A legacy of hope and laughter for Gaudreau brothers as family, friends and hockey community grieve

WESTVILLE, N.J. (AP) — The family called him John. It wasn’t until John Gaudreau played for Boston College that he picked up the “Johnny Hockey” nickname that followed him through 11 seasons in the NHL.

His mother, Jane, gleefully recalled the “Johnny Hockey” T-shirts and sing-song chants BC fans bestowed on their beloved wizard on the ice. At home in New Jersey, younger brother Matthew, who also played hockey for Boston College, and sisters Kristen and Katie couldn’t help but tease their brother with the nickname as his popularity and All-Star career grew through stops in Calgary and Columbus.

Take one night during the NHL Awards in Las Vegas, just one family story out of thousands of favorites, when Gaudreau tried to keep a low public profile on a family outing. Katie wasn’t having it out on the Strip, shouting for all to hear, “Johnny! Johnny Hockey!”

“I can see John’s face getting redder and redder and redder,” Jane Gaudreau said with a laugh. “You walk down the street and no one knows who you are until Katie started making this whole big thing.”

Everything was fine for the family when they gathered last August for Katie’s wedding. John and Matt were the groomsmen and Kristen the maid of honor. What happened next, the typhoon of shock and grief that rippled from New Jersey through the heart of the hockey community, has been well-documented over the last eight months. The night before the wedding, John, 31, and Matt, 29, died after they were hit by a suspected drunken driver while riding bicycles in the Delaware River country south of Philadelphia, leaving a family forever shattered, with not enough time to ever fully pick up all the pieces.

They try.

From births to hockey tributes, through Instagram pages dotted with photos from the family scrapbook and a new foundation, to a playground fundraising effort at the family’s beloved school, the Gaudreaus have pushed through dark days when even getting out of bed seemed impossible. They pull through, pull together, just as they did as a family of six in South Jersey, and try to focus on a simple mantra: Live their lives to the fullest in honor of Matt and John.

There is more hardship ahead and dark days are going to come and go. The driver charged with killing the brothers, a man prosecutors described as having a history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving, still faces trial.

But as Jane Gaudreau details her dream of a new, adaptive playground for the special education students at the school where she works, it’s the good times that stir the most memories. Like when John playfully threatened to stab Katie with a fork at a restaurant for not finishing a stack of pancakes and surprisingly — and gently — followed through.

It's the stories that lift the spirits of Jane, husband Guy and countless friends and teammates who went through their first hockey season in decades without two men who gave so much to their growing families and to the game.

“It’s great to keep their memories alive,” said their sister, Kristen Venello, who rocks her Blue Jackets hoodie as a speech assistant at Archbishop Damiano School. “It is sad. But you think about all the good things they did and that’s all you can think about. And how much they can help us still.”

Archbishop Damiano School was founded in 1968 for children with Down syndrome and now provides services for 125 students with special needs from ages 3 to 21. Jane Gaudreau’s brother attended the school and their mother worked there for 44 years. Jane was hired in 1984 and is still a finance associate there. Kristen, the oldest daughter, has taught at the school for almost two decades. Katie used to assist with the kids when she could and the two Gaudreau boys volunteered at the school when they weren’t playing hockey.

In death, they can perhaps leave a permanent legacy at Damiano outside family and hockey.

Kelsie Snow lost her husband, Chris, a former assistant general manager with the Calgary Flames, in 2023 to Lou Gehrig’s disease. She called Jane with a suggestion on how to navigate life through perpetual grief: Keep busy. Find a project. Jane and Guy embraced the idea and searched for the right one, until they realized the answer was right there at Archbishop Damiano.

The Gaudreaus and the staff at Archbishop Damiano threw themselves into fundraising for a modern playground that allows for everything from basic wheelchair accessibility to ramps and transfer platforms for the students. Students tacked their wish list for the playground -- wheelchair swings and even a sand box -- to the walls inside the school.

The Gaudreau Family 5K set for May 31 is expected to bring needed cash to the initiative launched by principal Michele McCloskey in October 2020. Raising the necessary funds over the last five years had been a slow build. So many friends from the hockey world and others now inspired by the brothers and the cause have since rallied around the effort.

