Today is Monday, Jan. 13, the 13th day of 2025. There are 352 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 13, 2021, President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House over the violent Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol, becoming the only president to be twice impeached; ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting to impeach Trump on a charge of “incitement of insurrection.” (Trump would again be acquitted by the Senate in a vote after his term was over.)

Also on this date:

In 1733, James Oglethorpe and some 120 English colonists arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, while en route to settle in present-day Georgia.

In 1794, President George Washington approved a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the Union. (The number of stripes was later reduced to the original 13.)

In 1941, a new law went into effect granting Puerto Ricans U.S. birthright citizenship.

In 1979, singer Donny Hathaway died in a fall from a hotel window in New York. He was 34. Hathaway was known for his duets with Roberta Flack and the holiday song “This Christmas.”

In 1982, an Air Florida 737 crashed into Washington, D.C.’s 14th Street Bridge and fell into the Potomac River while trying to take off during a snowstorm, killing a total of 78 people, including four motorists on the bridge; four passengers and a flight attendant survived.

In 1990, L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the nation’s first elected Black governor as he took the oath of office in Richmond.

In 1992, Japan apologized for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for its soldiers during World War II, citing newly uncovered documents that showed the Japanese army had a role in abducting the so-called “comfort women.”

Today’s birthdays:

• Golf Hall of Famer Mark O’Meara is 68.
• Actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus is 64.
• Country singer Trace Adkins is 63.
• Actor Patrick Dempsey is 59.
• TV producer-writer Shonda Rhimes is 55.
• Actor Orlando Bloom is 48.
• Actor Liam Hemsworth is 35.
• Actor Natalia Dyer is 30.
• NHL center Connor McDavid is 28.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Jayden Daniels ran for a critical first down to set up Zane Gonzalez’s 37-yard field goal that clanged off the right upright and went through as time expired, and the Washington Commanders beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23-20 in an NFC wild-card game Sunday night for the franchise’s first playoff win in 6,945 days.

Daniels, playing with a bandage beneath his right eye after his face was bloodied, became the third rookie quarterback in three years to win a playoff game.

The Commanders (13-5) will face the No. 1 seed Detroit Lions (15-2) in the divisional round. The game will be Saturday at 8 p.m. (FOX) at Ford Field.

Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers (10-8) missed several opportunities and the veteran quarterback committed a critical turnover in the fourth quarter. The Bucs couldn’t get 1 yard on two tries from the Commanders 12 and settled for a field goal to tie the game before Washington’s winning drive.

Daniels threw for 268 yards and two touchdowns, joining C.J. Stroud and Brock Purdy as rookie QBs to win playoff games in the past three seasons.

Washington hadn’t won in the postseason since beating the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay 17-10 in a wild-card game on Jan. 7, 2006.

— By ROB MAADDI, The Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Reserve Grace VanSlooten scored 19 points and grabbed 12 rebounds —her third double-double this season — and Julia Ayrault also scored 19 points with eight rebounds to help No. 20 Michigan State beat Washington 80-68 on Sunday.

Theryn Hallock and Ines Sotelo each scored 11 points for Michigan State (13-3, 3-2 Big Ten).

Elle Ladine hit two free throws, Sayvia Sellers scored in the paint and Ladine added a 3-pointer in a 7-2 spurt that gave the Huskies a one-point lead a little more than 2 minutes into the second half. Michigan State scored seven consecutive points to take a 48-42 lead with 4:58 left in the third quarter and the Spartans led the rest of the way.

Sellers led the Huskies with 21 points, Ladine added 17 and Hannah Stines scored 11. Dalayah Daniels grabbed 11 rebounds to go with six points, three steals and two blocks.

Washington (13-5, 3-2) had its five-game win streak snapped.

Hallock scored seven points in a 9-4 spurt to open the fourth quarter that gave Michigan State a 12-point lead three minutes into the period and the Huskies trailed by at least seven points the rest of the way.

The Spartans scored 22 points off 20 Washington turnovers and Michigan State outscored the Huskies 31-13 in bench points.

Washington plays at No. 25 Michigan and the Spartans hit the road to take on Rutgers, both on Wednesday.

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Jaden Akins scored 14 points and No. 16 Michigan State extended its winning streak to nine games with a 78-68 win over Northwestern on Sunday.

The Spartans (14-2, 5-0 Big Ten) closed the first half on a 33-12 run and led 47-28 at intermission after all 10 players chipped in at least a field goal. The Wildcats (10-6, 1-4) finally got their deficit under 10 points in the game’s final minute.

Jase Richardson scored 13 points and Jeremy Fears Jr. had 12 points and eight assists for the Spartans, whose six dunks in the first half drew plenty of roars from visiting fans who seemed to make up half of the sellout crowd.

Nick Martinelli scored 27 points and Jalen Leach had 17 to lead Northwestern, which lost for the first time at home and dropped its third straight overall.

