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Tag: Washington news

  • Trump administration thanks the media for keeping quiet before the strike that captured Maduro

    In the wake of last weekend’s U.S. military action in Venezuela, the news media got something it has seldom heard from the Trump administration: a “thank you.”

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio credited news organizations that had learned in advance about Saturday’s strike that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with not putting the mission in jeopardy by publicly reporting on it before it happened.

    Rubio’s acknowledgment was particularly noteworthy because Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has cited a mistrust of journalists’ ability to responsibly handle sensitive information as one of the chief reasons for imposing restrictive new press rules on Pentagon reporters. Most mainstream news organizations have left posts in the Pentagon rather than agree to Hegseth’s policy.

    Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Rubio said the Republican administration withheld information about the mission from Congress ahead of time because “it will leak. It’s as simple as that.” But the primary reason was operational security, he said.

    “Frankly, a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it for that very reason,” Rubio said. “And we thank them for doing that or lives could have been lost. American lives.”

    Semafor, citing “people familiar with communications between the administration and news organizations,” reported that The New York Times and The Washington Post had both learned of the raid in advance but held off reporting on it to avoid endangering U.S. military personnel. Representatives for both outlets declined to comment to The Associated Press on Monday.

    Withholding information on a planned mission for that reason is routine for news organizations, said Dana Priest, a longtime national security reporter at the Post who now teaches at the University of Maryland. Even after the fact, the Post has asked government authorities about whether revealing certain details could endanger people, she said.

    When The Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently included in a text chain last spring where Hegseth revealed information about a military attack in Yemen, the journalist did not report on the events until well after U.S. personnel was out of danger and the information had been thoroughly checked out.

    Most Americans learned of the Venezuela attack in the predawn hours of Saturday when President Donald Trump announced it on his Truth Social platform upon completion.

    While The Associated Press did not have advance word that the operation would happen, its journalists in Venezuela heard and observed explosions taking place there, and that was reported on the news wire more than two hours before Trump’s announcement. The U.S. involvement was not made clear until Trump’s post, however.

    Hegseth, in defending rules that restrict reporters’ movements and reporting in the Pentagon, told Fox News last year that “we have expectations that you’re not soliciting classified or sensitive information.” The Times last month filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the rules.

    Decisions on whether to report information that could put lives or a mission in danger often involve high-level discussions between editors and government officials. But Priest stressed that in a country with freedom of the press, the ultimate decision on whether to report the information lies with the news organization.

    Generations ago, President John F. Kennedy persuaded editors at the Times not to report when it learned in advance of a U.S.-backed attack by Cuban exiles on Fidel Castro’s forces at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The mission proved a monumental failure, and a Times editor, Bill Keller, later said that Kennedy expressed regret that the newspaper had not reported on what it had known because it could have prevented a fiasco.

    Many mainstream journalists covering the military and national security have extensive experience dealing with sensitive issues, Priest said. But there’s a difference, she said, between reporting information that could put someone in danger and that which could prove embarrassing to an administration.

    “The reporters are not going to be deterred by a ridiculously broad censorship edict by the Trump administration,” Priest said. “They’re going to dig in and work even harder. Their mission is not to curry favor with the Trump administration. It’s to report information to the public.”

    ___

    David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

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  • Asian shares and US futures advance, as Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 hits a record high

    BANGKOK — Asian shares logged strong gains, with Tokyo’s benchmark closing at a record high on Tuesday, after a broad rally on Wall Street.

    Oil prices fell back after surging Monday following the capture by U.S. forces of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a weekend raid.

    Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 1.3% to 52,518.08, beating its Oct. 31 record, on strong buying of tech related shares like precision tools maker Disco Corp., which jumped 6.1%.

    South Korea’s Kospi also pushed further into record territory, gaining 1.5% to 4,525.98, buoyed by gains for automakers and some electronics manufacturers.

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 1.5% to 26,748.80, and the Shanghai Composite index was up 1.5% at 4,082.36, it’s highest level in four years.

    In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.5% to 8,682.80.

    Taiwan’s Taiex climbed 1.6%, while in India, the Sensex shed 0.5%.

    Monday’s gains on Wall Street were broad, with particularly big jumps for energy companies and banks. Elsewhere, industrial companies and retailers joined in to help boost major indexes.

    The S&P 500 rose 0.6%, ending just below its record set in late December. The Dow Jones Industrial Average set a record, adding 1.2% to 48,977.18.

    The Nasdaq composite rose 0.7%.

    Smaller company stocks had a particularly strong day, outpacing other indexes, in a sign of broader investor confidence. The Russell 2000 rose 1.6%.

    Energy companies and the oil market were a key focus after the capture of Maduro by U.S. forces. The price of U.S. crude jumped 1.7% to $58.32 per barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 1.7% to $61.76 per barrel.

    However, oil fell back early Tuesday. U.S. crude shed 18 cents to $58.14 per barrel, while Brent crude lost 12 cents to $61.64 per barrel.

    Chevron jumped 5.1%, Exxon Mobil rose 2.2% and Halliburton surged 7.8% for some of the strongest gains in the market after President Donald Trump floated a plan for U.S. oil companies to help rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry.

    Venezuela’s oil industry has been decimated by neglect and international sanctions and may require years of substantial investments to restore past production levels.

    Investors will get several updates on the U.S. economy this week.

    On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management released its manufacturing index for December showing the sector continued shrinking. More importantly, the business group will release its December report on the services sector on Wednesday. The services sector makes up the bulk of the U.S. economy and it grew, even if only slightly, throughout most of 2025.

    Reports on the job market later this week, which include updates for job openings and overall employment, will be a bigger focus for the Federal Reserve. The U.S. central bank has been weighing a slowing job market against risks for rising inflation as it decides whether to cut interest rates. It cut its benchmark rate three times late in 2025, but inflation has remained above its 2% target and that has made the Fed more cautious.

    Wall Street still expects the Fed to hold rates steady at its upcoming meeting later in January.

    Technology companies, especially artificial intelligence, were in the spotlight Monday as the industry kicked off the annual CES trade show in Las Vegas. Nvidia fell 0.4% and Applied Materials jumped 5.7%.

    AI advances helped propel the broader market to a series of records in 2025. Updates from influential technology companies could help shed more light on whether the big investments in AI are worth the potential financial risks.

    In other trading early Tuesday, the U.S. dollar slipped to 156.28 Japanese yen from 156.40 yen. The euro rose to $1.1739 from $1.1724.

    Gold gained 0.5% after a 2.8% jump on Monday. The price of silver added another 2.9% after soaring 7.9% on Monday. Such assets are often considered safe havens in times of geopolitical turmoil. The metals have notched record prices over the last year amid lingering economic concerns brought on by conflicts and trade wars.

    Bitcoin fell back 1.3% after rising to its highest level since mid-November, falling to about $93,700.

