, in our view, before DHS agents or ICE agents are breaking into the homes of the American people or ripping people out of their cars.”

It’s all forcing Johnson to rely on his slim House GOP majority in a series of procedural votes, starting in committee on Monday and pushing a potential House floor vote on the package until at least Tuesday, he said.

House Democrats planned a private caucus call Sunday evening to assess the next steps.

Partial government shutdown drags on

Meanwhile, a number of other federal agencies are snared in the funding standoff as the government went into a partial shutdown over the weekend.

Defense, health, transportation and housing are among those that were given shutdown guidance by the administration, though many operations are deemed essential and services are not necessarily interrupted. Workers could go without pay if the impasse drags on. Some could be furloughed.

This is the second time in a matter of months that federal operations have been disrupted as Congress digs in, using the annual funding process as leverage to extract policy changes. Last fall, Democrats sparked what became the longest federal shutdown in history, 43 days, as they protested the expiration of health insurance tax breaks.

That shutdown ended with a promise to vote on proposals to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. But the legislation did not advance and Democrats were unable to achieve their goal of keeping the subsidies in place. Insurance premiums spiked in the new year for millions of people.

Trump wants quick end to shutdown

This time, the administration has signaled its interest in more quickly resolving the shutdown.

Johnson said he was in the Oval Office last week when Trump, along with border czar Tom Homan, spoke with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York to work out the deal.

“I think we’re on the path to get agreement,” Johnson said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Body cameras, which are already provided for in the package, and an end to the roving patrols by immigration agents are areas of potential agreement, Johnson said.

But he said taking the masks off and putting names on agents’ uniforms could lead to problems for law enforcement officers as they are being targeted by the protesters and their personal information is posted online.

“I don’t think the president would approve it — and he shouldn’t,” Johnson said on Fox.

Democrats, however, said the immigration operations are out of control, and it is an emergency situation that must end in Minneapolis and other cities.

Growing numbers of lawmakers are calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be fired or impeached.

“What is happening in Minnesota right now is a dystopia,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who led efforts to hold the line for more changes.

“ICE is making this country less safe, not more safe today,” Murphy said on “Fox News Sunday.”

By MARIA SHERMAN, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The 68th annual Grammy Awards will take place Sunday with a dramatically different tone than last year.

The 2025 award show was completely reimagined and refocused to relief efforts following the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires. In 2026, focus has been placed once again on the music, where Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny and more will go head-to-head.

Comedian Trevor Noah will host for a sixth and final year and history could be made when some of the biggest names in music gather. Here’s some key things to know ahead of Sunday’s show at the Crypto.com Arena.

How to watch the show and red carpet

The main show will air live on CBS beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern on Feb. 1.

The Grammys can also be watched through live TV streaming services that include CBS in their lineup, like Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV and FuboTV.

Paramount+ premium plan subscribers will be able to stream the Grammys live; Paramount+ essential subscribers will have on-demand access the next day.

The premiere ceremony will take place just ahead of the Grammys’ ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 p.m. Pacific at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. It can be streamed at the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel and on live.GRAMMY.com.

The Associated Press will stream a four-hour red carpet show with interviews and fashion footage. It will be streamed on YouTube and APNews.com ahead of the Grammys on Sunday.

Who’s nominated at the 2025 Grammys

Kendrick Lamar leads the 2026 Grammy Award nominations with nine. Lady Gaga, Jack Antonoff and Canadian record producer/songwriter Cirkut follow with seven nominations each.

Sabrina Carpenter, Bad Bunny, Leon Thomas and Serban Ghenea all boast six nominations. Andrew Watt, Clipse, Doechii, Sounwave, SZA, Turnstile and Tyler, the Creator have five each.

Who’s attending and performing at the Grammys

Doechii, Harry Styles, Carole King, Chappell Roan, Charli xcx, Jeff Goldblum, Karol G, Lainey Wilson, Marcello Hernández, Nikki Glaser, Q-Tip, Queen Latifah and Teyana Taylor will present at the 2026 Grammys.