Takeaways

Michigan State has one of the nation’s most productive benches, and the reserves delivered again. The Spartans’ subs (24 points) nearly outscored the Wildcats in the opening half.

Northwestern had beaten five straight top-25 opponents at Welsh-Ryan Arena, but compounded the decisive first-half run with four turnovers while going 3 for 18 from the floor.

Key moment

Richardson got fouled on a putback and added the free throw to give the Spartans a 17-16 lead with a little more than 13 minutes to play in the first half. It started a 14-point run that gave his team control of the game.

Key stat

Northwestern’s Brooks Barnhizer started the day averaging 19.3 points, but missed his first seven shots and finished with four points on 2-for-13 shooting.

Up next

Michigan State hosts Penn State on Wednesday, and Northwestern hosts Maryland on Thursday.

Cade Cunningham had 22 points, 17 assists and 10 rebounds, and the Detroit Pistons beat the Toronto Raptors 123-114 on Saturday night.

Cunningham fell one assist of his career high, set on Dec. 16, and has the second-most triple-doubles in Pistons history.

Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 27 points for the Pistons, who have won nine of 11. Malik Beasley added 18.

Immanuel Quickley had 25 points for Toronto, which has lost five straight and 16 of 17. Scottie Barnes had 16 points and 11 rebounds as Toronto had seven players score in double figures.

Quickley's jumper tied the game at 109 with five minutes left, but Toronto missed four straight free throws to allow Detroit to take a 113-109 lead on Cunningham's short jumper with 3:48 to play.

Takeaways

Raptors: Toronto came up empty on a key fourth-quarter possession despite grabbing three offensive possessions.

Pistons: Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff has settled on Ausar Thompson to fill Jaden Ivey's spot in the starting lineup. However, sixth man Beasley gets all of the playing time down the stretch.

Key moment

Toronto led 66-65 at halftime, but Hardaway had 11 points in the third quarter as Detroit built a 99-93 lead.

Key stat

The Pistons had 10 first-half turnovers, leading to 19 Toronto points, but the Raptors only got four points off their seven second-half turnovers.

Up next

Both teams return to action on Monday. Toronto will host the Golden State Warriors while the Pistons will travel to New York to face the Knicks.

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Today is Sunday, Jan. 12, the 12th day of 2025. There are 353 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 12, 2010, Haiti was struck by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that the Haitian government estimated killed some 300,000 people.

Also on this date:

In 1915, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected, 204-174, a proposed constitutional amendment to give women nationwide the right to vote.

In 1932, Hattie W. Caraway of Arkansas became the first woman to win election to the U.S. Senate after initially being appointed to serve out the remainder of the term of her late husband, Thaddeus.

In 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart completed an 18-hour trip from Honolulu to Oakland, California, making her the first person to fly solo across any part of the Pacific Ocean.

In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, unanimously ruled that state law schools could not discriminate against applicants on the basis of race.

In 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. founded Motown Records (originally Tamla Records) in Detroit.

In 1966, “Batman” premiered on ABC, starring Adam West and Burt Ward.

In 1969, the biggest upset in Super Bowl history occurred as the New York Jets of the American Football League defeated the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League 16-7 in Super Bowl III, played at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

Today’s birthdays:

• Author Haruki Murakami is 76.
• Filmmaker Wayne Wang is 76.
• Football Hall of Famer Drew Pearson is 74.
• Writer Walter Mosley is 73.
• Media personality Howard Stern is 71.
• Filmmaker John Lasseter is 68.
• Broadcast journalist Christiane Amanpour is 67.
• Actor Oliver Platt is 65.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins is 65.
• Entrepreneur Jeff Bezos is 61.
• Musician-filmmaker Rob Zombie is 60.
• Rock singer Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine) is 55.
• Rapper Raekwon (Wu Tang Clan) is 55.
• Singer Melanie Chisholm (Spice Girls) is 51.
• Hockey Hall of Famer Marián Hossa is 46.
• Actor Issa Rae is 40.
• Singer Zayn Malik is 32.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — Despite a career-high 20 points from TJ Nadeau leading three Detroit Mercy freshmen in double figures, Rasheed Bello’s 26 points helped Purdue Fort Wayne defeat the Titans 90-67 on Saturday night.

Bello added five rebounds for the Mastodons (13-6, 6-2 Horizon League). Corey Hadnot II shot 7 of 10 from the field, including 4 for 5 from 3-point range, and went 5 for 5 from the line to add 23 points. Jalen Jackson shot 7 of 13 from the field, including 1 for 3 from 3-point range, and went 4 for 4 from the line to finish with 19 points.

Nadeau (Detroit Catholic Central) led the way for the Titans (6-13, 2-6) with 20 points, eight rebounds and two steals. Detroit Mercy also got 19 points, six rebounds and five assists from Grant Gondrezick II. Nate Johnson also had 19 points and six rebounds.