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  • Corporation for Public Broadcasting votes itself out of existence

    Leaders of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private agency that has steered federal funding to PBS, NPR and hundreds of public television and radio stations across the country, voted Monday to dissolve the organization that was created in 1967.

    CPB had been winding down since Congress acted last summer to defund its operations at the encouragement of President Donald Trump. Its board of directors chose Monday to shutter CPB completely instead of keeping it in existence as a shell.

    “CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks,” said Patricia Harrison, the organization’s president and CEO.

    Many Republicans have long accused public broadcasting, particularly its news programming, of being biased toward liberals but it wasn’t until the second Trump administration —- with full GOP control of Congress — that those criticisms were turned into action.

    Ruby Calvert, head of CPB’s board of directors, said the federal defunding of public media has been devastating.

    “Even at this moment, I am convinced that public media will survive, and that a new Congress will address public media’s role in our country because it is critical to our children’s education, our history, culture and democracy to do so,” Calvert said.

    CPB said it was financially supporting the American Archive of Public Broadcasting in its effort to preserve historic content, and is working with the University of Maryland to maintain its own records.

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  • US-based multinational companies will be exempt from global tax deal

    WASHINGTON — U.S. multinational corporations will be exempted from paying more corporate taxes overseas in a deal finalized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

    The OECD announced Monday that nearly 150 countries have agreed on the plan, initially crafted in 2021, to stop large global companies from shifting profits to low-tax countries, no matter where they operate in the world.

    The amended version excludes large U.S.-based multinational corporations from the 15% global minimum tax after negotiations between President Donald Trump’s administration and other members of the Group of Seven wealthy nations.

    OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said in a statement that the agreement is a “landmark decision in international tax co-operation” and “enhances tax certainty, reduces complexity, and protects tax bases.”

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the agreement “a historic victory in preserving U.S. sovereignty and protecting American workers and businesses from extraterritorial overreach.”

    The most recent version of the deal waters down a landmark 2021 agreement that set a minimum global corporate tax of 15%. The idea was to stop multinational corporations, including Apple and Nike, from using accounting and legal maneuvers to shift earnings to low- or no-tax havens.

    Those havens are typically places like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, where the companies actually do little or no business.

    Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was a key driver of the 2021 OECD global tax deal and made the corporate minimum tax one of her top priorities. The plan was widely panned by congressional Republicans who said it would make the U.S. less competitive in a global economy.

    The Trump administration in June re-negotiated the deal when congressional Republicans rolled back a so-called revenge tax provision from Trump’s big tax and spending bill that would have allowed the federal government to impose taxes on companies with foreign owners, as well as on investors from countries judged as charging “unfair foreign taxes” on U.S. companies.

    Tax transparency groups have criticized the amended OECD plan.

    “This deal risks nearly a decade of global progress on corporate taxation only to allow the largest, most profitable American companies to keep parking profits in tax havens,” said Zorka Milin, policy director at the FACT Coalition, a tax transparency nonprofit.

    Tax watchdogs argue the minimum tax is supposed to halt an international race to the bottom for corporate taxation that has led multinational businesses to book their profits in countries with low tax rates.

    Congressional Republicans applauded the finalized deal. Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., said in a joint statement: “Today marks another significant milestone in putting America First and unwinding the Biden Administration’s unilateral global tax surrender.”

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  • Jan. 6 plaque made to honor law enforcement. It’s nowhere to be found at the Capitol

    WASHINGTON — Approaching the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the official plaque honoring the police who defended democracy that day is nowhere to be found.

    It’s not on display at the Capitol, as is required by law. Its whereabouts aren’t publicly known, though it’s believed to be in storage.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has yet to formally unveil the plaque. And the Trump administration’s Department of Justice is seeking to dismiss a police officers’ lawsuit asking that it be displayed as intended. The Architect of the Capitol, which was responsible for obtaining and displaying the plaque, said in light of the federal litigation, it cannot comment.

    Determined to preserve the nation’s history, some 100 members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have taken it upon themselves to memorialize the moment. For months, they’ve mounted poster board-style replicas of the Jan. 6 plaque outside their office doors, resulting in a Capitol complex awash with makeshift remembrances.

    “On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on Jan. 6, 2021,” reads the faux bronze stand-in for the real thing. “Their heroism will never be forgotten.”

    In Washington, a capital city lined with monuments to the nation’s history, the plaque was intended to become a simple but permanent marker, situated near the Capitol’s west front, where some of the most violent fighting took place as rioters breached the building.

    But in its absence, the missing plaque makes way for something else entirely — a culture of forgetting.

    Visitors can pass through the Capitol without any formal reminder of what happened that day, when a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building trying to overturn the Republican’s 2020 reelection defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. With memory left unchecked, it allows new narratives to swirl and revised histories to take hold.

    Five years ago, the jarring scene watched the world over was declared an “insurrection” by the then-GOP leader of the Senate, while the House GOP leader at the time called it his “saddest day” in Congress. But those condemnations have faded.

    Trump calls it a “day of love.” And Johnson, who was among those lawmakers challenging the 2020 election results, is now the House speaker.

    “The question of January 6 remains – democracy was on the guillotine — how important is that event in the overall sweep of 21st century U.S. history,” said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University and noted scholar.

    “Will January 6 be seen as the seminal moment when democracy was in peril?” he asked. Or will it be remembered as “kind of a weird one-off?”

    “There’s not as much consensus on that as one would have thought on the fifth anniversary,” he said.

    At least five people died in the riot and its aftermath, including Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by police while trying to climb through a window toward the House chamber. More than 140 law enforcement officers were wounded, some gravely, and several died later, some by suicide.

    All told, some 1,500 people were charged in the Capitol attack, among the largest federal prosecutions in the nation’s history. When Trump returned to power in January 2025, he pardoned all of them within hours of taking office.

    Unlike the twin light beams that commemorated the Sept. 11, 2001, attack or the stand-alone chairs at the Oklahoma City bombing site memorial, the failure to recognize Jan. 6 has left a gap not only in memory but in helping to stitch the country back together.

    “That’s why you put up a plaque,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa. “You respect the memory and the service of the people involved.”

    The speaker’s office over the years has suggested it was working on installing the plaque, but it declined to respond to a request for further comment.

    Lawmakers approved the plaque in March 2022 as part of a broader government funding package. The resolution said the U.S. “owes its deepest gratitude to those officers,” and it set out instructions for an honorific plaque listing the names of officers “who responded to the violence that occurred.” It gave a one-year deadline for installation at the Capitol.

    This summer, two officers who fought the mob that day sued over the delay.

    “By refusing to follow the law and honor officers as it is required to do, Congress encourages this rewriting of history,” said the claim by officers Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges. “It suggests that the officers are not worthy of being recognized, because Congress refuses to recognize them.”