Performers include Justin Bieber, Clipse, Pharrell Williams, Sabrina Carpenter Bruno Mars, Rosé, Tyler, the Creator, Lady Gaga and all eight of this year’s best new artist nominees: Leon Thomas, Olivia Dean, global girl group Katseye, The Marías, Addison Rae, sombr, Alex Warren and Lola Young.

Reba McEntire, Brandy Clark and Lukas Nelson will take the stage for the in memoriam. Ms. Lauryn Hill will pay tribute to D’Angelo and Roberta Flack. Post Malone, Andrew Watt, Chad Smith, Duff McKagan and Slash will honor Ozzy Osbourne.

By MARIA SHERMAN, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Sunday’s Grammys mark a return to normalcy after the 2025 show was altered to focus on Los Angeles-area wildfire relief efforts.

“I think we will see some history-making moments,” Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr. told The Associated Press. “With artists being nominated in categories they haven’t been previously nominated in, and a new crop of talent coming through the system this year — I think we’re going to see some really exciting results.”

Here’s how to watch the 2026 Grammys, including how to stream and where you can see music’s biggest stars walking the red carpet.

How do I watch the Grammys?

The main show will air live from LA’s Crypto.com Arena on CBS beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern. Paramount+ premium plan subscribers will be able to stream the telecast live, too. (Paramount+ essential subscribers will have on-demand access the next day.)

The Grammys can also be watched through live TV streaming services that include CBS in their lineup, like Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV and FuboTV.

The Premiere Ceremony will take place ahead of the Grammys telecast, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern from the Peacock Theater. It can be streamed at the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel and on live.GRAMMY.com.

How can I watch the red carpet?

The Associated Press will stream a four-hour red carpet show with interviews and fashion footage. It will be streamed on YouTube and APNews.com.

By MARK KENNEDY, AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Some people see the glass as half full and some as half empty. Marc Shaiman is something else entirely.

“I’m not even happy with the glass,” he says with a laugh.

The award-winning Hollywood and Broadway composer and lyricist cheerfully likes to call himself an “Eeyore” and “a card-carrying pessimist” despite many of his biggest dreams coming true.

“Just as soon as something good happens, something bad’s going to happen,” he tells The Associated Press. “I am always waiting for that other shoe to drop, and it inevitably drops.”

His career and personal ups and downs are on full display this winter with Tuesday’s publication of his memoir, “Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner,” which is filled with funny stories from a man who has helped fuel popular movies and musicals for decades.

“I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot and I’ve been lucky enough to have an outrageous longevity. I thought, ‘Let me write it down, finally,’” he says.

Tales of Bette Midler, Stephen Sondheim and the ‘South Park’ guys

The memoir charts the New Jersey-born musical prodigy’s rise from Bette Midler’s musical director in his teens to scoring such films as “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Mary Poppins Returns” and Broadway shows like “Hairspray” and “Catch Me If You Can.”

He’s worked with Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Luther Vandross, Raquel Welch and Rob Reiner, sparred with producer Scott Rudin and had a spat with Nora Ephron (“I’m certain she’s in heaven, telling all the angels she doesn’t like harps,” he writes). He also played at the White House and was a force in the early days of “Saturday Night Live.”

There was the time in 1999 that he got legendary composer Stephen Sondheim so high on pot at a party in his apartment that the iconic composer collapsed three times. “I’ve killed Stephen Sondheim,” he thought to himself. (Sondheim asked him to tell the story only after he died.)

He tells the story of hearing Meryl Streep repeatedly working on a song for “Mary Poppins Returns.” Moved, he and his writing partner, Scott Williams, knocked on her door to say how impressed they were by her dedication to rehearse. “Well, guys, fear can be a powerful motivator,” she told them.

