By MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) — Early in the first episode of the “Scrubs” revival, Dr. John Dorian jumps onto Dr. Christopher Turk for a piggyback ride down the corridor of Sacred Heart Hospital like nothing’s changed in over a decade. But a lot has.

For one, Turk, now a father of four, suffers from sciatica, cutting the tomfoolery short as they tumble to the ground. And, two, Dorian needs reading glasses. Turns out plenty has changed in the 17 years since “Scrubs” last ended its run.

“They’re still 12 years old every time they’re together, but they’re also still both leading very big, responsible adult lives,” says Bill Lawrence, the show’s creator who has returned for the revival. “It just felt like it was time to revisit the old gang.”

“Scrubs” — whose first two episodes premiere back-to-back Wednesday on ABC and stream next day on Hulu — picks up with the same characters all these years later, but this time, in addition to some physical wear and tear, the onetime interns are the teachers to a group of rookie doctors.

“We were new and we were scared as interns and scared in this new element of medicine and insecure and unsure of what we were doing,” says Sarah Chalke, who plays Dr. Elliot Reid. “So to get to come back, we really have grown and really become great leaders and great teachers.”

Back to reality for ‘Scrubs’

The revival retains Lawrence’s voice for “Scrubs” — pop culture-hyper-aware and surreal but always with sentiment. The cast admits the show became a little too cartoonish in later seasons, with an ostrich wearing a Kangol hat and J.D. stuffed into a backpack to sneak into a movie theater.

“Bill Lawrence would be the first to say that what he really wanted to do was sort of ground it again and start back with the based-in-reality thing that we had in the first couple years of the show,” says Zach Braff, who plays Dr. Dorian. “We still have a mix of drama and comedy, but reset to based completely in reality.”

One thing that had to change was Dr. Perry Cox, the head of medicine played by John C. McGinley with stone-faced rage and fiery contempt. Back in the old days, he could humiliate and berate his interns.

That won’t fly in 2026: “I can’t work them crazy hours or even abuse them anymore,” Cox complains in the revival, calling the new interns “fragile little Christmas ornaments.” One of the new interns says to him: “You’re giving mean football coach vibes.”

Lawrence in anticipation of the relaunch consulted medical residents to find out how hospitals and medicine had changed over the years and was told that administrators would have no patience with a brutal Cox in 2026.

“All the residents we talked about told us that Dr. Cox would be fired immediately nowadays,” says Lawrence. He also added Vanessa Bayer to the cast, playing an HR officer quick to suggest sensitivity training.

The second stage of life

The first seven seasons of “Scrubs” originally aired on NBC, but after Season 7 — which was shortened due to a writers strike — the series moved to ABC for Season 8. A ninth season with J.D., Turk, and Cox was called “Scrubs: Med School.”

Braff and Faison — real friends offscreen — kept the show in fans’ minds with a string of T-Mobile commercials and a podcast that explored the episodes, “Fake Doctors, Real Friends.”

The end of Season 8 — the following season is not considered “Scrubs” canon — had J.D. having all his fantasies come true — marrying Elliot, having children and keeping up his friendship with Turk, who is married to head nurse Carla. That neat bow had to be jettisoned for 2026.

“We knew from the start that we couldn’t live in a world that all of his fantasies had come true,” says Lawrence. “Life throws you some blows and throws you to some victories. You drift from people you care about. Sometimes your world gets smaller. Sometimes things get harder and there still have to be mountains to overcome. So we really wanted to thematically show that journey of what the second stage of life looks like.”

The central bromance of ‘Scrubs’

Central to the success of “Scrubs” is the bromance between J.D. and Turk, which doesn’t end when the cameras are turned off. The revival arrives as the topic of male loneliness and friendship is being debated.

“It’s a half hour comedy, but it takes head on the idea of the joy that you can still find in being silly and having love in your life that isn’t just your romantic love — the joy and love you have with your friends as a man in 2026,” says Braff.

Faison adds: “I value my friendship. I don’t have many of them, but he’s the one friendship that I do have that I know I can count on, at least right now. Maybe in 10 years, he might change his mind on how he feels about me.”

“We’ll see how you behave,” Braff jokes.

Lawrence says he often writes about male friendships because he grew up in a family that wasn’t very demonstrative emotionally. His other current titles include “Shrinking” and “Ted Lasso,” which also explore bonding and mentoring.

“I started very young writing about friendships and, maybe on some level, the wish fulfillment of how personal I truly hoped they could be,” he says. “I crave those friendships and I craved that mentorship so I maybe write about them too much.”

By JOHN HANNA and JUAN LOZANO

HOUSTON (AP) — U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas faced growing calls Tuesday from fellow congressional Republicans to resign over a report of an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died after she set herself on fire.

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky joined Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Nancy Mace of South Carolina in demanding that Gonzales step down immediately. Mace also announced that she has introduced a resolution to force the House Ethics Commission to publicly release its reports and records of allegations of sexual harassment against members of Congress.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that he would talk to Gonzales on Tuesday.

Johnson said Monday that the accusations against Gonzales “must be taken seriously,” but he added, “in every case like this, you have to allow the investigation to play out and all the facts to come out.”

“If the accusation of something is going to be the litmus for someone being able to continue to serve in the House, a lot of people would have to resign or be removed or expelled from Congress,” Johnson said.

Gonzales’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. He said in a social media post last week that he was being blackmailed and then suggested in another post Sunday that he is the target of “coordinated political attacks.”

“During my six years in Congress not a single formal complaint has been levied against my office,” Gonzales said in the Sunday post on X. “IT WONT WORK.”

Gonzales is in a tough race in Texas’ Republican primary on March 3, with early voting underway for more than a week. His main opponent is Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and gun rights influencer who calls himself “the AK Guy” on YouTube, where his channel has nearly 4.2 million subscribers. Gonzales narrowly defeated Herrera by fewer than 400 votes in a runoff in 2024.

President Donald Trump had endorsed Gonzales for reelection in December.

The San Antonio Express-News reported last week that it had obtained text messages in which the former staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, wrote to a colleague that she had an affair with the lawmaker.

The Associated Press has not independently obtained copies of the messages. An attorney for Adrian Aviles, Santos-Aviles’ husband, has said the husband found out about the affair before his wife’s death.

Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, 35, died in September 2025 after setting herself on fire in the backyard of her Uvalde home. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled her death as a suicide by self-immolation.

“Where are the other men in the GOP?” Massie asked Tuesday in a post on X in calling for Gonzales to resign, adding that Trump should revoke his endorsement.

Gonzales, whose district stretches from San Antonio to El Paso and runs along the U.S.-Mexico border, has six children with his wife.

His allegation of blackmail is based on an email from the attorney for the staffer’s husband, Robert Barrera, discussing a possible lawsuit against the lawmaker and a potential settlement with a nondisclosure agreement. The email says that the maximum recoverable amount is $300,000.

Barrera has said he was not trying to blackmail Gonzales and called the accusation an attempt by the congressman to look like a political victim.

Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Also contributing was Associated Press journalist Kevin Freking in Washington.

By STEVEN SLOAN and STEVE PEOPLES

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he has a lot to talk about tonight.

He’s returning to Congress to deliver a State of the Union address at a consequential moment in his presidency, with his approval ratings near an all-time low and restive supporters waiting for him to deliver more tangibly on their struggles with the cost of living.

On top of that, the Supreme Court just declared illegal the tariffs that have been central to his second term. And the foreign policy challenges he promised to fix easily now don’t look so simple with another potential military strike against Iran looming.

The narrow Republican majority in Congress that has done little to counter Trump’s expansive vision of power is at risk of falling away after this year’s midterm elections, when their respective self interests may collide.

