By ROB GILLIES and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ontario (AP) — Top diplomats from the Group of Seven industrialized democracies are meeting Ukraine’s foreign minister on Wednesday as Ukraine tries to fend off relentless Russian aerial attacks that have brought rolling blackouts across the country ahead of winter.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will participate in a G7 session on Ukraine and defense cooperation.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand is hosting the meeting in southern Ontario as tensions rise between the U.S. and traditional allies like Canada over defense spending, trade and uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan in Gaza and efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he wants to order 25 Patriot air defense systems from the United States. Combined missile and drone strikes on the power grid have coincided with Ukraine’s frantic efforts to hold back a Russian battlefield push aimed at capturing the eastern stronghold of Pokrovsk.

Canada announced additional sanctions on 13 people and 11 entities, including several involved in the development and deployment of Russia’s drone program.

Britain says it will send $17 million to help patch up Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as winter approaches and Russian attacks intensify. The money will go toward repairs to power, heating and water supplies and humanitarian support for Ukrainians.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who made the announcement before the meeting, said Russian President Vladimir Putin “is trying to plunge Ukraine into darkness and the cold as winter approaches” but the British support will help keep the lights and heating on.

Canada recently made a similar announcement.

The two-day meeting in Niagara-on-the-Lake, near the U.S. border, comes after Trump ended trade talks with Canada because the Ontario provincial government ran an anti-tariff advertisement in the U.S. that upset him. That followed a spring of acrimony, since abated, over the Republican president’s insistence that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.

Anand will have a meeting with Rubio, but she noted that a different minister leads the U.S. trade file. The U.S. president has placed greater priority on addressing his grievances with other nations’ trade policies than on collaboration with G7 allies.

The G7 comprises Canada, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Anand also invited the foreign ministers of Australia, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa and Ukraine to the meeting, which began Tuesday.

Putin has tried to justify Russia’s attack on Ukraine by saying it was needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine — a false claim the U.S. had predicted he would make as a pretext for his invasion.

By SAFIYAH RIDDLE, Associated Press/Report for America

A federal appeals court will hear arguments Wednesday about whether a spending law passed in July that ended Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood can remain in effect while legal challenges continue.

President Donald Trump’s tax and spending cut bill targets organizations that both provide abortions and receive more than $800,000 a year in Medicaid reimbursements. Planned Parenthood has argued the law violates the Constitution, while anti-abortion activists applauded the legislation.

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that the law could go into effect in September while a lower court considered Planned Parenthood’s claims. A three-judge panel of the appeals court was scheduled to preside over the hearing Wednesday.

In a report released ahead of the hearing, Planned Parenthood said the legislation cost $45 million in September alone as clinics across the country paid for treatment for Medicaid patients out of pocket — a rate that the organization says is unsustainable.

Nearly half of Planned Parenthood’s patients rely on Medicaid for health care aside from abortions, which was already not covered by the federal insurance program that serves millions of low-income and disabled Americans.

Legal fight

Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its member organizations in Massachusetts and Utah, as well as a major medical provider in Maine, filed lawsuits against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in July. The Maine provider has been forced to stop it’s primary care services while its lawsuit works its way through the courts.

In the meantime, seven states — California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Washington — have directed state funds to compensate for lost federal Medicaid reimbursements.

That has covered roughly $200 million of the $700 million that the organization spends annually on Medicaid patients, according to Planned Parenthood.

In light of the shortfall, some clinics will force Medicaid patients to pay out of pocket while others will close altogether, adding to the 20 Planned Parenthood affiliated clinics that have closed since July and the 50 total that have closed since the start of Trump’s second term.

“The consequence is for patients who are going to be forced to make impossible choices between essential services,” Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Abortion at the heart of the debate

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said Trump’s legislation is a step in the right direction. Even though federal tax dollars aren’t used for abortions directly, she said taxpayers are contributing to abortion services even if they are morally or religiously opposed since Medicaid reimbursements help organizations that provide them stay afloat.

“To be forced to pay for that is just very objectionable,” Tobias said.

She suggested Planned Parenthood could stop offering abortions if it wanted to keep providing medical care to vulnerable populations.

Planned Parenthood’s president has doubled down on the organization’s commitment to providing abortions.

“The government should not play a role in determining any pregnancy outcomes,” Johnson said.

A range of services hit

Planned Parenthood is the country’s largest abortion provider, but abortions only constituted 4% of all medical services in 2024, according to the organization’s annual report. Testing for sexually transmitted infections and contraception services make up about 80%. The remaining 15% of services are cancer screenings, primary care services and behavioral health services.

Jenna Tosh, CEO of Planned Parenthood California Central Coast, said in an interview that the Medicaid cuts threaten abortion and non-abortion medical care in equal measure. Roughly 70% of patients who use Planned Parenthood California Central Coast rely on Medicaid, she said.

“Many of our patients, we are their primary provider of health care,” Tosh said. “You really start pulling at the thread of the entire health care safety net for the most vulnerable people.”

The story has been corrected to show that the hearing Wednesday is before a judicial panel of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, not before a federal judge.

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The longest government shutdown in history could conclude as soon as Wednesday, Day 43, with almost no one happy with the final result.

Democrats didn’t get the heath insurance provisions they demanded added to the spending deal. And Republicans, who control the levers of power in Washington, didn’t escape blame, according to polls and some state and local elections that went poorly for them.

The fallout of the shutdown landed on millions of Americans, including federal workers who went without paychecks and airline passengers who had their trips delayed or canceled. An interruption in nutrition assistance programs contributed to long lines at food banks and added emotional distress going into the holiday season.

The agreement includes bipartisan bills worked out by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund parts of government — food aid, veterans programs and the legislative branch, among other things. All other funding would be extended until the end of January, giving lawmakers more than two months to finish additional spending bills.

Here’s a look at how the shutdown started and is likely to end:

What led to the shutdown

Democrats made several demands to win their support for a short-term funding bill, but the central one was an extension of an enhanced tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

The tax credit was boosted during the COVID-19 pandemic response, again through President Joe Biden’s big energy and health care bill, and it’s set to expire at the end of December. Without it, premiums on average will more than double for millions of Americans. More than 2 million people would lose health insurance coverage altogether next year, the Congressional Budget Office projected.

“Never have American families faced a situation where their health care costs are set to double — double in the blink of an eye,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

While Democrats called for negotiations on the matter, Republicans said a funding bill would need to be passed first.

“Republicans are ready to sit down with Democrats just as soon as they stop holding the government hostage to their partisan demands,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said.

Thune eventually promised Democrats a December vote on the tax credit extension to help resolve the standoff, but many Democrats demanded a guaranteed fix, not just a vote that is likely to fail.

Thune’s position was much the same as the one Schumer took back in October 2013, when Republicans unsuccessfully sought to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for funding the government. “Open up all of the government, and then we can have a fruitful discussion,” Schumer said then.

Democratic leaders under pressure

The first year of President Donald Trump’s second term has seen more than 200,000 federal workers leave their job through firings, forced relocations or the Republican administration’s deferred resignation program, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Whole agencies that don’t align with the administration’s priorities have been dismantled. And billions of dollars previously approved by Congress have been frozen or canceled.

Democrats have had to rely on the courts to block some of Trump’s efforts, but they have been unable to do it through legislation. They were also powerless to stop Trump’s big tax cut and immigration crackdown bill that Republicans helped pay for by cutting future spending on safety net programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

The Democrats’ struggles to blunt the Trump administration’s priorities has prompted calls for the party’s congressional leadership to take a more forceful response.

Schumer experienced that firsthand after announcing in March that he would support moving ahead with a funding bill for the 2025 budget year. There was a protest at his office, calls from progressives that he be primaried in 2028 and suggestions that the Democratic Party would soon be looking for new leaders.

This time around, Schumer demanded that Republicans negotiate with Democrats to get their votes on a spending bill. The Senate rules, he noted, requires bipartisan support to meet the 60-vote threshold necessary to advance a spending bill.

But those negotiations did not occur, at least not with Schumer. Republicans instead worked with a small group of eight Democrats to tee up a short-term bill to fund the government generally at current levels and accused Schumer of catering to the party’s left flank when he refused to go along.

“The Senate Democrats are afraid that the radicals in their party will say that they caved,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at one of his many daily press conferences.

The blame game

The political stakes in the shutdown are huge, which is why leaders in both parties have held nearly daily press briefings to shape public opinion.

Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say Trump and Republicans in Congress have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

At least three-quarters of Americans believe each deserves at least a “moderate” share of blame, underscoring that no one was successfully evading responsibility.

Both parties looked to the Nov. 4 elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere for signs of how the shutdown was influencing public opinion. Democrats took comfort in their overwhelming successes. Trump called it a “big factor, negative” for Republicans. But it did not change the GOP’s stance on negotiating. Instead, Trump ramped up calls for Republicans to end the filibuster in the Senate, which would pretty much eliminate the need for the majority party to ever negotiate with the minority.

Damage of the shutdown

The Congressional Budget Office says that the negative impact on the economy will be mostly recovered once the shutdown ends, but not entirely. It estimated the permanent economic loss at about $11 billion for a six-week shutdown.

Beyond the numbers, though, the shutdown created a cascade of troubles for many Americans. Federal workers missed paychecks, causing financial and emotional stress. Travelers had their flights delayed and at times canceled. People who rely on safety net programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program saw their benefits stopped, and Americans throughout the country lined up for meals at food banks.