“I’m mostly just trying to show how human everyone is — even these bold-faced names,” Shaiman, a two-time Grammy winner and two-time Emmy winner, says in the interview.

Shaiman isn’t above mocking himself, as he does for becoming an inveterate pothead and cocaine user. “I should go into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the only person who put on weight while being a cocaine addict,” he writes.

There are stories about how a misunderstanding over an unpaid bill with Barbra Streisand left him shaken for days and the time he insulted Harry Connick Jr. (Both would later reconcile.)

Then there was the time he found himself dressed in an ostentatious powder-blue suit and feather boa alongside Matt Stone and Trey Parker on a red carpet for “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” — they were dressed as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez.

One lesson from Shaiman: ‘Show up’

One lesson Shaiman hopes to teach aspiring artists is to go for it: “What you can do is show up. Show up to everything. Say yes to everything because I’m a good example of that.”

He tells the story of Midler organizing a world tour and offering his services but being told she was only hiring local Los Angeles people. So he withdrew all his money from the bank, hopped on a flight from New York and called her from a phone booth: “I’m in L.A. Where’s rehearsal?”

“Even if you don’t get the job, keep your spirit up because someone in that room is going to remember you for another thing. That’s the thing I think to really learn from the book,” he says.

As a sign of Shaiman’s pull on Broadway, the audiobook will feature performances by Crystal, Short, Matthew Broderick, Megan Hilty, Nathan Lane, Katharine McPhee and Ben Whishaw, among others.

“I had included a lot of lyrics in the book and then I suddenly realized, ‘What, am I going to sing them all or speak them all?’ So I started calling friends, some who had sung those songs and some who had sung the demos,” he says.

Crystal met Shaiman at “Saturday Night Live” and quickly hit it off. In a separate interview, Crystal called his friend funny and quick to improvise, with an almost photographic memory of music.

“Look at his range: From ‘Misery’ to the beautiful score from ‘The American President.’ And I brought him in on ‘61(asterisk)’ and then the ‘Mr. Saturday Night’ score,” Crystal says. “He’s just so uniquely talented as an artist.”

Despite being a Tony Award winner in 2003 with “Hairspray” and earning two other nominations for “Catch Me If You Can” in 2011 and “Some Like It Hot” in 2023, Shaiman is flustered by Broadway.

His last two shows — “Smash” and “Some Like It Hot” — earned great reviews but closed early, a victim of high costs and fickle audiences.

“I wish the shows kind of stunk and I could go, ‘Oh, man, that really stunk. People are really not liking this,’” he says. “But when they’re enjoying it?”

Shaiman really has nothing else to prove and yet he laughs that his skin has gotten thinner — not thicker — over the years. He’d like to take it easy, but that’s not what Eeyores do.

“I don’t know how well I’ll actually do with retirement, but I’d like to give it a try.”

By HILLEL ITALIE

NEW YORK (AP) — From her house up high in Colorado’s Elk Mountains, author Shelley Read can only look out in amazement at the worldwide success of her debut novel, “Go as a River.”

“There were upward of 30 translations already secured before the novel was introduced in the U.S.,” says Read, a fifth-generation Coloradan who lives with her husband in Crested Butte, in a home they built themselves. “And that is when I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ It’s thrilling, scary, magnificent.”

Published in 2023 by Spiegel & Grau, “Go as a River” received little major review attention beyond trade publications when first released and its honors are mostly regional, including a High Plains Book Award and a Reading the West Book Award. But her novel has been a hit in the U.S. and well beyond, appearing on bestseller lists everywhere from North America to Scandinavia and selling more than 1 million copies. Mazur Kaplan, co-founded by producer Paula Mazur and independent book seller Mitchell Kaplan, is working on a film adaptation. Eliza Hittman, whose credits include the award-winning “Never Rarely Sometimes Only,” is expected to direct.