Here are some questions we’re thinking about heading into the speech.

How awkward will things get with the Supreme Court?

Trump did little to hide his rage last week when the Supreme Court struck down his far-reaching tariff policy. He didn’t just say that the justices who voted against one of his signature issues — including two who he appointed — were wrong in their legal reasoning. He said they were an “embarrassment to their families.”

Now many of those justices are likely to be seated at the front of the House chamber as Trump delivers his address.

Will Trump criticize the justices to their faces? Will he somehow show restraint in keeping his criticism limited to the decision itself?

Trump would not be the first president to use a State of the Union address as a chance to criticize the court. During his 2010 address, President Barack Obama said the Court’s Citizens United decision — which opened the way for millions of dollars in undisclosed political spending — would “open the floodgates for special interests,” prompting Justice Samuel Alito to shake his head and mouth “not true.”

Since then, attendance by Supreme Court justices has become more sporadic. Alito began skipping them after the 2010 speech, joining fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who has long argued the speeches are too partisan. By last year, when Trump delivered a special address to Congress, just four members of the Court — Chief Justice John Roberts along with Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — were in the House chamber.

At the time, Trump greeted the justices warmly, even telling Roberts “thank you again, I won’t forget it.” The comment was interpreted as Trump showing appreciation for the Court’s decision granting broad-based immunity to the presidency. But Trump said on social media he was merely thanking the chief justice for swearing him in.

Regardless, justices who don’t want a televised bashing from the president may decide to steer clear on Tuesday.

How will Democrats respond?

Democrats were still adjusting to Trump’s return to power when he last addressed Congress — and it showed.

During his 2025 joint address, Democrats entered the chamber with signs containing messages ranging from “Save Medicaid” and “Musk Steals” to simply “False.” Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, heckled Trump at one point, prompting his ejection from the chamber.

The signs were widely criticized as contrived and Green’s protest was something of a distraction. For voters who were outraged by Trump’s aggressive use of power during his opening months in office, the scene didn’t offer much confidence that Democrats were in a position to serve as an effective check on the White House.

Democrats are aiming to avoid a repeat of last year’s tumult. Expect fewer signs and possibly fewer Democrats in the chamber at all. Dozens of lawmakers have said they won’t attend the speech, with some planning to attend rival events in Washington.

That may help avoid some of last years theatrics. But it might do little to encourage frustrated voters that Democrats have a coherent, effective message a decade into Trump’s political rise.

And after Democratic governors boycotted a White House dinner with Trump over the weekend, skipping the State of the Union may only reinforce the sense that America’s two main political parties are charting fundamentally different courses.

Abigail Spanberger, Virginia’s newly inaugurated governor, will give the Democrats’ official response to Trump.

How will Trump address affordability and immigration?

Trump will deliver his speech at the outset of a challenging election year for his fellow Republicans, who are holding on to a tenuous grip of Congress. Much of the GOP’s challenge has centered on a sense among voters that the party hasn’t done enough to bring down prices.

The White House insists it is aware of the economic anxiety among voters and is working to address it. But Trump consistently has trouble staying on message. During a trip to Georgia last week that was intended to focus on the economy, the president instead highlighted debunked claims of election fraud and pushed his proposal for voter identification requirements. When he addressed affordability, he said it was a problem created by Democrats that he has now “solved.”

Trump’s tone on immigration could also be notable. Republicans found themselves on defense after two U.S. citizens were killed in Minneapolis last month by federal agents who were conducting an aggressive immigration enforcement operation. While Trump has kept up his hardline rhetoric on undocumented immigrants, his administration has begun to draw down agents in Minneapolis. The president told New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last week that he would direct future immigration enforcement surges where they were wanted.

What does he say about foreign policy?

Trump promised a quick and easy end to conflicts across the globe when he was elected. A year later, Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to rage, there’s a fragile ceasefire in war-torn Gaza and Trump is threatening a major military strike against Iran just eight months after he claimed the U.S. had “obliterated” the nation’s nuclear facilities.

And let’s not forget about his military action in Venezuela less than two months ago in which U.S. forces snatched leader Nicolas Maduro. Trump has said repeatedly that he’s going to run the country.

Trump supporters may cheer his America First rhetoric, but the Republican president is showing far more globalist tendencies one year into his second term.

And the prospect of war with Iran is real. Trump has already built up the largest U.S. military presence in the Middle East in decades. Last week he warned the Iranian regime that “bad things will happen” soon if a nuclear deal is not reached.

How long will he go?

Trump is rarely one to self edit. His speech last year — technically a joint address and not the State of the Union — clocked nearly one hour and 40 minutes. That was the longest speech to a joint session of Congress — and Trump may want to notch another record.

“It’s going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about,” he said on Monday.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The Trump administration is suing New Jersey over a state order that prohibits federal immigration agents from making arrests in nonpublic areas of state property, such as correctional facilities and courthouses.

The Justice Department lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Trenton, challenges Gov. Mikie Sherrill ’s Feb. 11 executive order, which also bars the use of state property as a staging or processing area for immigration enforcement.

Sherrill, a Democrat who took office Jan. 20, “insists on harboring criminal offenders from federal law enforcement,” the lawsuit said, accusing her of attempting to obstruct federal law enforcement and thwart President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Sherrill’s executive order “poses an intolerable obstacle” to immigration enforcement and “directly regulates and discriminates” against the federal government, said the lawsuit, which misspelled her name as “Sherill.”

Asked about the lawsuit Tuesday, Sherrill said: “What I think the federal government needs to be focused on right now, instead of attacking states like New Jersey working to keep people safe, is actually training their ICE agents.”

The state’s acting attorney general, Jennifer Davenport, said the Trump administration was “wasting its resources on a pointless legal challenge.” New Jersey will fight the lawsuit and “continue to ensure the safety of our state’s immigrant communities,” she said.

The lawsuit is the latest in the Trump administration’s fight against state and local level restrictions on immigration enforcement.

Last year, the Justice Department sued Minnesota and Colorado, as well as cities including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver over so-called sanctuary laws, which are aimed at prohibiting police from cooperating with immigration agents.

Last May, the Trump administration sued four New Jersey cities — Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken — over such policies. That case is pending.

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are betting that Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s affordability-focused message, which helped her flip a Republican-held office last November, will resonate with the country when she delivers their party’s response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

The rebuttal gives Democrats a prime opportunity to make their case against Trump and his policies ahead of the midterm elections. Spanberger’s double-digit victory in Virginia last November was viewed by party leaders as validation of a disciplined message centered on lowering costs — one they now want to elevate in campaigns nationwide.

“Virginians and Americans across the country are contending with rising costs, chaos in their communities, and a real fear of what each day might bring,” Spanberger said in a statement. “I look forward to laying out what these Americans expect and deserve — leaders who are working hard to deliver for them.”

Spanberger will deliver the speech from Colonial Williamsburg, a living history museum with restored 18th-century buildings, drawing on the site’s role at the heart of Virginia’s early opposition to British rule and connecting that legacy to the current political moment, according to her team.

She will have will have far less time than the Republican president to deliver her rebuttal. Trump’s speech before Congress last year stretched to an hour and 40 minutes, while Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s Democratic response lasted just over 10 minutes. Spanberger’s speech will be the fifth consecutive response to a president’s address to Congress delivered by a female senator or governor.

Trump on Monday told reporters that his State of the Union is “going to be a long speech, because we have so much to talk about.”

As viewership tends to drop the later the speech runs, the response has become one of the more perilous assignments in politics. Now–Secretary of State Marco Rubio was widely mocked for reaching for a water bottle during the GOP response in 2013. Other rebuttals have quickly faded from memory.