“This dysfunction is damaging enough to our constituents and economy here at home, but it also sends a dangerous message to the watching world,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. “It demonstrates to our allies that we are an unreliable partner, and it signals to our adversaries that we can’t work together to meet even the most fundamental responsibilities of Congress.”

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 12, the 316th day of 2025. There are 49 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 12, 1954, Ellis Island officially closed as an immigration station and detention center. More than 12 million immigrants arrived in the United States via Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954.

Also on this date:

In 1927, Josef Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union as Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.

In 1936, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in Washington, D.C., and gave the green light to traffic.

In 1936, American playwright Eugene O’Neill received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1948, Japanese general and former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal; he was executed in December 1948.

In 1970, the Bhola cyclone struck East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The deadliest tropical cyclone on record claimed the lives of an estimated 300,000-500,000 people.

In 2001, American Airlines Flight 587, en route to the Dominican Republic, crashed after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 people on board and five people on the ground.

In 2019, Venice saw its worst flooding in more than 50 years, with the water reaching 6.14 feet (1.87 meters) above average sea level; damage was estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2021, a judge in Los Angeles ended the conservatorship that had controlled the life and money of pop star Britney Spears for nearly 14 years.

In 2024, a federal judge sentenced Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guard member, to 15 years in prison for leaking classified military documents about the war in Ukraine; Teixeira had pleaded guilty to willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act, nearly a year after his arrest in the most consequential national security breach in years.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor-playwright Wallace Shawn is 82.
• Rock musician Booker T. Jones is 81.
• Sportscaster Al Michaels is 81.
• Singer-songwriter Neil Young is 80.
• Author Tracy Kidder is 80.
• Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island is 76.
• Actor Megan Mullally is 67.
• Olympic gold medal gymnast Nadia Comăneci is 64.
• Olympic gold medal swimmer Jason Lezak is 50.
• Pakistani filmmaker and journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is 47.
• Actor Ryan Gosling is 45.
• Actor Anne Hathaway is 43.
• Golfer Jason Day is 38.
• NBA point guard Russell Westbrook is 37.

By LISA MASCARO, AP Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — After refusing to convene the U.S. House during the government shutdown, Speaker Mike Johnson is recalling lawmakers back into session — and facing an avalanche of pent-up legislative demands from those who have largely been sidelined from governing.

Hundreds of representatives are preparing to return Wednesday to Washington after a nearly eight-week absence, carrying a torrent of ideas, proposals and frustrations over work that has stalled when the Republican speaker shuttered the House doors nearly two months ago.

First will be a vote to reopen the government. But that’s just the start. With efforts to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and the swearing in of Arizona’s Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the unfinished business will pose a fresh test to Johnson’s grip on power and put a renewed focus on his leadership.

“It’s extraordinary,” said Matthew Green, a professor at the politics department at The Catholic University of America.

“What Speaker Johnson and Republicans are doing, you have to go back decades to find an example where the House — either chamber — decided not to meet.”

Gaveling in after two months gone

When the House gavels back into session, it will close this remarkable chapter of Johnson’s tenure when he showed himself to be a leader who is quietly, but brazenly, willing to upend institutional norms in pursuit of his broader strategy, even at the risk of diminishing the House itself.

Rather than use the immense powers of the speaker’s office to forcefully steer the debate in Congress, as a coequal branch of the government on par with the executive and the courts, Johnson simply closed up shop — allowing the House to become unusually deferential, particularly to President Donald Trump.

Over these past weeks, the chamber has sidestepped its basic responsibilities, from passing routine legislation to conducting oversight. The silencing of the speaker’s gavel has been both unusual and surprising in a system of government where the founders envisioned the branches would vigorously protect their institutional prerogatives.

“You can see it is pretty empty around here,” Johnson, R-La., said on day three of the shutdown, tour groups no longer crowding the halls.

“When Congress decides to turn off the lights, it shifts the authority to the executive branch. That is how it works,” he said, blaming Democrats, with their fight over health care funds, for the closures.

An empty House as a political strategy

The speaker has defended his decision to shutter the House during what’s now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. He argued that the chamber, under the GOP majority, had already done its job passing a stopgap funding bill in September. It would be up to the Senate to act, he said.

When the Senate failed over and over to advance the House bill, more than a dozen times, he refused to enter talks with the other leaders on a compromise. Johnson also encouraged Trump to cancel an initial sit-down with the Democratic leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to avoid a broader negotiation while the government was still closed.

Instead, the speaker, whose job is outlined in the Constitution, second in line of succession to the presidency, held held almost daily press conferences on his side of the Capitol, a weekly conference call with GOP lawmakers, and private talks with Trump. He joined the president for Sunday’s NFL Washington Commanders game as the Senate was slogging through a weekend session.

“People say, why aren’t you negotiating with Schumer and Jeffries? I quite literally have nothing to negotiate,” Johnson said at one point.

“As I’ve said time and time again, I don’t have anything to negotiate with,” he said on day 13 of the shutdown. “We did our job. We had that vote.”

And besides he said of the GOP lawmakers, “They are doing some of their best work in the district, helping their constituents navigate this crisis.”

Accidental speaker delivers for Trump

In many ways, Johnson has become a surprisingly effective leader, an accidental speaker who was elected to the job by his colleagues after all others failed to win it. He has now lasted more than two years, longer than many once envisioned.

This year, with Trump’s return to the White House, the speaker has commandeered his slim GOP majority and passed legislation including the president’s so-called “one big beautiful bill” of tax breaks and spending reductions that became law this summer.

Johnson’s shutdown strategy also largely achieved his goal, forcing Senate Democrats to break ranks and approve the funds to reopen government without the extension of health care subsidies they were demanding to help ease the sticker shock of rising insurance premium costs with the Affordable Care Act.

Johnson’s approach is seen as one that manages up — he stays close to Trump and says they speak often — and also hammers down, imposing a rigid control over the day-to-day schedule of the House, and its lawmakers.

Amassing quiet power

Under a House rules change this year, Johnson was able to keep the chamber shuttered indefinitely on his own, without the usual required vote. This year his leadership team has allowed fewer opportunities for amendments on legislation, according to a recent tally. Other changes have curtailed the House’s ability to provide a robust check on the executive branch over Trump’s tariffs and use of war powers.

Johnson’s refusal to swear-in Grijalva is a remarkable flex of the speaker’s power, leading to comparisons with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision not to consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, said David Rapallo, an associate professor and director of the Federal Legislation Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center. Arizona has sued to seat her.

Marc Short, who headed up the White House’s legislative affairs office during the first Trump administration, said of Johnson, “It’s impressive how he’s held the conference together.”

But said Short, “The legislative branch has abdicated a lot of responsibility to the executive under his watch.”

Tough decisions ahead for the Speaker

As lawmakers make their way back to Washington, the speaker’s power will be tested again as they consider the package to reopen government.

Republicans are certain to have complaints about the bill, which funds much of the federal government through Jan. 30 and keeps certain programs including agriculture, military construction and veterans affairs running through September.

But with House Democratic leaders rejecting the package for having failed to address the health care subsidies, it will be up to Johnson to muscle it through with mostly GOP lawmakers — with hardly any room for defections in the chamber that’s narrowly split.

Jeffries, who has criticized House Republicans for what he called an extended vacation, said, “They’re not going to be able to hide this week when they return.”

By Patti Nickell, Tribune News Service

Mark Van Osdal is a tree whisperer. Owner of Carolina Bound Adventures, he is leading a small group of us on the Deep Creek hike on the North Carolina side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Bryson City.

During the hike, we will see waterfalls, a picturesque bridge over Deep Creek, the last of the summer wildflowers, and one rather belligerent squirrel, angry that he dropped the black walnut he was munching on right in the middle of our group.

Oh yes, and trees … lots of them. Van Osdal says that the national park (America’s most visited) has some 100 native species of trees, more than the entire European continent. And he appears to be on a first-name basis with all of them.

Van Osdal is just one of the people waiting to welcome visitors to Bryson City, known as “the quiet side of the Smokies.” Although just 45 miles from Gatlinburg, across the Tennessee line, it seems a world apart in its peaceful serenity.

And in its welcoming residents who can’t wait to make your stay as authentic as possible. People such as Rita Jones, director of the Swain County Visitor Center & Heritage Museum.

Make it your first stop — you can’t miss the imposing white-columned building on Everett Street, which doubles as both a resource for visitors seeking the area’s best hiking, rafting, canoeing and biking spots and a museum of western Carolina heritage.

And then there’s Rita, pink-cheeked and smiling, looking just like the adorable elf she dresses up as during the town’s celebrated Christmas festivities.

Make a stop at Nantahala Outdoor Center, starting point for all of the adrenaline-boosting adventures people come here for. If you’re lucky, you will meet marketing manager Betsy Bevis and reservations manager Chris Aldridge, who joined me for lunch at the Riverside Restaurant overlooking the Nantahala River.

Munching on my catfish sandwich, I noted that the Nantahala is much more benign from a window table than from an overturned canoe, courtesy of my last experience on it.

The 500-acre NOC is a one-stop shop for all things outdoor — whether it be rafting, mountain biking, zip lining, etc.; eating at one of the two restaurants; buying outdoor gear, or overnighting in the new mountaintop Hemlocks bungalows.

Guests wanting to be closer to the river and trails can book private cabins, and for the truly adventurous, there are primitive campsites within the Nantahala National Forest.

Fun fact: NOC’s founder Payson Kennedy was a stunt double in the film “Deliverance,” and if you remember the scenes filmed on the nearby Chattooga River, you’ll understand why Burt Reynolds and the other actors were keen to leave the paddling to those stunt doubles.