Read’s 300-page novel spans from the 1940s to the 1970s, and centers on a 17-year-old Colorado farm girl’s ill-fated romance with an itinerant Indigenous man and how it haunts and changes lives for decades to come. “Go as a River” proves that some books can break through without high-profile endorsements or author name recognition. It also adds the 61-year-old Read to a special list of first-time authors — from Frank McCourt to Louis Begley — middle aged or older who finally get around to that book they had been meaning to write and receive wide acclaim.

“What she’s done is unusual,” says Spiegel & Grau co-founder Cindy Spiegel. “Every now and then someone comes along who has a vision that they’ve held for many, many years and they really do write it down. Most people don’t.”

A native of Colorado Springs, Read is a graduate of the University of Denver who has a master’s degree from Temple University’s creative writing program. She is a longtime educator who parsed and absorbed so many books, with works by Virginia Woolf and Czeslaw Milosz among her favorites, that one of her own inevitably came out on the other end.

A teacher with a story of her own

For nearly three decades, she taught writing and literature among other subjects at Western Colorado University. During that time, a character kept turning up in her thoughts, the germ of what became her novel’s protagonist, Victoria Nash. There was something about Victoria, an empathetic quality, Read related to. But she had her career and two young children, and “was just trying to keep my head above water as a super busy mom and with a lot of very intense challenges.”

With Victoria unwilling to leave her be, Read began jotting down notes on Post-its, napkins and other papers that might be around. With her husband’s encouragement, she took early retirement and committed to completing her book. She had written stories in her early years, but had never attempted a full-length narrative.

“I had no idea where it was going. I had no intentions about where it was going, because I had never written a novel before,” Read says, speaking via Zoom from her home. “Once I figured out this was going to be a novel, I was like, ‘Oh no!’ I have studied novels thousands of times throughout my life, but I never even considered that I would write one.”

Read stepped down in 2018 and by the following year had finished a manuscript, drawn in part from such historical events as a 1960s flood in Iola, Colorado, and from her lifelong affinity for the local landscape. First-time authors of any age struggle to find representation, but during a 2017 writers conference at Western Colorado University, Read had met Sandra Bond, a Denver-based agent. A “Colorado girl,” Bond calls herself.

“We hit it off immediately,” Bond says. “We have very similar backgrounds in growing up in Colorado.”

Writing is rewriting

Read’s manuscript “knocked my socks off,” Bond remembers, but it wasn’t an easy sell. The second half of the book “didn’t quite meet the standards of the first” and Bond didn’t have the editing skills to fix it. “Go as a River” was turned down by 21 publishers before Spiegel signed it up. Spiegel & Grau, which began as a Penguin Random House imprint and reopened in 2020 as an independent a year after PRH shut it down amid a corporate reorganization, has worked with authors ranging from Ta-Nehisi Coates and Sara Gruen to Iain Pears and Kathryn Stockett.

“I had a feeling Cindy might be able to see how to guide Shelley in revising the second half — what was really working and what wasn’t and why,” Bond says.

Spiegel and Read worked on revisions — the finished version is entirely from Victoria’s perspective; the original draft shifted narrators midway. Meanwhile, the publisher showed the manuscript to the international agent Susanna Lea, who “read it one sitting” and quickly arranged for meetings with foreign publishers. It was mid-July, and she remembers tracking down publishers in Norway and Finland and other parts of Scandinavia at a time of year when book executives usually are on vacation.

“Suddenly, they were all reachable,” she says.

Read is working on a second novel, set in southeastern Colorado, where her homesteader-grandparents lived. Meanwhile, royalties from “Go as a River” allowed her a few indulgences, from installing solar panels on her house to a little travel, not to mention paying off college tuition for her son and building up the family retirement savings.

“Not too sexy,” she acknowledges. “We’re still do-it-yourselfers, & I still drive an old Toyota pickup. The main thing about the royalties is that I get to be a writer for a living, and that is a dream come true.”