Nadeau’s previous season high was 16 at Eastern Michigan, while he had nine rebounds at Wake Forest.
He has made a 3-pointer in 14 of his 19 games on the season, while he also had three 3s in the first meeting with the Mastodons

Purdue Fort Wayne’s next game is Wednesday against Wright State on the road. Detroit Mercy hosts Oakland on Saturday.

DETROIT (AP) — Cade Cunningham had 22 points, 17 assists and 10 rebounds, and the Detroit Pistons beat the Toronto Raptors 123-114 on Saturday night.

Cunningham fell one assist of his career high, set on Dec. 16, and has the second-most triple-doubles in Pistons history.

Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 27 points for the Pistons, who have won nine of 11. Malik Beasley added 18.

Immanuel Quickley had 25 points for Toronto, which has lost five straight and 16 of 17. Scottie Barnes had 16 points and 11 rebounds as Toronto had seven players score in double figures.

Quickley’s jumper tied the game at 109 with five minutes left, but Toronto missed four straight free throws to allow Detroit to take a 113-109 lead on Cunningham’s short jumper with 3:48 to play.

Takeaways

Raptors: Toronto came up empty on a key fourth-quarter possession despite grabbing three offensive possessions.

Pistons: Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff has settled on Ausar Thompson to fill Jaden Ivey’s spot in the starting lineup. However, sixth man Beasley gets all of the playing time down the stretch.

Key moment

Toronto led 66-65 at halftime, but Hardaway had 11 points in the third quarter as Detroit built a 99-93 lead.

Key stat

The Pistons had 10 first-half turnovers, leading to 19 Toronto points, but the Raptors only got four points off their seven second-half turnovers.

Up next

Both teams return to action on Monday. Toronto will host the Golden State Warriors while the Pistons will travel to New York to face the Knicks.

— By DAVE HOGG, Associated Press

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — Mila Holloway scored 21 points, Olivia Olson added 18 and No. 25 Michigan coasted past Purdue 87-60 on Saturday to end a three-game losing streak.

Jordan Hobbs added 10 points for the Wolverines (11-5, 2-3 Big Ten), who lost their previous three games to Top 10 teams. Olson had seven rebounds and Holloway had four steals.

Rashunda Jones scored 11 points and Kendal Puryear 10 for the Boilermakers (7-9, 0-5), who lost their fourth straight.

Michigan hit 8 of 13 shots and Purdue was 5 of 16, leading to a 26-16 Wolverine lead after one quarter.

Olson had five points and Syla Swords four in an 11-0 run started by Yulia Grabovskaia’s jumper that gave Michigan a 43-23 lead. It was 48-27 at the break as Purdue shot just 29% with 10 turnovers.

The Boilermakers continued to struggle in the third quarter, going 4 of 11 with seven turnovers and were outscored 22-12 to fall behind 70-39.

The lead reached 34 midway through the fourth quarter.

Michigan turned 18 turnovers into 22 points and only had nine turnovers. The Wolverines also had 10 3-pointers, four by Holloway.

Washington is at Michigan and Purdue goes to Oregon on Wednesday

PARIS (AP) — Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is advising the world “not to waste a lot of time” on what President-elect Donald Trump has been saying about Greenland.

Trump made clear again this week that he’d like the semiautonomous territory of Denmark to come under U.S. control and said he would not rule out the use of military force to make that happen.

“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” Trump said.

But Blinken said Wednesday that the incoming president’s ambitions are unlikely to amount to anything more than talk.

“The idea expressed about Greenland is obviously not a good one,” the senior U.S. diplomat said during a stop in Paris for meetings.

“Maybe more important, it’s obviously one that’s not going to happen. So we probably shouldn’t waste a lot of time talking about it,” he said.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, also played down any possibility of U.S. forces being deployed against Denmark, a U.S. ally in the NATO military alliance.

But Barrot warned nevertheless that Europe must brace for turbulence ahead – as other powers throw their weight around.

“Do we think the United States will invade Greenland? The answer is, ‘No,’” the French minister said. “But do we think that we’re entering into a period that sees the return of the law of the strongest, the answer is, ‘Yes.’”

Europe must become stronger militarily and more economically and commercially competitive in response, Barrot said.

“We have to go a lot further to affirm who we are, what we want,” he said.

The Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, has said she does not believe the United States will use military or economic power to secure control over Greenland and has appealed for U.S. behavior “that is respectful of the Greenlandic people.”

In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that the principle of inviolability of borders applies to every country no matter how powerful, in a reaction to Trump’s remarks that did not mention the president-elect by name. “Borders must not be moved by force,” Scholz said.

By ROB GILLIES

TORONTO (AP) — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s comments that Canada should become the 51st state are no longer a joke and are meant to undermine America’s closest ally, Canada’s finance minister said Wednesday.

