By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department, Pam Bondi, is set to face questions on Capitol Hill on Wednesday over her loyalty to the Republican president-elect, who has vowed to use the agency to pursue revenge on his perceived political enemies.

The former Florida attorney general and corporate lobbyist would be one of the most closely scrutinized members of Trump’s Cabinet if she’s confirmed to lead the department that prosecuted the once and future president in two separate criminal cases that never went to trial.

Here’s what to know about Bondi ahead of her confirmation hearing:

She’s a close Trump ally and long-time defender

Bondi has been a fixture in Trump’s orbit for years, and a regular defender of the president-elect on news programs amid his legal woes. She’s likely to face many questions over her public statements criticizing the criminal cases against Trump, given his threats to seek retribution against those he believes have wronged him.

“The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted — the bad ones,” Bondi said in a 2023 Fox News appearance. “The investigators will be investigated.”

Bondi said members of the so-called deep state were “hiding in the shadows” during Trump’s first term, “but now they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated.”

Bondi traveled to New York last May to support Trump in court while he stood trial in his hush money criminal case. Trump was sentenced last week to no punishment in that case after his jury conviction on 34 felony counts.

After Trump’s guilty verdict in that case, Bondi said during another Fox News appearance — alongside Trump’s pick for FBI director, Kash Patel — that “a tremendous amount of trust is lost in the justice system tonight.” She added: “The American people see through it.”

On a radio show last August, she compared special counsel Jack Smith to “a rabid dog” after he brought a new 2020 election interference indictment against Trump in the wake of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Smith abandoned that case — and the separate classified documents case — after Trump’s November victory, citing Justice Department policy not to prosecute sitting presidents.

Florida’s first female attorney general

Bondi was first elected Florida attorney general in 2010, defeating Democratic state Sen. Dan Gelber after earning the endorsement of former Republican Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

As Florida attorney general, Bondi led a challenge brought by more than two dozen states to President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld the health care law. Bondi also fought to uphold Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage — arguing that marriage should be defined by each state.

One of her top priorities as attorney general was going after so-called pill mills, or clinics that hand out large amounts of prescription painkillers and helped fuel the country’s opioid crisis.

Bondi faced an ethics probe after she personally solicited a 2013 political contribution from Trump as her office was weighing whether to join New York in suing over fraud allegations involving Trump University.

Trump cut a $25,000 check to a political committee supporting Bondi from his family’s charitable foundation, in violation of legal prohibitions against charities supporting partisan political activities. After the check came in, Bondi’s office nixed suing Trump’s company for fraud, citing insufficient grounds to proceed.

Both Trump and Bondi denied wrongdoing, the state’s ethics commission tossed the complaints and a prosecutor assigned by then-GOP Gov. Rick Scott determined there was insufficient evidence to support bribery charges over the donation.

Before becoming Florida attorney general, Bondi spent 18 years in the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office, prosecuting cases “ranging from domestic violence to capital murder,” according to her bio at Ballard Partners, the lobbying firm she joined in 2019. Among the cases she handled was the 2006 prosecution of baseball star Dwight Gooden, who was sent to prison for violating his probation by using cocaine.

She spent years lobbying on behalf of companies such as Amazon

Democrats are likely to press Bondi on her years as a lobbyist and the potential conflicts of interest posed by her work for corporations and other entities that could face scrutiny by the Justice Department.

Records show that between 2019 and 2024, Bondi was registered to represent 30 clients, including businesses such as Uber and Amazon during her time at Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm headed by Brian Ballard, who has ties to Trump, according to advocacy group Public Citizen.

She led Ballard Partners’ corporate regulatory compliance practice, which focuses on helping Fortune 500 companies “implement best practices that proactively address public policy challenges such as human trafficking, opioid abuse and personal data privacy,” according to her Ballard Partners bio.

She registered as a foreign agent for the government of Qatar for work related to anti-human-trafficking efforts leading up to the World Cup, held in 2022. She also represented the KGL Investment Company KSCC, a Kuwaiti firm also known as KGLI. The firm paid Ballard $300,000 in 2019 to lobby the White House, National Security Council, State Department and Congress on immigration policy, human rights and economic sanctions issues.

Beyond her lobbying work, she also served as chair of the Center for Litigation and co-chair for the Center for Law and Justice at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank set up by former Trump administration staffers to lay the groundwork for his potential second term. Her work in that role included filing a brief in the Supreme Court in support of a public high school football coach who was fired for praying on the field after games.