    The Justice Department is seeking to have the case dismissed. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and others argued Congress “already has publicly recognized the service of law enforcement personnel” by approving the plaque and displaying it wouldn’t alleviate the problems they claim to face from their work.

    “It is implausible,” the Justice Department attorneys wrote, to suggest installation of the plaque “would stop the alleged death threats they claim to have been receiving.”

    The department also said the plaque is required to include the names of “all law enforcement officers” involved in the response that day — some 3,600 people.

    Lawmakers who’ve installed replicas of the plaque outside their offices said it’s important for the public to know what happened.

    “There are new generations of people who are just growing up now who don’t understand how close we came to losing our democracy on Jan 6, 2021,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the Jan. 6 committee, which was opposed by GOP leadership but nevertheless issued a nearly 1,000-page report investigating the run-up to the attack and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

    Raskin envisions the Capitol one day holding tours around what happened. “People need to study that as an essential part of American history,” he said.

    “Think about the dates in American history that we know only by the dates: There’s the 4th of July. There’s December 7th. There’s 9/11. And there’s January 6th,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-calif., who also served on the committee and has a plaque outside her office.

    “They really saved my life, and they saved the democracy and they deserve to be thanked for it,” she said.

    But as time passes, there are no longer bipartisan memorial services for Jan. 6. On Tuesday, the Democrats will reconvene members from the Jan. 6 committee for a hearing to “examine ongoing threats to free and fair elections,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York announced. It’s unlikely Republicans will participate.

    The Republicans under Johnson have tapped Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia to stand up their own special committee to uncover what the speaker calls the “full truth” of what happened. They’re planning a hearing this month.

    “We should stop this silliness of trying to whitewash history — it’s not going to happen,” said Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., who helped lead the effort to display the replica plaques.

    “I was here that day so I’ll never forget,” he said. “I think that Americans will not forget what happened.”

    The number of makeshift plaques that fill the halls is a testimony to that remembrance, he said.

    Instead of one plaque, he said, they’ve “now got 100.”

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  • Officers who defended Capitol on Jan. 6 say their struggles linger

    That evening, after Gonell spent time with family and took his dog on a long walk, his phone started to blow up with calls. He had messages from federal prosecutors, FBI agents and the federal Bureau of Prisons — all letting him know that the new president had just pardoned about 1,500 people who had been convicted for their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The pardons included rioters who had injured Gonell as he and other officers tried to protect the building.

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    Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

    By MARY CLARE JALONICK – Associated Press

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  • Trump says that Ukraine didn’t target Putin residence in a drone strike as Kremlin claims

    ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Donald Trump on Sunday told reporters that U.S. officials have determined that Ukraine did not target a residence belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a drone attack last week, disputing Kremlin claims that Trump had initially greeted with deep concern.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week said Ukraine launched a wave of drones at Putin’s state residence in the northwestern Novgorod region that the Russian defense systems were able to defeat. Lavrov also criticized Kyiv for launching the attack at a moment of intensive negotiations to end the war.

    The allegation came just a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had traveled to Florida for talks with Trump on the U.S. administration’s still-evolving 20-point plan aimed at ending the war. Zelenskyy quickly denied the Kremlin allegation.

    Trump said that “something happened nearby” Putin’s residence but that Americans officials didn’t find the Russian president’s residence was targeted.

    “I don’t believe that strike happened,” Trump told reporters as he traveled back to Washington on Sunday after spending two weeks at his home in Florida. “We don’t believe that happened, now that we’ve been able to check.”

    Trump addressed the U.S. determination after European officials argued that the Russian claim was nothing more than an effort by Moscow to undermine the peace effort.

    But Trump, at least initially, had appeared to take the Russian allegations at face value. He told reporters last Monday that Putin had also raised the matter during a phone he had with the Russian leader earlier that day. And Trump said he was “very angry” about the accusation.

    By Wednesday, Trump appeared to be downplaying the Russian claim. He posted a link to a New York Post editorial on his social media platform that raised doubt about the Russian allegation. The editorial lambasted Putin for choosing “lies, hatred, and death” at a moment that Trump has claimed is “closer than ever before” to moving the two sides to a deal to end the war.

    The U.S. president has struggled to fulfill a pledge to quickly end the war in Ukraine and has shown irritation with both Zelenskyy and Putin as he tried to mediate an end to a conflict he boasted on the campaign trail that he could end in one day.

    Both Trump and Zelenskyy said last week they made progress in their talks at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

    But Putin has shown little interest in ending the war until all of Russia’s objectives are met, including winning control of all Ukrainian territory in the key industrial Donbas region and imposing severe restrictions on the size of Ukraine’s post-war military and the type of weaponry it can possess.

    ___

    Madhani reported from Washington.

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  • Markets show mixed reactions after US capture of Venezuelan leader

    BANGKOK — Oil prices fell back Monday while the prices of precious metals surged as markets registered a mixed reaction to the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a weekend raid.

    Share prices opened higher, with benchmarks in South Korea and Japan again setting fresh records. U.S. futures were flat after stocks eked out small gains Friday on Wall Street.

    Shortly after trading began, U.S. benchmark crude oil rose slightly. But it later was trading 23 cents lower at $57.09 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 17 cents to $60.58 per barrel.

    After years of neglect and international sanctions, Venezuela’s oil industry is in disrepair. It could take years and major investments before production can increase dramatically. But some analysts expect Venezuela could double or triple its current output of about 1.1 million barrels of oil a day to return to historic levels fairly quickly.

    With oil levels already plentiful, crude has been trading at its lowest level in about six months.

    In any case, the U.S. move was reverberating through financial markets as traders maneuvered to account for the uncertainty brought on President Donald Trump’s unusual military operation and his insistence that the U.S. will be running Venezuela following its Maduro’s ouster.

    The price of gold rose 1.9%, while silver jumped 5.7%.

    Such assets are often considered safe havens in times of geopolitical turmoil.

    “Investors are happy to own risk, but they want insurance in the drawer. This is confidence with a hedge, not euphoria,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

    Share prices in Asia shot sharply higher.

    In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 jumped 3% to 51,853.53. The index closed at a year end high for 2025 and only resumed trading on Monday.

    “Looking at the environment surrounding the markets, continuously, there are various risk factors. We must keep an eye on geopolitical risks in Ukraine, the Middle East and East Asia, the U.S.-China trade war, monetary policies in other countries and their development, and corporate performance trends in Japan,” Hiromi Yamaji, CEO of the Japan Exchange Group, said in the traditional New Year opening ceremony.

    South Korea’s Kospi surged 3.1% to 4,441.80. It had ended Friday with a record high close.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.1% to 8,733.30, while Taiwan’s benchmark climbed 2.9%.

    In other trading early Monday, the dollar rose to 157.27 Japanese yen from 156.82 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1682 from $1.1726.

    On Friday, U.S. stocks eked out small gains on Wall Street in a wobbly but quiet day of trading to kick off the new year.