Dominic LeBlanc, the country’s point person for U.S-Canada relations, said Trump was smiling when he first made the comment during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in late November.

“The joke is over,” said LeBlanc. “It’s a way for him, I think, to sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos knowing this will never happen.”

Trump keeps floating the idea that Canada should join the United States as the 51st state, saying Tuesday he would not use military force to invade the country, which is home to more than 40 million people and is a founding NATO partner.

Instead, Trump said he would rely on “economic force” as he erroneously cast the U.S. trade deficit with Canada — a natural resource-rich nation that provides the U.S. with commodities like oil — as a subsidy.

“It’s becoming very counterproductive,” LeBlanc said, referring to Trump’s rhetoric about Canada.

LeBlanc has been talking to incoming Trump administration officials about increasing border security in an effort to avoid a sweeping 25% tariff that Trump has threatened to impose on all Canadian products.

LeBlanc, recently appointed to the role after the abrupt resignation of the previous finance minister, also announced he won’t run to replace Trudeau so he can focus on the tariff threat. Trudeau announced Monday he will resign as prime minister and will stay on until a new Liberal leader is chosen.

“The timing is awful for sure,” said Liberal lawmaker Judy Sgro of the leadership change. “But we will do what we have to do to ensure that Canada stands strong.”

Asked about Trump’s comments, Sgro said “He should focus on his own issues in his own country, because he’s got lots of them.”

Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller also fired back, dismissing Trump’s comments as “ridiculous.”

“There is no chance of us becoming the 51st state. I think that this is beneath a president of the United States,” Miller said. “I said a few weeks ago that this whole thing was like a South Park episode.”

Trump refused to rule out acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal by military force and has said the U.S doesn’t need anything from Canada, including automobiles, lumber and dairy products.

“I don’t know who is misinforming him,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said. “Right now we ship 4.3 million barrels of crude oil into the U.S. 60 percent of their energy imports are coming from Canada.”

The U.S. imports approximately 60% of its crude oil from Canada, with Alberta alone supplying 4.3 million barrels per day. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels a day, while domestically producing about 13.2 million barrels a day. This means about quarter of the oil the U.S. consumes every day is from Canada.

Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day.

Ford said Canada will retaliate if Trump imposes tariffs, saying that a wide range of U.S. products shipped to Canada will be targeted, but he declined to specify which ones.

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.

Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said she never takes Trump’s threats lightly.

“At the same time we can’t take the bait,” Joly said. “We have to show we have a strong economy and we are strong and we are not going to be annexed.”

By MEGAN JANETSKY

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum responded sarcastically on Wednesday to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Standing before a global map in her daily press briefing, Sheinbaum proposed dryly that North America should be renamed “América Mexicana,” or “Mexican America,” because a founding document dating from 1814 that preceded Mexico’s constitution referred to it that way.

“That sounds nice, no?” she added with a sarcastic tone. She also noted that the Gulf of Mexico had been named that way since 1607.

The exchange has started to answer a larger question lingering over the bilateral relationship between the two regional powers: How would newly elected Sheinbaum handle Trump’s strong-handed diplomatic approach, and promises of mass-deportations and crippling taxes on trading partners like Mexico?

Sheinbaum’s predecessor and political mentor Andrés Manuel López Obrador – who hailed from a similar strain of class populism as Trump, even though he leaned left – was able to build a relationship with Trump as an ally, and his government began to block migrants from going north under U.S. pressure, a boon to Trump.

But it was unclear if Mexico’s first woman president, a scientist and leftist lacking the folksy populism that rocketed López Obrador into power, would be able to build the same relationship.

While Wednesday’s joke quickly ricocheted across social media feeds, it also set the tone for what a Sheinbaum-Trump relationship could look like in the coming years.

“Humor can be a good tactic, it projects strength, which is what Trump responds to. It was probably the right choice on this issue,” said Brian Winter, vice president of the New York-based Council of the Americas. “Although President Sheinbaum knows it won’t work on everything — Trump and his administration will demand serious engagement from Mexico on the big issues of immigration, drugs and trade.”

It comes after other stern but collaborative responses by Sheinbaum regarding Trump’s proposals.

On Trump’s pitch to slap 25% tariffs on Mexican imports, Sheinbaum warned that if the new U.S. administration imposes tariffs on Mexico, her administration would respond with similar measures. She said any sort of tax was “not acceptable and would cause inflation and job losses for the United States and Mexico.”

She’s taken a more concessionary tone on immigration, falling in line with years of Mexican efforts to block migrants from traveling north amid mounting pressure by the U.S.

