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Tag: U.S. News

  • Rubio Details How the Trump Administration Will Control Venezuela’s Oil Money

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration soon will allow Venezuela to sell oil now subject to U.S. sanctions, with the revenue initially dedicated to basic government services such as policing and health care and subject to Washington’s oversight, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday.

    “The funds from that will be deposited into an account that we will have oversight over,” Rubio said, adding that the U.S. Treasury would control the process. Venezuela, he said, “will spend that money for the benefit of the Venezuelan people.”

    The U.S. will not subsidize oil industry investments in Venezuela, Rubio said, and is only overseeing the sale of sanctioned petroleum as an “interim step.”

    “This is simply a way to divide revenue so that there isn’t systemic collapse while we work through this recovery and transition,” Rubio said.

    “You are taking their oil at gunpoint, you are holding and selling that oil … you’re deciding how and for what purposes that money is going to be used in a country of 30 million people,” Murphy said. “I think a lot of us believe that that is destined for failure.”

    Under Maduro, Rubio said Venezuela’s oil industry benefited the country’s corrupt leaders and countries such as China, which purchased Venezuelan oil at a discount. Now, Venezuela’s interim leaders are assisting the U.S. in seizing illegal oil shipments, he said.

    The U.S. will give Venezuela’s current leaders instructions on how the money can and cannot be spent and conduct audits to ensure it is used as intended, Rubio said. He said Venezuela could use the money to pay for policing or to buy medicine.

    The fund was initially set up in Qatar to avoid having the proceeds seized by American creditors and because of other legal complications that stem from the U.S. not considering Maduro’s government legitimate, Rubio said.

    Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been set aside and as much as $3 billion more is anticipated, he said.

    “It’s an account that belongs to Venezuela, but it has U.S. sanctions as a blocking mechanism,” Rubio said. “We only control the dispersal of the money, we don’t control the actual money.”

    Earlier this month, acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez said cash from oil sales would flow into two sovereign wealth funds: one to support crisis-stricken health services and a second to bolster public infrastructure, including the electric grid.

    The country’s hospitals are so poorly equipped that patients are asked to provide supplies needed for their care, from syringes to surgical screws. They also must pay for lab and imaging tests at private hospitals.

    On Tuesday, during a televised event to announce the revamping of various health care facilities, Rodríguez said her government and the U.S. administration “have established respectful and courteous channels of communication” since Maduro was captured.

    Neither Rodríguez nor her government’s press office immediately comment on Rubio’s remarks Wednesday.

    At Rodríguez’s request, Venezuelan lawmakers last week began debating an overhaul of the country’s energy law. The proposed changes are meant to create conditions to attract much-needed private foreign investment.

    Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela.

    Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – January 2026

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  • Top aide to former NYC Mayor Eric Adams took bribe of diamond earrings: Prosecutors

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    NEW YORK — Prosecutors have accused a top aide to former New York City Mayor Eric Adams of accepting diamond earrings from two real estate developers, then pressuring city regulators to expedite their construction projects, despite safety concerns.

    In court papers filed Tuesday, prosecutors in Manhattan offered new details about one of several bribery schemes they say was carried out by Ingrid Lewis-Martin, a close confidant of Adams who once served as the second-most powerful person in city government.

    She resigned in late 2024 shortly before she and her son were charged with raking in over $100,000 in bribes from the two developers, Raizada Vaid and Mayank Dwivedi. All four have pleaded not guilty.

    Lewis-Martin was then hit with a separate set of bribery charges in August, alleging she traded political favors — including nixing a planned bike lane and steering shelter contracts toward a favored developer — for cash, home renovations and even a speaking role on the TV show “Godfather of Harlem.” She has also pleaded not guilty to those allegations.

    An attorney for Lewis-Martin has maintained that she was only helping her constituents cut through red tape.

    The latest filing expands on the initial charges brought against Lewis-Martin and her son, Glenn D. Martin II, who performs under the stage name DJ Suave Luciano.

    Shortly after meeting with Vaid and Dwivedi in 2022, Lewis-Martin received a set of 2-carat diamond earrings worth around $3,000 from the developers, according to the new court filing.

    Lewis-Martin then pressured city regulators to speed up approvals for the developers’ projects, prosecutors allege. In one case, she urged the acting commissioner of the Department of Buildings to approve the proposed renovation of a Manhattan hotel owned by Vaid, despite “legitimate safety concerns” raised by building inspectors, prosecutors said.

    After city regulators agreed to expedite the application, Lewis-Martin texted her son indicating that Vaid would have him “completely covered. You(r) fashion line is 100 percent,” according to the court filing. Vaid also promised to help Martin II open a Chick-fil-A franchise, prosecutors said.

    In an email, an attorney for Lewis-Martin, Arthur Aidala, criticized the length of the filing, without addressing its substance.

    “We look forward to submitting our robust reply to the prosecutor’s desperate 170 page answer to our motion to dismiss,” Aidala said. “It is the longest answer to a motion we have ever seen and that speaks volumes about their insecurity in their case.”

    Inquiries to attorneys for Martin II, Vaid and Dwivedi were not returned.

    The case against Lewis-Martin, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, first emerged amid a period of overlapping scandals for the Adams’ administration. It is unrelated to Adams’ own indictment on federal corruption charges, which was dismissed last year by the Justice Department. Adams is not accused of any wrongdoing in Lewis-Martin’s case.

    A spokesperson for Adams did not respond to an inquiry about the latest allegations against Lewis-Martin.

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  • Google adds AI image generation to Chrome, side panel option for virtual assistant

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    Google is empowering its Chrome browser with the ability to alter imagery and a virtual assistant to help with online tasks as part of its push to turbocharge its digital services with more artificial intelligence technology.

    The features rolling out include making Google’s AI image generator and editing tool, Nano Banana, available to Chrome’s logged-in users on desktop computers in the United States. The expanded access to Nano Banana through the leading web browser may further blur the lines between real-life pictures and fabricated images.

    The browser’s expansion will also offer an option for Chrome’s U.S. users to open a side panel so an AI-powered assistant can help with an assortment of chores while a user remains engaged with other online tasks.

    Subscribers to Google’s AI Pro and Ultra services will also be able to activate an “auto browse” function that will log into websites, shop for merchandise on command and prepare posts on social media. Users will still have to manually complete purchases from the shopping carts prepared by AI and approve drafted social media posts.

    The AI in Chrome relies on the Gemini 3 model that Google released late last year and is now being baked into many of the services that helped its corporate parent, Alphabet, recently surpass a market value of $4 trillion.

    Earlier this month, Google tapped into Gemini to bring more AI features to Gmail as part of an effort to make that service behave more like a personal assistant and then funneled more of the technology into its search engine. in hopes of providing more relevant answers tailored to users’ individual tastes and habits.

    The upgrades to Google’s search engine plug into the company’s “Personal Intelligence” technology that leverages AI to learn more about people’s lives. Google is promising to roll out a Personal Intelligence option in Chrome at some point later this year.

    Chrome’s AI makeover is rolling out just a few months after a federal judge rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s push to force Google to sell the browser as part of the penalty for running an illegal monopoly in search. The judge rebuffed the proposed breakup partly because he believes AI already is reshaping the competitive landscape as smaller rivals such as OpenAI and Perplexity deploy the technology in chatbots and their own web browsers.

    Before releasing its AI browser Atlas last October, OpenAI had expressed interest in buying Chrome if the breakup had been ordered. Perplexity, which offers an AI browser called Comet, even submitted a $34.5 billion bid for Chrome before the judge opted against a sale mandate.

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  • It’s one storm after another for much of the US, but the next one’s path is uncertain

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    HOUSTON — HOUSTON (AP) — Winter’s brutal grip on the U.S. East is not letting up, with coming days bringing subfreezing temperatures that will plunge deep into what had been a toasty Florida peninsula and a powerful blizzard forecast that may strike the Atlantic coast.