    The S&P 500 rose 0.2%, to 6,858.47, coming off a gain of more than 16% in 2025.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7% to 48,382.39, while the Nasdaq composite fell less than 0.1%, to 23,235.63. The index was weighed down by a 2.2% loss for Microsoft and a 2.6% decline for Tesla, after it reported falling sales for a second year in a row.

    Nvidia, Microsoft and Tesla are among the most valuable companies in the world and their outsized valuations give them more influence on the stock market’s direction. That includes sometimes pushing the market up and down from hour to hour.

    Furniture companies gained ground following President Donald Trump’s move to delay increased tariffs on upholstered furniture. RH rose 8% and Wayfair rose 6.1%.

    This week is the first full week of the new year. It will bring several closely watched economic updates, some of the last big updates the Fed sees before its next meeting at the end of January.

    On the agenda are private reports on the status of the services sector, which is the largest part of the U.S. economy, along with consumer sentiment. Government reports on the job market will also be released. The hope is they’ll help paint a clearer picture of how various parts of the U.S. economy closed out 2025 and where it might be headed in 2026.

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  • How cocaine, corruption led to Maduro’s indictment

    A newly unsealed U.S. Justice Department indictment accuses captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of running a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S. with thousands of tons of cocaine. The arrest of Maduro and his…

    By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and LARRY NEUMEISTER – Associated Press

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  • Officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 say their struggles linger, 5 years after the riot

    WASHINGTON — As Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time on Jan. 20, 2025, former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell put his phone on “do not disturb” and left it on his nightstand to take a break from the news.

    That evening, after Gonell spent time with family and took his dog on a long walk, his phone started to blow up with calls. He had messages from federal prosecutors, FBI agents and the federal Bureau of Prisons — all letting him know that the new president had just pardoned about 1,500 people who had been convicted for their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The pardons included rioters who had injured Gonell as he and other officers tried to protect the building.

    “They told me that people I testified against were being released from prison,” Gonell said. “And to be mindful.”

    Gonell was one of the officers who defended the central West Front entrance to the Capitol that day as Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and hundreds of Trump’s supporters broke into the building, echoing his false claims of a stolen election. Gonell was dragged into the crowd by his shoulder straps as he tried to fight people off. He almost suffocated. In court, he testified about injuries to his shoulder and foot that still bother him to this day.

    “They have tried to erase what I did” with the pardons and other attempts to play down the violent attack, Gonell said. “I lost my career, my health, and I’ve been trying to get my life back.”

    Five years since the siege, Gonell and some of the other police officers who fought off the rioters are still coming to terms with what happened, especially after Trump was decisively elected to a second term last year and granted those pardons. Their struggle has been compounded by statements from the Republican president and some GOP lawmakers in Congress minimizing the violence that the officers encountered.

    “It’s been a difficult year,” said Officer Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was also injured as he fought near Gonell in a tunnel on the West Front. Hodges was attacked several times, crushed by the rioters between heavy doors and beaten in the head as he screamed for help.

    “A lot of things are getting worse,” Hodges said.

    More than 140 police officers were injured during the fighting on Jan. 6, which turned increasingly brutal as the hours wore on.

    Former Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger took over the department six months after the riot. He said in a recent interview that many of his officers were angry when he first arrived, not only because of injuries they suffered but also “they resented the fact that they didn’t have the equipment they needed, the training they needed ” to deal with the unexpectedly violent crowd.

    Several officers who fought the rioters told The Associated Press that the hardest thing to deal with has been the effort by many to play down the violence, despite a massive trove of video and photographic evidence documenting the carnage.

    Trump has called the rioters he pardoned, including those who were most violent toward the police, “patriots” and “hostages.” He called their convictions for harming the officers and breaking into the building “a grave national injustice.”

    “I think that was wrong,” Adam Eveland, a former District of Columbia police officer, said of Trump’s pardons. If there were to be pardons, Eveland said, Trump’s administration should have reviewed every case.

    “I’ve had a hard time processing that,” said Eveland, who fought the rioters and helped to push them off the Capitol grounds.

    The pardons “erased what little justice there was,” said former Capitol Police Officer Winston Pingeon, who was part of the force’s Civil Disturbance Unit on Jan. 6. He left the force several months afterward.

    Hodges and Gonell have been speaking out about their experiences since July 2021, when they testified before the Democratic-led House committee that investigated Jan 6. Since then, they have received support but also backlash.

    At a Republican-led Senate hearing in October on political violence, Hodges testified again as a witness called by Democrats. After Hodges spoke about his experience on Jan. 6, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., asked the other witnesses whether they supported Trump’s pardons of the rioters, including for those who injured Hodges. Three of the witnesses, all called by Republicans, raised their hands.

    “I don’t know how you would say it wasn’t violent,” says Hodges, who is still a Washington police officer.

    It has not just been politicians or the rioters who have doubted the police. It also is friends and family.

    “My biggest struggle through the years has been the public perception of it,” Eveland said, and navigating conversations with people close to him, including some fellow police officers, who do not think it was a big deal.

    “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that, but ideology is a pretty powerful thing,” he said.

    As police officers struggled in the aftermath, Manger, the former Capitol Police chief, said the department had to figure out how to better support them. There were no wellness or counseling services when he arrived, he said, and they were put in to place.

    “The officers who were there and were in the fight — we needed to make sure that they got the help that they needed,” Manger said.

    Manger, who retired in May, also oversaw major improvements to the department’s training, equipment, operational planning and intelligence. He said the Capitol is now “a great deal safer” than it was when he arrived.

    “If that exact same thing happened again, they would have never breached the building, they would have never gotten inside, they would have never disrupted the electoral count,” Manger said.

    Pingeon, the former Capitol Police officer, said he believes the department is in many ways “unrecognizable” from what it was on Jan. 6 and when he left several months later.

    “It was a wake-up call,” he said.

    Pingeon, who was attacked and knocked to the ground as he tried to prevent people from entering the Capitol, said Jan. 6 was part of the reason he left the department and moved home to Massachusetts. He has dealt with his experience by painting images of the Capitol and his time there, as well as advocating for nonviolence. He said he now feels ready to forgive.

    “The real trauma and heartache and everything I endured because of these events, I want to move past it,” he said.

    Gonell left the Capitol Police because of his injuries. He has not returned to service, though he hopes to work again. He wrote a book about his experience, and he said he still has post-traumatic stress disorder related to the attack.

    While many of the officers who were there have stayed quiet about their experiences, Eveland said he decided that it was important to talk publicly about Jan. 6 to try to reach people and “come at it from a logical standpoint.”

    Still, he said, “I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that just because something happened to me and was a major part of my world doesn’t mean that everyone else has to understand that or even be sympathetic to that.”

    He added: “The only thing I can do is tell my story, and hopefully the people who respect me will eventually listen.”