Although the movie may suggest otherwise, Bevis and Aldridge say the 1971 film was responsible for a surge in the popularity of whitewater rafting.

Back on dry land, you would be fortunate indeed if you crossed paths with Scott Mastej and experienced a dose of his southern hospitality. Along with his partner Ron LaRoque, he is the owner of the Everett Hotel, a luxury 10-room boutique property repurposed from a 1908 bank building.

While I didn’t stay at the Everett, I did enjoy a dinner (lobster bisque and Carolina mountain trout) and a conversation with Scott in the chic Everett Bistro, the hotel’s in-house restaurant.

Dinner another night was at the historic Fryemont Inn, a Bryson City fixture and a nostalgic trip back to the 1920s, where there are no TVs in most of the rooms and no air conditioning as the mountain breezes provide natural cooling.

This is rustic luxury at its best, with the large fireplace in the lobby and even larger open porch off that lobby competing for favorite guest hangout.

Dinner included an entrée plus choice of soup or salad and two family-style sides of the day.

If you can, track down co-owner Monica Brown, and ask her about the lavish Halloween festivities she organizes where repeat guests return every year for the spooky fun.

Should you opt for a stay in a bed-and-breakfast, you will find a charming one in the Folkestone Inn. Those charms include a serene garden for sipping your morning coffee, the 15-minute driving distance to the Smoky Mountains National Park and innkeeper Toni Rowe’s delectable breakfast Croque Madame.

Since I had my two sisters on this trip with me, we opted for one of Bryson City’s many cabin accommodations. Our cabin in the Bryson City Village lived up to its name, Creekside Delight.

The two-bedroom, two-bath cabin had a large kitchen/dining area and a large living room with a deck and hot tub overlooking a small creek.

While many visitors prefer a cabin nestled in the mountains, this one had definite advantages, being just a short walk into town and the train depot.

The latter is important as it makes it easy if you book the area’s top attraction, the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad Nantahala Gorge Excursion.

The 44-mile excursion is a four-and-a-half-hour trip (including a stopover at the Nantahala Outdoor Center). The scenery from your car’s window is breathtaking – the Nantahala River and along the shore of Fontana Lake before crossing the 426-foot Fontana Trestle into the Nantahala Gorge.

The leaves were just starting to turn during my excursion, and I could only imagine what this would look like in peak season, the view a tapestry of gold, orange, scarlet and russet.

If you book a first-class car like Harper, you’ll get lunch and a chance to engage with Steven, the personable host.

Finally, there’s no better trip-ender than toasting the sun setting behind the mountains with a not-to-be-forgotten experience at Long View Resort.

The Nordic-themed experience features a massage on the deck of the spa, where birdsong was the only music needed to lull me into a semi-slumber as every muscle in my body went along for the ride.

Post-massage, I had only to cross the deck and ease into the hot tub facing the mountains in preparation for my 90-minute sunset soak. To say that this is a transcendental experience is not overstating the case.

The only interruption to my zen-like solitude was the attendant bringing me a glass of ice water and a small charcuterie board to nibble on.

After four days in this part of the Smokies, I left feeling relaxed, reinvigorated and wanting to return soon to this authentic mountain destination.

©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By GLENN GAMBOA, AP Business Writer

NASHVILLE (AP) — Richard Casper shakes his head as he touches one of the boarded-up windows in the once-abandoned church he plans to transform into a new 24-hour arts center for veterans.

The U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Purple Heart recipient said he was an arm’s length away from military officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Marine Barracks Washington when he learned the former church his nonprofit CreatiVets just purchased had been vandalized.

The physical damage to the building and its stained glass windows saddened Casper. But what worried him more was that the church had remained empty since 2017 without damage. That vandalism came just weeks after CreatiVets bought it, suggesting that maybe he and the veterans in his program were not welcome.

“I almost just left,” Casper said. “It put me in a weird headspace.”

However, Casper, 40, a CNN Heroes winner and Elevate Prize winner, needed more support for the center — “a place to go when the PTSD hits.” Like so many veterans, he said his PTSD, caused by seeing a close friend die on patrol in Iraq, would generally come in the middle of the night, when the only places open are bars and other spaces that can be ”destructive.”

He figured a 24-hour center where veterans could engage in music, painting, sculpture, theater and other arts could help. It could “turn all that pain into something beautiful.” The artistic element factored in when Casper, who suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving in Iraq, returned home and found it hard to be in public — unless he was listening to live music.

So he completed his mission that night in Washington, introducing new people to CreatiVets’ work. Then, Casper returned to Nashville to practice what he has preached to hundreds of veterans since his nonprofit opened in 2013. He asked for help.

And help came.

Within weeks, CreatiVets’ Art Director Tim Brown was teaching a roomful of volunteers how to create stained glass pieces to replace those that were vandalized. Brown said the volunteers wanted to give back to the organization, “but also because of the impact that these activities have had on them.”

Gary Sinise believes in art’s impact

Gary Sinise values that impact. The actor, musician and philanthropist had already signed on to donate $1 million through his foundation to help CreatiVets purchase the building. Sinise’s involvement encouraged two other donors to help finalize the purchase.

The “CSI: NY” star said he believed in CreatiVets’ work and had already seen a similar program in his hometown of Chicago help veterans process their wartime experiences.

“In the military, you’re trained to do serious work to protect our country, right?” Sinise said. “If you’re in the infantry, you’re being trained to kill. You’re being trained to contain any emotion and be strong.”

Those skills are important when fighting the enemy, but they also take a toll, especially when veterans aren’t taught how to discuss their feelings once the war is over.

“Quite often, our veterans don’t want any help,” Sinise said. “But through art – and with theater as well – acting out what they are going through can be very, very beneficial.”

David Booth says he is living proof of how CreatiVets can help. And the retired master sergeant, who served 20 years in the U.S. Army as a medic and a counterintelligence agent, wishes he participated in the program sooner.

“For me, this was more important than the last year and a half of counseling that I’ve gone through,” said Booth. “It has been so therapeutic.”

After years of being asked, Booth, 53, finally joined CreatiVets’ songwriting program in September. He traveled from his home in The Villages, Florida, to the historic Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, to meet with two successful songwriters – Brian White, who co-wrote Jason Aldean’s “Blame It on You,” and Craig Campbell, of “Outskirts of Heaven” fame – to help him write a song about his life.

Booth told them about his service, including his injury in Iraq in 2006 when the vehicle he was in struck an improvised explosive device and detonated it.

He suffered a traumatic brain injury in the explosion, and it took months of rehab before he could walk again. His entire cervical spine is fused. He still gets epidurals to relieve the nerve pain. And he still suffers from nightmares and PTSD.

In Iraq, Booth’s unit was once surrounded by kids because American soldiers used to give them Jolly Rancher candies. Snipers shot the children in hopes the soldiers would become easier targets when they tried to help.

“Things like that stick in my head,” Booth said. “How do you get them out?”

He also told them about his desire for a positive message and Combat Veterans to Careers, the veteran support nonprofit he founded. Those experiences became the song “What’s Next.”

Booth hopes “What’s Next” becomes available on music streaming services so others can hear his story. CreatiVets has released compilations of its veterans’ songs since 2020 in cooperation with Big Machine Label Group, Taylor Swift’s first record label. This year’s collection was released Friday.

“It’s almost like they could feel what I was feeling and put it into the lyrics,” said Booth, after hearing the finished version. “It was pretty surreal and pretty awesome.”

Why Lt. Dan from ‘Forrest Gump’ launched a nonprofit

Sinise has seen the unexpected impact of art throughout his career. His Oscar-nominated role as wounded Vietnam veteran Lt. Dan Taylor in “Forrest Gump” in 1994 deepened his connection to veterans. His music with the Lt. Dan Band expanded it. In 2011, he launched the Gary Sinise Foundation to broadly serve veterans, first responders and their families.

“I think citizens have a responsibility to take care of their defenders,” he said. “There are opportunities out there for all of us to do that and one of the ways to do it is through multiple nonprofits that are out there.”

Sinise immediately connected with CreatiVets’ mission. When the idea came to dedicate the performance space at the new center to his late son Mac, who died last year after a long battle with cancer, Sinise saw it as “a perfect synergy.”

“Mac was a great artist,” he said. “And he was a humble, kind of quiet, creative force… If Mac would have survived and not gone through what he went through, he’d be one of our young leaders here at the foundation. He would be composing music and he’d be helping veterans.”

Mac Sinise is still helping veterans, as proceeds of his album “Resurrection & Revival” and its sequel completed after his death, are going to the Gary Sinise Foundation. And Gary Sinise said he discovered more compositions from his son that he plans to record later this year for a third album.

After the new center was vandalized, Casper said he was heartbroken, but also inspired knowing part of the center was destined to become the Mac Sinise Auditorium. He decided to take pieces of the broken stained glass windows and transform them into new artwork inspired by Mac Sinise’s music.

“I told you we’re going to go above and beyond to make sure everyone knows Mac lived,” Casper told Sinise as he handed him stained glass panes inspired by Mac Sinise’s songs “Arctic Circles” and “Penguin Dance,” “not that he died, but that he lived.”

Sinise fought back tears as he said, “My gosh, that’s beautiful.”

As he examined the pieces more closely, Sinise added, “I’m honored that we’re going to have this place over there and that Mac is going to be supporting Richard and helping veterans.”

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY, Associated Press

After carefully choosing the freshest produce at the market, people face even more choices with vegetables, fruit, meat and dairy products at home that can help prolong freshness, minimize waste and prevent foodborne illnesses.