    Deep cold is forecast to stick around at least into the first week of February. Meteorologists are also watching what could become a “ bomb cyclone ” — a quickly intensifying storm that’s a winter version of a hurricane — forming off the Carolinas Friday night into Saturday.

    “A major winter storm appears to be coming to the Carolinas,” said meteorologist Peter Mullinax of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center.

    That storm could dump snow — at least 6 inches (15 centimeters) with white-out conditions — in the Carolinas, northern Georgia and southern Virginia. After that, it could turn and plow through the Interstate 95 corridor late Saturday into Sunday to dump loads more snow from Washington to Boston, further paralyzing much of the country. Or it could deliver a glancing blow, mostly striking places like Cape Cod.

    Alternatively, it could just veer off harmlessly to sea. Meteorologists and forecast models aren’t yet settling on a single outcome.

    “The confidence is much higher that in the coastal Carolinas and Virginia that there will be significant snowfall this weekend,” said James Belanger, vice president for meteorology at the Weather Channel and its parent company. “The real question is going to be the trajectory it takes” from there.

    Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist, said for the mid-Atlantic and north it’s a “boom or bust” situation. “If it happens (to go along the coast) it’s going to be a big-time event.”

    On Tuesday forecast models were all over the place, from out to sea to inward toward Philadelphia. By Wednesday morning they started to agree that “we’re likely to see some form of a powerful coastal storm somewhere east of North Carolina, off the Delmarva coast, but they still disagree as to where,” Mullinax said.

    Chances of the storm veering away from the East Coast entirely had diminished Wednesday morning, but hadn’t disappeared altogether, Mullinax said.

    Of all the options, “from D.C. up to New York is probably the most unclear,” Mullinax said. He said a mere 50-mile (80-kilometer) difference in the storm’s center will be critical. AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski said it may be hard for the southern mid-Atlantic to avoid some kind of snow, whether a little or a lot.

    This weekend’s storm will differ from the previous storm, which started with moist air from the Pacific that combined with a deep plunge of Arctic air from an elongated polar vortex supplemented by more moisture from the south and east, meteorologists said. The last storm had little wind. This one will generate high winds, even if the snow misses the Washington area, generating gusts that could still reach 40 mph (65 kph), plunging wind chills near subzero Fahrenheit (minus 18 Celsius), Mullinax said.

    “It looks like a pretty strong and explosive storm so everybody is going to have some gusty winds,” Pydynowski said, even inland places that won’t come close to getting snow like Pittsburgh. Strong winds may take daytime temperatures in the teens there down to feeling like they are below zero, he said.

    “This is what we’d consider more of a classic nor’easter,” Belanger said, describing a storm forming around the U.S. Gulf Coast crossing into the Atlantic and going up that coast.

    In this case, one key is warmer-than-normal water in the Gulf of Mexico — partly from human-caused climate change — and the always toasty Atlantic Gulf Stream, said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist for the nonprofit Climate Central.

    When that happens the storm “pulls in more moisture and it gives it more strength,” she said.

    Once the core of the storm nears the Carolinas its pressure will drop tremendously, enough to qualify for what meteorologists call “bombogenesis” or “a bomb cyclone,” That will give it the effect of a moderate-strength hurricane, including huge winds, but in the winter, Maue and Belanger said.

    If the storm does come ashore, those winds and extra snow could cause massive snow drifts big enough to bury cars, Maue said.

    What is more certain is that the Arctic chill in the Midwest and East will continue through mid-February, with only slight warmups that would still be below normal, meteorologists said.

    And this new weekend storm “is going to take that cold and it’s going to spill right down the heart of the Florida peninsula,” Pydynowski said. Orlando is forecast to go well below freezing and only have a high of 48 F (9 C), smashing temperature records, while even Miami and Key West will flirt with record cold Sunday and Monday, meteorologists said.

    The outlook for Florida was cold enough to raise concerns about damage to the state’s citrus and strawberries.

    “We’re going into a brutally cold period,” Maue said.

    After this weekend storm, long-range models see another one at the end of the first week of February, Maue said. Meteorologists see the East stuck in a pattern of bitter cold and snowstorms because of the plunging Arctic air and warm water.

    East Coast snowstorms don’t happen too often, but “when it happens, it happens in bunches,” said former National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini, who has written meteorology textbooks on winter snowstorms.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Detainees to testify about legal access at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

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    FORT MYERS, Fla. — Former detainees planned to testify Wednesday about conditions at an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” as a federal judge considers during a two-day hearing whether they are getting sufficient access to the legal system.

    Civil rights attorneys representing the detainees were seeking a temporary injunction from U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell in Fort Myers that would ensure that detainees at the state-run Everglades facility get the same access to their attorneys as they do at federally-run detention centers. The Everglades facility was built last summer at a remote airstrip by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.

    The detainees’ lawsuit claims that their First Amendment rights are being violated. They say their attorneys have to make an appointment to visit three days in advance, unlike at other immigration detention facilities where lawyers can just show up during visiting hours; that detainees often are transferred to other facilities after their attorneys had made an appointment to see them; and that scheduling delays have been so lengthy that detainees were unable to meet with attorneys before key deadlines.

    “Access to counsel at Alligator Alcatraz is dramatically more restrictive than at other immigration facilities and runs afoul of the requirements that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has in place for detention facilities,” the civil rights attorneys wrote in their request for an injunction.

    State officials who are defendants in the lawsuit denied restricting the detainees’ access to their attorneys and said any protocols were in place for security reasons and to make sure there was sufficient staffing. Federal officials who also are defendants said that no First Amendment rights were being violated.

    “Moreover, any Alligator Alcatraz policy regarding attorney-detainee communications is valid so long as it reasonably relates to legitimate penological interest,” they wrote.

    Among those expected to testify Wednesday was Juan Lopez Vega, deputy field office director of ICE’s enforcement and removal operations in Miami, who unsuccessfully tried to quash a subpoena compelling him to show up in court on Wednesday.

    The case over access to the legal system was one of three federal lawsuits challenging practices at the immigration detention center. Another lawsuit brought by detainees in federal court in Fort Myers argued that immigration was a federal issue, and Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state had no authority to operate the facility under federal law. That lawsuit ended earlier this month after the immigrant detainee who filed the case agreed to be removed from the United States.

    In the third lawsuit, a federal judge in Miami last summer ordered the facility to wind down operations over two months because officials had failed to do a review of the detention center’s environmental impact. But an appellate court panel put that decision on hold for the time being, allowing the facility to stay open.

    ___

    Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.

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  • Video shows flames flying from NASA plane that touched down without landing gear

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    A NASA research plane malfunctioned and had to touch down in Texas without landing gear on Tuesday, sliding across the runway on its belly and sending plumes of flame behind it, a video posted to social media showed.

    The crew landed the plane at Ellington Airport, southeast of Houston, and are “all safe at this time,” NASA said in a post on X. The federal space agency added that there was “mechanical issue” that will be investigated.

    The aircraft with its distinct thin fuselage is the NASA WB-57. The plane with two crew seats is capable of flying for about 6 1/2 hours at high altitudes — beyond 63,000 feet (19,200 meters).

    Video shows the plane slowly descending toward the runway, then touching down with a jolt, its wings bouncing as yellow fire and white smoke bursts from beneath it. It steadily slides down the track, the flames bursting and disappearing in a cloud of smoke. The aircraft begins to slow before the video ends.

    Local news footage from KHOU 11 shows the plane at a stop, the cockpit hatch open, fire trucks flashing nearby and emergency responders working around the black nose of the aircraft.