Even with the time disadvantage, Democrats argue the political winds are shifting in their favor. Spanberger’s win in Virginia was followed by other high-profile Democratic victories, including a special election earlier this month in Texas, where a Democrat flipped a reliably Republican state Senate district that Trump carried by 17 percentage points in 2024.

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California will deliver the party’s Spanish language response. Padilla, who in June was forcefully removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference in Los Angeles as he tried to speak up about immigration raids, said in a statement that there is a better path than the one Trump has offered: “one that lowers costs, safeguards our democracy, and reins in rogue federal agencies.”

Some Democrats are choosing to make their point by skipping Trump’s address. Counterprogramming events are planned, including a “State of the Swamp” featuring Democratic lawmakers alongside state and local leaders and celebrities.

By ILLIA NOVIKOV The Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared Tuesday that Russia has not “broken Ukrainians” nor triumphed in its war, four years after an invasion that has severely tested the resolve of Kyiv and its allies and fueled European fears about the scale of Moscow’s ambitions.

In a show of support, more than a dozen senior European officials headed to the Ukrainian capital to mark the grim anniversary of the conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people, upended life for millions of Ukrainians, and created instability far beyond its borders.

Zelenskyy said his country has withstood the onslaught by Russia’s bigger and better equipped army, which over the past year of fighting captured just 0.79% of Ukraine’s territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. Russia now holds nearly 20% of Ukraine.

“Looking back at the beginning of the invasion and reflecting on today, we have every right to say: We have defended our independence, we have not lost our statehood,” Zelenskyy said on social media, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “not achieved his goals.”

“He has not broken Ukrainians; he has not won this war,” Zelenskyy said.

Despite the show of defiance, Ukraine has struggled to hold off Russia’s onslaught, and the war has brought widespread hardship for Ukrainian civilians. Russia’s aerial attacks have devastated families and denied civilians power and running water.

As the war of attrition enters its fifth year, a U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the largest conflict on the continent since World War II appears no closer to finding compromises that might make a peace deal possible.

Negotiations are stuck on what happens to the Donbas, eastern Ukraine’s industrial heartland that Russian forces mostly occupy but have failed to seize completely, and the terms of a postwar security arrangement that Kyiv is demanding to deter any future Russian invasion.

Zelenskyy urges Trump to visit

At a makeshift memorial in Kyiv’s central square, where thousands of small flags and portraits show photos of fallen soldiers, Zelenskyy said he would like U.S. President Donald Trump to visit and witness for himself Ukrainian suffering.

“Only then can one truly understand what this war is really about,” Zelenskyy said.

Trump, who once vowed to end the war in a day, has repeatedly changed his tone toward Putin and Zelenskyy over the past year: sometimes criticizing the Ukrainian leader’s negotiating position while reaching out to the Russian leader and at others lashing out at Putin for heavy barrages and appearing more sympathetic to the Ukrainian predicament.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the invasion would continue in pursuit of Moscow’s goals. They include a demand that Ukraine renounce its bid to join NATO, sharply cut its army, and cede vast swaths of territory.

Zelenskyy said he expected a fresh round of U.S.-brokered talks with Russia within the next 10 days.

A ‘nightmare’ for Ukrainians

The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides could reach 2 million by spring, with Russia sustaining the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II, a report last month from the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated.

European leaders see their countries’ own security at stake in Ukraine amid concerns that Putin may target them next.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wrote on X that “for four years, every day and every night has been a nightmare for the Ukrainians — and not just for them, but for us all. Because war is back in Europe.”

“We will only end it by being strong together, because the fate of Ukraine is our fate,” he added.

Putin’s dangerous gamble

Putin believes that time is on the side of his bigger army, Western officials and analysts say — and that Western support will trail off and that Ukraine’s military resistance will eventually crumble. Already Trump has ended new military aid to Ukraine — though other NATO countries now buy American weapons and give them to Kyiv.

But French President Emmanuel Macron described the war was “a triple failure for Russia: military, economic, and strategic.”

The war “has strengthened NATO — the very expansion Russia sought to prevent — galvanized Europeans it hoped to weaken, and laid bare the fragility of an imperialism from another age,” Macron said on X.

The European Union has also sent financial aid, but has sometimes met with reluctance from members Hungary and Slovakia.

While NATO countries have come to Ukraine’s aid, Russia has been helped by North Korea, which has sent thousands of troops and artillery shells; Iran, which has provided drone technology; and China, which the United States and analysts say has provided machine tools and chips.

A defining conflict

Among the European officials visiting Kyiv on Tuesday were the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, as well as seven prime ministers and four foreign ministers.

The only American listed among the official guests in Kyiv ceremonies was Lt. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, a U.S. officer who represents NATO in Ukraine.

British Armed Forces Minister Al Carns said Russia’s war on Ukraine was “the most defining conflict” in decades.

The war has brought a “revolution in military affairs,” especially through the rapid development of drone technology by both sides, according to Carns. Drones now cause the vast majority of battlefield casualties, he said.

Both sides face challenges in finding enough troops and are increasingly turning to uncrewed aerial drones that take the killing to areas far from the front lines, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said in its annual report on the global military situation.

“Given both sides’ reliance on external support for materiel, decisions taken in foreign capitals will play an important role in shaping the war’s trajectory,” the think tank added.

The United Kingdom on Tuesday announced a new package of military and humanitarian support for Ukraine, including sending teams of British military medics to instruct their Ukrainian counterparts.

The cost of rebuilding war-battered Ukraine would amount to almost $588 billion over the next decade, according to World Bank, the European Commission, the United Nations and the Ukrainian government.

That is nearly three times the estimated nominal GDP of Ukraine for last year, they said in a report Monday.

___

Associated Press reporters across Europe contributed to this story.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Today is Sunday, Feb. 22, the 53rd day of 2026. There are 312 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 22, 2022, three white men were convicted of federal hate crimes in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging through their neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia, when he was attacked in 2020. (The men are serving life sentences after being convicted of murder in state court.)

Also on this date:

In 1732, the first president of the United States, George Washington, was born in Westmoreland County in the Virginia Colony.

In 1784, a U.S. merchant ship, the Empress of China, left New York for the first trade voyage of an American ship to China.

In 1819, a weakened Spain, facing revolutions in Latin America, signed a treaty ceding Florida to the United States.

In 1862, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated to a full six-year term as president of the Confederate States of America after his election the previous November. He previously served as the Confederacy’s provisional president.

In 1959, the inaugural Daytona 500 race was held; although Johnny Beauchamp was initially declared the winner, the victory was later awarded to Lee Petty.

In 1967, more than 25,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops launched Operation Junction City, aimed at smashing a Viet Cong stronghold near the Cambodian border.

In 1997, scientists in Scotland announced they had successfully cloned an adult mammal for the first time, a sheep they named “Dolly.”

In 1980, the “Miracle on Ice” took place at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, as the U.S. Olympic hockey team upset the Soviet Union, 4-3. (The U.S. team went on to win the gold medal two days later, 4-2, over Finland.)

In 2010, Najibullah Zazi, accused of buying products from beauty supply stores to make bombs for an attack on New York City subways, pleaded guilty to charges including conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. (He spent nearly a decade after his arrest helping the U.S. identify and prosecute terrorists and was given a 10-year sentence.)

In 2020, pioneering Black mathematician Katherine Johnson, who calculated rocket trajectories and Earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” died at the age of 101.