There are several methods to store and preserve food, such as canning and pickling produce, freezing leftover ingredients and storing food in the refrigerator. Although refrigeration is effective and most households have the appliance, experts say it is safe to say most families simply set it and forget it.

“Storing perishable items in refrigerated conditions is the first step, but it is necessary to stay aware of how long certain foods have been prepared, exposed to the air, and stored. Refrigerated items are still able to develop mold and dangerous microorganisms like listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli, so consumers must stay alert and take necessary precautions,” said Emily Hilliard, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This is especially important during the holiday season, when people buy more and expect meals to last. Planning recipes, buying less and being creative with extras and leftovers can help reduce food waste, said Diane Beckles, professor at the University of California, Davis, who studies the quality of fruits and vegetables. She said these steps can also help stretch shopper’s budgets, especially with inflation on the rise and federal food aid under threat as the government shutdown continues.

Preparing your groceries for refrigeration

Experts say proper food storage starts before groceries even reach a refrigerator. Buy products before their expiration or “sell by” dates — which tell stores how long to display their products, and are not safety dates. Follow handling instructions and place foods in the refrigerator within two hours of being at room temperature. Other tips include keeping appliances clean by wiping spills, especially from thawing meat, and discarding spoiled food. The Department of Energy recommends keeping refrigerator temperatures between 35-38 degrees Fahrenheit (1.7-3.3 degrees Celsius).

Social media offers seemingly endless tips to make food last longer, such as cleaning fruits before refrigerating and storing everything in plastic or glass containers. But experts say there isn’t just one right way to properly store many foods.

It comes down to understanding temperature and relative humidity when storing produce, said Wyatt Brown, emeritus professor at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. After that, “it becomes more refined” and includes considerations like storage space, timing of meals and personal preference.

For Beckles, the most important thing is to eat more fruits and vegetables — not worrying so much about how they are stored. “I recommend not storing tomatoes in the fridge, but there are people who feel better doing so,” she said. “It’s not going to taste as good, but if they eat them and get the nutrients, who cares.”

Fruits and vegetables

Most produce, including fruits, vegetables, leafy greens and herbs, is alive. Experts say refrigerating produce can slow spoilage, if done correctly. Brown, who studied post-harvest technology and taught for 31 years, said refrigeration can also maintain nutrition and extend shelf life.

Experts recommend using your fridge’s crisper drawers to separate fruits and vegetables and control humidity. Keep berries dry and wash them just before eating. Refrigerate broccoli, carrots, and green beans, and store leafy greens in plastic or paper bags to prevent wilting.

Some produce, like tomatoes, pears and apples, emit ethylene gas as it spoils causing the surrounding fruits and vegetables to ripen more quickly, so experts say to get rid of rotting food to keep other items fresh. Onions, garlic, apples, nectarines, citrus fruits and squash can all be left on the countertop.

Brown said to consider storing onions and potatoes outside of the refrigerator to limit roots sprouting from the bulbs. “If you store potatoes in the refrigerator for a long time, the starch will break down into sugar, and the Maillard reaction could cause the sugars to produce dark pigments when cooked,” he said, explaining the reaction causes dark patches on cooked potatoes.

Proteins, including meats, eggs and beans

Uncooked meat should remain chilled and not left at room temperature for more than two hours, or one hour if above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), federal health agencies say. Avoid thawing meats on the counter, and marinate in the refrigerator, experts say. When placed in the refrigerator, meats should be stored at the bottom to prevent cross-contamination from drips or spills.

Food safety guides from the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service suggest storing eggs on the middle or back shelves rather than the door, where the temperature is warmer. Avoid washing eggs because it removes their natural protective outer layer called the bloom. Unwashed farm-fresh eggs can be stored at room temperature, but refrigeration extends their shelf life.

Dairy products, milk and cheeses

Milk, yogurt and cheeses should all be refrigerated. Experts say yogurt is a ready-to-eat product that can be stored on the top shelves in refrigerators. On the other hand, cheeses should not be stored on top shelves or the door where air circulation could dry them out. Experts say soy, coconut and nut milks should also be refrigerated but, depending on the carton, can be stored at room temperature until opened.

Breads, grains and rice

The FDA advises against refrigerating bread, as it can dry out and become stale. However, refrigeration slows mold growth in humid climates, and freezing preserves quality for up to six months. Non-perishable foods like rice, pasta, and flour can be stored at room temperature.

Other

Ready-to-eat meals and leftovers can be stored on the top shelves for quick and convenient access, while dressings, condiments and non-dairy drinks can be kept in the door where it is warmer. The USDA says leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days or frozen for 3 to 4 months. Alcohol storage depends on the type, whether it’s opened, and if it contains dairy or fruit. Opened wine should be refrigerated on its side to slow oxidation and keep the cork moist.

Mumphrey reported from Flagstaff, Arizona.

By JAMIE DUCHARME, Associated Press

You won’t find dumbbells or weight machines in the gym Sean Keogh runs. At Calisthenics Club Houston, it’s all about training with body weight.

“That’s all we do,” Keogh said — but that’s enough to keep new members coming through the doors, excited to learn moves like handstands and pullups.

Keogh and his members have plenty of company. These days, content creators, independent gyms and megachains alike are promoting calisthenics, an age-old form of fitness that uses little or no equipment and instead relies on body weight for resistance.

In July, President Donald Trump even reestablished the Presidential Fitness Test, intending that youth across the country will again practice old-school exercises like situps, pushups and pullups.

It’s little surprise that these no-frills moves are making a comeback in our over-scheduled society, said Anatolia Vick-Kregel, director of the Lifetime Physical Activity Program at Rice University. “We don’t always have time to go to the gym,” she said. “This is what you can do at home or in your office.”

Another reason might be economic, said Michael Stack, an exercise physiologist and president of the Physical Activity Alliance, a coalition of groups that promote physical activity. With no equipment required, calisthenics-based programs are affordable for exercisers and profitable for gyms that offer them. Plus, people may have gotten used to exercising with few accoutrements during the pandemic.

“This trend has been building,” Stack said. “The pandemic definitely accelerated it.”

How effective are calisthenics?

There’s plenty of research to suggest that calisthenics can improve everything from muscle strength to aerobic conditioning, Vick-Kregel said.

“Body weight is phenomenal,” she said.

But there are limits to its effects, said John Raglin, a professor of kinesiology at the Indiana University School of Public Health, Bloomington. “It can be effective,” Raglin said. “But I think the idea that it can or should replace the use of even simple equipment is wrong-headed.”

Sometimes, Raglin said, using equipment can actually make exercises simpler or safer to perform. Many people, for example, do pushups with improper form.

“If you’re not strong enough or you have joint issues or arthritis, then lying on a bench and using small hand weights can actually be safer and more practical,” he said.

It all depends what your goal is

Beyond safety, people looking to significantly increase their strength or muscle size will likely see more dramatic results if they use weights, Raglin said. Doing so “utilizes more of your muscle and generates more force than you could otherwise,” he explained.

Lifting weights also damages muscle tissue in a way that can be productive, as muscles grow larger through the body’s repair process. Over time, though, it may take larger amounts of weight to keep seeing gains. Progress plateaus as the body gets used to exercises it’s done before.

It’s not impossible to grow muscle through calisthenics, Vick-Kregel said; it’s just harder to continuously level up exercises for sustained progress without increasing external weight.

“After you’ve done a couple workouts of squatting with your body weight, your body’s going to need external load to get stronger or to build muscle tissue,” Stack agreed.

In other words, if you’re after bulging biceps, you may need more than calisthenics to get there. But if you’re just looking to get moving and improve your health, your body is probably enough.

Particularly for the roughly 75% of Americans who aren’t meeting federal physical activity guidelines — which call for at least 75 minutes of vigorous or 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week, plus two strength-training sessions — calisthenics are a great option, Stack said.

“Body weight is the simplest apparatus you can use,” Stack said. “I would encourage anyone who’s not exercising to start exercising with just their body.”

How to begin a calisthenics routine

First, assess your current fitness and mobility, Vick-Kregel said. With the help of a mirror, workout buddy or trainer, see if you can do exercises like planks, pushups and squats with correct form. If not, look for modifications, such as doing pushups from your knees.

Once you feel confident with the fundamentals, aim to perform calisthenics in 10- to 30-minute chunks, two to three times a week, she suggested. (For a little more structure, you can consult the The Five Basic Exercises Plan, or 5BX, a classic calisthenics program developed by the Royal Canadian Air Force in the 1950s.)

Progressively increase the duration and intensity of your workouts as you get fitter. “Gradual progression is critical,” Vick-Kregel emphasized.

As you get more experienced, though, calisthenics can be performed at high intensity. Keogh maintains that these exercises are not just for beginners. There are plenty of ways to increase the difficulty of body-weight exercises over time, making them both highly challenging and effective, he said.

For doubters, Keogh has a blunt message: “Try it.”

By Lauren Schwahn, NerdWallet

Work takes up a big chunk of our lives. In an ideal world, all of the time and energy we spend working would be met with riches and endless satisfaction.

But in reality? Burnout and job fears are rising. Between a slew of layoffs, a government shutdown, a changing economy and a shift toward artificial intelligence, it’s no wonder people are feeling uncertain.

Trust me, I get it. I’m a writer. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never worried about being replaced by AI.

So how do we overcome these work-related challenges? I asked career coaches for their advice.