    The NASA WB-57 has flown research missions since the 1970s and continues to be an asset for the scientific community, according to the agency’s website.

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  • Another strike sends 31,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers to picket lines

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    OAKLAND, Calif. — An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers launched an open-ended strike this week in California and Hawaii to demand better wages and staffing from the health care giant.

    The picketing that began Monday marked the second major walkout in recent months by employees represented by the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals. A five-day strike in October ended with negotiations resuming, but talks broke down in December.

    This week the union accused Kaiser of refusing to return to national bargaining discussions.

    “We will continue to push Kaiser to stop their egregious unfair labor practices against the frontline workers who deliver the best care for their patients and billions in profit to do the right thing, and come back to the table to bargain in good faith,” the union bargaining committee said in a statement.

    Kaiser said Sunday that the union had agreed to return to local bargaining, even as workers moved forward with the strike. The company said it paused national bargaining last month after what it described as a threatening incident involving a union official.

    “Illegal threats are a line that cannot be crossed,” Greg Holmes, Kaiser’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement. “This union official’s actions have compromised the national bargaining process and undermined both parties’ ability to continue good-faith bargaining.”

    Those on strike, including pharmacists, midwives and rehab therapists, say wages have not kept pace with inflation and there is not enough staffing to keep up with patient demand.

    They are asking for a 25% wage increase over four years to make up for wages they say are at least 7% behind their peers.

    Kaiser Permanente had countered with a 21.5% increase over four years. The company says that represented employees earn, on average, 16% more than their peers, and it would have to charge customers more to meet strikers’ pay demand.

    Arezou Mansourian, a physician assistant on the bargaining team, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Kaiser has been unable to retain and recruit providers, which is impacting patient care. Medical staff have been leaving Kaiser for higher-paying jobs at other local hospitals, Mansourian said.

    She said the union’s fight for better working conditions will ultimately help patients as well.

    “We know it’s a pain right now, but it’s so that we can take care of you better in the future,” Mansourian told the Chronicle.

    The company said health clinics and hospitals will remain open during the strike, with some in-person appointments shifted to virtual appointments, and some elective surgeries and procedures being rescheduled.

    Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, serving 12.6 million members at 600 medical offices and 40 hospitals in largely western U.S. states. It is based in Oakland, California.

    In New York City, about 15,000 nurses who walked off the job headed back to the bargaining table earlier this month. The New York State Nurses Association said contract negotiations resumed with officials at the three private hospital systems impacted by the strike: Montefiore, Mount Sinai and New York-Presbyterian.

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  • Not ready for robots at home? Friendly new humanoid maker thinks it may change minds

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    NEW YORK — As the new robot called Sprout walks around a Manhattan office, nodding its rectangular head, lifting its windshield wiper-like “eyebrows” and offering to shake your hand with its grippers, it looks nothing like the sleek and intimidating humanoids built by companies like Tesla.

    Sprout’s charm is the point. A 5-year-old child could comfortably talk at eye level with this humanoid, which stands 3.5 feet (1 meter) tall and wears a soft, padded exterior of sage-green foam.

    Forged by stealth startup Fauna Robotics over two years of secret research and development, Sprout’s public debut on Tuesday aims to jump-start a whole new industry of building “approachable” robots for homes, schools and social spaces.

    The robot is in many ways the first of its kind, at least in the United States, even as rapid advances in artificial intelligence and robot engineering have finally made it possible to start building such machines. If its emotive expressions and blinking lights seem vaguely familiar, it might be from generations of Star Wars droids and other endearingly clunky robotic sidekicks dreamed up in animation studios and children’s literature.

    “Most people in this industry take inspiration from the science fiction that we grew up with,” said Fauna Robotics co-founder and CEO Rob Cochran. “I think some do so from ‘Westworld’ and ‘Terminator.’ We do from WALL-E and Baymax and Rosie Jetson.”

    The usual hypothesis for the commercialization of humanoid robots is that they will get their first jobs in warehouses or factories long before they are ready for homes. That’s the path proposed for two of today’s best-known prototypes: Tesla’s Optimus, which CEO Elon Musk sees as the carmaker’s future, and Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, which parent company Hyundai plans to deploy in car manufacturing by 2028.

    Fauna looks to skip that step for an entirely different clientele: other robot tinkerers. Much as early personal computers and, later, smartphones sparked a culture of developers designing new games and applications, Sprout is a software developer platform more than just a robot. It’s also a mechanically complex one that will cost buyers $50,000.

    That’s a price some university research labs and technology entrepreneurs are already spending on China’s Unitree, which sells a lightweight humanoid often seen at robotics conferences and competitions. Others have avoided Chinese hardware due to tariffs and broader security concerns.

    Cochran believes Fauna is “the first American company to be actively shipping robots as a developer platform” and has been hand-delivering the first models. Early customers include Disney and Boston Dynamics.

    “You take it out of the box and you can start walking it around immediately,” said Marc Theermann, chief strategy officer at Boston Dynamics, in a recent interview. “Seeing their robot for the first time really lets you see the future a little bit. And if you squint, you can see how a robot like that would be welcomed into people’s homes.”

    Sprout can’t lift heavy objects, but it can dance the Twist or the Floss, grab a toy block or teddy bear, or hoist itself from a chair to take a long stroll along the wood floors of Fauna’s headquarters in New York City’s Flatiron District.

    Cochran and co-founder Josh Merel, the company’s chief technology officer, demonstrated the robot to The Associated Press in mid-January ahead of its public launch. Fauna employees and an AP reporter piloted the robot, using a video game controller, a phone application and a virtual-reality headset. Sprout also knows the office layout enough to be sent on a planned mission, such as to check out the inventory of the break room refrigerator.

    It walks slowly but steadily on uneven ground. Only once it came close to tripping, taking a sharp turn to avoid a person and instead hitting its foot on a protruding table wheel too low to the ground to be seen by Sprout’s camera eyes. But the robot, built to handle what engineers call perturbation, quickly recovered its balance and kept walking, much like a clumsy person might.

    “If you step in front of it, it won’t crash into you, it’ll plan a new path around you,” said Ana Pervan, a Fauna research scientist who works on the robot’s mapping and navigation. Among the first batch of Fauna’s 50 employees, and a fan of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, she previously worked on self-driving cars but was excited about joining a startup building something that might one day serve as a robot butler.

    “It’s cute, and it’s not too humanoid, and I think that actually makes it a lot more fun,” Pervan said. “It’s not verging on creepy or trying to be too human. It’s like your buddy, your pal, that’s a different thing than you.”

    Starting a robot company can be unforgiving, especially one designing personal robots. One of the few successes, Roomba vacuum maker iRobot, had a decades-long run before filing for bankruptcy protection last month.

    Most others didn’t last that long, like Anki, maker of the playful toy robot Cozmo, or Jibo, which went out of business less than a year after its dynamic talking speaker made the cover of Time Magazine’s 2017 “best inventions” edition.

    “There were a lot of really brilliant attempts. I think the technology wasn’t quite there,” Cochran said. “I do think we’re right on the precipice now where you could build a companion that is present, engaging, delightful to be around, and can also move around a space in a way that nothing ever has before.”

    Merel, an expert in robot locomotion, previously worked for Google’s DeepMind, where he focused on teaching robots using AI learning techniques in simulated environments, a controversial approach but now increasingly how robots are built. The science journal Nature published his study on an AI-powered virtual rat, co-authored with another of Fauna’s research scientists, Diego Aldarondo.

    Cochran and Merel later worked together at CTRL-labs, a wearable neurotech company sold to Facebook in 2019. Cochran jokes that he then “spent a misguided four years at Goldman Sachs” before they decided to team up again.