After originally saying her government would push the Trump administration to deport migrants directly back to their own countries, in January she said Mexico would be open to accepting deportees from other countries, but Mexico could limit it to certain nationalities or request compensation.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and JENNIFER PELTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump tried again Tuesday to delay this week’s sentencing in his hush money case, asking a New York appeals court to intervene as he fights to avoid the finality of his conviction before he returns to the White House.

Trump turned to the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court a day after the trial judge, Judge Juan M. Merchan, rebuffed his bid to indefinitely postpone sentencing and ordered it to go ahead as scheduled on Friday.

Trump is seeking an immediate stay that would spare him from being sentenced while he appeals Merchan’s decision last week to uphold the historic verdict. Oral arguments were expected before a single judge later Tuesday, with a decision likely soon thereafter.

The scheduling drama is playing out less than two weeks before his inauguration. Trump is poised to be the first president to take office convicted of crimes. If Trump’s sentencing doesn’t happen before his second term starts Jan. 20, it may have to wait until he leaves office in 2029 because of the widely held belief, endorsed by Merchan, that a sitting president is immune from criminal proceedings.

Merchan has signaled that he is not likely to punish Trump for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and will accommodate his transition by allowing him to appear at sentencing by video, rather than in person at a Manhattan courthouse.

Still, the Republican and his lawyers contend that his sentencing should not go forward because the conviction and indictment should be dismissed. They have previously suggested taking the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Merchan “is without authority under the law to proceed to sentencing while President Trump exercises his federal constitutional right to challenge these rulings,” Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in a filing with the Appellate Division.

Last Friday, Merchan denied Trump’s bid to throw out his conviction and dismiss the case because of his impending return to the White House. He previously refused to toss the case on presidential immunity grounds. Trump’s lawyers are challenging both rulings.

Merchan wrote that the interests of justice would only be served by “bringing finality to this matter” through sentencing. He said giving Trump what’s known as an unconditional discharge — closing the case without jail time, a fine or probation — “appears to be the most viable solution.”

Manhattan prosecutors have pushed for sentencing to proceed as scheduled, “given the strong public interest in prompt prosecution and the finality of criminal proceedings.”

The charges involved an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with him years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong.

The case centered on how Trump accounted for reimbursing his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who had made the payment to Daniels. The conviction carried the possibility of punishment ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.

Trump’s sentencing initially was set for last July 11, then postponed twice at the defense’s request. After Trump’s Nov. 5 election, Merchan delayed the sentencing again so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith said Tuesday that his team was finalizing a two-volume report on its investigations into President-elect Donald Trump and that at least one volume of it could be released by the Justice Department as early as Friday.

The disclosure came in response to a request by defense lawyers, filed in court and in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, to preemptively block the report from being made public.

The report is expected to describe charging decisions made in separate investigations by Smith into Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump was charged alongside two codefendants in the classified documents case, which was dismissed in July by a Trump-appointed judge who concluded that Smith’s appointment was illegal. Trump was also charged in an election interference case that was significantly narrowed by a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Smith’s team abandoned both cases in November after Trump’s presidential victory, citing Justice Department policy that prohibits the federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.

Lawyers for Trump, including Todd Blanche, who was picked by Trump to serve as his deputy attorney general, urged Garland in a letter made public late Monday to block the release of the report and to remove Smith from his position “promptly” — or else defer the release of the report to the incoming attorney general.

Using language that mimicked Trump’s own attacks on Smith and his work, Blanche told Garland that the “release of any confidential report prepared by this out-of-control private citizen unconstitutionally posing as a prosecutor would be nothing more than a lawless political stunt, designed to politically harm President Trump and justify the huge sums of taxpayer money Smith unconstitutionally spent on his failed and dismissed cases.”

The letter was attached in an exhibit to an emergency request filed late Monday in federal court by lawyers for Trump’s codefendants in the documents case, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira. They asked U.S District Judge Aileen Cannon to block the report’s release, noting that Smith’s appeal of her dismissal of charges against the men is still pending and that the disclosure of pejorative information about them will be prejudicial.

In response to that request, Smith’s team said in a two-page filing early Tuesday that it intended to submit its report to Garland by the afternoon and that the volume pertaining to the classified documents investigation would not be made public before 10 a.m. Friday. It is presumed that both volumes of Smith’s report would be released simultaneously.

Justice Department regulations call for special counsels appointed by the attorney general to submit a confidential report at the conclusion of their investigations.

Garland has so far made public in their entirety the reports produced by special counsels who operated under his watch, including Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information and John Durham’s report on the FBI’s Russian election interference investigation.

By LINLEY SANDERS, HUMERA LODHI and JONATHAN J. COOPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans say immigration should be a top focus for the U.S. government in 2025, as the country heads toward a new Republican administration in which President-elect Donald Trump has promised the mass deportations of migrants and an end to birthright citizenship.

About half of U.S. adults named immigration and border topics in an open-ended question that asked respondents to share up to five issues they want the government to work on this year, according to a December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s up from about one-third who mentioned the topic as a government priority in an AP-NORC poll conducted the previous year.