“I know the boys would be proud of us,” Jane said. “Both boys loved children, that’s why we thought the playground would be perfect.”

The Gaudreaus have another, more enduring project ahead of them as doting grandparents. Both widows have given birth since their husbands died. Meredith, who revealed during her tearful eulogy for John in August that she was pregnant, gave birth in April to the couple’s third child, Carter Michael Gaudreau. Madeline delivered her and Matty’s first baby, Tripp Matthew Gaudreau, in December.

Jane laughs when she describes how much the new additions resemble their fathers. Tripp has light hair like his dad; Carter looks like big sister Noa, and they both look like John.

“My husband keeps saying this,” Jane said, ”‘I think God sent us John and Matty back.‘”

Guy Gaudreu, a former hockey coach at Hollydell Ice Arena and Gloucester Catholic High School in New Jersey, had his sons on the ice at 2 years old and he’s already making plans for Carter and Tripp. Matthew played for the junior ice hockey Omaha Lancers for two years, and when the family was invited back last month for a tribute night, Guy amused the family as he gave baby Tripp an introduction.

“He was like, smell the ice, this is the locker room,” Jane said with a laugh. “We’re used to that. He’s just crazy like that. I was looking at (Madeline) and she was just laughing, shaking her head.”

The Gaudreaus have kept busy, with fundraising, teaching and various outings that celebrated their sons. Guy has perhaps been at the rink the most since losing the boys. He joined practices for the Blue Jackets and spent time as a guest instructor this season with the Flyers. He hit the ice in Montreal and helped out Team USA at the 4 Nations Face-Off. The Gaudreaus led the Blue Jackets out of the tunnel at Ohio Stadium in front of nearly 95,000 fans at the NHL Stadium Series.

“I know sometimes we’ll hear people, oh, this poor family, they have to go through this again,” Jane said. “But it’s been quite healing. Through this, I’ve had so many people tell stories of what Matthew or John has done for them, or a hospital, or other people. They appreciate everything the boys did. They were grieving, too. It was a way for us to get out there and talk to people, hear different stories.”

Jane needed a gentle nudge from some Blue Jackets to attend the team’s annual Moms’ Trip to a February game at Detroit. Defenseman Erik Gudbranson surprised Jane with a persuasive call for her attend the annual bonding trip. The other Blue Jackets moms were so supportive of her on the trip, she said, “they knew if I was going to get upset before I even knew.”

“We needed her there,” Gudbranson said. “It wouldn’t have felt right if she wasn’t there.”

Sean Monahan and Gaudreau became tight when the stars played together in Calgary, one reason the Blue Jackets center was persuaded by his friend to sign with the team last summer.

Monahan and his family settled near the Gaudreaus in the same Columbus suburb of New Albany, so close as neighbors Monahan counted just 25 steps between the two houses. After Gaudreau’s death, Monahan couldn’t even drive by his friend’s house on his commute to the rink. He and his family have tried to serve as a steady source of support for Meredith and her three children. Monahan even met Carter Gaudreau the day he was born (“good looking little guy, just like John”).

The Blue Jackets dedicated the season to the Gaudreaus and raised John’s No. 13 to the rafters. There’s a patch on the jerseys and the Blue Jackets wore Avalon Surf Shop sweatshirts as part of their “Johnny fit” collection. The team never failed to hang Gaudreau’s jersey in a locker stall for every game, home or away.

“He’s supposed to be here with us,” Monahan said. “It’s just one other thing we can do to keep his name around, keep his legacy going for such a special person.”

Motivated by the memory of their friend, the Blue Jackets were in the hunt for a playoff spot until the final week of the season. They fell two points shy, leaving the team with a “what if?” feeling over missing the playoffs while hurting over Gaudreau.

“It’s something that weighs on my mind and it’s something I think about every day," Monahan said. "There are no easy days, for sure. I try and live the way he did and it benefited me.”