Protect your time

As a full-time employee and parent of two young kids, I know how quickly the day can disappear — and how hard it is to feel like you’re making progress on an endless list of tasks. Structure helps.

Using your time intentionally is a “superpower,” says Ally Meyers, a certified executive and positive psychology coach in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Meyers encourages time blocking, a method where you carve out chunks of time in your day for specific tasks, such as deep work on a project or responding to emails.

Prioritizing tasks can be tough when everything feels urgent. Start by setting some goals, Meyers suggests.

“Keep three top of mind as you work your way through the week, and have those be your non-negotiables,” she says.

Time blocking is also a useful tool for practicing self-care and avoiding burnout.

“We talk a lot about time management for our calendars, time management, for work. But what about time management for ourselves, just as people and humans, to decompress or release?” says Crystal Barrow, executive career and leadership coach in Stamford, Connecticut.

Make space for the things that recharge you. Go for a 20-minute walk each morning or attend a weekly yoga class. Mark yourself as unavailable on your calendar, and turn off notifications during that window.

“Take care of yourself, because if not, then ultimately you won’t be able to deliver in the way that you want to” or that your employer expects you to, Barrow says.

Turn fear into a plan

It’s normal to worry about what could go wrong in our careers, such as a layoff or getting passed over for a promotion. Planning for those what-ifs can help you feel more in control.

That might involve beefing up an emergency fund or polishing your resume.

Barrow recommends keeping a results “go bag,” a running digital file that includes your professional wins, metrics or outcomes, and positive feedback. Just don’t store it on your work computer.

“When layoffs, promotions, or new opportunities come up, you already have proof of your impact instead of scrambling to remember what you’ve done,” she says.

And if the rise of AI technology makes you feel uneasy? Start by embracing it. Learn the landscape and explore tools that could help you be more effective in your current or future role, says Brian Pulliam, a tech career coach and founder of Refactor Coaching in the Seattle area.

Think of AI like an intern, he says.

“If I had access to an intern who I trusted to go do this stuff as long as I could review it at the end, what would I delegate to it?” Pulliam says. Maybe you’d pick a marketing plan or a research topic.

Whenever you’re about to do something, ask yourself, “Is this something AI can help with?” Pulliam says.

Take small steps before big leaps

If you’re feeling stuck or unhappy at work, you may be considering quitting your job. But it’s important to regulate your emotions before making a drastic decision, Meyers says, especially in a tough job market.

“Often, we make a jump thinking that our circumstance is going to be different elsewhere,” Meyers says. “But really, it may be the way that we’re working, and it may be the environment that we are in, not necessarily the job itself.”

Reflect on what’s missing or causing you stress. Then, think about whether you can bridge the gap by building skills or having candid conversations with your team, Meyers says.

But staying put isn’t always the right move. If you decide it’s time for a change, look for low-stakes ways to make the transition.

For example, Pulliam — with a mortgage and family to support — started coaching clients part-time before leaving his job in the tech industry.

“You can learn about new fields, and talk with humans, and do some stuff on the side, and see how you like it,” he says.

Make yourself visible

Whether you’re trying to land a new job or prove your worth to your current employer, getting noticed is key.

“Communicate one visible win each week, and make sure the right people see it so you are seen, heard and valued,” Barrow says.

Making your accomplishments known can boost motivation and get you the recognition you deserve.

“If no one knows about them, then how can you get credit for it? How can you ask for the promotion or the raise?” Barrow says.

Know your audience, she adds, and communicate in a way that resonates with them. Your manager might prefer coffee chats, quick one-on-ones or status update emails, for example.

This approach can help you crush interviews, too.

Sharing lots of details about what you’re good at, and what sets you apart will make you “way more memorable than the average applicant,” Pulliam says.

Tap into your network

Professional organizations, alumni groups and other networks can connect you to mentors, job leads and career development tools.

Personally, I lean on networks for skill-building. Co-workers have sent informative webinars and online journalism courses my way.

For others, building relationships might lead to a new job.

“The last three jobs I got — Microsoft, Zillow and Coinbase — are all because of people,” Pulliam says. “It’s not because I was some brilliant person that nobody had heard of. No, I knew somebody there that helped me get in, in all three cases.”

The best way to stand out in this job market is to talk to people, Pulliam says.

You can find simple ways to build your network.

“Connect with mutual colleagues on LinkedIn. Talk to humans and see if you can have a person let you in the side door of a building through a referral of some kind,” Pulliam says.

For all the talk about automation, there’s still power in human connections.

Lauren Schwahn writes for NerdWallet. Email: lschwahn@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lauren_schwahn.

The article Surviving Burnout, Job Fears and More: 5 Tips From Career Coaches originally appeared on NerdWallet.

Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield ran on several promises: creating job opportunities for young people, improving schools, and investing in neighborhoods. 

It’s no question that her platform was appealing, as the candidate won 77% of the vote. Detroit has a lot of poverty, a significant amount of crime, and many residents are in need of better job opportunities. 

How are residents reacting to Sheffield’s victory? What do they hope she accomplishes? And, what kinds of organizing and coalition building will the new mayor have to do to live up to her promises?

Donna Givens Davidson, the president of the Eastside Community Network and a co-host of the Authentically Detroit podcast, joined The Metro to discuss.

 

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The post The Metro: Why Detroit residents are happy with Sheffield’s victory appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.

By GLENN GAMBOA, Associated Press Business Writer

NASHVILLE (AP) — In a life filled with milestones, Irving Locker celebrated a new, unexpected one last week: He became a published songwriter.

One day before his 101st birthday, “If Freedom Was Free” was released by Big Machine Label Group and CreatiVets, the Nashville-based nonprofit that helps veterans work through their traumas by building something new through the arts.

CreatiVets teamed Locker, a World War II veteran who landed at Utah Beach on D-Day, with Texas singer-songwriter Bart Crow and duo Johnny and Heidi Bulford, who also sing on the track. The chorus – “If freedom was free, there wouldn’t be a mountain of metal and men under Normandy” – includes the message Locker has used in lectures from classrooms to the White House. Freedom, he says, is not free. People should be thankful for it and for those who make it possible.

“I have to talk about things like that,” he says. “I got nothing to gain. But people have to know and appreciate the fact that they’re living because of men who died. It comes from the heart, not the lips.”

Locker, who now lives in The Villages, Florida, said the chance to write a song was an “unbelievable” thrill, one that he never dreamed possible. It means even more to him because music is such an important part of his life.

He said he and his wife of 77 years, Bernice, still go out dancing often – still doing the jitterbug and the cha-cha as they have for decades.

“You should see me on the floor even now,” said Locker, adding that he knows how lucky he is to be alive and active when so many other veterans are not.

“To be very honest with you, I was never conscious of God until the war,” he said. “But I came so close to dying that I learned how to thank God and use the simple phrase ‘But for the grace of God go I.’”

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The pardons of dozens of Republicans accused of participating in efforts to overturn the 2020 election are a continuation of President Donald Trump’s attempts to rewrite the history about his election loss.

They come months after Trump’s sweeping grant of clemency to all 1,500-plus people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was the culmination of the campaign to reverse Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Unlike the Jan. 6 pardons, the newer ones will have little legal effect. None of the people on the new pardon list had faced federal prosecution for their actions in 2020. The presidential pardon has no impact on state or civil cases.

But they send a signal to those thinking of denying future elections in Trump’s favor.

Here’s a look at some of the more prominent names who were pardoned:

Rudy Giuliani

The former New York City mayor, who was celebrated as “America’s mayor” after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, played a pivotal role in pushing Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud as the Republican’s personal lawyer in 2020. He has faced a slew of legal woes and financial setbacks for his advocacy of Trump’s false claims, including losing his law license in Washington and New York. He was criminally charged in cases brought by state prosecutors in Georgia and Arizona and pleaded not guilty. Those cases have hit roadblocks but remain unresolved and are not impacted by Trump’s pardon. Giuliani was ordered in 2023 to pay $148 million to two Georgia election workers who sued him over lies he spread about them and a reached a deal in January to resolve the debt and retain some of his property. The amount the women were set to receive was not disclosed. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing and said he was right to challenge an election he believed was tainted by fraud.

Mark Meadows

Trump’s chief of staff during the 2020 election and its aftermath, Meadows was charged in Arizona and Georgia cases and pleaded not guilty in both states. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his effort to move his case in Georgia to federal court, where a pardon would nullify his jeopardy. Meadows has contended his post-election actions were taken in his official capacity as White House chief of staff, though prosecutors and judges have disagreed. Meadows was on the phone when Trump asked Georgia’s secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, to “find” him enough votes to be declared the winner of the state.

Kenneth Chesebro

Prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, alleged that Chesebro, an attorney, worked with Georgia Republicans at the direction of Trump’s campaign to organize 16 people to sign a certificate falsely claiming that Trump won the state and that they were his “duly elected and qualified” electors. Chesebro pleaded guilty to a conspiracy count in the state case but unsuccessfully tried to withdraw his plea as the massive case against him and 17 others, including Trump, collapsed due to legal issues. Chesebro’s law license in New York state was suspended after his plea.

Jenna Ellis

A prominent conservative media figure and an attorney, Ellis also pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings in the Georgia case. She apologized in court for advising the Trump campaign on how to overturn its loss and was censured and barred from practicing law for three years in her native Colorado for her conduct in 2020.