The issue of immigration has risen in salience across the board — among Democrats and Republicans, men and women, and adults both young and old. But Republicans, in particular, have converged around this issue in recent years. About 7 in 10 Republicans say immigration or a U.S.-Mexico border wall should be a top focus, up from 45% just two years ago.

This means that Trump will return to the White House with his base, and much of the country, interested in his signature issue. That’s a marked contrast to when he left Washington four years ago with his successor, Democrat Joe Biden, offering a more welcoming posture toward migrants.

But even with the widespread uptick in concern about immigration, that issue is still overshadowed by economic worries. About three-quarters of Americans want the government to focus on addressing broad economic concerns, similar to the past few years. There’s a range of economic issues Americans want addressed — about 3 in 10 referenced general economic issues, a similar share pointed to inflation, and roughly 1 in 10 mentioned either unemployment or taxes.

About one-third of Americans identify foreign policy as an important issue, with health care issues and politics — both identified broadly — close behind.

Republicans are especially likely to want government action on immigration

Trump won back the White House with immigration playing a key role in his campaign, often disparaging migrants to the U.S. and claiming that they commit violent crimes, though studies have shown no link between immigration and crime.

Some of his immigration reforms are likely to face legal challenges as Trump seeks to sharply limit the number of immigrants welcome in the U.S. But addressing those issues remains paramount for Americans as he prepares to take office.

About 8 in 10 Republicans want the government to prioritize economic issues, while about 7 in 10 Republicans say immigration or the border wall should be a top priority.

Most Democrats, meanwhile, are focused on the economy, but they don’t have a clear second priority. Instead, about 4 in 10 name health care and health issues, a small uptick from a year earlier. About one-third of Democrats mention political issues, the environment or climate change, or immigration.

But even Democrats are more likely to want the government to make progress on immigration than they were the year before, when only about 2 in 10 Democrats considered it something that should be a primary focus for the federal government.

That doesn’t mean, though, that they align with Trump’s hard-line approach. One Democrat said the government should focus on “border control, not mass deportation,” while another said “better pathways to citizenship” should be the goal. In their responses to the poll, Republicans tended to mention “illegal immigration” and “a stronger border” as an important focus. One Republican supported “closing the border, deporting illegal immigrants, starting with criminals first.”

The focus among Republicans on immigration and the economy dovetails with two of the biggest challenges Biden confronted during his tenure, which saw both high inflation and sharp growth in migration.

Illegal border crossings reached a record level in 2023, adding fuel to Trump’s relentless focus on border security and his promise to deport migrants en masse. The numbers fell during 2024 after Biden announced a crackdown on asylum claims, but Trump argued those moves were too little, too late.

Americans under 30 really want the government to prioritize inflation

The youngest adults are particularly likely to want the government to work on economic issues.

Americans under 30 are significantly more likely than older adults to mention economic issues, inflation and personal financial topics as a vital focus for government in 2025. About 4 in 10 young adults name inflation, compared with roughly one-quarter of older adults. And about one-quarter of young adults say they want the government focused on housing costs, whereas only about 1 in 10 adults ages 60 or older say the same.

Trump made gains among young adults in 2024 compared with his performance four years earlier, but his youngest voters were much more motivated by the economy than by immigration, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters.

The same sentiment prevails as Trump prepares to take office. Compared with 2023, the December poll found, Americans under 30 are more likely to highlight general economic issues and immigration as things they want government to focus on — but they are much less focused on immigration than older adults. Only about one-third of adults under 30 said immigration should be a focus, compared with about 6 in 10 adults 60 or older.

Older Americans are also broadly focused on the economy, but their priorities are a little different — for instance, about 1 in 10 Americans over 60 want the government focused on Social Security in the coming year. Very few Americans under 30 mentioned Social Security as a concern.

Lodhi reported from New York, and Cooper reported from Phoenix.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,251 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2025. There are 358 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 7, 2015, masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French newspaper that had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, methodically killing 12 people, including the editor, before escaping. (Two suspects were killed two days later.)

Also on this date:

In 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei observed four of Jupiter’s moons for the first time.

In 1955, singer Marian Anderson became the first Black American to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.”

In 1979, Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.

In 2022, three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced to life in prison; a judge in Georgia denied any chance of parole for the father and son who armed themselves and initiated the deadly pursuit of the 25-year-old Black man after spotting him running in their neighborhood.

In 2023, Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on a historic post-midnight 15th ballot, overcoming holdouts from his own ranks after a chaotic week that tested the new GOP majority’s ability to govern.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Musician Kenny Loggins is 77.
• Actor David Caruso is 69.
• TV journalist Katie Couric is 68.
• Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is 64.
• Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is 62.
• Actor Nicolas Cage is 61.
• Actor Jeremy Renner is 54.
• Country singer-musician John Rich is 51.
• Racing driver Lewis Hamilton is 40.
• NFL quarterback Lamar Jackson is 28.
• Actor Marcus Scribner is 25.
• Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s daughter Blue Ivy Carter is 13.