In 2024, a private lander built by Intuitive Machines made the first U.S. touchdown on the moon in more than 50 years, but the spacecraft only managed a weak signal and spotty communications with flight controllers.

Today’s birthdays:

• Actor Paul Dooley is 98.
• Actor James Hong is 97.
• Actor Julie Walters is 76.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Julius Erving is 76.
• Golf Hall of Famer Amy Alcott is 70.
• Actor Kyle MacLachlan is 67.
• Golf Hall of Famer Vijay Singh is 63.
• Hockey Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine is 61.
• Actor Paul Lieberstein (TV: “The Office) is 59.
• Actor Jeri Ryan is 58.
• Actor-singer Lea Salonga is 55.
• Tennis Hall of Famer Michael Chang is 54.
• Singer James Blunt is 52.
• Actor Drew Barrymore is 51.
• Comedian Iliza Shlesinger is 43.
• Dancer and singer Genneya Walton is 27.
• Rapper Molly Brazy is 27.

CHICAGO (AP) — Jalen Duren had 26 points and 13 rebounds in his return from a suspension to help the Detroit Pistons take charge in the second half and roll to a 126-110 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Saturday night.

Cade Cunningham added 18 points, 13 assists and nine rebounds to narrowly miss his 15th career triple-double as the Pistons won their fifth straight game. Tobias Harris also had 18 points and Duncan Robinson added 17 for league-leading Detroit (42-13), which dealt Chicago its season-high eighth straight loss.

Duren helped establish Detroit’s dominance after sitting out two games for his role in a fight at Charlotte on Feb. 9. He got a technical foul in this one for casually dropping the ball on the face of Chicago’s Nick Richards in the third quarter while Richards was down on the floor.

Josh Giddey had 27 points on 10 for 16 shooting — including five 3-pointers — but the Bulls couldn’t keep pace with the Pistons after trailing only 53-50 at the half. Matas Buzelis, Jalen Smith and Issac Okoro each added 15 as the Bulls committed 23 turnovers leading to 28 Detroit points.

Detroit outmuscled Chicago, scoring 68 points in the paint, compared to the Bulls 38. The Pistons had 26 on second chances and Chicago just 16.

The Bulls played without Jaden Ivey, who will be out two weeks with knee soreness after playing just four games with Chicago following a trade from Detroit. Anfernee Simons left the game with a left wrist injury

Bulls coach Billy Donovan was back on the bench after missing a game to attend his father’s funeral.

The Pistons led by no more than six points in a tight, scrappy first half. Detroit outscored Chicago 44-26 in third quarter and opened the lead to as much as 28.

Up next

Pistons: Host San Antonio on Monday

Bulls: Host New York Knicks on Sunday.

— By MATT CARLSON, Associated Press

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer picked by judges to serve as the top federal prosecutor for a Virginia office that pursued cases against foes of President Donald Trump was swiftly fired Friday by the Justice Department in the latest clash over the appointments of powerful U.S. attorneys.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the firing of James Hundley on social media shortly after he was unanimously chosen by judges to replace former Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. While the law says that the district court may choose U.S. attorneys when an initial appointment expires, the Trump administration has insisted that the power lies only in the hands of the executive branch.

“EDVA judges do not pick our US Attorney. POTUS does. James Hundley, you’re fired!” Blanche said in a post on X.

Hundley, who has handled criminal and civil cases for more than 30 years, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday evening.

The firing of Hundley is the latest reflection of tumult in one of the Justice Department’s most elite prosecution offices, which since September has been mired in upheaval following the resignation of a veteran prosecutor amid Trump administration pressure to prosecute two of the president’s biggest political foes, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

That prosecutor, Erik Siebert, was effectively forced out and swiftly replaced by Halligan, a White House aide who secured indictments against Comey and James but was later deemed by a judge to have been unlawfully appointed. The cases were dismissed, but the Justice Department has appealed that decision.

Halligan resigned from the position last month after judges in the district signaled continued skepticism over the legitimacy of her appointment.

U.S. attorneys, the top federal prosecutors in regional Justice Department offices around the country, typically require Senate confirmation but the law does permit attorneys general to make temporary appointments for limited time periods. In several instances, though, the Justice Department has attempted to leave its temporary appointees in place in ways that have invited court challenges and drawn resistance from judges who have found the appointments unlawful.

Last week, a lawyer appointed by judges to be the U.S. attorney for northern New York was fired by the Justice Department after spending less than a day in the job. Judges in the district appointed Kinsella after declining to keep the Trump administration’s pick, John Sarcone, in place after his 120-day term elapsed.

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s vision of the Supreme Court, in which his three appointees are personally loyal to him, collided with the court’s view of itself Friday when six justices voted to strike down Trump’s signature economic policy — global tariffs imposed under an emergency powers law.

The outcome led Trump to launch an unusually stark personal attack on the justices, with special rancor reserved for the two Trump appointees who defied him.

The case represented a challenge of Trump’s many untested, yet forcefully stated imperatives on everything from trade to immigration policy and the court’s ability to maintain its independence and, at times, act as a check on presidential authority.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing and I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed, for not having the courage to do what’s right for the country,” Trump said in the White House briefing room several hours after the court issued its decision, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Trump said he expected as much from the three Democratic appointees on the court. “But you can’t knock their loyalty,” he said. “It’s one thing you can do with some of our people.”

Asked specifically about Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, who were part of the majority, Trump said, “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, if you want to know the truth, the two of them.”

Vice President JD Vance, whose wife, Usha, spent a year as a law clerk to Roberts, echoed the president’s criticism, though he didn’t make it personal. “This is lawlessness from the Court, plain and simple,” Vance wrote on X.

Legal opposition to the tariffs crossed political lines, with a key challenge coming from the libertarian-leaning Liberty Justice Center and support from pro-business groups like the Chamber of Commerce.

Trump has had a checkered history with the court dating back to the start of his first White House term in 2017, though he won his biggest court battle in 2024, a presidential immunity ruling that prevented him from being prosecuted over efforts to undo his 2020 election loss.

In the first year of his second term, he won repeated emergency appeals that allowed him to implement major aspects of his immigration crackdown and other key parts of his agenda.

Presidential criticism of Supreme Court decisions has its own long history. President Thomas Jefferson was critical of the court’s landmark Marbury v. Madison case, which established the concept of judicial review of congressional and executive action. President Franklin Roosevelt, frustrated about decisions he thought blunted parts of the New Deal, talked about older justices as infirm and sought to expand the court, a failed effort.

In 2010, President Barack Obama used his State of the Union speech, with several members of the court in attendance, to take aim at the court’s just-announced Citizens United decision that helped open the floodgates to independent spending in federal elections. Justice Samuel Alito, who hasn’t attended the annual address since, mouthed the words “not true” in response from his seat.

Trump, though, crossed a line in the way he assailed the justices who voted against him, Ed Whelan, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a former law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote in an email.

“It’s entirely fine for a president to criticize a Supreme Court ruling that goes against him. But it’s demagogic for President Trump to contend that the justices who voted against him did so because of lack of courage,” Whelan wrote.

Some presidents also have criticized justices they appointed for decisions they’ve made.

Following the seminal Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower told friends that appointing Chief Justice Earl Warren had been his biggest mistake, according to biographer Stephen E. Ambrose.

Objecting to a dissenting vote in an antitrust case, President Theodore Roosevelt once allegedly said of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, wounded in action during the Civil War, that he ”could carve out of a banana a judge with more backbone.”

But these remarks were conveyed in private, not at a livestreamed presidential appearance in the White House briefing room.

On a personal level, Trump has had a sometimes tense relationship with Roberts, who has twice issued public rebukes of the president over attacks on federal judges.