She was part of Trump’s first impeachment trial defense team

Bondi stepped away from lobbying in 2020 to defend Trump during his first impeachment trial against allegations that Trump abused the power of his office when he pressured Ukraine’s president during a phone call to investigate then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, ahead of the 2020 election.

Trump, who denied any wrongdoing, was impeached in the U.S. House of Representatives and acquitted in the U.S. Senate.

Bondi was brought on to bolster the White House’s messaging and communications. Trump and his allies sought to delegitimize the impeachment from the start, aiming to brush off the whole thing as a farce.

Bondi backed Trump’s effort to challenge the 2020 election results

Bondi supported Trump’s efforts to challenge his 2020 loss to Biden, traveling in the days after the election to Pennsylvania, where she claimed the campaign had evidence of “cheating.”

Bondi appeared at a press conference in Philadelphia the day after the 2020 election alongside then-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. The former New York City mayor has since lost his law license in New York and Washington, D.C., after pursuing false claims that Trump made about his election loss.

At the press conference, Giuliani suggested that bogus ballots could be flooding in from “Mars” or nearby Camden, New Jersey — or, he said: “Joe Biden could have voted 50 times, as far as we know, or 5,000 times.” Bondi said poll workers in Philadelphia were keeping Republican poll watchers too far back and preventing them from doing their jobs.

“We’ve won Pennsylvania and we want every vote to be counted in a fair way,” Bondi said.

The next day during an appearance on Fox & Friends, Bondi declared there was “evidence of cheating.”

“We are not going anywhere until they declare that we won Pennsylvania,” Bondi said, alleging there were “fake ballots coming in late.” But when the anchor pressed her again on those “fake ballots,” she responded: “There could be — that’s the problem…We don’t know.”

Bondi went on to claim that ballots were “dumped,” and that “people were receiving ballots that were dead.”

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud that changed the outcome of the 2020 election.

By DAVID KLEPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday will question President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the CIA on his vision for America’s premier spy agency.

John Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, is a former federal prosecutor and conservative member of Congress representing a district in Texas. He was a fierce defender of Trump during his first impeachment proceedings in the House.

His hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee is part of a weeklong marathon as the Republican-led Senate rushes to have some of Trump’s nominees ready to be confirmed by the full Senate as soon as Inauguration Day on Monday.

If approved, Ratcliffe will succeed outgoing CIA Director William Burns.

Trump first tapped Ratcliffe to serve as director of national intelligence in 2019, but he quickly withdrew from consideration after lawmakers raised questions about his qualifications. He was ultimately confirmed by a sharply divided Senate after Trump resubmitted the nomination.

As director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe oversaw and coordinated the work of more than a dozen spy agencies. Among other duties, the office directs efforts to detect and counter foreign efforts to influence U.S. politics.

That experience is expected to boost Ratcliffe’s chances in the Senate this year, especially compared with Trump’s nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to serve as director of national intelligence. Gabbard, a former congresswoman from Hawaii, has faced bipartisan criticism over past comments supportive of Russia and 2017 meetings with former Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Like other Trump nominees, Ratcliffe is a Trump loyalist. Aside from his work to defend Trump during his first impeachment proceedings, Ratcliffe also forcefully questioned former special counsel Robert Mueller when he testified before lawmakers about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

As director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe was accused by Democrats of politicizing intelligence when he declassified Russian intelligence that purported to reveal information about Democrats during the 2016 election even as he acknowledged the information might not be accurate.

By FARNOUSH AMIRI and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is promising to implement President-elect Donald Trump’s “America First” vision as secretary of state, vowing in his confirmation hearing Wednesday that the incoming administration will forge a new path by placing American interests “above all else.”

“Placing our core national interests above all else is not isolationism,” Rubio will tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to an opening statement obtained by The Associated Press. “It is the commonsense realization that a foreign policy centered on our national interest is not some outdated relic.”

“The postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us,” Rubio says.

It’s a remarkable opening salvo from Rubio, who was born in Miami to Cuban immigrants, and who, if confirmed, would become the first Latino ever to serve as the nation’s top diplomat.

The confirmation hearing begins a new chapter in the political career of the 53-year-old Florida Republican, whose relationship with Trump has evolved over the last decade. Once rivals trading schoolyard insults as they campaigned for president in 2016, the two men became close allies as Trump campaigned for another White House term last year.

Rubio first came to Washington as part of the “tea party” wave in 2010 and once advocated for allowing a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. But like other Republicans, Rubio’s views on immigration have shifted toward the hardline stance of Trump, who has pledged to aggressively pursue deportations once he takes office on Monday.