    Improvements in AI, motors and batteries have accelerated humanoid development. But Fauna’s founders agreed that the dystopian aesthetic of many prototypes — what Cochran calls “industrial automotive machismo” — conveyed strength and confidence but wouldn’t work for intimate human spaces.

    “They were generally quite big and physically dangerous to be around,” Cochran said. “Strong, heavy. If they fell on you, it’d be a real problem.”

    The duo brought in Anthony Moschella, who helped design Peloton’s exercise bikes, treadmills and rowers and is an admirer of the abstract designs of Star Wars robots like R2-D2 and BB-8.

    “Let’s build a system that human beings actually want to be around,” said Moschella, now Fauna’s vice president of hardware. “I think it’s incredible that so many robotics companies are not versed in the cultural context of what it means to be around a robot.”

    Moschella said what happens next with Sprout will depend on how developers play around with it and what they learn. For Cochran, some of the most important judges have already approved. In a home video he keeps on his phone, his 2-year-old twins excitedly jump up and down as Sprout greets them.

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  • Ex-Olympic snowboarder accused in drug smuggling ring heads to court

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    SANTA ANA, Calif. — A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder pleaded not guilty to running a billion-dollar drug trafficking ring and orchestrating multiple killings, as one of the FBI’s top fugitives made his first U.S. court appearance Monday since he was arrested in Mexico last week and flown to California.

    U.S. authorities say Ryan Wedding, who competed in a single event for his home country in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, had been hiding in Mexico for more than a decade. He was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list last March when authorities offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

    Authorities say Wedding moved as much as 60 tons of cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Canada and Southern California and believe he was working under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful drug rings. His drug trafficking group was the largest supplier of cocaine to Canada, according to a 2024 indictment.

    Mexican officials said he turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City last week and was flown to Southern California after a yearlong effort by authorities in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Colombia and the Dominican Republic to arrest him.

    When speaking to reporters Monday outside the federal court in Santa Ana, southeast of Los Angeles, Wedding’s defense attorney Anthony Colombo disputed that his client had turned himself in in Mexico and said he was living in Mexico, not hiding out there.

    “He was arrested,” Colombo said after the brief hearing, offering no further details. “He did not surrender.”

    Colombo said his client was in “good spirits” but added that “this has been a whirlwind for Mr. Wedding.”

    Federal prosecutors declined to comment after the hearing. Wedding was scheduled to be back in court Feb. 11 and a trial date was set for Mar. 24.

    Wedding arrived in court wearing a tan jail jumpsuit with his ankles chained. He smiled briefly, then clasped his hands and leaned back in his chair before reviewing papers with his attorney. When asked by U.S. Magistrate John D. Early if he read the indictments filed against him, Wedding answered, “I’ve read them both, yes.”

    The judge ordered him held in custody, saying he could not immediately find conditions that would ensure public safety or Wedding’s appearance in court. He said he could consider bond if Wedding seeks it later.

    Mexico has increasingly sent detained cartel members to the U.S. as the country attempts to offset mounting threats by U.S. President Donald Trump, who said last month U.S. forces “will now start hitting land” south of the border to target drug trafficking rings.

    Wedding was indicted in 2024 on federal charges of running a criminal enterprise, murder, conspiring to distribute cocaine and other crimes. U.S. authorities allege in court papers that Wedding’s group obtained cocaine from Colombia and worked with Mexican cartels to move drugs by boat and plane to Mexico and then into the U.S. using semitrucks. The group stored cocaine in Southern California before sending it to Canada and other U.S. states, according to the indictment.

    The murder charges accuse Wedding of directing the 2023 killings of two members of a Canadian family in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment, and for ordering a killing over a drug debt in 2024. Last year, Wedding was indicted on new charges of orchestrating the killing of a witness in Colombia to help him avoid extradition to the U.S.

    Wedding was previously convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and sentenced to prison in 2010. Online records show he was released from Bureau of Prisons custody in 2011.

    In Canada, Wedding faces separate drug charges dating back to 2015.

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  • Meta, TikTok and YouTube face landmark trial over youth addiction claims

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    Three of the world’s biggest tech companies face a landmark trial in Los Angeles starting this week over claims that their platforms — Meta’s Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok and Google’s YouTube — deliberately addict and harm children.

    Jury selection starts this week in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. It’s the first time the companies will argue their case before a jury, and the outcome could have profound effects on their businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms. The selection process is expected to take at least a few days, with 75 potential jurors questioned each day through at least Thursday. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc., settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.

    At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury and what damages, if any, may be awarded, said Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

    KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Importantly, the lawsuit claims that this was done through deliberate design choices made by companies that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits. This argument, if successful, could sidestep the companies’ First Amendment shield and Section 230, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.

    “Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.

    Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks. Experts have drawn similarities to the Big Tobacco trials that led to a 1998 settlement requiring cigarette companies to pay billions in healthcare costs and restrict marketing targeting minors.

    “Plaintiffs are not merely the collateral damage of Defendants’ products,” the lawsuit says. “They are the direct victims of the intentional product design choices made by each Defendant. They are the intended targets of the harmful features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops.”

    The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.

    “Recently, a number of lawsuits have attempted to place the blame for teen mental health struggles squarely on social media companies,” Meta said in a recent blog post. “But this oversimplifies a serious issue. Clinicians and researchers find that mental health is a deeply complex and multifaceted issue, and trends regarding teens’ well-being aren’t clear-cut or universal. Narrowing the challenges faced by teens to a single factor ignores the scientific research and the many stressors impacting young people today, like academic pressure, school safety, socio-economic challenges and substance abuse.”

    Meta, YouTube and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

    The case will be the first in a slew of cases beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children’s mental well-being. A federal bellwether trial beginning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.

    In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states.

    TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states.

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  • USA Today Co. says it will purchase The Detroit News

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    USA Today Co., the newspaper publisher formerly named Gannett, says it plans to acquire The Detroit News

    LANSING, Mich. — USA Today Co., which owns the Detroit Free Press, said Monday that it plans to acquire The Detroit News and bring both major metropolitan newspapers under its banner.

    The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press recently ended an almost 40-year agreement that allowed the two papers to operate in the same city and merge aspects of their business operations.

    According to a statement from USA Today Co., the newspaper publisher formerly named Gannett, both newspapers will continue to publish separately. The company provided little other information on the planned operation of the daily newspapers.

    The statement also did not disclose a price of the sale.

    USA Today Co., which publishes the largest chain of newspapers in the U.S., said the sale is being funded through cash and financing managed by Apollo Global Management, the private equity firm that funded New Media Investment Group Inc.’s 2019 acquisition of Gannett.

    The deal is expected to close “at the end of the month.”

    The two newspapers have both been in operation for over 100 years. The Detroit News has won three Pulitzer Prizes and the Detroit Free Press has won 10.

    “Both companies have a mutual desire to ensure that these publications and their distinct journalism continue to serve the greater Detroit area,” Guy Gilmore, chief operating officer of MediaNews Group, the current owner of The Detroit News said in a statement.

    In 1989, the two papers began a joint operating agreement, a deal established under the 1970 Newspaper Preservation Act which allowed failing newspapers to be exempt from certain antitrust rules. The two newspapers worked in competition but shared some overhead resources and business operations including advertising, printing and distribution.

    The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News ended the agreement in December after 36 years.

    In 2024, Gannett stopped using journalism produced by The Associated Press as financial struggles continued to mount on the news industry.

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  • What We Know About the Investigations Into the Minneapolis Shooting Death of Alex Pretti

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The fatal shooting over the weekend of a Minneapolis man has prompted calls for a thorough independent investigation into the second death at the hands of federal immigration officers since the Trump administration began its large-scale operation in the city late last year.

    But many of the investigation’s details, including the identities of the officers involved and precisely what evidence is being examined, remain unclear even as tensions soar in Minneapolis over the death of Alex Pretti, 37, an ICU nurse.