Gudbranson also held Carter in the hospital and wrestled with the conflicting feelings of the joy over the birth with the sadness Gaudreau was not alive to meet his son.

“There’s a part of you that says this feels wrong that I’m holding my buddy’s son and he hasn’t met him,” Gudbranson said. “That’s hard to wrap your head around. Those kids will probably be 30 years old and I’ll be thinking the same thing. I don’t think that’s going anywhere.”

Gudbranson said that in large part because of Gaudreau’s influence, the season was a “a lot more joyous this year. We’ve enjoyed being teammates.” When the good times were rolling, the Blue Jackets tried to appreciate those moments just like Gaudreau did, the franchise player who was just one of the boys once the final horn sounded.

“Once the game was done, we were just buddies,” Gudbranson said. “He wasn’t necessarily Johnny Hockey to us. The personal side matters to us the most. But yeah, we’ve had conversations like, can you imagine if this guy was on our team this year? How good would he have been with us this year? Holy smokes.”

Guy and Jane, married 42 years, almost never go out to dinner, overwhelmed by feelings of guilt over enjoying themselves, and those emotions also run deep with Katie. She told her mom, yes, she wanted to marry her fiancé, Devin Joyce, but wasn’t sure a big wedding was the way to go. Jane said she simply told her there was no wrong decision, but to let the rage and sadness settle and take as much time as necessary make a decision.

The couple eventually rescheduled their wedding for July 11. Katie wrote on her Instagram post, “I guess this year has taught me to celebrate our love everyday, every minute.”

“You know the boys, they’ll be there with us that day,” Jane said. “They would want you to have fun.”

Jane added with resolve, “This guy already took two of the most important things away from us. Don’t let him take away your wedding.”

Katie reflected on that fateful night on an Instagram post how she had texted her fiancé “we forgot to practice our dip,” during rehearsal to how a “phone call later, our lives would forever change.”

The couple will get a second chance at a wedding, this one in memory of their brothers.

“I think we’ll all be able to get through the day,” Jane said. “I think it will be hard at first. We want to be there for her, support her. The other three had big weddings, it was so fun for our family to be together. I think it will be OK.”

The Gaudreaus want people to remember how the young men lived, not how they died. Sometimes that is difficult: In mid-April, there was a hearing for Sean Higgins, the man charged with reckless vehicular homicide in the Gaudreaus' deaths, only a few hours before the Blue Jackets played the Flyers nearby. The family skipped the game for the Gloucester Catholic High School Hall of Fame banquet where Matthew was posthumously inducted.

The Gaudreaus have kept their thoughts about the court proceedings private, though Jane did write a pair of inspirational quotes on Instagram later that day, including one that said, “When you have a bad day — a really bad day — try and treat the world better than it treated you.”

The 5K has filled its allotment of 1,000 runners for race day at a New Jersey park but anyone can contribute from home as a virtual participant. More than 700 people have already signed up, from New Jersey to Canada to Ireland, eager to help the cause, which includes an online memorabilia auction that stretches beyond hockey, with all proceeds donated toward the playground effort and its $600,000 goal.

Jane, 62, said it’s hard to remember much through the haze of heartbreak from the funeral and memorial reception, only that she figured more than 1,000 people stopped by the family home to pay their respects. With some distance, the family hoped it would be comforting to see everyone at the 5K and thank them for their love and comfort.

The current playground doesn’t meet the needs of its students in its current shape, there are gaping holes in the turf and the swings and slides were not designed for children with disabilities. If the goal is met, the school hopes to break ground this fall and complete the project next spring.

“As a school for serving people with multiple disabilities, we really don’t get a lot of traction,” said McCloskey, the school principal. “I think through all the media attention, I think people see it, they see why this is important.”

It seems trite to call it a silver lining but the family has searched in vain to find some meaning, some good out of the senseless deaths.

So they’ll run.

For John. For Matt. For a cause the boys so robustly supported in life.

“It’s not the way I’d want to build the playground, of course,” Jane said. “I tend to believe they’ll be up there, being able to listen to the children’s laughter. They’ll just really love the fact that the children will have a playground to play in.”