Trump didn’t mention Roberts by name on Friday, but he seemed to be assailing the chief justice when he said he lost the case because the justices “want to be politically correct,” “catering to a group of people in D.C.”

Trump used similar language when he criticized Roberts’ vote in 2012 that upheld Obamacare.

Similar to the timing following the Citizens United ruling, the president and some members of the court, dressed in their black robes, are likely to be in the same room Tuesday when Trump delivers his State of the Union address.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once nodded off during a presidential speech in the House of Representatives, attributing her drowsiness to some fine California wine. No justice is likely to be napping Tuesday night.

By MICHAEL PHILLIS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Friday it backs a 10-year deadline for most cities and towns to replace their harmful lead pipes, giving notice that it will support a tough rule approved under the Biden administration to reduce lead in drinking water.

The Environmental Protection Agency told a federal appeals court in Washington that it would defend the strongest overhaul of lead-in-water standards in three decades against a court challenge by a utility industry association.

The Trump administration has typically favored rapid deregulation, including reducing or killing rules on air and water pollution. On Friday, for example, it repealed tight limits on mercury and other toxic emissions from coal plants. But the agency has taken a different approach to drinking water.

“After intensive stakeholder involvement, EPA concluded that the only way to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act’s mandate to prevent anticipated adverse health effects ‘to the extent feasible’ is to require replacement of lead service lines,” the agency’s court filing said.

Doing so by a 10-year deadline is feasible, the agency added, supporting a rule that was based in part of the finding that old rules that relied on chemical treatment and monitoring to reduce lead “failed to prevent system-wide lead contamination and widespread adverse health effects.”

The EPA said in August it planned to defend the Biden administration’s aggressive rule, but added that it would also “develop new tools and information to support practical implementation flexibilities and regulatory clarity.” Some environmental activists worried that that meant the EPA was looking to create loopholes.

Lead, a heavy metal once common in products like pipes and paints, is a neurotoxin that can stunt children’s development, lower IQ scores and increase blood pressure in adults. Lead pipes can corrode and contaminate drinking water. The previous Trump administration’s rule had looser standards and did not mandate the replacement of all pipes.

Standards aimed at protecting kids

The Biden administration finalized its lead-in-water overhaul in 2024. It mandated that utilities act to combat lead in water at lower concentrations, with just 10 parts per billion as a trigger, down from 15. If higher levels were found, water systems had to inform their consumers, take immediate action to reduce lead and work to replace lead pipes that are commonly the main source of lead in drinking water.

The Biden administration at the time estimated the stricter standards would protect up to 900,000 infants from having low birth weight and avoid up to 1,500 premature deaths a year from heart disease.

“People power and years of lead-contaminated communities fighting to clean up tap water have made it a third rail to oppose rules to protect our health from the scourge of toxic lead. Maybe only a hidebound water utility trade group is willing to attack this basic public health measure,” said Erik Olson, senior director at the Natural Resource Defense Council, an environmental nonprofit.

The American Water Works Association, a utility industry association, had challenged the rule in court, arguing the EPA lacks authority to regulate the portion of the pipe that’s on private property and therefore cannot require water systems to replace them.

The agency countered on Friday that utilities can be required to replace the entire lead pipe because they have sufficient control over them.

The AWWA also said the 10-year deadline wasn’t feasible, noting it’s hard to find enough labor to do the work and water utilities face other significant infrastructure challenges simultaneously. Water utilities were given three years to prepare before the 10-year timeframe starts and some cities with a lot of lead were given longer.

The agency said they looked closely at data from dozens of water utilities and concluded that the vast majority could replace their lead pipes in 10 years or less.

Replacing decades-old standards

The original lead and copper rule for drinking water was enacted by the EPA more than 30 years ago. The rules have significantly reduced lead in water but have been criticized for letting cities move too slowly when levels rose too high.

Lead pipes are most commonly found in older, industrial parts of the country, including major cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee. The rule also revises the way lead amounts are measured, which could significantly expand the number of communities found violating the rules.

The EPA under President Donald Trump has celebrated deregulation. Officials have sought to slash climate change programs and promote fossil fuel development. On drinking water issues, however, their initial actions have been more nuanced.

In March, for example, the EPA announced plans to partially roll back rules to reduce so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water — the other major Biden-era tap water protection. That change sought to keep tough limits for some common PFAS, but also proposed scrapping and reconsidering standards for other types and extending deadlines.

PFAS and lead pipes are both costly threats to safe water. There are some federal funds to help communities.

The Biden administration estimated about 9 million lead pipes provide water to homes and businesses in the United States. The Trump administration updated the analysis and now projects there are roughly 4 million lead pipes. Changes in methodology, including assuming that communities that did not submit data did not have lead pipes, resulted in the significant shift. The new estimate does correct odd results from some states — activists said that the agency’s initial assumptions for Florida, for example, seemed far too high.

The EPA did not immediately return a request for comment. The AWWA pointed to their previous court filing when asked for comment.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

By MICHAEL BIESECKER and JESSE BEDAYN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Newly released records show a U.S. citizen was shot and killed in Texas by a federal immigration agent last year during a late-night traffic encounter that was not publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security.

The death of Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, would mark the earliest of at least six deadly shootings by federal officers since the start of a nationwide immigration crackdown in President Donald Trump’s second term. On Friday, DHS said the shooting on South Padre Island last March occurred after the driver intentionally struck an agent.

The shooting involved a Homeland Security Investigations team that was conducting an immigration enforcement operation in conjunction with local police, according to documents obtained by American Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Washington.

The records are part of a tranche of heavily redacted internal documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the nonprofit obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Though Martinez’s death on March 15, 2025, was reported by local media outlets at the time, federal and state authorities did not disclose that the shooting involved the team from HSI. In a statement Friday, DHS said the driver who was killed “intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent,” resulting in another agent firing “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public.”

The department did not respond to questions about why it had made no media release or other public notification of the officer-involved shooting over the last 11 months.

Martinez’s mother, Rachel Reyes, said her son was just days past his 23rd birthday when he and his best friend drove from San Antonio down to the beach for the weekend to celebrate. South Padre Island, located on the Gulf Coast just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, is a renowned spring break destination that attracts tens of thousands of college-aged partiers each March.

Martinez worked at an Amazon warehouse, liked to play video games and hang out with friends. His mother said he had never had any prior run-ins with law enforcement.

“He was a typical young guy,” Reyes told The Associated Press. “He never really got a chance to go out and experience things. It was his first time getting to go out of town. He was a nice guy, humble guy. And he wasn’t a violent person at all.”

Records show federal agents were assisting police

According to an internal two-page ICE incident report included in the newly disclosed documents, shortly after midnight, HSI officers were assisting South Padre Island police by redirecting traffic through a busy intersection after a vehicle accident with several injuries.

A blue, four-door Ford with a driver and passenger approached the officers, who ordered the driver to stop. The report does not say why. Initially, the driver didn’t respond to commands but did eventually come to a stop, according to the report.

Agents then surrounded the vehicle, telling those inside to get out, but the driver “accelerated forward” and struck an HSI special agent “who wound up on the hood of the vehicle,” the report said. An HSI supervisory special agent standing by the side of the car then fired his weapon multiple times through the open driver’s side window, and the vehicle stopped.

Paramedics already on the scene of the accident quickly provided medical aid and the driver was taken by ambulance to a regional hospital in Brownsville, where he was pronounced dead, according to the report. The passenger, also a U.S. citizen, was taken into custody.

The HSI officer who the report says was struck by the vehicle was treated for an unspecified knee injury at a nearby hospital and released.