Unlike many of Trump’s Cabinet selections, Rubio is expected to easily win confirmation, notching support not only from Republicans but also Democrats who endorse him as a “responsible” pick to represent the U.S. abroad. Many expect he will be among the first of Trump’s Cabinet picks approved.

Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, who served alongside Rubio on the Foreign Relations Committee, said he has high hopes that the Florida Republican will reject the isolationist approach of other Trump allies.

“I think Marco is a hawk, but he’s also an internationalist, and I think the challenge for him will be to maintain the long bipartisan tradition of America being indispensable in world affairs,” the Hawaii lawmaker told AP. “And there are people in the Trump world who want us to run away from being the leaders of the free world. And I’m hoping that Marco’s instincts towards American strength will win the day.”

Rubio’s approach to foreign affairs is grounded in his years of service on the Foreign Relations committee and the Senate Intelligence panel. In his speeches and writings, he’s delivered increasingly stern warnings about growing military and economic threats to the United States, particularly from China, which he says has benefited from a “global world order” that he characterizes as obsolete.

China, Rubio will tell the committee, has “lied, cheated, hacked, and stolen their way to global superpower status, at our expense.”

If confirmed, Rubio will become the leader of U.S. foreign policy — though his role will surely remain secondary to Trump, who relishes the global stage and frequently uses the bully pulpit against America’s allies.

Even before taking office, Trump has stirred angst in foreign capitals by threatening to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland and suggesting he will pressure Canada to become the nation’s 51st state.

By winning another term, Trump has won an “unmistakable mandate from the voters,” Rubio will say.

“They want a strong America. Engaged in the world. But guided by a clear objective, to promote peace abroad, and security and prosperity here at home.”

A Biden administration decision to rescind Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism with just days left in office is likely to irk Rubio, who has long supported tough sanctions on the communist-run island.

Rubio’s office did not respond to multiple queries Tuesday about the senator’s reaction to the move, which many believe will almost certainly be reversed by the Trump administration.

Secretaries of state have played a key role in formulating the foreign policy of the country since its founding, starting with the first one, Thomas Jefferson, who served in the top Cabinet position under President George Washington.

Since then, Jefferson, as well as his 19th century successors James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan, have all gone on to be elected president.

More recent secretaries of state have been less successful in their political ambitions, including John Kerry, who lost the 2004 presidential election to President George W. Bush before becoming the top diplomat, and Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 election to Trump.

The most successful secretaries of state have been known for their closeness to the presidents whom they serve, notably James Baker under George H.W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice under George W. Bush and, to some extent, Clinton under Barack Obama.

Like Clinton, Rubio was once a political rival to the president-elect who nominated them. However, the Clinton-Obama relationship during the 2008 Democratic primaries was not nearly as hostile as that between Trump and Rubio in the 2016 GOP primaries, which was marked by name-calling and personal insults.

Trump had an acrimonious relationship with his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. Trump fired him from the position via a social media post less than two years into his term.

Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 15, the 15th day of 2025. There are 350 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 15, 2009, US Airways Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger landed an Airbus A320 safely in the Hudson River after striking a flock of birds that disabled both engines shortly after takeoff; all 155 people aboard survived.

Also on this date:

In 1559, Elizabeth I was crowned queen of England and Ireland in Westminster Abbey.

In 1919, in Boston, a tank containing an estimated 2.3 million gallons (8.7 million liters) of molasses burst, flooding the city’s North End and killing 21 people.

In 1929, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta.

In 1943, work was completed on the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of War (now Defense).

In 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League 35-10 in the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, known retroactively as Super Bowl I.

In 1991, Sean Lennon’s remake of his father’s “Give Peace A Chance” was released to coincide with the United Nations’ midnight deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. The lyrics were updated to reflect concerns of the 1990s.

In 2001, Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia maintained by volunteer editors, made its debut.

Today’s birthdays:

• Actor Andrea Martin is 78.
• Football Hall of Famer Randy White is 72.
• Actor-director Mario Van Peebles is 68.
• Boxing Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins is 60.
• Actor-director Regina King is 54.
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is 48.
• Former NFL quarterback Drew Brees is 46.
• Rapper-reggaeton artist Pitbull is 44.
• Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro is 41.
• DJ-music producer Skrillex is 37.
• Actor-singer Dove Cameron is 29.
• Singer-songwriter Grace VanderWaal is 21.

The post Pete Hegseth vows to bring ‘warrior culture’ if confirmed as Trump’s defense secretary pick appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

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.