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

FILE - The family of Johnny Gaudreau gather at centrer ice prior before an NHL hockey game between with Calgary Flames and Columbus Blue Jackets in Calgary, Albertam Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

FILE - The Gaudreau family thanks the public as the late Matthew and Johnny Gaudreau are honored before the Philadelphia Rebels' home opener at Hollydell Ice Arena in Sewell, N.J., Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (Elizabeth Robertson/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP, File)

Jane Gaudreau, mother of hockey players Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau who were fatally struck by a motorist while riding bicycles, speaks during an interview at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, N.J., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Speech assistant Kristen Venello speaks during an interview at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, N.J., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Michele McCloskey, Executive Director and Principal, speaks during an interview at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, N.J., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

FILE - Sean M. Higgins, the driver charged with killing NHL hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew while they were bicycling, appears at the Salem County, N.J., Courthouse, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Salem, N.J. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

FILE - Shown is a makeshift memorial for NHL hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew who were killed by a suspected drunken driver as they bicycled on a rural road, Sept. 5, 2024, in Oldmans Township , N.J., Thursday. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

FILE - A memorial is set up by fans for Blue Jackets hockey player Johnny Gaudreau in Columbus, Ohio, Aug. 30, 2024. Gaudreau, along with his brother Matthew, was fatally struck by a motorist while riding his bicycle on Thursday. (AP Photo/Joe Maiorana, File)

FILE - A makeshift memorial for NHL hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew, who were killed by a suspected drunken driver as they bicycled on a rural road, is shown Sept. 5, 2024, in Oldmans Township , N.J., Thursday. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE - The late Matthew and Johnny Gaudreau are honored before the Philadelphia Rebels' home opener at Hollydell Ice Arena in Sewell, N.J. on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (Elizabeth Robertson/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP, File)

Mark takes a ride on a slide with paraprofessional Raheem Morton at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, N.J., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Amelia rides a tricycle accompanied by teacher Terria Huckabee at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, N.J., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Mark moves about on a playground apparatus accompanied by paraprofessional Raheem Morton at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, N.J., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Fischer, accompanied by paraprofessional Olivia Lilliston rides on a playground ramp at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, N.J., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Aria takes a ride on a swing while accompanied by teacher Tricia Cadle at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, N.J., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Jane Gaudreau, mother of hockey players Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau who were fatally struck by a motorist while riding bicycles, poses for a photograph at Archbishop Damiano School in Westville, N.J., Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

President Donald Trump is in Michigan to promote his efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing, as he tries to counter fears about a weakening job market and worries that still-rising prices are taking a toll on Americans’ pocketbooks. The day trip includes a tour of a Ford factory in Dearborn that makes best-selling F-150 pickups, and an address to the Detroit Economic Club.

It comes as the Trump administration’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has sparked an outcry, with defenders of the U.S. central bank pushing back against Trump’s efforts to exert more control over it. Federal data from December released before the president left Washington showed Inflation declined a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell — a sign that cost pressures are slowly easing.

In their wake of off-year election losses for the GOP, the White House said Trump would put a greater emphasis on talking directly to the public about his economic policies after doing relatively few events around the country earlier in his term.

The Latest:

The president opened with introductions and a few jokes, then immediately shifted to talking about his elections and voter ID laws, instead of the economy.

He then resumed recognizing some of the more notable people in the audience in Detroit.

The president stopped to speak to reporters while touring the auto factory and was indifferent to the idea of renegotiating the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, or USMCA, which is up for review this year.

“I think they want it,” he said of the other nations. “I don’t really care.”

Trump said the U.S. doesn’t need cars made in Canada or Mexico, but he wants to see them made in the U.S.

Beijing on Tuesday criticized President Donald Trump’s plan to impose an additional 25% tariff on Iran’s trading partners, which includes China, Iran’s largest trading partner.

“Tariff wars have no winners,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry. “China will firmly protect its legitimate and lawful rights and interests.”