The names of the two HSI agents involved in the shooting and the names of the two men in the car were all redacted from the ICE report, but Reyes confirmed the dead driver was her son. She said he was shot three times.

State investigation into shooting is still ‘active’

The report says the Texas Rangers responded to the shooting scene and took the lead as the primary agency investigating the shooting.

Reyes said she first learned her son had been shot by a federal agent, rather than a local police officer, about a week after he was killed. She was contacted by an investigator from the Rangers who she said told her there were videos of the shooting that contradicted the account provided by federal agents. DHS did not immediately respond to an email Friday about the claim that there is video showing a different account.

She said she was told by the investigator that the state report into the shooting was completed in October and that the case would be presented to a grand jury for potential criminal charges.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which includes the Rangers, said in a statement Friday that the investigation into the shooting is still “active” and declined to offer more information.

Messages left with the office of Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, an elected Democrat whose jurisdiction includes South Padre Island, received no response Friday. South Padre Island Police Chief Claudine O’Carroll also did not respond to requests for comment.

Attorneys for the family said Friday they have spent the past year pursuing accountability and transparency.

“It is critical that there is a full and fair investigation into why HSI was present at the scene of a traffic collision and why a federal officer shot and killed a U.S. citizen as he was trying to comply with instructions from the local law enforcement officers directing traffic,” attorneys Charles M. Stam and Alex Stamm said in a statement.

Agents involved were part of a border task force

According to the ICE report, the HSI agents involved in the shooting were part of a maritime border enforcement security task force typically focused on combating transnational criminal organizations at seaports. Over the last year, however, officers from across multiple federal agencies have been reassigned to prioritize immigration enforcement.

In January, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, was killed in the driver’s seat of her SUV by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. Trump administration officials initially attempted to paint Good as a “domestic terrorist” who tried to ram officers with her vehicle before multiple videos emerged of the incident that cast doubt on the government’s narrative.

As in the Good case, experts in police training and tactics questioned why a federal officer apparently positioned himself in front of Martinez’s vehicle.

“You don’t stand in front of the car, you don’t put yourself in harm’s way,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a police use-of-force expert at the University of South Carolina. He added that there’s never a scenario where it’s justified, “because you don’t know whether this person is going to flee, and if he flees, you could be dead.”

Alpert said investigators will likely review any available body camera video or other footage to examine how swiftly Martinez moved the car forward, if he merely took his foot off the break or pressed down hard on the accelerator.

Martinez’s mother said she didn’t believe he would ever intentionally assault a law enforcement officer.

“They didn’t give him a chance,” Reyes said. “It’s so excessive. They could have done anything else besides that. It’s like they shoot first and ask questions later.”

Bedayn reported from Denver.

By RIO YAMAT

The ability of federal safety regulators to oversee airplane maintenance at United Airlines has been hindered by inadequate staffing, high employee turnover and the improper use of virtual inspections instead of on-site reviews in some cases, according to a government watchdog audit released Friday.

The U.S. Transportation Department’s inspector general said the Federal Aviation Administration lacks sufficient staffing and workforce planning to effectively monitor United’s large fleet. Past audits by the government watchdog also highlighted FAA challenges overseeing other airline maintenance programs, including at American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Allegiant Air.

The FAA declined to comment on the findings but referred The Associated Press to a letter it sent the inspector general’s office that was included in the audit report. In it, the FAA said it agreed with most of the recommendations and was taking steps to address them by the end of the year.

“FAA will implement a more systemic approach to strengthen inspector capacity and will take other measures to ensure that staffing levels remain sufficient to meet surveillance requirements,” the letter said.

The recommendations included a reevaluation of staffing rules, an independent workplace survey of inspector workloads and office culture, and improved training on accessing and using United’s safety data — a current gap that the report said currently keeps inspectors from fully evaluating maintenance issues and safety risk trends.

In a statement to AP, United said it works closely with the FAA on a daily basis in addition to employing its own internal safety management system.

“United has long advocated in favor of providing the FAA with the resources it needs for its important work,” the carrier said.

The inspector general’s office said the audit was conducted between May 2024 and December 2025, amid a series of maintenance-linked incidents at United.

It found that the FAA sometimes had its personnel conduct inspections “virtually” when it lacked staffing or funding for travel even though agency policy requires postponing reviews that can’t be done on site. Doing the work remotely can create safety risks because inspectors may miss or misidentify maintenance problems, the reported stated.

“Inspectors we spoke with stated that their front-line managers instructed them to perform inspections virtually rather than postponing inspections,” the report said.

The audit also found that ongoing staffing shortages at the FAA inspection offices tasked with United’s oversight have resulted in fewer inspections being conducted, limited surveillance of the carrier’s maintenance operations and an “overall loss of institutional knowledge.”

In March 2024, passengers had to be evacuated from a United plane that rolled off a runway after landing in Houston. The next day, a United jetliner bound for Japan lost a tire while taking off from San Francisco but later landed safely in Los Angeles.

In December 2025, a United flight experienced an engine failure during takeoff from Dulles International Airport before safely returning to the airport.

Associated Press writer Josh Funk contributed.

By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer

LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — The next time you see a senior citizen barreling down the mountain, maybe doing a double-cork while he’s at it, don’t think twice. That might just be your neighborhood’s friendly new Olympic champion.

Alex Ferreira, the freeskier who occasionally dons prosthetics to look 80 and calls his alter ego “Hotdog Hans” when he’s not kicking butt in the halfpipe, added a gold medal Friday night to the silver and bronze he’d won at the last two games to “finish the rainbow,” as his mother said.

The 31-year-old, a longtime fixture on the slopes and in the schools and rec centers in Aspen, Colorado, also put America in the win column for the first time in two weeks of halfpipe, slopestyle and big air action at the Livigno Snow Park.

“I’m going to drink copious amounts of beer,” Ferreira said when asked how he would celebrate.

He’s fun like that. This was a popular victory all across the park, squeezed out of a tight, brutal, all-night battle with Estonia’s Henry Sildaru — who skis slopestyle and big air, too, just like Eileen Gu — and Canada’s Brendan Mackay.

Bedlam and tears broke out in the stands after Mackay laid down the night’s last run, a solid one, but came up 2.75 points short of Ferreira’s winning score: 93.75.

When the Canadian’s mark came up, Ferreira bent to one knee and flashed a smile that lit up the mountain.

“Best moment of my life,” he said.

Asked what the best thing about the new gold medalist was, Mackay said there was too much to list.

“But honestly, the biggest thing that stands out about Alex, is that he is just an incredibly nice guy,” he said.

Among those near the medal stand to congratulate Ferreira was two-time Olympic titlist David Wise, who made the trip despite not making the Olympic team. He was ranked eighth in the world in halfpipe this season — a true sign of how deep the American team runs.

Also sharing hugs was Nick Goepper, the American three-time medalist in slopestyle who switched to the halfpipe in search of his first gold.

In the evening’s most visceral sign of what this contest really meant, Goepper threw caution to the wind on his last run and flung his body high above the halfpipe, his back slamming wickedly on the deck before he bounced to the bottom of the pipe.

He was lucky to walk away from that — not as fortunate that Mackay’s 91 on the last run of the night bumped him from third to fourth by a scant 2 points.

“To go for it in that moment took serious guts,” Ferreira said. “He is a real man.”

Drama involving Hess extended beyond the halfpipe

Clutch skiing and huge crashes were only part of the drama that played out among these halfpipe riders. The show started two weeks earlier.