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  • Trump wants to overhaul the ‘president’s golf course.’ He hasn’t played there yet

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump has spent much of his two-week vacation in Florida golfing. But when he gets back to the White House, there’s a military golf course that he’s never played that he’s eyeing for a major construction project.

    Long a favored getaway for presidents seeking a few hours’ solace from the stress of running the free world, the Courses at Andrews — inside the secure confines of Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the White House — are known as the “president’s golf course.” Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden have spent time there, and Barack Obama played it more frequently than any president, roughly 110 times in eight years.

    Trump has always preferred the golf courses his family owns — spending about one of every four days of his second term at one of them. But he’s now enlisted golf champion Jack Nicklaus as the architect to overhaul the Courses at Andrews.

    “It’s amazing that an individual has time to take a couple hours away from the world crises. And they’re people like everybody else,” said Michael Thomas, the former general manager of the course, who has golfed with many of the presidents visiting Andrews over the years.

    Andrews, better known as the home of Air Force One, has two 18-hole courses and a 9-hole one. Its facilities have undergone renovations in the past, including in 2018, when Congress approved funding to replace aging presidential aircraft and to build a new hanger and support facilities. That project was close enough to the courses that they had to be altered then, too.

    Trump toured the base by helicopter before Thanksgiving with Nicklaus, who has designed top courses the world over. The president called Andrews “a great place, that’s been destroyed over the years, through lack of maintenance.”

    Other golfers, though, describe Andrews’ grounds as in good shape, despite some dry patches. Online reviews praise the course’s mature trees, tricky roughs, and ponds and streams that serve as water hazards. The courses are mostly flat, but afford views of the surrounding base.

    The first president to golf at Andrews was Ford in 1974. Thomas began working there a couple years later, and was general manager from 1981 until he retired in 2019.

    He said the Secret Service over the years used as many as 28 golf carts — as well as the president’s usual 30-car motorcade — to keep the perimeter secure.

    “It’s a Cecil B. DeMille production every time,” said Thomas, who had the opportunity to play rounds with four different presidents, and with Biden when he was vice president.

    He said the commanders in chief generally enjoyed their time out on the course in their own unique ways, but “they all like to drive the cart because they never get an opportunity to drive.”

    “It’s like getting your driver’s license all over again,” Thomas laughed.

    Trump golfs most weekends, and as of Jan. 1, has spent an estimated 92 days of his second term doing so, according to an Associated Press analysis of his schedules.

    That tally includes days when Trump was playing courses his family owns in Virginia, around 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the White House, and near his Florida estate Mar-a-Lago, where he’s spending the winter holidays. It also includes 10 days Trump spent staying at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where his schedule allowed time for rounds of golf.

    Trump has visited Andrews in the past, but the White House and base have no record of him playing the courses.

    Andrews’ military history dates to the Civil War, when Union troops used a church near Camp Springs, Maryland, as sleeping quarters. Its golf course opened in 1960.

    The White House said the renovation will be the most significant in the history of Andrews. The courses and clubhouse need improvements due to age and wear, it said, and there are discussions about including a multifunctional event center as part of the project.

    “President Trump is a champion-level golfer with an extraordinary eye for detail and design,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. “His vision to renovate and beautify Joint Base Andrews’ golf courses will bring much-needed improvements that servicemembers and their families will be able to enjoy for generations to come.”

    Plans are in the very early stages, and the cost of — and funding for — the project haven’t been determined, the White House said. Trump has said only that it will require “very little money.”

    The Andrews improvements join a bevy of Trump construction projects, including demolishing the White House’s East Wing for a sprawling ballroom now expected to cost $400 million, redoing the bathroom attached to the Lincoln bedroom and replacing the Rose Garden’s lawn with a Mar-a-Lago-like patio area.

    Outside the White House, Trump has led building projects at the Kennedy Center and wants to erect a Paris-style arch near the Lincoln Memorial, and has said he wants to rebuild Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia.

    On Wednesday, meanwhile, the Trump administration ended a lease agreement with a non-profit for three public golf courses in Washington — which could allow the president to further shape golfing in the nation’s capital. The White House, however, said that move isn’t related to the plans for Andrews.

    When the president is golfing, Andrews officials block off nine holes at a time so no one plays in front of him, allowing for extra security while also ensuring consistent speed-of-play, Thomas said.

    That’s relatively easily done given that the courses aren’t open to the public. They’re usually reserved for active or retired members of the military and their families, as well as some Defense Department-linked federal employees.

    Thomas remembers playing a round with the older President Bush, a World Golf Hall of Fame inductee known for fast play, while first lady Barbara Bush walked with Millie, the first couple’s English Springer Spaniel. George W. Bush also played fast, Thomas said, and got additional exercise by frequently riding his mountain bike before golfing.

    When he wasn’t golfing at Andrews, Obama tried to recreate at least part of the experience back home. He had a White House golf simulator installed after then-first lady Michelle Obama asked Thomas how they might acquire a model that the president had seen advertised on the Golf Channel. Thomas gave her a contact at the network.

    Obama famously cut short a round at Andrews after nine holes in 2011 to hustle back to the White House for what turned out to be a top-secret review of final preparations for a Navy Seal raid on the compound of Osama Bin Laden.

    But, while Thomas was golfing with presidents, he said he never witnessed play interrupted by an important call or any major emergency that forced them off the course mid-hole. There also were never any rain-outs.

    “If there was rain coming, they’d get the weather forecast before we would,” Thomas said. “They would cancel quick on that.”

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  • Shares are higher in Asia in an upbeat start to the new year

    BANGKOK — Asian markets began the new year Friday with gains, while U.S. futures and oil prices also advanced.

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.2% to 26,189.79 on a strong rally in tech shares.

    E-commerce giant Alibaba climbed 3.2% and search engine and technology company Baidu jumped 7.5% after it said it plans to spin off its artificial intelligence computer chip unit Kunlunxin, which would list shares in Hong Kong early 2027. The plan is subject to regulatory approvals.

    Markets were still closed in Tokyo, Shanghai, Thailand and New Zealand.

    South Korea’s Kospi picked up 1.5% to 4,277.94, while the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia edged 0.2% higher, to 8,727.30.

    Taiwan’s Taiex was up 1.1% and the Sensex in India added 0.1%.

    Asian shares have been supported by expectations that growth in the use of artificial intelligence will spur demand for computer chips and other items needed to build out data centers and other infrastructure.

    Recent manufacturing data for much of the region has been relatively weak, though trade has remained resilient.

    “Exports from most countries have surged in recent months, and we think the near-term outlook for Asia’s export-oriented manufacturing sectors remains favorable,” Shivaan Tandon of Capital Economics said in a report.

    The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.5% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3%.

    On Wednesday, U.S. stocks finished 2025 with a fourth day of losses, despite strong gains for the year.