It’s not immediately clear if the tariff on Chinese goods will go up, because the two governments have agreed to a yearlong truce in their trade war following a summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in October in South Korea.

On Tuesday, the Chinese commerce ministry extended anti-dumping tariffs on U.S. solar polysilicon imports. The rates are 53.3% to 57%.

U.S. Health Secretary has added two more members to his controversial vaccine advisory panel.

Dr. Kimberly Biss and Dr. Adam Urato on Tuesday were named to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The committee recommends how vaccines should be used.

Kennedy — a leading antivaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official — last year fired all 17 of the panel’s previous members, replacing them now with 13 that includes several anti-vaccine voices.

Biss, based in Florida, has urged pregnant women not to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Urato, based in Massachusetts, has warned about medications taken during pregnancy — particularly antidepressants.

The Clintons, in a letter released on social media, are slamming a subpoena for their testimony as “legally invalid” even as Republican lawmakers prepared contempt of Congress proceedings against them.

The Clintons wrote that the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Republican Rep. James Comer, is on the cusp of a process “literally designed to result in our imprisonment” and vowed to “forcefully defend” ourselves.

After Bill Clinton failed to show up for scheduled deposition Tuesday morning, Comer says he will being contempt of Congress proceedings next week. That would start a complicated and politically messy process that Congress has rarely reached for and could result in prosecution from the Justice Department.

The change means EPA rules for fine particulate matter and ozone will focus only on the cost to industry.

It’s part of a broader realignment under Trump toward a business-friendly approach that has included the rollback of multiple policies meant to safeguard human health and the environment and slow climate change.

The agency said in a statement that it “absolutely remains committed to our core mission of protecting human health and the environment” but “will not be monetizing the impacts at this time.”

Environmental and public health advocates called the action a dangerous abdication of one of EPA’s core missions, to protect public health. They said the change could lead to more asthma attacks, heart disease and premature deaths.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican who has been outspoken against the Trump administration’s overseas military pursuits, said an attack on Iran would likely harm U.S. interests and could backfire.

“I hope they are able to rise up in sufficient force to actually topple the regime,” he said about the Iranian people protesting.

“But once we start dropping bombs on their government, I mean, it can create the opposite of the intended effect, because when people — no matter who they are, whether they’re pro or against the regime — tend to be unhappy when foreign bombs are dropping on them.”

“Temporary means temporary,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to The Associated Press.

DHS told Fox News separately that Somalis with Temporary Protected Status must leave the U.S. by March 17, when existing protections expire. The TPS move comes amid Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where many Somalis have U.S. citizenship. Trump has targeted Somali immigrants with racist rhetoric and accused them of defrauding federal programs.

A congressional report last year estimated the Somali TPS population at 705 people. Noem insisted that circumstances in Somalia “have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status.”

Located in the horn of Africa, Somalia is one of the world’s poorest nations and has for decades been beset by chronic strife and insecurity exacerbated by multiple natural disasters, including severe droughts.

A bill introduced by Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts would allow people to sue federal law enforcement officers for civil rights violations and remove their qualified immunity protections in such cases.

“When masked ICE agents are allowed to kill and harm people with impunity, we have crossed a dangerous threshold in our nation,” Markey said in a statement.

The bill “sends a powerful message to everyone in America — citizen or not — that when ICE agents break the law, they should and will be held accountable” Pressley said.

The bill stands little chance of passage in the GOP-controlled Congress.

Qualified immunity protects government agents from lawsuits unless they violate “clearly established” constitutional or statutory protections. Debates over the scope of the legal doctrine have held up bipartisan negotiations over policing reforms.

The Democratic National Committee will spend millions of dollars to cement control of voter registration efforts that have traditionally been entrusted to nonprofit advocacy groups and individual political campaigns. Party leaders hope the shift will increase their chances this year and cement successes for many elections to come.

The initiative being announced on Tuesday in Arizona and Nevada could become the DNC’s largest-ever push to sign up new voters. The focus is on young people, voters of color and people without college educations — demographics that drifted away from Democrats in the last presidential race, which returned Trump to the White House.