American Hunter Hess opened the morning’s qualifying by landing a good run, then putting his thumb and forefinger in the shape of an “L,” in a nod to the eruption that occurred Feb. 8 when President Donald Trump called Hess a “total Loser,” in response to Hess’ saying “Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.”

“I had a week that was pretty challenging,” Hess said after qualifying, speaking of the threats and vitriol lobbed his way after the president weighed in. He finished 10th in the final and did not stop for interviews.

Ferreira fills in the final missing piece to a fantastic career

Ferreira, not surprisingly, spent the entire aftermath of the contest smiling. There’s more to come.

He has already shot six episodes of his YouTube streamer “Hotdog Hans,” an entertaining trip to the mountain in which the 80-something daredevil does truck-driver grabs and 1080s in front of unsuspecting resort goers who cannot believe their eyes.

“Just trying to bring some humor and funniness to the world,” he explained.

In between the fun and games lies a more serious pursuit.

Ferreira went 7 for 7 in World Cup events in 2024 — the sort of undefeated streak that really doesn’t happen much in sports, especially not in this one, where talent, like the medals, are spread very evenly across the United States, Canada, Estonia — the world.

Those sort of streaks, in Olympic off-years, can sometimes leave a guy wondering.

“You don’t want to peak two years before the Games,” said Gus Kenworthy, the 2014 slopestyle silver medalist who finished sixth in this one. “But I’m stoked for him that it worked out tonight. It was one of the best runs I’ve seen him do in a long time, maybe ever, and I’m happy.”

When Ferreira’s skis smacked down lightly on the fifth of five butter-smooth landings in the contest winner, he started whipping around his right ski pole — his signature move in what now goes down as his signature win.

A few minutes later, his sisters and parents were crying and he was on the top step of the podium, singing out loud as the “Star-Spangled Banner” played for the first time at the Livigno Snow Park.

He used to be the best freeskier in the world without an Olympic title. Not anymore.

“He had the silver, the bronze and he needed the gold,” said Alex’s mother, Colleen Ferreira. “He was driven. A year ago, he said he was going to do this, and he did it.”

---

AP Sports Writer Joseph Wilson contributed.

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

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

MILAN (AP) — The much-anticipated but never guaranteed U.S.-Canada showdown for gold in men’s hockey at the Olympics is on.

Jack Hughes scored two goals, including one with a highlight-reel individual effort, and the Americans rolled into the final by routing Slovakia 6-2 in the semifinals on Friday night.

They’ll meet tournament favorite and top-seeded Canada on Sunday for the title, a year since the North American rivals played two memorable games against each other at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

That NHL-run event ended a drought of nearly a decade without an international tournament featuring the best hockey players in the world. Three fights in the first nine seconds in the first meeting put the 4 Nations in the spotlight, and their epic final won by Canada in overtime only built the anticipation for the Olympics.

After Canada did its part by rallying to beat Finland earlier in the day, the U.S. had no trouble against the Slovaks, who made an improbable run and were simply overmatched. They’ll face the Finns for bronze on Saturday night, looking for just the second hockey medal in the country’s history after getting the first with a third-place finish in Beijing in 2022.

The U.S. is playing for gold after the semifinals were a much easier go than the quarterfinals against Sweden, when overtime was needed to survive a scare. Dylan Larkin (Waterford), Tage Thompson, Hughes and Eichel scored the four goals on 23 shots that chased Samuel Hlavaj out of Slovakia’s net past the midway point of the second period.

Thompson, one of just a handful of newcomers who did not play at the 4 Nations, exited later in the second after blocking a shot. He was held out the rest of the way, according to the NBC broadcast.

Hughes got his second just after a power play expired, and Brady Tkachuk scored on a breakaway with just over nine minutes left to provide some more breathing room.

Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck (Commerce Twp./Walled Lake Northern) his job as his teammates outshot Slovakia by a substantial margin. Everything he has done at the Olympics has validated coach Mike Sullivan’s decision to go with Hellebuyck as the U.S. starter over Jake Oettinger and Jeremy Swayman.

The U.S. last reached the final in 2010 when it lost to Canada in overtime on Sidney Crosby’s famous golden goal. Crosby’s status is uncertain this time after getting injured in the quarterfinals Wednesday and not playing Friday against Finland.

— By STEPHEN WHYNO, Associated Press

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The federal government is asking a court to “run roughshod” over the First Amendment after seizing electronic devices from a Washington Post reporter’s Virginia home last month, an attorney for the newspaper argued Friday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter didn’t rule from the bench on the newspaper’s request for an order requiring authorities to return the devices taken from the Virginia home of Post reporter Hannah Natanson. Porter had authorized the search by FBI agents investigating allegations that a Pentagon contractor illegally leaked classified information to Natanson.

Porter said he intends to issue a decision before a follow-up hearing scheduled for March 4.

“I have a pretty good sense of what I’m going to do here,” the magistrate said without elaborating.

Pentagon contractor Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones was arrested on Jan. 8 and charged with unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. Perez-Lugones is accused of taking home printouts of classified documents from his workplace and later passing them to Natanson.

Federal agents seized a phone, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive and a Garmin smart watch when they searched Natanson’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, on Jan. 14. Last month, Porter agreed to temporarily bar the government from reviewing any material from Natanson’s devices.

Post attorney Simon Latcovich said the information contained on Natanson’s devices could expose hundreds of confidential sources who routinely provided her with dozens, if not hundreds, of tips every day.

“Since the seizure, those sources have dried up,” he said.

If Porter intends to privately review the material contained on Natanson’s devices before deciding what can be shown to the government, Latcovich asked him to allow attorneys for the Post and the reporter to see it first so they can argue for keeping at least some of it under wraps.

Justice Department attorney Christian Dibblee said the government recognizes that Porter didn’t authorize a “fishing expedition.”

“The government does take that seriously,” he said.

The newspaper’s attorneys accused authorities of violating legal safeguards for journalists and trampling on Natanson’s First Amendment free speech rights.

Justice Department attorneys argued that the government is entitled to keep the seized material because it contains evidence in an ongoing investigation with national security implications.

The case has drawn national attention and scrutiny from press freedom advocates who say it reflects a more aggressive posture by the Justice Department toward leak investigations involving journalists.

“There is a pattern here, your honor, that this is a part of,” Latcovich said.

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM

An exhibit about nine people enslaved by George Washington must be restored at his former home in Philadelphia after President Donald Trump’s administration took it down last month, a federal judge ruled on Presidents Day, the federal holiday honoring Washington’s legacy.

The city of Philadelphia sued in January after the National Park Service removed the explanatory panels from Independence National Historical Park, the site where George and Martha Washington lived with nine of their slaves in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the nation’s capital.

The removal came in response to a Trump executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks. It directed the Interior Department to ensure those sites do not display elements that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe ruled Monday that all materials must be restored in their original condition while a lawsuit challenging the removal’s legality plays out. She prohibited Trump officials from installing replacements that explain the history differently.

Rufe, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, began her written order with a quote from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” and compared the Trump administration to the book’s totalitarian regime called the Ministry of Truth, which revised historical records to align with its own narrative.

“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts,” Rufe wrote. “It does not.”

She had warned Justice Department lawyers during a January hearing that they were making “dangerous” and “horrifying” statements when they said Trump officials can choose which parts of U.S. history to display at National Park Service sites.

The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling, which came while government offices were closed for the federal holiday.

The judge did not provide a timeline for when the exhibit must be restored. Federal officials can appeal the ruling.

The historical site is among several where the administration has quietly removed content about the history of enslaved people, LGBTQ+ people and Native Americans.

Signage that has disappeared from Grand Canyon National Park said settlers pushed Native American tribes “off their land” for the park to be established and “exploited” the landscape for mining and grazing.