John Eastman

A prominent conservative law professor, Eastman wrote a key memo outlining the Trump strategy of trying to reverse the president’s election loss by presenting a slate of alternate electors to Congress. Eastman faces charges in a state case filed by Arizona’s Democratic attorney general over that scheme. He was also charged in Fulton County, and the disciplinary board of the California State Bar has recommended he lose his California law license. Eastman has pleaded not guilty in the criminal cases and appealed his license suspension to California’s Supreme Court. He argues he is being punished for simply giving legal advice.

Jeffrey Clark

Clark, as a Justice Department official in the first Trump administration, drafted a letter that said the department was investigating “various irregularities” and had identified “significant concerns” that may have impacted the election in Georgia and other states. Clark wanted the letter sent to Georgia lawmakers, but Justice Department superiors refused. A Washington attorney disciplinary panel in July recommended that he be stripped of his law license, finding he made “intentionally false statements” when he continued to push for the Justice Department to issue the letter after being told by superiors that it contained falsehoods. Clark, who is now overseeing a federal regulatory office in the second Trump administration, said in a post on X on Monday: “I did nothing wrong when I questioned the 2020 election in Georgia.”

Sidney Powell

A lawyer and staunch Trump ally, Powell filed in battleground states a series of lawsuits that were rejected by courts and played a pivotal role in pushing unsubstantiated claims of fraud. Emails and documents obtained through subpoenas in one lawsuit showed Powell was involved in arranging for a computer forensics team to travel to rural Coffee County, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta, to copy data and software from elections equipment there in January 2021. She pleaded guilty in 2023 to reduced charges in the Georgia case, becoming the second defendant to reach a deal with prosecutors. She was initially charged with racketeering and six other counts but ultimately received probation after pleading guilty to six misdemeanors accusing her of conspiring to intentionally interfere with the performance of election duties.

Mechanical birds, bears and princesses have chirped, growled and sung in Orlando’s theme parks for more than 50 years. The animatronic trend shows no signs of fading, as new figures arrive in new places at Walt Disney World, and Epic Universe introduces batches of lifelike characters.

The additions range from a planned electronic version of Walt Disney at Magic Kingdom to a lumbering Frankenstein’s monster figure that debuted with Epic in May.

“People still enjoy seeing lifelike figures of their heroes, villains and others come alive,” said Dennis Speigel, CEO of International Theme Park Services. “I think this is one area that continues to evolve, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.”

Technological advances are enabling the improved illusion of the figures, said Brian Orr, show systems studio executive with Walt Disney Imagineering.

“The way that we can now simulate, the way that we now design, the way that we now can generate content for these and in style — like it is moving like the character that everybody sees and recognizes from the film … I think that’s really the appeal of like, ‘Wow, not only did I see Elsa on the ride, but I felt like it was Elsa. It moved, it performed, it looked at me,’” Orr said.

The next new animatronic at Disney World will be Benjamin Clawhauser, a cheetah character that’s part of the “Zootopia: Better Zoogether” show launching at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park on Nov. 7.

“You will see something new and unique from that figure,” Orr said.

Tiki birds, Big Al and beyond: A tour of 10 Disney World animatronics

Other planned figures include Buddy, a support-bot, in the ongoing update for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Rangers Spin at Magic Kingdom; Scooter and other Muppets in the retheming of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios; facelifts for Frozen Ever After figures at Epcot; and the addition of Walt Disney himself at the beginning of Carousel of Progress at Magic Kingdom.

These come on the heels of the first animatronic to represent Walt Disney, which debuted at Disneyland in California this summer.

“I think that has breathed a lot of life back into the animatronics and from the highest level,” Speigel said.

Figures frightening, formidable

Universal Orlando installed animatronics inside Epic Universe’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter — Ministry of Magic, Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment ride and elsewhere.

“Everyone has their normal lives that they’re going through, and that comes with people wanting to be transported,” said Gregory Hall, assistant director, creative design for Universal Creative. “We have the opportunity to bring new technology and use it for good and use it to entertain and inspire people.”

The Monsters Unchained ride is peppered with figures in action, including Dracula, Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

A crowd-pleasing scene happens in the Unchained preshow with new character Victoria Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s monster, who strides into the room. It’s a moment that prompts applause from Epic visitors, Hall said.

“That was the first time we made a figure on that scale walk,” Hall said. “And then he’s right next to Victoria, and they’re using extremely different technology.”

Another big animatronic project was the “erumpent,” a charging beast in the Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry ride.

“We’re really all about, how do we get the fastest, smoothest motion moving this giant thing?” said Anisha Vyas, director of projects for Universal Creative. “It needs to be really visceral. It needs to move really fast. It needs to be moving really fluid,” she said. “Getting it to move and stop is not hard. Getting it to look pretty and gorgeous and realistic? That’s hard.”

And the motion must be repeated for each load of passengers.

“We ensure every guest has the same experience,” Vyas said.

It all started with a bird?

The seed for Disney’s animatronics — the company trademarked the term Audio-Animatronics in the 1960s — goes back to Walt and Lillian Disney’s purchase of a miniature caged-bird decoration that tweeted. That eventually led to Enchanted Tiki Room attractions such as the one at Magic Kingdom, which opened with the park in 1971.

Animatronics got a major boost from “Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln,” developed by Disney for the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. Guests watched the faux former president give a speech, and Speigel witnessed this on a high-school trip to the event.

“When he put his arms on that chair and he stood up and talked, the whole audience, I remember, just gasped,” he said.

The 1960s technology propelled the show’s status, said Bob Rogers, chairman of BRC Imagination Arts. Otherwise, it might have been forgotten quickly, he said.

“The fact that it was just a robot, not a human, was the charm,” Rogers said.

Waiting for Walt

Fast forward to 2025 and the installation of the Walt Disney animatronic at Disneyland. “Walt Disney — A Magical Life” is temporarily taking the place of the Lincoln animatronic presentation there. Some fans have criticized the look of the new figure.

“It looks fine to me from a distance,” said Jeremiah Good, the Florida correspondent for LaughingPlace.com, “But people that were there for the opening that were in the front row filming every bit of it were going that doesn’t look a thing like Walt.”

Critics are more forgiving about animatronic looks for animated beings as opposed to actual humans, Good said. He awaits the Walt Disney figure slated to join Carousel of Progress next year.

“That is supposed to be a little bit older of a Walt, so that’ll be interesting to see,” Good said.

“I think there are some opportunities there for the point in Walt’s life,” said Imagineering’s Orr, who noted that Florida’s animatronic would be seen in shorter but more frequent bursts at Magic Kingdom than its counterpart in California. “I also think there are things just logistically about the run time of shows — if you just look at the run time of the Disneyland, the frequency of that show, versus something like Carousel of Progress that is cycling through.”

Tech talk

After pneumatic and hydraulic phases, animatronics are now settling into an all-electric era with computerized programming.

Last year, Walt Disney Imagineering gave a public peek into the process with an episode of “We Call It Imagineering” on YouTube. This preceded the debut of figures for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the retheming of Splash Mountain at both Magic Kingdom and Disneyland.

A big challenge was the development of Louis, the trumpet-toting alligator, considered one of WDI’s largest and most dynamic figures.

“There’s a lot of moving parts. “So you have all of these layers, you’ve got fabric and it all has to be in sync,” said Sonny Chapman, principal illusion maker, in the episode. Louis’ big belly, upper torso and arms must work together with the costuming, all while he’s bouncing, looking happy and blinking.

Imagineering has expanded into “stuntronics,” creating figures that can perform elaborate aerial acrobatic feats, including one dressed as Spider-Man at Disney California Adventure theme park. The company has also developed knee-high DBX droids, which made appearances at Disney’s Hollywood Studios this summer.

“They’re wonderful not just because they’re robots, but because they are animated and they are written with stories.” Rogers said. “They express emotions. They’re doing things. They get frustrated when they can’t do what they’re trying to do. … That’s just wonderful.”

Animatronics have proven, multigenerational staying power.

“A lot of our engineers went to school just to work on animated figures. … That’s their thing,” Hall said. “They’re studying their whole lives, and they make their entire lives, and it’s time for their generation to show the next generation how to pass the baton. This is one of those moments that’s even bigger than just [theme] parks.”

Vyas points to their entertainment value.

“I just think they bring so much life to the environment,” she said. “I absolutely love that at Epic Universe we’ve doubled down on that. I really think that it just takes it to the next level.”

dbevil@orlandosentinel.com

By KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writer

While driving to a new restaurant, your car’s satellite navigation system tracks your location and guides you to the destination. Onboard cameras constantly track your face and eye movements. When another car veers into your path, forcing you to slam on the brakes, sensors are assisting and recording. Waiting at a stoplight, the car notices when you unbuckle your seat belt to grab your sunglasses in the backseat.

Modern cars are computers on wheels that are becoming increasingly connected, enabling innovative new features that make driving safer and more convenient. But these systems are also collecting reams of data on our driving habits and other personal information, raising concerns about data privacy.

Here is what to know about how your car spies on you and how you can minimize it:

How cars collect data

It’s hard to figure out exactly how much data a modern car is collecting on you, according to the Mozilla Foundation, which analyzed privacy practices at 25 auto brands in 2023. It declared that cars were the worst product category that the group had ever reviewed for privacy.

The data points include all your normal interactions with the car — such as turning the steering wheel or unlocking doors — but also data from connected onboard services, like satellite radio, GPS navigation systems, connected devices, telematics systems as well as data from sensors or cameras.

Vehicle telematics systems started to become commonplace about a decade ago, and the practice of automotive data collection took off about five years ago.