“It’s a crisis. And for our party to actually win elections, we have to actually create more Democrats,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in an interview with The Associated Press. Party leaders want a more explicitly partisan approach like the one used by Republicans, who have relied less on outside groups to register and mobilize their voter base.

Trump said Tuesday he’s canceled talks with Iranian officials amid their protest crackdown and promised help to protesters in the country after human rights monitors said Tuesday that the death toll spiked to 2,000.

Trump did not offer any details about what the help would entail, but it comes after Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic. Trump’s latest message on social media appeared to make an abrupt shift about his willingness to engage with the Iranian government.

“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” Trump wrote in morning post on Truth Socia. “Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

The Danish government official who confirmed the support on Tuesday was not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The official didn’t provide details about the support, which comes at a moment of tension between the NATO allies as Trump repeatedly calls for the U.S. to take over Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are set to meet Wednesday in Washington with Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt to discuss the matter.

Officials with Denmark and Greenland have repeatedly said the island is not for sale and expressed frustration that Trump isn’t ruling out military force to take the territory.

The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Danish support for the U.S. operation was first reported by Newsmax.

— By Aamer Madhani

In a social media post, Trump defended the aggressive immigration enforcement actions being carried out across Minneapolis as part of his deportation agenda.

Throngs of people have taken to the streets of Minneapolis to protest the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after a woman was shot and killed during an operation last Wednesday.

The president asserted in the post that the anti-ICE activity is also shifting the spotlight away from alleged fraud in the state and said, “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”

Trump blames what he calls “professional agitators” for the protests. He has not provided evidence to support his claims.

“Michiganders are feeling the effects of Trump’s economy every day,” Michigan Democratic Party chair Curtis Hertel said in a statement, singling out Republican opposition to extending health care subsidies.

“After spending months claiming that affordability was a ‘hoax’ and creating a health care crisis for Michiganders, Donald Trump is now coming to Detroit — a city he hates — to tout his billionaire-first agenda while working families suffer,” Hertel said.

It won’t be easy for Big Tech companies to win the hearts and minds of Americans who are angry about massive artificial intelligence data centers sprouting up in their neighborhoods, straining electricity grids and drawing on local reservoirs.

Microsoft is trying anyway. The software giant’s president, Brad Smith, is meeting with federal lawmakers Tuesday, pushing for the industry, not taxpayers, to pay the full costs of the vast network of computing warehouses needed to power AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s own Copilot. Trump gave the effort a nod with a Truth Social post saying he doesn’t want Americans to “pick up the tab” for data centers and pay higher utility costs.

“Local communities naturally want to see new jobs but not at the expense of higher electricity prices or the diversion of their water,” Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press.

▶ Read more from the AP’s interview with Microsoft’s president

Central bankers from around the world said Tuesday they “stand in full solidarity” with U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, after Trump dramatically escalated his confrontation with the Fed with the Justice Department investigating and threatening criminal charges.

Powell “has served with integrity, focused on his mandate and an unwavering commitment to the public interest,” read the statement signed by nine national central bank heads including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey.

They added that “the independence of central banks is a cornerstone of price, financial and economic stability in the interest of the citizens that we serve. It is therefore critical to preserve that independence, with full respect for the rule of law and democratic accountability.”

▶ Read more about the central bankers supporting Federal Reserve independence

Inflation declined a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell, a sign that cost pressures are slowly easing.

Consumer prices rose 0.3% in December from the prior month, the Labor Department said Tuesday, the same as in November. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 0.2%, also matching November’s figure.

Even as inflation has eased, the large price increases for necessities such as groceries, rent, and health care have left many American households feeling squeezed, turning “affordability” issues into high-profile political concerns.

▶ Read more about the latest data on U.S. consumer prices

Trump’s administration has made good on its pledge to label the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, imposing sanctions on them and their members. The decision could please the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, but complicate U.S. relations with allies Qatar and Turkey.

The State Department designated the Lebanese branch a foreign terrorist organization, the most severe of the labels, which makes it a criminal offense to provide material support to the group. Treasury listed the Jordanian and Egyptian branches as specially designated global terrorists for providing support to Hamas.

Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, said the sanctions may impact visa and asylum claims for people entering not just the U.S. but also Western European countries and Canada.

▶ Read more about the terrorist designations

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday over state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams. Lower courts ruled for the transgender athletes in Idaho and West Virginia who challenged the state bans, but the conservative-dominated Supreme Court might not follow suit.

In just the past year, the justices ruled in favor of state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youths and allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced.

The legal fight is playing out amid a broad effort by Trump to target transgender Americans, beginning on the first day of his second term and including the ouster of transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok will join Google’s generative AI engine in operating inside the Pentagon network, as part of a broader push to feed as much of the military’s data as possible into the developing technology.

“Very soon we will have the world’s leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department,” Hegseth said in a speech at Musk’s space flight company, SpaceX, in South Texas.

The announcement comes just days after Grok — which is embedded into X, the social media network owned by Musk — drew global outcry and scrutiny for generating highly sexualized deepfake images of people without their consent.

Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked Grok, while the U.K.’s independent online safety watchdog announced an investigation Monday. Grok has limited image generation and editing to paying users.

Hegseth said Grok will go live inside the Defense Department later this month and announced that he would “make all appropriate data” from the military’s IT systems available for “AI exploitation.” He also said data from intelligence databases would be fed into AI systems.

▶ Read more about Grok’s new role in the Defense Department

Trump has arrived at a delicate moment as he weighs whether to order a U.S. military response against the Iranian government as it continues a violent crackdown on protests.

He has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against antigovernment protesters. It’s a red line that Trump has said he believes Iran is “starting to cross” and has left him and his national security team weighing “very strong options.”

But the U.S. military — which Trump has warned Tehran is “locked and loaded” — appears, at least for the moment, to have been placed on standby mode as Trump ponders next steps, saying that Iranian officials want to have talks with the White House.

Trump announced Monday on social media that he would slap 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Tehran “effective immediately” — his first action aimed at penalizing Iran for the protest crackdown, and his latest example of using tariffs as a tool to force friends and foes on the global stage to bend to his will.

▶ Read more about Trump and Iran

The BBC plans to ask a court to throw out U.S. President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the British broadcaster, court papers show.

Trump filed a lawsuit in December over the way the BBC edited a speech he gave on Jan. 6, 2021. The claim, filed in a Florida federal court, seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.

The broadcaster has apologized to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejects claims it defamed him. The furor triggered the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.

Papers filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Miami say the BBC will file a motion to dismiss the case on March 17 on the basis that the court lacks jurisdiction and Trump failed to state a claim.

The broadcaster’s lawyers will argue that the BBC did not create, produce or broadcast the documentary in Florida and that Trump’s claim the documentary was available in the U.S. on streaming service BritBox is not true.

▶ Read more about the lawsuit

Trump will travel to Michigan on Tuesday to promote his efforts to boost U.S. manufacturing, trying to counter fears about a weakening job market and worries that still-rising prices are taking a toll on Americans’ pocketbooks.

The day trip will include a tour of a Ford factory in Dearborn that makes F-150 pickups, the bestselling domestic vehicle in the U.S. The Republican president is also set to address the Detroit Economic Club at the MotorCity Casino.

November’s off-year elections showed a shift away from Republicans as public concerns about kitchen table issues persist. In their wake, the White House said Trump would put a greater emphasis on talking directly to the public about his economic policies after doing relatively few events around the country earlier in his term.

Trump’s Michigan swing follows economy-focused speeches he gave last month in Pennsylvania — where his gripes about immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation — and North Carolina, where he insisted his tariffs have spurred the economy, despite residents noting the squeeze of higher prices.

▶ Read more about Trump’s trip to Michigan

FILE - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, right, and President Donald Trump look over a document of cost figures during a visit to the Federal Reserve, July 24, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

A visitor stops to look at a photograph of President Donald Trump and a short plaque next to it are on display at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery's "American Presidents" exhibit on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)