    Any investigation into the details of the shooting will likely be highly scrutinized. The Trump administration has been quick to cast Pretti as an armed instigator, although videos emerging from the scene and local officials contradict that claim.

    Here’s a look at what’s known about the investigation into the shooting and what’s not:

    The White House says three federal investigations into the shooting are underway.

    During a briefing Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI were investigating the shooting and U.S. Customs and Border Protection was “conducting their own internal review.”

    “As President (Donald) Trump said yesterday, the administration is reviewing everything with respect to the shooting, and we will let that investigation play out,” Leavitt added, without providing additional details on the probes.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which normally plays a key role in any case in which a federal law enforcement officer kills a civilian, is instead only lending support in processing physical evidence from the scene, such as Pretti’s gun.

    Historically, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department investigates shootings of civilians by law enforcement officers for potential criminal violations, but there’s no indication that they intend to do so in Pretti’s case. In the case of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement earlier this month that “there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation.”

    Gil Kerlikowske, who headed Customs and Border Protection during the Obama administration, said that when he was at the agency, if a Border Patrol agent used deadly force on the job, it would be “routine” for the FBI to conduct a criminal civil rights investigation, even in cases where the force may have been justified and even if the probe wouldn’t necessarily lead to prosecution.

    Kerlikowske also questioned why Homeland Security Investigations, an arm within DHS that traditionally probes cross-border issues like drug smuggling and human trafficking, would take a lead role in this investigation.

    “This isn’t something that HSI has real expertise or does at all,” said Kerlikowske. “Shooting and use of force and potential criminal liability is not something that would be in their portfolio.”


    Videos, firearms and questions about Pretti’s phone

    FBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday on Fox News that the agency will be assisting HSI by “processing physical evidence.”

    Patel said they’re in possession of “the firearm, which is going to go to our laboratory,” in reference to Pretti’s gun.

    But Patel made no reference to whether the bureau had gathered the firearms of the officers or agents who were on the scene or what other evidence the FBI was processing.

    DHS officials did not respond to questions Monday about whether they are in possession of Pretti’s phone or whether they have recovered the video he was recording when he was killed.

    Pretti’s family told The Associated Press they don’t have the phone and don’t know where it is. Pretti’s father, Michael Pretti, said Monday the family had still not been contacted by or provided any information by federal law enforcement.

    Investigators also have an extensive array of videos to sift through, including multiple videos shot by activists and protesters at the scene.

    Use-of-force experts have said that bystander video undermined federal authorities’ claim that Pretti “approached” a group of lawmen with a firearm and that a Border Patrol officer opened fire “defensively.” There has been no evidence made public, they said, that supports a claim by Border Patrol senior official Greg Bovino that Pretti, who had a permit to carry a concealed handgun, intended to “massacre law enforcement.”

    Investigators have video from at least four Border Patrol agents on the scene who were wearing body cameras, said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. Those videos have not been made public.

    Neither have the identities of the Border Patrol agents involved. The officer who shot the man is an eight-year Border Patrol veteran, federal officials said Saturday.


    State officials say they are being shut out

    The incident has shined a light on the increasing mistrust between officials in the state and the Trump administration over who should take the lead in investigating.

    Drew Evans, superintendent of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which investigates police shootings, told reporters Saturday that federal officers had blocked his agency from the scene of the shooting even after it obtained a signed judicial warrant.

    “We will continue to investigate this case and others that we have recently been involved with. But I would be remiss if I didn’t state that it would be difficult to obtain all of the evidence and information obtained without cooperation,” Evans said Saturday.

    A federal judge has already issued an order blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to the shooting after state and county officials sued.

    Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said the lawsuit filed Saturday is meant to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect.

    McLaughlin dismissed the lawsuit, saying claims that the federal government would destroy evidence are “a ridiculous attempt to divide the American people and distract from the fact that our law enforcement officers were attacked — and their lives were threatened.”

    Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said he called for an impartial investigation in a phone call with Trump Monday.

    Trump, in an earlier social media post, said after their call he and Walz “seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” although he did not mention the investigations. Later, Leavitt said Trump supports the probes that are underway.

    Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker and Eric Tucker contributed.

    Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Officer fatally shoots an aggressive raccoon on a New York boardwalk

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    NEW YORK — A New York police officer who fatally shot a raccoon that aggressively charged toward people has been placed on modified duty while the matter is reviewed.

    The shooting occurred around 7:45 a.m. Thursday in Rockaway Beach, shortly after someone called 911 to report a vicious animal, a police department spokesperson said in an emailed statement Monday.

    Officers were trying to usher the racoon from a boardwalk to a safe location when the animal suddenly charged. An officer fired his weapon, striking the animal. No people were injured, police said.

    The officer’s name has not been released. The department’s Force Investigation Division, which reviews incidents when an officer discharges their weapon, is leading the department’s probe.

    It wasn’t clear Monday if officials planned to test the raccoon for rabies.

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  • What Travelers Can Expect as Southwest Airlines Introduces Assigned Seats

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    Starting Tuesday, customers on Southwest flights will have assigned seats and the option of paying more to get their preferred seat closer to the front of a plane or seats with extra legroom. The airline began selling tickets shaped by the new policy in July.

    Here’s what travelers can expect as Southwest does away with another of its signature features and becomes more like other airlines:

    Under the open-seat system, Southwest customers could check in starting exactly 24 hours before departure to secure places in boarding lines at departure gates.

    Early check-ins were placed in the coveted “A” boarding group, essentially guaranteeing they would find an open window or aisle seat. Others landed in “B” or “C,” the likelihood of only middle seats being available rising the longer they waited to check in.

    The Dallas-based airline’s unusual seating process began as a way to get passengers on planes quickly and thereby reduce the time that aircraft and crews spent on the ground not making money. It helped Southwest operate more efficiently and to squeeze a few more flights into the daily schedule; the system also was a key reason Southwest remained profitable every year until the coronavirus pandemic.

    The open-seating arrangement became less democratic over time, however, as Southwest also had starting allowing passengers to pay extra for spots near the front of the line.

    An eight‑group boarding structure is replacing the find-your-own-seat scrum. Instead of numbered metal columns at departure gates, passengers will file through two alternating lanes once it’s time for their group to board.

    The airline said its gate areas will be converted in phases starting Monday night, a process that could take about two months to complete. Columns that remain standing past Tuesday will have their numbers removed or covered in the meantime.

    Southwest is selling tickets at fares with different seating choices, including standard seats assigned at check‑in or paid preferred and extra‑legroom seats selected at booking. For certain flights, passengers also will have the option of paying for priority boarding beginning 24 hours before departure.

    Newly designed boarding passes will show seat assignments and boarding groups, according to Southwest. A reservation made for nine or fewer people, including families, will assign those passengers to the same boarding group.

    Southwest says the boarding groups are based on seat location, fare class, loyalty tier status and the airline’s credit card rewards benefits. Passengers who purchase seats with extra legroom will be placed in groups 1-2. Customers with premium fares and the airline’s “most loyal travelers” will also have access to preferential seats and earlier boarding, the carrier said, while those with basic fares will likely be placed in groups 6-8.

    With the switch to assigned seating also comes a revision of the airline’s policy for customers who need extra room. Under the new rule — also effective Tuesday — travelers who do not fit within a single seat’s armrests will be required to purchase an additional seat in advance.

    That represents a change from the airline’s previous policy that allowed passengers the choice to purchase a fully refundable extra seat before arriving at the airport, or request a free one at the gate. Under the updated policy, refunds are still possible but no longer guaranteed and depend on seat availability and fare class.

    In May 2025, Southwest also ended its decades‑old “bags fly free” policy, replacing it with baggage fees for most travelers.