DETROIT (AP) — Cade Cunningham had 32 points and nine assists as the Detroit Pistons reached .500 for the first time after New Year’s Day since 2019 with a 118-115 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night.

Tim Hardaway Jr. added 26 points for Detroit and Jalen Duren had 14 points and 12 rebounds. The Pistons (18-18), who were 3-33 after 36 games a season ago, have won seven of eight.

Anfernee Simons had 36 points and nine assists for Portland, while Shaedon Sharpe had 20 points, eight assists and eight rebounds. The Trail Blazers led by 22 points in the first half.

Hardaway tied the game with a jumper with 3:39 to play, then hit a 3-pointer to make it 109-106. After the teams traded baskets, Simons hit a layup to make it a one-point game.

Malik Beasley hit a 3-pointer to put the Pistons ahead 114-110. Deandre Ayton dunked for Portland with 49.5 seconds to go, but Duren’s putback restored the four-point lead.

Takeaways

Blazers: Coach Chauncey Billups was honored before the game for his contributions to Detroit’s 2004 championship and his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Pistons: Detroit hasn’t been .500 after New Year’s since it finished 41-41 in 2018-19. That season, Blake Griffin led the Pistons to the playoffs, but injured his knee in the process and they were swept by Milwaukee.

Key moment

The Blazers nearly blew Detroit off the floor in the first three minutes of the second quarter. Portland outscored the Pistons 17-0, helped by four straight 3-pointers from Sharpe and Simons.

Key stat

Portland outshot Detroit 53.3% to 44.7% from the floor, but went 3 of 5 from the free-throw line while Detroit was 19 of 22. The Pistons also had a 17-7 edge in offensive rebounds.

Up next

Trail Blazers: At New Orleans on Wednesday.

Pistons: At Brooklyn on Wednesday.

— By DAVE HOGG, Associated Press

By LARRY LAGE
The Associated Press

DETROIT — The Detroit Lions and their ear-ringing fans celebrated a feat that the franchise pulled off for the first time.

Fireworks went off and streamers came down from the rafters while fog machines filled the air with a haze as Lions players and coaches hugged on the Ford Field turf.

The Lions’ 31-9 win over Minnesota on Sunday night gave them a No. 1 seed in the NFL playoffs and home-field advantage through the NFC for the first time, increasing their chances of finally making it to a Super Bowl.

“It’s step one,” quarterback Jared Goff said. “We’re proud to be 15-2, NFC North division champs — back to back, one seed, bye week — all that stuff.

“But this just tick No. 1 and tick No. 2 is next.”

The Lions, who won consecutive division titles for the first time, will host the lowest-seed still standing in the NFC playoffs in the divisional round Jan. 18 or 19. If Detroit avoids getting upset in that game, it will be a win away from the ultimate destination.

Detroit is one of four NFL teams without a Super Bowl appearance along with Cleveland, Houston and Jacksonville.

Since the Lions were an NFL power in the 1950s, winning three titles in a six-year stretch, they failed to have much success in the playoffs until last year.

After winning their last league championship in 1957, they had one playoff victory until general manager Brad Holmes and coach Dan Campbell worked together to find the right players and assistants to win when it matters.

Detroit won two games in one postseason last season for the first time in six-plus decades before blowing a 17-point, third-quarter lead at San Francisco in the NFC championship game.

The Lions earned the right to stay home for the conference playoffs and hope their loud fans make Ford Field an advantage twice this month.

“It’s a great atmosphere for sure,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said.

What’s working

Giving the ball to Jahymr Gibbs. He scored three of his franchise-record tying four touchdowns in the second half, helping Detroit score the final 21 points of the regular-season finale to pull away from the 14-win Vikings.

Gibbs ran 23 times for 139 yards and a career-high three touchdowns and had five catches for 31 yards and another score, carrying a heavy load for a third straight game without injured running back David Montgomery.

“When he gets into space, he’s really tough to get him down,” O’Connell said.

Gibbs set a single-season franchise record with 20 touchdowns.

He joined Hall of Famers O.J. Simpson (1975) and Marshall Faulk (2000) along with David Johnson (2016) as the four players in league history to have 1,900 yards or more from scrimmage and at least 16 rushing touchdowns.

What needs help

The injury report. Detroit’s roster has been decimated by assorted ailments. Rookie cornerback Terrion Arnold, guard Kevin Zeitler and defensive lineman Pat O’Connor all came out of the Minnesota game with injuries.