    The S&P 500 gave up 0.7% to 6,845.50 and the Dow fell 0.6% to 48,063.29. The Nasdaq composite closed 0.8% lower at 23,241.99.

    The S&P 500 set 39 record highs in 2025 and closed 16.4% higher for the year. The Nasdaq gained 20.4% and the Dow finished 13% higher.

    Wall Street’s 2025 gains came as investors embraced the optimism surrounding artificial intelligence and its potential for boosting profits across almost all sectors. But the market had no shortage of turbulence along the way amid

    President Donald Trump eventually put his on-again, off-again tariffs on imported goods worldwide on pause while negotiating trade deals, helping to calm frayed nerves.

    Strong corporate profits and three cuts to interest rates by the Federal Reserve also helped drive markets higher.

    Wall Street is betting that the Fed will hold interest rates steady at its next meeting in January.

    The Labor Department reported that fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week with layoffs remaining low despite a weakening labor market.

    All of the sectors in the S&P 500 closed in the red Wednesday, with technology stocks the biggest drag on the market. Western Digital fell 2.2% and Micron Technology lost 2.5%. Both were among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500 this year.

    In other dealings early Friday, silver gained 3.5% after giving back 9.4% on Wednesday. It gained more than 140% in 2025.

    Gold picked up 1.1%. It closed out the year with a 63.7% gain.

    U.S. benchmark crude gained 35 cents to $57.77 per barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, was up 35 cents at $61.20 per barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 156.80 Japanese yen from 156.75 yen. The euro climbed to $1.1760 from $1.1746.

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  • Trump delays increased tariffs on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets and vanities for a year

    President Donald Trump signed a New Year’s Eve proclamation delaying increased tariffs on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets and vanities for a year, citing ongoing trade talks

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a New Year’s Eve proclamation delaying increased tariffs on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets and vanities for a year, citing ongoing trade talks.

    Trump’s order signed Wednesday keeps in place a 25% tariff he imposed in September on those goods, but delays for another year a 30% tariff on upholstered furniture and 50% tariff on kitchen cabinets and vanities.

    The increases, which were set to take effect Jan. 1, come as the Republican president instituted a broad swath of taxes on imported goods to address trade imbalances and other issues.

    The president has said the tariffs on furniture are needed to “bolster American industry and protect national security.”

    The delay is the latest in the roller coaster of Trump’s tariffs wars since he returned to office last year, with the president announcing levies at times without warning and then delaying or pulling back from them just as abruptly.

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  • Health subsidies expire, launching millions of Americans into 2026 with steep insurance hikes

    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Enhanced tax credits that have helped reduce the cost of health insurance for the vast majority of Affordable Care Act enrollees expired overnight, cementing higher health costs for millions of Americans at the start of the new year.

    Democrats forced a 43-day government shutdown over the issue. Moderate Republicans called for a solution to save their 2026 political aspirations. President Donald Trump floated a way out, only to back off after conservative backlash.

    In the end, no one’s efforts were enough to save the subsidies before their expiration date. A House vote expected in January could offer another chance, but success is far from guaranteed.

    The change affects a diverse cross-section of Americans who don’t get their health insurance from an employer and don’t qualify for Medicaid or Medicare — a group that includes many self-employed workers, small business owners, farmers and ranchers.

    It comes at the start of a high-stakes midterm election year, with affordability — including the cost of health care — topping the list of voters’ concerns.

    “It really bothers me that the middle class has moved from a squeeze to a full suffocation, and they continue to just pile on and leave it up to us,” said 37-year-old single mom Katelin Provost, whose health care costs are set to jump. “I’m incredibly disappointed that there hasn’t been more action.”

    The expired subsidies were first given to Affordable Care Act enrollees in 2021 as a temporary measure to help Americans get through the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats in power at the time extended them, moving the expiration date to the start of 2026.

    With the expanded subsidies, some lower-income enrollees received health care with no premiums, and high earners paid no more than 8.5% of their income. Eligibility for middle-class earners was also expanded.

    On average, the more than 20 million subsidized enrollees in the Affordable Care Act program are seeing their premium costs rise by 114% in 2026, according to an analysis by the health care research nonprofit KFF.

    Those surging prices come alongside an overall increase in health costs in the U.S., which are further driving up out-of-pocket costs in many plans.

    Some enrollees, like Salt Lake City freelance filmmaker and adjunct professor Stan Clawson, have absorbed the extra expense. Clawson said he was paying just under $350 a month for his premiums last year, a number that will jump to nearly $500 a month this year. It’s a strain for the 49-year-old but one he’s willing to take on because he needs health insurance as someone who lives with paralysis from a spinal cord injury.

    Others, like Provost, are dealing with steeper hikes. The social worker’s monthly premium payment is increasing from $85 a month to nearly $750.

    Health analysts have predicted the expiration of the subsidies will drive many of the 24 million total Affordable Care Act enrollees — especially younger and healthier Americans — to forgo health insurance coverage altogether.

    Over time, that could make the program more expensive for the older, sicker population that remains.

    An analysis conducted last September by the Urban Institute and Commonwealth Fund projected the higher premiums from expiring subsidies would prompt some 4.8 million Americans to drop coverage in 2026.

    But with the window to select and change plans still ongoing until Jan. 15 in most states, the final effect on enrollment is yet to be determined.

    Provost, the single mother, said she is holding out hope that Congress finds a way to revive the subsidies early in the year — but if not, she’ll drop herself off the insurance and keep it only for her four-year-old daughter. She can’t afford to pay for both of their coverage at the current price.

    Last year, after Republicans cut more than $1 trillion in federal health care and food assistance with Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill, Democrats repeatedly called for the subsidies to be extended. But while some Republicans in power acknowledged the issue needed to be addressed, they refused to put it to a vote until late in the year.

    In December, the Senate rejected two partisan health care bills — a Democratic pitch to extend the subsidies for three more years and a Republican alternative that would instead provide Americans with health savings accounts.

    In the House, four centrist Republicans broke with GOP leadership and joined forces with Democrats to force a vote that could come as soon as January on a three-year extension of the tax credits. But with the Senate already having rejected such a plan, it’s unclear whether it could get enough momentum to pass.

    Meanwhile, Americans whose premiums are skyrocketing say lawmakers don’t understand what it’s really like to struggle to get by as health costs ratchet up with no relief.

    Many say they want the subsidies restored alongside broader reforms to make health care more affordable for all Americans.

    “Both Republicans and Democrats have been saying for years, oh, we need to fix it. Then do it,” said Chad Bruns, a 58-year-old Affordable Care Act enrollee in Wisconsin. “They need to get to the root cause, and no political party ever does that.”

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  • Trump administration orders a Colorado coal-fired power generator to stay open

    FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The Trump administration has told another coal-fired power facility to remain open, this time ordering the owners of a Colorado electricity generating unit to keep it running beyond its Wednesday retirement date.