    The changes mark one of the biggest transformations in the airline’s history, as it alters its longstanding customer perks to bring it more in line with the practices of other larger U.S. carriers.

    “We have tremendous opportunity to meet current and future customer needs, attract new customer segments we don’t compete for today, and return to the levels of profitability that both we and our shareholders expect,” Southwest CEO Robert Jordan said last year.

    When the Texas-based airline first announced plans in 2024 to switch to assigned seating, it said studies on seating options showed that customer preferences had changed over the years, with the vast majority of travelers saying they now want to know where they are sitting before they get to the airport.

    Jordan said at the time that open seating was the top reason surveyed travelers cited for choosing another airline over Southwest.

    Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – January 2026

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  • Columbia Taps University of Wisconsin Chancellor to Lead School After 2 Years of Turmoil

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University has named Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as its next president as it tries to move forward from two years of turmoil that included campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war and President Donald Trump’s subsequent campaign to squelch student activism and force changes at the Ivy League school.

    Mnookin’s appointment was announced Sunday night. She will assume her new post on July 1, becoming Columbia’s fifth leader in the past four years.

    The Trump administration took aim at Columbia shortly after he took office last year, making it his first target in what became a broader campaign to influence how elite U.S. universities dealt with protests, which students they admitted and what they taught in classrooms.

    Immigration enforcement agents imprisoned some Columbia students who had participated in pro-Palestinian protests in 2024. The administration canceled $400 million in research grants at the school and its affiliated hospital system in the name of combating antisemitism on campus, and threatened to withhold billions of dollars more in government support.

    Mnookin’s predecessor, Nemat Shafik, resigned in August 2024 following scrutiny of her handling of the protests and campus divisions. The university named Katrina Armstrong, the chief executive of its medical school, but she resigned last March, days after Columba agreed to the settlement. The board of trustees then appointed their co-chair, Claire Shipman, as acting president while they searched for a permanent leader.

    Mnookin, 58, previously served as the dean of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law before being named to her current post at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in August 2022. She received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, her law degree from Yale Law School, and her doctorate in history and social study of science and technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Photos You Should See – January 2026

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  • ‘A Team’ of real estate brokers faces sex crimes trial in New York

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    NEW YORK — The brothers operated in the glitz and glamour of the Hamptons and South Beach. Two were high-end real estate brokers dubbed “The A Team.” The third went to law school and ran their family’s private security firm, which caters to heads of state and the rich and famous.

    They frequented nightclubs, cruised on yachts and flew on private jets. One lived alongside celebrities and corporate titans on Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row. The others had multimillion-dollar waterfront mansions in Miami.

    But behind their posh, peripatetic facade, prosecutors say, Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander — known collectively as the Alexander Brothers — were predators who sexually assaulted, trafficked and raped dozens of women from 2008 to 2021, often after incapacitating them with drugs and sometimes recording their crimes on video.

    The brothers met victims at nightclubs, parties and on dating apps, and recruited others for trips to ritzy locales, paying for their flights and lodging at high-end hotels or luxe vacation rentals before drugging and raping them, prosecutors said. In all, dozens of women have accused them of wrongdoing.

    Now, the brothers — Tal, 39, and twins Alon and Oren, 38 — face a reckoning that prosecutors say was more than a decade in the making: a sex-trafficking trial that could put them in prison for the rest of their lives.

    Opening statements are slated for Tuesday in the brothers’ trial in federal court in Manhattan, after they were delayed a day because of heavy snowfall over the weekend in New York.

    Oren and Tal Alexander, the real estate dealers who specialized in high-end properties in Miami, New York and Los Angeles, have pleaded not guilty, along with their brother Alon, who graduated from New York Law School before taking his position with the security firm.

    All three have been held without bail since their December 2024 arrests. They were indicted months after several women filed lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct.

    A spokesperson for the Alexander Brothers said they “categorically deny that anyone was drugged, assaulted, or coerced, and the government has presented no physical evidence, medical records, contemporaneous complaints, or objective proof to establish those claims.”

    “This case highlights a broader concern about how the federal sex-trafficking statute is being applied,” said the spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer. “Congress enacted that law to address force, coercion, and exploitation; not to retroactively criminalize consensual adult relationships through inference or narrative.”

    “As the defense has consistently said, allegations are not evidence,” Engelmayer added.

    The brothers’ attorneys have promised to show the jury of six men and six women that prosecutors have taken innocent romantic and sexual encounters and converted them into criminal activity through clever lawyering.

    Oren Alexander’s attorney, Marc Agnifilo, has said the defense plans to prove that witnesses have lied to the government and that their testimony can’t be trusted.

    Judge Valerie E. Caproni, who will preside over the trial, has rejected defense requests to toss out the charges or send the case to state court. The Alexanders’ lawyers have said the allegations against them resemble “date rape” crimes more commonly prosecuted in state courts, but Caproni disagreed.

    “That badly misrepresents the nature of the charges,” the judge wrote.

    Agnifilo has said the jury will hear evidence of group sex, threesomes and promiscuity. During jury selection last week, prospective jurors were asked questions related to sexual activity and sex crimes.

    “The case is about sex and sexuality,” said Agnifilo, who represented Sean “Diddy” Combs last year as the hip-hop mogul was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges but convicted on lesser prostitution-related counts.

    In court papers, the Alexander Brothers’ lawyers wrote that among the accusers they expect to testify at trial, they had located evidence “that undermines nearly every aspect of the alleged victims’ narratives.”

    Prosecutors have said their evidence will show that the brothers “have acted with apparent impunity — forcibly raping women whenever they wanted to do so.”

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  • European Union opens investigation into Musk’s AI chatbot Grok over sexual deepfakes

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    LONDON — The European Union opened a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s social media platform X on Monday after his artificial intelligence chatbot Grok started spewing nonconsensual sexualized deepfake images on the platform.

    European regulators also widened a separate, ongoing investigation into X’s recommendation systems after the platform said it would switch to Grok’s AI system to choose which posts users see.

    The scrutiny from Brussels comes after Grok sparked a global backlash by allowing users through its AI image generation and editing capabilities to undress people, putting females in transparent bikinis or revealing clothing. Researchers said some images appeared to include children. Some governments banned the service or issued warnings.

    The 27-nation EU’s executive said it was looking into whether X has done enough as required by the bloc’s digital regulations to contain the risks of spreading illegal content such as “manipulated sexually explicit images.”

    That includes content that “may amount to child sexual abuse material,” the European Commission said. These risks have now “materialized,” the commission said, exposing the bloc’s citizens to “serious harm.”

    Regulators will examine whether Grok is living up to its obligations under the Digital Services Act, the bloc’s wide-ranging rulebook for keeping internet users safe from harmful content and products.

    In response to a request for comment, an X spokeswoman directed The Associated Press to an earlier statement that the company remains “committed to making X a safe platform for everyone” and that it has “zero tolerance” for child sexual exploitation, nonconsensual nudity, and unwanted sexual content.

    The X statement from Jan. 14 also said it would stop allowing users to depict people in “bikinis, underwear or other revealing attire,” but only in places where it has been deemed illegal.

    “Non-consensual sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation,” Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice-president at the commission, said in a statement.

    “With this investigation, we will determine whether X has met its legal obligations under the DSA, or whether it treated rights of European citizens — including those of women and children – as collateral damage of its service,” said Virkkunen, who oversees tech sovereignty, security and democracy.

    Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI launched Grok’s image tool last summer. But the problem began snowballing only late last month when Grok seemingly granted a large number of user requests to modify images posted by others. The problem was amplified both because Musk pitches his chatbot as an edgier alternative with fewer safeguards than rivals, and because Grok’s images are publicly visible, and can therefore be easily spread.