By PAT GRAHAM

Before Mikaela Shiffrin, Lindsey Vonn and other World Cup ski racers chase gold at the Milan Cortina Olympics, they will star in a new docuseries that gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it’s like on the circuit.

Some of the biggest names in the sport are featured in ESPN’s five-episode series called “On the Edge: World Cup Ski Racing,” which starts Friday with three segments. Besides Shiffrin and Vonn, the docuseries features Swiss standout Marco Odermatt and Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, the Norwegian-born racer who represents Brazil and definitely likes to entertain.

The last episode in the series, titled “The World’s Stage,” will air on April 10 and focus on Swiss racer Camille Rast as she reflects on the fatal fire in a bar in the ski resort Crans-Montana during a New Year’s celebration. That particular episode will also look back at the Olympics and how the 41-year-old Vonn, who returned to the circuit after a partial knee replacement, and others performed.

The Milan Cortina Games are Feb. 6-22.

The series kicks off with the spotlight on Shiffrin and her fiancé, Norwegian standout Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, as they support each other following their returns from severe injuries.

“This kind of storytelling is so important to the future of our sport,” Sophie Goldschmidt, the president & CEO of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, said in a text to The Associated Press. “‘On the Edge’ gives ski racing an even bigger platform and broader reach — and that’s how you inspire participation.

“We hope this series encourages more kids to fall in love with ski racing and dream of becoming the next Mikaela Shiffrin, Lindsey Vonn or Ryan Cochran-Siegle. We have so many amazing stories to share about both our U.S. and international athletes.”

The project is directed by filmmaker Pat Dimon, who explores the journey of racers toward Olympic gold and the grind behind the World Cup season. It also features racers such as New Zealand’s Alice Robinson; Italy’s Sofia Goggia, Federica Brignone and Dominik Paris; and Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen.

“Growing up a lifelong skier in Vermont, I learned that what matters most often happens away from the gates and finish line,” Dimon said of the series that premieres on the ESPN app and ESPN on Disney+. “’On the Edge’ is about seeing past the polished surface and dropping into the real line of World Cup racing — the grind of travel, the toll of injuries, the pressure, and the mindset it takes to be and stay at that level.”

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

By GRAHAM LEE BREWER, SAVANNAH PETERS and STEWART HUNTINGTON

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flooded Minneapolis, Shane Mantz dug his Choctaw Nation citizenship card out of a box on his dresser and slid it into his wallet.

Some strangers mistake the pest-control company manager for Latino, he said, and he fears getting caught up in ICE raids.

Like Mantz, many Native Americans are carrying tribal documents proving their U.S. citizenship in case they are stopped or questioned by federal immigration agents. This is why dozens of the 575 federally recognized Native nations are making it easier to get tribal IDs. They’re waiving fees, lowering the age of eligibility — ranging from 5 to 18 nationwide — and printing the cards faster.

It’s the first time tribal IDs have been widely used as proof of U.S. citizenship and protection against federal law enforcement, said David Wilkins, an expert on Native politics and governance at the University of Richmond.

“I don’t think there’s anything historically comparable,” Wilkins said. “I find it terribly frustrating and disheartening.”

As Native Americans around the country rush to secure documents proving their right to live in the United States, many see a bitter irony.

“As the first people of this land, there’s no reason why Native Americans should have their citizenship questioned,” said Jaqueline De León, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Native American Rights Fund and member of Isleta Pueblo.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to more than four requests for comment over a week.

Native identity in a new age of fear

Since the mid- to late 1800s, the U.S. government has kept detailed genealogical records to estimate Native Americans’ fraction of “Indian blood” and determine their eligibility for health care, housing, education and other services owed under federal legal responsibilities. Those records were also used to aid federal assimilation efforts and chip away at tribal sovereignty, communal lands and identity.

Beginning in the late 1960s, many tribal nations began issuing their own forms of identification. In the last two decades, tribal photo ID cards have become commonplace and can be used to vote in tribal elections, to prove U.S. work eligibility and for domestic air travel.