    Compliance will cost Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the other owners of the Craig Station power plant in northwestern Colorado. The plant owners will need to fix a broken valve that put the power plant’s 446-megawatt Unit 1 out of operation on Dec. 19, Tri-State said in a statement.

    The order from Energy Secretary Chris Wright follows recent Department of Energy moves to keep coal-fired power stations open in Indiana, Washington state and Michigan despite efforts by their owners to close them.

    It’s part of President Donald Trump’s push to revive the U.S. coal industry at a time when many utilities are shifting to cheaper, less-polluting energy sources such as natural gas and renewables. The administration, meanwhile, has blocked renewable energy, including wind power.

    The 45-year-old generator in Colorado, one of three at Craig Station, had been scheduled to close at the end of 2025.

    “As a not-for-profit cooperative, our membership will bear the costs of compliance with this order unless we can identify a method to share costs with those in the region,” Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said in the statement.

    The power plant’s owners had been planning since 2016 to shut down Unit 1 for economic reasons and to comply with “numerous state and federal requirements.”

    Asked how much returning the unit to operation would cost and how long that would take, Tri-State spokesperson Amy Robertson said by email that the utility had no further information to share.

    The generator must remain operational to address a shortage of electricity and electrical generation in the northwestern U.S., Wright wrote in Tuesday’s emergency order keeping the unit operational.

    “The Trump Administration is committed to lowering energy costs and keeping American families safe,” Wright said in a release.

    Wade Gerber, who works at the power plant, said the announcement changes little for Colorado’s coal country, which is undergoing a long-term shift away from the fossil fuel as a pillar of the local economy.

    He sees Craig — a city of about 9,000 people — as caught in the middle of a dizzying political battle.

    “What does this administration get to do? What does the next administration get to do? Is it going to make (coal) any long-term thing? No, probably not,” Gerber said.

    Gerber recently opened a distillery that caters to the cocktail lounge his wife owns next door, with plans to begin distributing more widely in 2026.

    “I already told both my bosses, if that blows up even a little bit, I can tell you: ‘Here’s my two-week notice,’” Gerber said.

    Colorado officials criticized the Trump administration order as a disservice to electricity users.

    “It is unacceptable to burden ratepayers with these unnecessary costs,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said in a statement.

    The power plant was completed in 1980. Its No. 2 and No. 3 units have been scheduled to be retired in 2028. The plant’s fuel is mined at the nearby Trapper Mine, which is also scheduled to close.

    ____

    Brittany Peterson in Denver contributed to this report.

    ___

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

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  • A rough year for journalists in 2025, with a little hope for things to turn around

    NEW YORK — By nearly any measure, 2025 has been a rough year for anyone concerned about freedom of the press.

    It’s likely to be the deadliest year on record for journalists and media workers. The number of assaults on reporters in the U.S. nearly equals the last three years combined. The president of the United States berates many who ask him questions, calling one woman “piggy.” And the ranks of those doing the job continues to thin.

    It’s hard to think of a darker time for journalists. So say many, including Tim Richardson, a former Washington Post reporter and now program director for journalism and disinformation at PEN America. “It’s safe to say this assault on the press over the past year has probably been the most aggressive that we’ve seen in modern times.”

    Worldwide, the 126 media industry people killed in 2025 by early December matched the number of deaths in all of 2024, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and last year was a record-setter. Israel’s bombing of Gaza accounted for 85 of those deaths, 82 of them Palestinians.

    “It’s extremely concerning,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “Unfortunately, it’s not just, of course, about the sheer numbers of journalists and media workers killed, it’s also about the failure to obtain justice or get accountability for those killings.

    “What we know from decades of doing this work is that impunity breeds impunity,” she said. “So a failure to tackle journalists’ killings creates an environment where those killings continue.”

    The committee estimates there are at least 323 journalists imprisoned worldwide.

    None of those killed this year were from the United States. But the work on American soil has still been dangerous. There have been 170 reports of assaults on journalists in the United States this year, 160 of them at the hands of law enforcement, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Many of those reports came from coverage of immigration enforcement efforts.

    It’s impossible to look past the influence of President Donald Trump, who frequently seethes with anger at the press while simultaneously interacting with journalists more than any president in memory — frequently answering their cellphone calls.

    “Trump has always attacked the press,” Richardson said. “But during the second term, he’s turned that into government action to restrict and punish and intimidate journalists.”

    The Associated Press learned that quickly, when Trump limited the outlet’s access to cover him after it refused to follow his lead to rename the Gulf of Mexico. It launched a court fight that has remained unresolved. Trump has also extracted settlements from ABC and CBS News in lawsuits over stories that displeased him, and is suing The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

    Long angry about a perceived bias against conservatives on PBS and NPR newscasts, Trump and his allies in Congress successfully cut funding for public broadcasting as a whole. The president has also moved to shut down government-run organizations that beam news to all parts of the world.

    “The U.S. is a major investor in media development, in independent media outlets in countries that have little or no independent media, or as a source of information for people in countries where there is no free media,” Ginsberg said. “The evisceration of Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America is another blow to press freedom globally.”

    Others in his administration take Trump’s lead, like when his press office chose the day after Thanksgiving to launch a web portal to complain about outlets or journalists being unfair.

    “It’s part of this overall strategy that we’re seeing from certain governments, notably the United States, to paint all journalists who don’t simply (repeat) the narrative put out by the government as fake news, as dubious, as dodgy, as criminal,” Ginsberg said.

    Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has portrayed journalists as dark figures skulking around Pentagon halls to uncover classified secrets as his rationale for putting in restrictive rules for coverage.

    That’s led to the most notable example of journalists fighting back: most mainstream news outlets gave up their credentials to work in the Pentagon rather than agree to these rules, and are still breaking stories while working off-site. The New York Times has sued to overturn the rules. The newspaper also publicly defends itself when attacked by the president, such as when he complained about its coverage of his health.

    Despite the more organized effort against the press, the public has taken little notice. The Pew Research Center said that 36% of Americans reported earlier this year hearing about the Trump administration’s relationship with the press, compared to 72% who said that at the same point in his first term.

    Polls consistently show that journalists have never been popular, and are likely to elicit little sympathy when their work becomes harder.

    “Really, the harm falls on the public with so much of this because the public depends on this independent reporting to understand and scrutinize the decisions that are being made by the most powerful office in the world,” Richardson said.

    The news industry as a whole is more than two decades in to a retrenchment caused largely by a collapse in the advertising market, and every year brings more reports of journalists laid off as a result. One of the year’s most sobering statistics came in a report by the organizations Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News: in 2002, there were 40 journalists for every 100,000 people in the United States and by this year, it was down to just over eight.

    Asked if they could find reasons for optimism, both Ginsberg and Richardson pointed to the rise of some independent local news organizations, shoots of growth in a barren landscape, places like the Baltimore Banner, Charlottesville Tomorrow in Virginia and Outlier Media in Michigan.