Stock up

Amik Robertson. The 26-year-old cornerback covered star receiver Justin Jefferson about as well as possible, helping to limit him to three catches for 54 yards. Jefferson caught a season-low 33.3% of the passes thrown toward him.

“When they told me the assignment was to guard Jefferson, I knew we had a chance to win because I always believe in myself,” Robertson said.

Stock down

Goff was selected last week to the Pro Bowl, but had one of his worst games statistically of the season on Sunday night. Goff had an 80.7 passer rating, his third lowest of the season, and was picked off twice after throwing only one interception in the previous seven games.

Injuries

Arnold (foot), Zeitler (right hamstring) and O’Connor (calf) will benefit from the bye.

Key stat

146 — Sam LaPorta matched a season high with seven receptions, giving him 146 catches to surpass three-time All-Pro Keith Jackson for the most by a tight end in his first two NFL seasons.

Next steps

Rest and recharge, taking advantage of the team’s first extended break since Week 5.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some lawmakers emotionally recalled the violence. Others said they’d rather move on. And some said it wasn’t violent at all.

The certification Monday of Donald Trump’s presidential victory further exposed the divide, and the tension, among members of Congress over Jan. 6, 2021 — as Trump has called the bloody attack by his supporters “a day of love” and has promised to pardon rioters who have been convicted of crimes related to that day once he is in office.

Unlike four years ago, when the joint session of Congress to count electoral votes was interrupted by rioters trying to break down the doors, there was very little drama this Jan. 6 and no overt tension in the room as lawmakers read out each state’s electoral votes. Vice President Kamala Harris gaveled down her own defeat. Democrats did not object to any of the votes.

Standing beside windows where Trump’s supporters first broke into the building that day, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats want to “serve as an example” for Republicans.

The Democrats lost last year’s election, Schumer said, but “when you lose an election you roll up your sleeves and try for the next one. You don’t deny that you lost.”

The rioters who violently breached the Capitol four years ago, breaking in after a brutal fight with police, were echoing Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen and that President Joe Biden’s win was “rigged.” Trump maintained — and still maintains — that he won the election even though it was certified by all 50 states and courts across the country reaffirmed Biden’s win.

Four years later, the Republican Party is still divided over the attack. On Monday, as they gleefully certified Trump’s win, some GOP lawmakers made a point of downplaying the violence four years ago, defending the more than 1,250 rioters convicted of crimes.

Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., posted on X early Monday morning that “individuals entered the Capitol, took photos, and explored the building before leaving,” and have since been “hunted down” and treated unjustly. Just after the joint session ended, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., repeated her plea that all of the rioters be pardoned and said “this country should never allow this type of abuse of our justice system again.”

Other Republicans remembered the day differently — a signal that Trump’s pledge to pardon rioters could become politically fraught even within his own party. It’s unclear, so far, whether he will try to pardon all of them or just those who were not violent.

“I was here,” said Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies. “Ask the cops who got beaten up. Not everybody was violent, but there was definitely violence, and the people who defiled the Capitol and attacked police officers, they deserve to be held accountable.”

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said that “the violence that occurred on that particular day, I will not forget.”

“It was real,” he said. “And we have to recognize that was a very, very bad day in our country’s history.”

More common are Republicans who don’t want to talk about it at all.

“That was a long day and I don’t want to rehash it,” said Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who was then in the House and helped blockade the doors as rioters tried to beat them down. He said he hadn’t talked about it since the one-year anniversary of the attack.

“That’s in the past for me,” Mullin said. “I tell people all the time, you can’t drive out the rearview mirror.”

New Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters, “I was here, and I’ve said what I have to say about that day, and I’m now looking forward.”

On possible pardons, “it’s going to be a call that the president has to make,” Thune said.

Democrats marked the fourth anniversary by remembering their own experiences that day, and preparing for Trump’s return to office.

Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson said after the session that he was angry that they were there to certify Trump’s win after what happened last time.

“We performed our perfunctory duty,” Johnson said. “It should have been perfunctory four years ago. I’m angry that it was not.”

Johnson was trapped in the House gallery with other Democrats who were spacing out in the chamber amid the coronavirus pandemic. The group was trapped as people tried to beat the doors down below, and ducked below seats as rioters hunting lawmakers were rattling the doors behind them.

Some members of that group — who have dubbed themselves the “gallery group” — gathered for a photo Monday. Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal posted the photo on X.

“We will not forget,” she wrote.

Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, one of the hundreds of police officers who fought the rioters four years ago, sat in the gallery on Monday as Congress certified Trump’s win, a guest of California Sen. Adam Schiff.

Hodges, who was captured on video crushed between two doors as some of the rioters beat him, said he found this year’s proceeding to be “very dry” — like it should have been four years ago, he said.

Otherwise, he was marking the day by doing his job, like many of the other officers who spent the day protecting the city and members of Congress.

“I was at work before this and I’m going back to work afterward,” he said.