About 70% of Native Americans today live in urban areas, including tens of thousands in the Twin Cities, one of the largest urban Native populations in the country.

There, in early January, a top ICE official announced the “largest immigration operation ever.”

Masked, heavily armed agents traveling in convoys of unmarked SUVs became commonplace in some neighborhoods. By this week, more than 3,400 people had been arrested, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At least 2,000 ICE officers and 1,000 Border Patrol officers were on the ground.

Representatives from at least 10 tribes traveled hundreds of miles to Minneapolis — the birthplace of the American Indian Movement — to accept ID applications from members there. Among them were the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe of Wisconsin, the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of South Dakota and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa of North Dakota.

Turtle Mountain citizen Faron Houle renewed his tribal ID card and got his young adult son’s and his daughter’s first ones.

“You just get nervous,” Houle said. “I think (ICE agents are) more or less racial profiling people, including me.”

Events in downtown coffee shops, hotel ballrooms, and at the Minneapolis American Indian Center helped urban tribal citizens connect and share resources, said Christine Yellow Bird, who directs the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s satellite office in Fargo, North Dakota.

Yellow Bird made four trips to Minneapolis in recent weeks, putting nearly 2,000 miles on her 2017 Chevy Tahoe to help citizens in the Twin Cities who can’t make the long journey to their reservation.

Yellow Bird said she always keeps her tribal ID with her.

“I’m proud of who I am,” she said. “I never thought I would have to carry it for my own safety.”

Some Native Americans say ICE is harassing them

Last year, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said that several tribal citizens reported being stopped and detained by ICE officers in Arizona and New Mexico. He and other tribal leaders have advised citizens to carry tribal IDs with them at all times.

Last November, Elaine Miles, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon and an actress known for her roles in “Northern Exposure” and “The Last of Us,” said she was stopped by ICE officers in Washington state who told her that her tribal ID looked fake.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe this week banned ICE from its reservation in southwestern South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska, one of the largest in the country.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota said a member was detained in Minnesota last weekend. And Peter Yazzie, who is Navajo, said he was arrested and held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix for several hours last week.

Yazzie, a construction worker from nearby Chinle, Arizona, said he was sitting in his car at a gas station preparing for a day of work when he saw ICE officers arrest some Latino men. The officers soon turned their attention to Yazzie, pushed him to the ground, and searched his vehicle, he said.

He said he told them where to find his driver’s license, birth certificate, and a federal Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood. Yazzie said the car he was in is registered to his mother. Officers said the names didn’t match, he said, and he was arrested, taken to a nearby detention center and held for about four hours.

“It’s an ugly feeling. It makes you feel less human. To know that people see your features and think so little of you,” he said.

DHS did not respond to questions about the arrest.

Mantz, the Choctaw Nation citizen, said he runs pest-control operations in Minneapolis neighborhoods where ICE agents are active and he won’t leave home without his tribal identification documents.

Securing them for his children is now a priority.

“It gives me some peace of mind. But at the same time, why do we have to carry these documents?” Mantz said. “Who are you to ask us to prove who we are?”

Brewer reported from Oklahoma City and Peters from Edgewood, New Mexico.

By MICHAEL BIESECKER, REBECCA SANTANA and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday.

“We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Blanche said during a news conference.

Blanche did not explain why DOJ decided to open an investigation into Pretti’s killing, but has said a similar probe is not warranted in the Jan. 7 death of Renee Good, who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. He said only on Friday that the Civil Rights Division does not investigate every law enforcement shooting and that there have to be circumstances and facts that “warrant an investigation.”

“President Trump has said repeatedly, ‘Of course, this is something we’re going to investigate,’” Blanche said of the Pretti shooting.

Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said Friday that “the family’s focus is on a fair and impartial investigation that examines the facts around his murder.”