    The EU investigation covers only Grok’s service on X, and not Grok’s website and standalone app. That’s because the DSA applies only to the biggest online platforms.

    There’s no deadline for the bloc to resolve the case, which could end in either X pledging to change its behavior or a hefty fine.

    In December Brussels issued X with a 120-million euro (then-$140 million) fine as part of the earlier ongoing DSA investigation, for shortcomings including blue checkmarks that broke the rules on “deceptive design practices” that risked exposing users to scams and manipulation.

    The bloc has also been scrutinizing X over allegations that Grok generated anti-Semitic material and has asked the site for more information.

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  • Investigators will detail the causes of the midair collision over Washington

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    So many things went wrong last Jan. 29 to contribute to the deadliest plane crash on American soil since 2001 that the National Transportation Safety Board isn’t likely to identify a single cause of the collision between an airliner and an Army helicopter near Washington that killed 67 people at its hearing Tuesday.

    Instead, their investigators will detail what they found that played a role in the crash, and the board will recommend changes to help prevent a similar tragedy. Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration already took the temporary restrictions it imposed after the crash and made them permanent to ensure planes and helicopters won’t share the same airspace again around Reagan National Airport.

    Family members of victims hope those suggestions won’t be ignored the same way many past NTSB recommendations have been. Tim Lilley, whose son Sam was the first officer on the American Airlines plane, said he hopes officials in Congress and the administration will make changes now instead of waiting until for another disaster.

    “Instead of writing aviation regulation in blood, let’s start writing it in data,” said Lilley, who is a pilot himself and earlier in his career flew Black Hawk helicopters in the Washington area. “Because all the data was there to show this accident was going to happen. This accident was completely preventable.”

    Over the past year, the NTSB has already highlighted a number of the factors that contributed to the crash including a poorly designed helicopter route past Reagan Airport, the fact that the Black Hawk was flying 78 feet (23.7 meters) higher than it should have been, the warnings that the FAA ignored in the years beforehand and the Army’s move to turn off a key system that would have broadcast the helicopter’s location more clearly.

    The D.C. plane crash was the first in a number of high-profile crashes and close calls throughout 2025 that alarmed the public, but the total number of crashes last year was actually the lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 with 1,405 crashes nationwide.

    Experts say flying remains the safest way to travel because of all the overlapping layers of precautions built into the system, but too many of those safety measures failed at the same time last Jan. 29.

    Here is some of what we have learned about the crash:

    The route along the Potomac River the Black Hawk was following that night allowed for helicopters and planes to come within 75 feet (23 meters) of each other when a plane was landing on the airport’s secondary runway that typically handles less than 5% of the flights landing at Reagan. And that distance was only ensured when the helicopter stuck to flying along the bank of the river, but the official route didn’t require that.

    Normally, air traffic controllers work to keep aircraft at least 500 feet (152 meters) apart to keep them safe, so the scant separation on Route 4 posed what NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy called “an intolerable risk to flight safety.”

    The controllers at Reagan also had been in the habit of asking pilots to watch out for other aircraft themselves and maintain visual separation as they tried to squeeze in more planes to land on what the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority has called the busiest runway in the country. The FAA halted that practice after the crash.

    That night a controller twice asked the helicopter pilots whether they had the jet in sight, and the pilots said they did and asked for visual separation approval so they could use their own eyes to maintain distance. But at the investigative hearings last summer, board members questioned how well the crew could spot the plane while wearing night vision goggles and whether the pilots were even looking in the right spot.

    The American Airlines plane flying from Wichita, Kansas, collided with the helicopter 278 feet (85 meters) above the river, but the Black Hawk was never supposed to fly above 200 feet (61 meters) as it passed by the airport, according to the official route.

    Before investigators revealed how high the helicopter was flying, Tim Lilley was asking tough questions about it at some of the first meetings NTSB officials had with the families. His background as a pilot gave him detailed knowledge of the issues.

    “We had a moral mandate because we had such an in-depth insight into what happened. We didn’t want to become advocates, but we could not shirk the responsibility,” said Lilley, who started meeting with top lawmakers in Congress, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Army officials not long after the crash to push for changes.

    The NTSB has said the Black Hawk pilots may not have realized how high the helicopter was because the barometric altimeter they were relying on was reading 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) lower than the altitude registered by the flight data recorder.

    Investigators tested out the altimeters of three other Black Hawks of the same model from the same Army unit and found similar discrepancies.

    FAA controllers were warning about the risks all the helicopter traffic around Reagan airport created at least since 2022.

    And the NTSB found there had been 85 near misses between planes and helicopters around the airport in the three years before the crash along with more than 15,000 close proximity events. Pilots reported collision alarms going off in their cockpits at least once a month.

    Officials refused to add a warning to helicopter charts urging pilots to use caution when they used the secondary runway at Reagan the jet was trying to use before the collision.

    Rachel Feres said it was hard to hear about all the known concerns that were never addressed before the crash that killed her cousin Peter Livingston and his wife Donna and two young daughters, Everly and Alydia, who were both promising figure skaters.

    “It became very quickly clear that this crash should never have happened,” Feres said. “And as someone who is not particularly familiar with aviation and how our aviation system works, we were just hearing things over and over again that I think really, really shocked people, really surprised people.”

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  • He left the US for an internship. Trump’s travel ban made it impossible to return

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    The first time Patrick Thaw saw his University of Michigan friends together since sophomore year ended was bittersweet. They were starting a new semester in Ann Arbor, while he was FaceTiming in from Singapore, stranded half a world away.

    One day last June he was interviewing to renew his U.S. student visa, and the next his world was turned upside down by President Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from 12 countries, including Thaw’s native Myanmar.

    “If I knew it was going to go down this badly, I wouldn’t have left the United States,” he said of his decision to leave Michigan for a summer internship in Singapore.

    The ban was one of several ways the Trump administration made life harder for international students during his first year back in the White House, including a pause in visa appointments and additional layers of vetting that contributed to a dip in foreign enrollment for first-time students. New students had to look elsewhere, but the hurdles made life particularly complicated for those like Thaw who were well into their U.S. college careers.

    Universities have had to come up with increasingly flexible solutions, such as bringing back pandemic-era remote learning arrangements or offering admission to international campuses they partner with, said Sarah Spreitzer, assistant vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education.

    In Thaw’s case, a Michigan administrator highlighted studying abroad as an option. As long as the travel ban was in place, a program in Australia seemed viable — at least initially.

    In the meantime, Thaw didn’t have much to do in Singapore but wait. He made friends, but they were busy with school or jobs. After his internship ended, he killed time by checking email, talking walks and eating out.

    “Mentally, I’m back in Ann Arbor,” the 21-year-old said. “But physically, I’m trapped in Singapore.”

    When Thaw arrived in Ann Arbor in 2023, he threw himself into campus life. He immediately meshed with his dorm roommate’s group of friends, who had gone to high school together about an hour away. A neuroscience major, he also joined a biology fraternity and an Alzheimer’s research lab.

    His curiosity pushed him to explore a wide range of courses, including a Jewish studies class. The professor, Cara Rock-Singer, said Thaw told her his interest stemmed from reading the works of Philip Roth.

    “I really work to make it a place where everyone feels not only comfortable, but invested in contributing,” Rock-Singer said. “But Patrick did not need nudging. He was always there to think and take risks.”

    When Thaw landed his clinical research internship at a Singapore medical school, it felt like just another step toward success.

    He heard speculation that the Trump administration might impose travel restrictions, but it was barely an afterthought — something he said he even joked about with friends before departing.

    Then the travel ban was announced.

    Thaw’s U.S. college dream had been a lifetime in the making but was undone — at least for now — by one trip abroad. Stuck in Singapore, he couldn’t sleep and his mind fixated on one question: “Why did you even come here?”