The problem is not just that data is being collected but who it’s provided to, including insurers, marketing companies and shadowy data brokers. The issue surfaced earlier this year when General Motors was banned for five years from disclosing data collected from drivers to consumer reporting agencies.

The Federal Trade Commission accused GM of not getting consent before sharing the data, which included every instance when a driver was speeding or driving late at night. It was ultimately provided to insurance companies that used it to set their rates.

Be aware

The first thing drivers should do is be aware of what data their car is collecting, said Andrea Amico, founder of Privacy4Cars, an automotive privacy company.

In an ideal world, drivers would read through the instruction manuals and documentation that comes with their cars, and quiz the dealership about what’s being collected.

But it’s not always practical to do this, and manufacturers don’t always make it easy to find out, while dealership staff aren’t always the best informed, Amico said.

Privacy4Cars offers a free auto privacy labeling service at vehicleprivacyreport.com that can summarize what your car could be tracking.

Owners can punch in their car’s Vehicle Identification Number, which then pulls up the automaker’s data privacy practices, such as whether the car collects location data and whether it’s given to insurers, data brokers or law enforcement.

Tweak your settings

Data collection and tracking start as soon as you drive a new car off the dealership lot, with drivers unwittingly consenting when they’re confronted with warning menus on dashboard touch screens.

Experts say that some of the data collection is baked into the system, you can revoke your consent by going back into the menus.

“There are permissions in your settings that you can make choices about,” said Lauren Hendry Parsons of Mozilla. “Go through on a granular level and look at those settings where you can.”

For example, Toyota says on its website that drivers can decline what it calls “Master Data Consent” through the Toyota app. Ford says owners can opt to stop sharing vehicle data with the company by going through the dashboard settings menu or on the FordPass app.

BMW says privacy settings can be adjusted through the infotainment system, “on a spectrum between” allowing all services including analysis data and none at all.

You can opt out…

Drivers in the U.S. can ask carmakers to restrict what they do with their data.

Under state privacy laws, some carmakers allow owners across the United States to submit requests to limit the use of their personal data, opt out of sharing it, or delete it, Consumer Reports says. Other auto companies limit the requests to people in states with applicable privacy laws, the publication says.

You can file a request either through an online form or the carmaker’s mobile app.

You can also go through Privacy4Cars, which provides a free online service that streamlines the process. It can either point car owners to their automaker’s request portal or file a submission on behalf of owners in the U.S., Canada, the European Union, Britain and Australia.

… but there will be trade-offs

Experts warn that there’s usually a trade-off if you decide to switch off data collection.

Most people, for example, have switched to satellite navigation systems over paper maps because it’s “worth the convenience of being able to get from point A to point B really easily,” said Hendry Parsons.

Turning off location tracking could also halt features like roadside assistance or disable smartphone app features like remote door locking, Consumer Reports says.

BMW advises that if an owner opts to have no data shared at all, “their vehicle will behave like a smartphone in flight mode and will not transmit any data to the BMW back end.”

When selling your car

When the time comes to sell your car or trade it in for a newer model, it’s no longer as simple as handing over the keys and signing over some paperwork.

If you’ve got a newer car, experts say you should always do a factory reset to wipe all the data, which will also include removing any smartphone connections.

And don’t forget to notify the manufacturer about the change of ownership.

Amico said that’s important because if you trade in your vehicle, you don’t want insurers to associate it with your profile if the dealer is letting customers take it for test drives.

“Now your record may be affected by somebody else’s driving — a complete stranger that you have no relationship with.”

Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip.

This story has been corrected to show that the Mozilla representative’s first name is Lauren, not Laura.

By Gretchen McKay, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This seasonal dessert marries two Mediterranean flavors: fresh, ripe figs and sweet peaches.

The pastry crust is very forgiving and comes together in just a few minutes (though it has to be chilled for an hour).

If you have really sweet fruit, you can cut back on the amount of sugar in the filling; if it’s on the under-ripe side, increase it.

The recipe calls for demerara sugar (a partially refined raw cane sugar characterized by its large, light-brown crystals) but you can substitute another large-crystal sugar like turbinado.

Equally delicious warm or at room temperature, the tart can be served with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream for a touch of pizzazz. Also great with your morning coffee!

Fig and Peach Tart

PG tested

Figs are in season from late summer to early fall. You usually can find them at specialty groceries like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.

For pastry

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more to dust

1/4 cup demerara sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

1 extra-large egg yolk (reserve white for glazing)

1 tablespoon cold water

For filling

2 ripe and sweet small peaches

5 ripe figs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 cup demerara sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

For glaze

1 extra-large egg white, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons demerara sugar

Make pastry: Place flour, sugar, salt and butter in a large bowl and rub together with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Lightly beat egg yolk and cold water, then add to the bowl, using your hands to lightly knead everything together into a soft ball of dough.

Wrap in plastic wrap and transfer to the fridge for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Slice peaches into 3/4 -inch-thick slices, removing the pits, and quarter the figs. Place the fruit in a bowl and toss with the vanilla, cinnamon, lemon juice, demarara sugar and cornstarch.

Place a sheet of parchment paper on a work surface and put the ball of pastry on it. Lightly flour a rolling pin and use it to roll out the pastry into a circle around 1/4 -inch thick and 14 inches in diameter. Don’t worry if edges are rough. If pastry starts coming apart, just squish it back together with your fingers.

Place parchment paper with the dough on baking sheet, and arrange peach and fig slices in the center of the circle, leaving a 2-inch border. (Either pile all in the middle or make a pattern with circles.)

Fold the edges of the pastry over the fruit. Use your finger to bring the pasty together where you have gaps.

Use a pastry brush to lightly coat the top of the pasty with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for around 40 minutes, until the top of the pastry is an even dark golden-brown color. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 1 tart.

— “Ripe Figs: Recipes and Stories from Turkey, Greece and Cyprus” by Yasmin Khan

©2025 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Arthur Allen, KFF Health News

VENICE, Fla. — MAGA and MAHA are happily married in Florida, and nowhere more at home than in Sarasota County, where on a humid October night a crowd of several hundred gathered to honor state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, his wife, and an unlicensed Canadian radiologist who treats cancer with horse paste.

The event, titled “The 3 Big C’s: Courage, Censorship & Cancer,” was sponsored by the We the People Health and Wellness Center, a clinic, funded by a Jan. 6 marcher, where patients can bask in red light, sit in ozone-infused steam baths, or get their children treated for autism with an experimental blood concentrate.

In Venice, in Sarasota County, a “medical freedom” movement forged in opposition to COVID lockdowns blends wellness advocates, vaccine-haters, right-wing Republicans, and angry parents in a stew of anti-government absolutism and mystical belief.

Ladapo’s wife, Brianna, a self-proclaimed “spiritual healer” who says she speaks with angels and has prophetic visions, chaired a panel at the event at the Venice Community Center. The keynote speech was by William Makis, a litigious COVID conspiracist who, after losing his medical license in 2019, has made a living treating cancer patients with antiparasitic drugs including ivermectin, which was also championed in some circles as a COVID treatment during the pandemic.

Clinical trials showed that ivermectin didn’t work, but COVID skeptics viewed medicine’s rejection of it as part of a conspiracy by Big Pharma against a cheap, off-patent drug. Some of the patients in his care have what he calls “turbo cancers,” Makis says, blaming alleged impurities in mRNA vaccines that he says have killed millions of people.

For Makis, it’s all one big conspiracy — the virus, the vaccine, and the suppression of his therapies.

Brianna Ladapo has her own take on medicine, based on the idea of good and bad spiritual energy. She wrote in a memoir that as the pandemic began she intuited that it had been planned by “sinister forces” to “frighten the masses to surrender their sovereignty to a small group of tyrannical elites.” She has written that the government hides vaccination’s risks.

She sees “dark forces” all over the place, including, she said in a podcast interview earlier this year, in “chemtrails” shaped like a pentagram. “They’ve been plastering it in the sky right outside our house for the last few weeks,” Ladapo said. The chemtrails “they are dumping on us,” she said, had sickened her and her three sons. “The dark side are no fans of ours.”

(“Chemtrails” are a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists who say they think that contrails, the condensation formed around commercial airplane exhaust, contain toxic substances poisoning people and the terrain. Although there is zero evidence of that, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to look into whether they are part of a clandestine effort to use toxic chemicals to change the weather.)

Ladapo’s husband hasn’t publicly endorsed all her beliefs, but as surgeon general he’s reversing decades of accepted public health practice in Florida and embracing untested therapies. “We’re done with fear,” Joseph Ladapo said after being named surgeon general in 2021. He wants to ban mRNA vaccines in Florida, and on Sept. 3 he announced plans to end childhood vaccination mandates in the state.

A few days after the Venice event, Ladapo said he hoped to support Makis’ work — though his treatments are unproven and potentially dangerous — through a new $60 million cancer research fund created by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife, Casey.

Vic Mellor, CEO of a local concrete business, founded and owns We the People. He’s an associate of retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was briefly President Donald Trump’s national security adviser in 2017 before being dismissed for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians. Trump later pardoned him, and Flynn since has become a leader of the Christian nationalist movement.

We the People provides vitamin shots but no vaccines. In fact, many of its offerings are treatments for supposed vaccine injuries. Part of the We the People building is a broadcasting studio, where conservatives hold forth on what they see as the villainy of liberals and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Mellor was at the U.S. Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021 — he said he “just knocked on front doors,” according to a Facebook post described by The Washington Post. He returned home and started building a 10-acre complex that hosts weddings and right-wing assemblies, with playgrounds, a butterfly garden, a zip line over a pond visited by alligators, and an attached, separately owned gun range.