FBI to take over federal investigation

The Department of Homeland Security also said Friday that the FBI will lead the federal probe into Pretti’s death.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first disclosed the shift in which agency was leading the investigation during a Fox News interview Thursday evening. Her department previously said Homeland Security Investigations, a departmental unit, would head the investigation.

“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said, speaking to Fox host Sean Hannity.

Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Homeland Security Investigations will support the FBI in the investigation. Separately, Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, is doing its own internal investigation into the shooting, during which two officers opened fire on Pretti.

DHS did not immediately respond to questions about when the change was made or why. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was not immediately clear whether the FBI would share information and evidence with Minnesota state investigators, who have thus far been frozen out of the federal investigation.

In the same interview, Noem appeared to distance herself from statements she made shortly after the shooting, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun and aggressively approached officers.

Multiple videos that emerged of the shooting contradicted that claim, showing the intensive care nurse had only his mobile phone in his hand as officers tackled him to the ground, with one removing a handgun from the back of Pretti’s pants as another officer began firing shots into his back.

Pretti had a state permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. At no point did he appear to reach for it, the videos showed.

Videos emerge of previous altercation

The change in agency comes after two other videos emerged of an earlier altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death.

The Jan. 13 videos show Pretti yelling at federal vehicles and at one point appearing to spit before kicking out the taillight of one vehicle. A struggle ensues between Pretti and several officers, during which he is forced to the ground. Pretti’s winter coat comes off, and he either breaks free or the officers let him go and he scurries away.

When he turns his back to the camera, what appears to be a handgun is visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun, and it is not clear whether federal agents saw it.

Schleicher, the Pretti family attorney, said Wednesday the earlier altercation in no way justified the shooting more than a week later.

In a post on his Truth Social platform early Friday morning, President Donald Trump suggested that the videos of the earlier incident undercut the narrative that Pretti was a peaceful protester when he was shot.

“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump’s post said. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”

Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker contributed from Washington.

By ERIC TUCKER, MICHAEL R. SISAK and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department said Friday that it was releasing many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with rich and powerful people including Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The files, which were being posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.

The documents were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his confidant and onetime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

“Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” Blanche said at a news conference announcing the disclosure.

The prospect of previously unseen records tying Epstein to famous figures has long animated online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and others who have clamored for a full accounting that even Blanche acknowledged might not be met by the latest document dump.

“There’s a hunger, or a thirst, for information that I don’t think will be satisfied by review of these documents,” he said.

He insisted that, “We did not protect President Trump. We didn’t protect — or not protect — anybody,” Blanche said.

After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all of the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be redacted, or blacked out.

Among the materials being withheld from release Friday is information that could jeopardize any ongoing investigation or expose the identities of potential victims of sex abuse. All women other than Maxwell have been redacted from videos and images being released Friday, Blanche said.

The number of documents subject to review has ballooned to roughly six million, including duplicates, the department said.

The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents just before Christmas, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs and court records. Many of them were either already public or heavily blacked out.

Those records included previously released flight logs showing that Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s, before they had a falling out, and several photographs of Clinton. Neither Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, has been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and both have said they had no knowledge he was abusing underage girls.

Also released last month were transcripts of grand jury testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who said they were paid to perform sex acts for Epstein.

Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had sexually abused underage girls at his home in Palm Beach, but the U.S. attorney’s office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for his guilty plea to lesser state charges.

In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, after being moved there from a federal prison in Florida. She denies any wrongdoing.

U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein’s abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in lawsuits of having arranged for her to have sexual encounters at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, noted academics and others, all of whom denied her allegations.

Among the people she accused was Britain’s Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after the scandal led to him being stripped of his royal titles. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

Giuffre died by suicide at her farm in Western Australia last year at age 41.

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Tucker and Richer reported from Washington.

Follow the AP’s coverage of Jeffrey Epstein at https://apnews.com/hub/jeffrey-epstein.

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.