    As a child, Thaw set his sights on attending an American university. That desire became more urgent as higher education opportunities dwindled after a civil war broke out in Myanmar.

    For a time, tensions were so high that Thaw and his mother took shifts watching to make sure the bamboo in their front yard didn’t erupt in flames from Molotov cocktails. Once, he was late for an algebra exam because a bomb exploded in front of his house, he said.

    So when he was accepted to the University of Michigan after applying to colleges “around the clock,” Thaw was elated.

    “The moment I landed in the United States, like, set foot, I was like, this is it,” Thaw said. “This is where I begin my new life.”

    When Thaw talked about life in Myanmar, it often led to deep conversations, said Allison Voto, one of his friends. He was one of the first people she met whose background was very different from hers, which made her “more understanding of the world,” she said.

    During the 2024-25 school year, the U.S. hosted nearly 1.2 million international students. As of summer 2024, more than 1,400 people from Myanmar had American student visas, making it one of the top-represented countries among those hit by the travel ban.

    A Michigan official said the school recognizes the challenges facing some international students and is committed to ensuring they have all the support and options it can provide. The university declined to comment specifically on Thaw’s situation.

    While the study abroad program in Australia sparked some hope that Thaw could stay enrolled at Michigan, uncertainty around the travel ban and visa obstacles ultimately led him to decide against it.

    He had left Myanmar to get an education and it was time to finish what he started, which meant moving on.

    “I cannot just wait for the travel ban to just end and get lifted and go back, because that’s going to be an indefinite amount of time,” he said.

    He started applying to colleges outside the U.S., getting back acceptance letters from schools in Australia and Canada. He is holding out hope of attending the University of Toronto, which would put his friends in Ann Arbor just a four-hour drive from visiting him.

    “If he comes anywhere near me, basically on the continent of North America, I’m going to go see him,” said Voto, whose friendship with Thaw lately is defined by daylong gaps in their text conversations. “I mean, he’s Patrick, you know? That’s absolutely worth it.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Patriots punch ticket to 12th Super Bowl with gritty 10-7 win

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    DENVER — Drake Maye handled the sloppy, snowy conditions better than the home team and he scored New England’s only touchdown on a 6-yard keeper, propelling the Patriots to their 12th Super Bowl with a 10-7 win over the Denver Broncos in the AFC championship game Sunday.

    Maye threw for just 86 yards, but ran for 65 and iced the win with a 7-yard keeper on third-and-5 in the waning minutes to send the Patriots (17-3) to the Super Bowl in Mike Vrabel’s first year as coach.

    The Patriots will play the Seattle Seahawks, who beat the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC championship game, on Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, California.

    “I’m just proud of this team,” said the 23-year-old Maye, who’s the second-youngest starting quarterback to reach the Super Bowl, behind only Miami’s Dan Marino. “Don’t have many words. Just thankful for this team. Love each and every one of them. It took everybody.”

    Christian Gonzalez intercepted Jarrett Stidham, starting in place of an injured Bo Nix, with 2:11 remaining for New England’s second takeaway. The first set up the Patriots with a short field and led to Maye’s touchdown scamper that tied it at 7 heading into halftime.

    With Nix looking on from a suite following ankle surgery Tuesday in Alabama, Stidham made his first start in more than two years. His first completion since the 2023 regular-season finale was a 52-yard dart to Marvin Mims Jr. to the New England 7 that set up Courtland Sutton’s 6-yard touchdown catch.

    That was Stidham’s highlight as he turned the ball over twice and finished 17 of 31 for 133 yards with the TD.

    “I was super excited for the opportunity and just hate that we fell short,” Stidham said.

    New England, which went 4-13 last year under Jerod Mayo, became the third team in the Super Bowl era to win a conference championship with 10 points or less. Buffalo beat Denver 10-7 in the 1991 AFC title game, and Los Angeles beat Tampa Bay 9-0 in the 1979 NFC championship game.

    Vrabel, who won three Super Bowls as a playmaking linebacker for the Patriots, could become the first person in NFL history to also win as a head coach for the same franchise.

    “I won’t win it. It’ll be the players that’ll win the game,” Vrabel said. “I promise you, it won’t be me that’ll win it, and I promise you that I’ll do everything I can, and our staff, to have them ready for the game.”

    The Broncos (15-4) finished one step shy of fulfilling Sean Payton’s preseason prediction of a trip to Super Bowl 60, and he pointed the finger right at himself.

    He said he regretted his call on fourth-and-1 from the New England 14 in the second quarter when a chip-shot field goal before the snow came in would have given Denver a double-digit lead. Stidham’s throw to running back R.J. Harvey was incomplete and the Broncos’ early momentum vanished.

    “There’s always regrets,” Payton said. “Yeah, I mean, look, I felt like here we are, fourth-and-1. We felt close enough … So, yeah, there’ll always be second thoughts.”

    The Broncos were left clinging to a 7-0 lead that was short-lived. Elijah Ponder recovered Stidham’s backward pass at the Denver 12, setting up the tying touchdown two plays later.

    “I thought I threw it forward and obviously the replay said differently,” Stidham said. “Probably should have just eaten the sack and let (Jeremy) Crawshaw punt the ball and flip the field.”

    Both kickers missed two field goals in the frigid conditions with Denver’s Wil Lutz and New England’s Andy Borregales wide on long tries just before the snow came in at halftime. Lutz’s 45-yard attempt late in the fourth quarter was tipped by Leonard Taylor III.

    The Patriots’ victory was their 40th in the playoffs, breaking a tie with the San Francisco 49ers for the most in NFL history.

    It was sunny at kickoff with a temperature of 26 degrees, but by halftime the snowflakes began falling and grounds crews had to use snowblowers to mark the hashmarks and yard lines by the fourth quarter, when it was 16 degrees.

    “It was a lot of fun out there,” Broncos cornerback Pat Surtain II said. “Snow game, for the conference, to go to the Super Bowl — it doesn’t get any better than that. I felt like I was a little kid out there just playing in the snow.”

    And the Patriots had the most fun of all.

    “What an atmosphere out here,” said Maye, in his second NFL season. “Battle of the elements. Love this team. How about the defense? I love each and every one of them.”

    The Patriots have allowed 26 points across three playoff games. The only team to allow fewer points over three playoff games before a Super Bowl appearance was the 2000 Ravens, who allowed just 16 points.

    After gaining just 72 yards in the first half, the Patriots opened the second half in swirling snow with a 16-play, 64-yard drive that ate up 9 1/2 minutes and ended with a 23-yard field goal by Borregales that proved the difference.

    Stidham, who was drafted by the Patriots in 2019, made his first start since the 2023 regular-season finale. The Broncos were the only team in the league that didn’t give their backup QB any snaps or handoffs the last two seasons.

    The Patriots have averaged 18 points per game in the playoffs, the fewest by any team to make the Super Bowl since the 1979 Rams, who averaged 15.

    “I’ll take an ugly win before I take a pretty loss,” Diggs said. “Nobody’s satisfied. Happy, but not complacent. We’re blessed to be where we are, but we know there’s more out there for us.”

    Coming up just short of a trip to the Super Bowl will drive Denver, said Surtain, who suggested: “This is not the last time we’re going to be here. We’re going to just keep on building and getting better.”

    Nix, who had 11 game-winning drives in his first two NFL seasons, got hurt on Denver’s final drive in overtime against Buffalo last week, and this title game will always be dogged in Denver by the what-ifs.

    “It (stinks),” linebacker Alex Singleton said. “We’ll remember it for the rest of our lives.”

    Patriots: LB Robert Spillane (ankle) left in the first quarter.

    Broncos: WR Pat Bryant left with a hamstring injury in the second quarter.

    —

    This story has been corrected to show Maye ran for 65 yards and not 68.

    ___

    AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

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