    As much as they are derided in Trump’s America, influential Axios CEO Jim VandeHei noted in a column recently that reporters at mainstream media outlets are still working hard and able to set the nation’s agenda with their reporting.

    As he told the AP: “Over time, people will hopefully come to their senses and say, ‘Hey, the media like anything else is imperfect but, man, it’s a nice thing to have a free press.’”

    ___

    David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

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  • Global shares trade mixed with some exchanges closed ahead of the New Year

    TOKYO — Global stock markets, including Germany, Japan and South Korea, were closed Wednesday for the yearend and New Year’s holidays, while trading was mixed in those bourses that remained open.

    France’s CAC 40 lost 0.5% in early trading to 8,130.14, while Britain’s FTSE 100 shed 0.2% to 9,923.59.

    Earlier in Asia, the Hang Seng index dipped 0.9% to 25,630.54, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.1% to 3,968.84. The Taiex in Taiwan jumped 0.9% to 28,963.60. In Australia, Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped less than 0.1% to 8,714.30.

    Tokyo trading was set to be closed for the New Year’s holidays on Thursday and Friday and scheduled to reopen on Monday. In South Korea, trading was scheduled to be closed on Thursday.

    Trading will remain open Wednesday on Wall Street but will be closed Thursday.

    In energy trading, U.S. crude fell 16 cents to $57.79 per barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, slipped 16 cents to $61.176 per barrel.

    The continued impact of a wide-ranging U.S.-led trade war threatens to add more fuel to inflation in the U.S. The Fed can cut interest rates to help the economy weather a slower jobs market. But that could add more fuel to inflation, which is still solidly above the Fed’s 2% target.

    The Fed has signaled more caution moving forward. Minutes from its December meeting reflect the divisions within the central bank as it deals with uncertainty about the threats facing the economy.

    Wall Street is betting that the Fed will hold interest rates steady at its next meeting in January.

    Sung Won Sohn, professor of finance and economics at Loyola Marymount University, believes uncertainty is brewing for global markets because of inflation, labor shortages and questions about where interest rates might be headed.

    “Central banks must tread carefully, and financial markets will likely experience continued volatility as expectations shift,” he said.

    “For businesses, investors, and policymakers alike, flexibility, risk management, and close attention to economic signals will be essential in navigating the challenges ahead.”

    In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 156.55 Japanese yen from 156.36 yen. The euro cost $1.1727, down from $1.1744.

    ___

    AP Business Writer Damian J. Troise contributed to this report.

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  • Asian shares trade mixed with some exchanges closed ahead of the New Year

    TOKYO — Major Asian stock markets, including Tokyo and Seoul, were closed Wednesday for the yearend and New Year’s holidays, while trading was mixed in those bourses that remained open.

    In China, the Hang Seng index dipped 0.9% to 25,630.54, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.1% to 3,969.75. The Taiex in Taiwan jumped 0.9% to 28,963.60.

    In Australia, Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped less than 0.1% to 8,714.30.

    Tokyo trading was set to be closed for the New Year’s holidays on Thursday and Friday and scheduled to reopen on Monday. In South Korea, trading was scheduled to be closed on Thursday.

    Trading will remain open Wednesday on Wall Street but will be closed Thursday. Trading volume was thin Tuesday.

    The S&P 500 fell 9.50 points, or 0.1%, to 6,894.24. Even with three straight days of small losses, the S&P 500 is on track for an annual gain of more than 17%.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 94.87 points, or 0.2%, to 48,367.06. The Nasdaq composite fell 55.27 points, or 0.2%, to 23,419.08.

    The biggest weights on the market remained technology companies, especially those focused on advancements for artificial intelligence.

    Nvidia fell 0.4% and Apple fell 0.2%. Both companies have outsized values that have a greater overall impact on the market’s broader direction.

    On the winning side, Facebook parent Meta Platforms rose 1.1%. The company is buying artificial intelligence startup Manus as it continues an aggressive push to amp up AI offerings across its platforms.

    The more notable action was in the commodities markets. The price of gold rose 1.4% to 4,386.30 per ounce. Silver prices gained 10.9%. Prices for gold and silver slumped Monday when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, one of the largest trading floors for commodities, asked traders to put up more cash to make bets on precious metals. Prices for both metals have surged in 2025 on a mix of economic worries and supply deficits.

    Copper rose 4.4% and is up more 40% for the year on strong demand. The base metal is critical to global energy infrastructure, and demand is expected to keep growing as the development of artificial intelligence technology puts more of a strain on data centers and the energy grid.

    In energy trading, U.S. crude fell 7 cents to $57.88 per barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, slipped 7 cents to $61.26 per barrel.

    Treasury yields were mixed in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.12% from 4.11% late Monday. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which moves more closely with expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do, held steady at 3.45% from late Monday.

    Overall, Treasury yields have fallen significantly through the year, partly because of the market’s expectations for a shift in interest rate policy at the Fed. The central bank cut interest rates three times late in 2025, most recently at its meeting earlier in December.

    The central bank has been dealing with a more complex economic picture. Consumer confidence has been weakening throughout the year as inflation squeezes consumers and businesses. The continued impact of a wide-ranging U.S.-led trade war threatens to add more fuel to inflation.

    Inflation remains stubbornly high while the jobs market slows down. The Fed can cut interest rates to help the economy weather a slower jobs market. But that could add more fuel to inflation, which is still solidly above the Fed’s 2% target. Hotter inflation could stunt economic growth.

    The Fed has signaled more caution moving forward. Minutes from its December meeting reflect the divisions within the central bank as it deals with uncertainty about the threats facing the economy.

    Wall Street is betting that the Fed will hold interest rates steady at its next meeting in January.

    In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 156.60 Japanese yen from 156.36 yen. The euro cost $1.1740, little changed from $1.1744.

    ___

    AP Business Writer Damian J. Troise contributed to this report.

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  • Kennedy Center renaming prompts new round of cancellations

    The Kennedy Center is ending the year with a new round of artists saying they are canceling scheduled performances after President Donald Trump’s name was added to the facility, prompting the institution’s president to accuse the performers of making their decisions because of politics.

    The Cookers, a jazz supergroup that has performed together for nearly two decades, announced its withdrawal from “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” on its website, saying the “decision has come together very quickly” and acknowledging frustration from those who may have planned to attend.

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    By MEG KINNARD – Associated Press

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  • Flu cases quickly increasing throughout US

    WASHINGTON — Flu is rising rapidly across the U.S., driven by a new variant of the virus — and cases are expected to keep growing with holiday travel.

    That variant, known as “subclade K,” led to early outbreaks in the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada. In the U.S., flu typically begins its winter march in December. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported high or very high levels of illness in more than half the states.

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    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

    By LAURAN NEERGAARD – AP Medical Writer

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