Last week, a rainbow flag was taken down at the Stonewall National Monument, where bar patrons rebelled against a police raid and catalyzed the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. The administration has also removed references to transgender people from its webpage about the monument, despite several trans women of color being key figures in the uprising.

The Philadelphia exhibit, created two decades ago in a partnership between the city and federal officials, included biographical details about each of the nine people enslaved by the Washingtons at the home, including two who escaped.

Among them was Oney Judge, who was born into slavery at the family’s plantation in Mount Vernon, Virginia, and later escaped from their Philadelphia house in 1796. Judge fled north to New Hampshire, a free state, while Washington had her declared a fugitive and published advertisements seeking her return.

Because Judge had escaped from the Philadelphia house, the park service in 2022 supported the site’s inclusion in a national network of Underground Railroad sites where they would teach about abolitionists and escaped slaves. Rufe noted that materials about Judge were among those removed, which she said “conceals crucial information linking the site to the Network to Freedom.”

Only the names of Judge and the other eight enslaved people — Austin, Paris, Hercules, Richmond, Giles, Moll and Joe, who each had a single name, and Christopher Sheels — remained engraved in a cement wall after park service employees took a crowbar to the plaques on Jan. 22.

Hercules also escaped in 1797 after he was brought to Mount Vernon, where the Washingtons had many other slaves. He reached New York City despite being declared a fugitive slave and lived under the name Hercules Posey.

Several local politicians and Black community leaders celebrated the ruling, which came while many were out rallying at the site for its restoration.

State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, a Philadelphia Democrat, said the community prevailed against an attempt by the Trump administration to “whitewash our history.”

“Philadelphians fought back, and I could not be more proud of how we stood together,” he said.

By JULIA FRANKEL

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — The curling drama at the Winter Olympics sent the sport’s governing body scrambling to address a growing controversy and curb conflicting accounts of rule-breaking. The backpedaling came less than 24 hours later.

A day after World Curling ramped up monitoring of the matches, it pulled the plug, saying umpires would retreat and be available on request but not by default.

The move came after a quick meeting between national curling federations and World Curling on Sunday in which curlers expressed dissatisfaction with the increased surveillance. Athletes wanted less monitoring, not more.

Why would Olympic curlers, playing a sport where mere centimeters can make the difference between a winning and losing stone, choose to send the umps away? The answer may have to do with the longstanding spirit of the game, which some athletes are clinging to even as it grows more popular — and professional.

“I think there’s a lot of pride in trying to be a sport that kind of officiates ourselves a little bit, so to speak,” said Nolan Thiessen, CEO of Curling Canada, whose teams have been at the heart of the uproar over the past several days. “I think it was just everybody taking a deep breath and going, OK, let’s just finish this Olympics the way we know our sport is to be played.”

World Curling rethinks officiating

The saga began Friday, when Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson accused Canadian Marc Kennedy of breaking the rules by touching the rock again after initially releasing it down the sheet of ice. Kennedy’s expletive-laden outburst drew widespread attention, as did the sport, which tends to fall off the radar outside the Olympics.

World Curling decided it needed to double down on game surveillance, even though it was already midway through the Olympic men’s and women’s round-robin competition.

From then on, the federation said, two umpires would step out from behind the courtside table and watch the “hog line” — the point at which curlers must release the granite stone down the sheet of ice — from close proximity. That way, they’d be able to more closely check for illegal double-touches.

In just a day, officials called two double-touch infractions, by Rachel Homan of Canada and Bobby Lammie of Britain, removing their stones from play.

It is rare for stones to be removed from competition so frequently.

By Sunday afternoon, players and coaches were fed up, and World Curling changed its policy after the meeting.

“When the players started complaining, it puts them in a tough position because they want to do their jobs and listen to the players that think that there’s a problem out there,” said Emma Miskew of Canada. “I’m happy with how the discussion went and what the ruling came to.”

Olympic curlers say the double-touch is not a big deal

Several Olympic curlers said that double-touching did not necessarily reveal a nefarious desire to cheat, and that penalizing a quick and accidental graze of the granite could be over the top.

“If you get a hog line violation, it’s not cheating,” Homan said Monday.

Miskew added that it was rare to hear the accusation, at least in women’s curling, while Alina Paetz of Switzerland agreed with Homan that it is a minor infraction.

“If you do it, it’s not allowed, but I think they blew it up a little bit, so it’s a bigger thing than it actually is,” Paetz said. “It’s the Olympics, there’s emotion in it. I don’t think it is actually that big of a deal.”

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

MILAN (AP) — Aerin Frankel stopped 21 shots for her third shutout of the Olympic women’s hockey tournament and the favored United States advanced to the gold-medal game by defeating Sweden 5-0 at the Milan Cortina Games on Monday.

Abbey Murphy, Kendall Coyne Schofield and Hayley Scamurra scored on consecutive shots over a 2:47 late in the second period to blow the game open and put the Americans up 5-0. Cayla Barnes opened the scoring and Taylor Heise also scored.

The Americans continued their roll through the tournament by improving to 6-0, and outscoring their opponents by a combined 31-1. The U.S. has yet to trail or be tied after 0-0, and in position to become the third women’s team to do so over the entire tournament, joining Canada in 2006 and 2010.

The U.S. also extended its shutout streak to 331 minutes, 23 seconds, going back to Czechia’s Barbora Jurickova beating Frankel on a breakaway in the second period of a tournament-opening 5-1 win.

The win over Sweden sets up what could well be a seventh gold-medal showdown against Canada on Thursday. The defending Olympic champion Canadians play Switzerland in the day’s other semifinal game.

The U.S. already beat Canada 5-0 in a preliminary round game last week. The Americans won Olympic gold in 1998 and 2018, with Canada winning the other five tournaments.

Sweden will play for bronze on Thursday in an effort to medal for the third time in team history, and first since winning silver at the 2006 Turin Games after upsetting the U.S. in the semifinals.

Ebba Svensson Traff stopped 19 of 23 shots before she was pulled after Coyne Schofield tipped in Laila Edwards’ shot from the blue line with 3:50 left in the second period.

Emma Soderberg took over in goal, and was beaten by Scamurra, who tapped in Britta Curl-Salemme’s centering pass 1:49 later. Soderberg finished with 10 saves.

Among those in attendance was former NFL center Jason Kelce, who was shown on the scoreboard applauding the goal initially credited to Edwards. Kelce is from Edwards’ hometown of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and he and his brother, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, contributed to a GoFundMe drive to help pay for Edwards’ family to attend the Milan Cortina Games.

Sweden enjoyed a break-through this year with a young, talented group that features seven players competing in the U.S. college ranks. Sweden went 4-0 to win Group B, and then upset Czechia 2-0 in the in the quarterfinals.

Though the Swedes kept the game close through 35 minutes, the Americans eventually wore them down.

And the U.S certainly didn’t resemble a team that didn’t want to play Sweden, as coach Ulf Lundberg suggested after the Swedes beat Czechia in the quarterfinals.

Though the Swedes kept the U.S. mostly to the perimeter in the opening period, they were still outshot 13-2.

Barnes scored with a snap shot from the top of the right circle and beat Svensson Traff high on the short side. Barnes’ goal was her first point of the tournament, leaving seventh defender Rory Guilday as the lone American skater to not yet register a point through six games.

Heise made it 2-0 at the 9:08 mark of the second period by one-timing in Hannah Bilka’s backhand pass through the middle. Svensson Traff got her glove on the shot, but the puck deflected across her body and into the net off the inside of her stick.

— By JOHN WAWROW, Associated Press