Visitors who travel down a dirt road to The Hollow — named for the hollow-core concrete that made Mellor wealthy — can enter the compound through a dark, cavernous passage lined with neon signs illuminating maxims from the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Flynn.

The Hollow has hosted clinics for unvaccinated kids and events for Ladapo, anti-vaccine activist Sherri Tenpenny (who in 2021 told legislators at an Ohio House hearing that COVID vaccine made people magnetic), and other “medical freedom” advocates. Mellor created a medical home for such ideas by opening We the People in 2023.

The year before, three “medical freedom” candidates had won seats on the board overseeing Sarasota’s public hospital and health care system, after protests over the hospital’s refusal to treat COVID patients with ivermectin and other drugs of choice for COVID contrarians.

On a recent afternoon at The Hollow, manager Dan Welch was clearing brush when approached by KFF Health News. As a foe of vaccinations, he welcomed Ladapo’s move to end vaccine mandates. “Maybe in their inception, vaccines were created to prevent what they were supposed to prevent,” Welch said. “But now there’s so much more in there, the metals, aluminum, mercury. Since they started vaccination, the autism rate went through the roof, and I believe these vaccines are part of it.”

The theory that vaccines cause autism has been debunked, and manufacturers removed mercury from childhood vaccines 24 years ago, although Welch said he doesn’t believe it.

Vaccination faces additional challenges in a century-old Sarasota County neighborhood of low-slung bungalows called Pinecraft, home to about 3,000 Mennonites — and double that number when Amish snowbirds arrive in the winter. Pastor Timothy Miller said that while Sarasota’s Mennonites are less culturally isolated than the Mennonite community in West Texas, site of a measles outbreak in January, many in his community also shun vaccination.

His cousin Kristi Miller, 26, won’t vaccinate her 9-month-old daughter or any of the other children she hopes to have, she said, because she thinks vaccines probably cause autism and other harms.

As for vaccine-preventable diseases like measles, she doesn’t worry about them. Like the Ladapos, “I don’t live in fear,” she said. “I have a God who’s bigger than everything.”

(KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

This fall, multiple appliances in my home announced they were done: A water line inside my washer broke, my dryer began requiring multiple cycles to dry a load, and my hair straightener stopped getting hot enough to do its job.

The only silver lining? Solid holiday sales start in October and get really good in November.

As a personal finance expert, I came up with a shopping strategy: I would select the appliances I wanted to buy before the October sales began, track the prices through Black Friday and buy as soon as those prices dipped to their lowest point.

I estimate leveraging holiday sales to buy my household necessities could save me several hundred dollars.

Samantha Gordon, the deals editor at Consumer Reports, confirmed the logic of my strategy.

“My biggest piece of advice for anybody is to never buy anything not on sale,” she says. And in November, she adds, “Everything goes on sale.”

With some planning, you can leverage the season’s discounts for your own needs.

Make your list early

Research exactly which products you want before the sales start so you can make an informed decision when the discounts begin, Gordon says.

She suggests tracking prices now so you know what constitutes an actual discount versus simply an advertised sale.

“You want to know what the price is on an average day,” Gordon says, adding that price-tracking tools, such as Keepa, CamelCamelCamel.com and PayPal Honey, can help you.

Andrea Woroch, a money-saving expert who shares budgeting tips on her website, has been doing just that. Like me, she has a list of household products — including a vacuum and new fridge — that she hopes to buy during the holiday sales.

“Set a sale alert for an item you want to track so you don’t miss a limited-time, early deal,” she suggests. Shopping apps like Karma and CamelCamelCamel will send a price drop alert right to your inbox.

If you plan to shop at a specific store, Woroch says to sign up for free loyalty programs. That may get you free shipping, rewards for purchases and extra coupons.

Consider everyday household items

Big-ticket items aren’t the only things marked down this time of year. Everyday essentials, such as paper products and makeup, also go on sale.

Trae Bodge, a shopping expert at TrueTrae.com who is based in the New York area, takes advantage of those discounts. During the October sales, she bought brow gel, pretzels, a new fireplace screen and an inflatable travel mattress.

Bodge estimates she saved between 10% to 30% on each item, and stacked that savings with cash back through a browser extension.

Avoid frenzied buying

Of course, all these discounts can also translate into wayward buys.

While it can be a good idea to buy a discounted item for next year now, Woroch cautions against overspending.

“Just make sure you can afford the purchase when you buy it. You don’t want to add to your spending load so much that you can’t pay off your card,” she says, because that can lead to interest charges.

In some cases, 0% financing deals may also be available during sales events, allowing you to spread out payments without interest accruing, she adds.

The washer and dryer set will be my biggest purchase, which is why I’ve taken time to plan for it.

Lock in seasonal savings

October was good, but I’m holding out for Black Friday sales: The hair appliance I plan to purchase — a Beachwaver rotating curling iron — normally retails for $99, but dipped to just under $70 right before the October sales hit.

I was tempted to hit “buy” until I checked the price history on CamelCamelCamel.com. I saw that last Black Friday, the price went all the way down to $49. So I’m waiting, hoping the low price repeats itself again this year. If it does, I’ll save about $50.

For our washer and dryer combo, I selected the LG ThinQ model after combing through online reviews. While it’s currently marked down about $500, I expect an even better deal during the Black Friday sales.

Research shows that appliance prices typically dip during Black Friday, with deals announced ahead of time. So I’m keeping my eye out and will make my purchase when I see sales roll out. It’s a bit of a gamble — because I could save $500 now — but I’m hopeful.

The bottom line? Using seasonal sales to buy necessities can save you cash, which we can all use right now.

Kimberly Palmer writes for NerdWallet. Email: kpalmer@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @kimberlypalmer.

The article How a Personal Finance Expert Leverages Holiday Sales for Household Necessities originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By GERALD IMRAY, Associated Press

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump says that his government will boycott the Group of 20 summit this month in South Africa over his claims that a white minority group there is being violently persecuted. Those claims have been widely rejected.

Trump announced Friday on social media that no U.S. government official will attend the Nov. 22-23 summit in Johannesburg “as long as these Human Rights abuses continue.” South Africa’s Black-led government has been a regular target for Trump since he returned to office.

In February, Trump issued an executive order stopping U.S. financial assistance to South Africa, citing its treatment of the Afrikaner white minority. His administration has also prioritized Afrikaners for refugee status in the U.S. and says they will be given most of the 7,500 places available this fiscal year.

The South African government — and some Afrikaners themselves — say Trump’s claims of persecution are baseless.

Descendants of European settlers

Afrikaners are South Africans who are descended mainly from Dutch but also French and German colonial settlers who first came to the country in the 17th century.

Afrikaners were at the heart of the apartheid system of white minority rule from 1948-1994, leading to decades of hostility between them and South Africa’s Black majority. But Afrikaners are not a homogenous group, and some fought against apartheid. There are an estimated 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa’s population of 62 million.

Afrikaners are divided over Trump’s claims. Some say they face discrimination, but a group of leading Afrikaner business figures and academics said in an open letter last month that “the narrative that casts Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution in post-apartheid South Africa” is misleading.

Afrikaners’ Dutch-derived language is widely spoken in South Africa and is one of the country’s 12 official languages. Afrikaners are represented in every aspect of society. Afrikaners are some of South Africa’s richest entrepreneurs and some of its most successful sports stars, and also serve in government. Most are largely committed to South Africa’s multiracial democracy.

Trump claims they’re being ‘killed and slaughtered’

Trump asserted that Afrikaners “are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated.” The president’s comments are in reference to a relatively small number of attacks on Afrikaner farmers that he and others claim are racially motivated.

Trump has also pointed to a highly contentious law introduced by the South African government that allows land to be appropriated from private owners without compensation. Some Afrikaners fear that law is aimed at removing them from their land in favor of South Africa’s poor Black majority. Many South Africans, including opposition parties, have criticized the law, but it hasn’t led to land confiscations.

Trump first made baseless claims of widespread killing of white South African farmers and land seizures during his first term in response to allegations aired on conservative media personality Tucker Carlson’s former show on Fox News. Trump ordered then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into the allegations, but nothing came of any investigation.

South Africa rejects the claims

The South African government said in response to Trump’s social media post that his claims were “not substantiated by fact.” It has said that Trump’s criticism of South Africa over Afrikaners is a result of misinformation because it misses the context that Black farmers and farmworkers are also killed in rural attacks, which make up a tiny percentage of the country’s high violent crime rate.

There were more than 26,000 homicides in South Africa in 2024. Of those, 37 were farm murders, according to an Afrikaner lobby group that tracks them. Experts on rural attacks in South Africa have said the overriding motive for the violent farm invasions is robbery and not race.

Other pressure on South Africa

Trump said it is a “total disgrace” that the G20 summit — a meeting of the leaders of the 19 top rich and developing economies, the European Union and the African Union — is being held in South Africa. He had already said he wouldn’t attend, and Vice President JD Vance was due to go in his place. The U.S. will take on the rotating presidency of the G20 after South Africa.

Trump also said in a speech last week that South Africa should be thrown out of the G20.

Trump’s criticism of Africa’s most developed economy has gone beyond the issue of Afrikaners. His executive order in February said South Africa had taken “aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies,” specifically with its decision to accuse Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza at the United Nations’ top court.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boycotted a G20 foreign ministers meeting in South Africa in February after deriding the host country’s G20 slogan of “solidarity, equality and sustainability” as “DEI and climate change.”

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa