Angelina Melnikova caps return by edging Leanne Wong for gold at the world gymnastics championships

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Angelina Melnikova's return to international gymnastics after a three-year hiatus ended with the Russian in a familiar spot: atop the podium.

The 25-year-old star edged American Leanne Wong for the all-around title at the world championships on Thursday, capping a long climb back to the top after Melnikova and other Russian athletes were barred from competing because of Russia's war with Ukraine.

Melnikova recovered from a fall off the balance beam in the second rotation to post a total of 55.066, just ahead of Wong at 54.966. Zhang Qingying of China used a brilliant beam routine to earn bronze at 54.633. Kaylia Nemour of Algeria was fourth.

The result — Melnikova in first and Wong in second — was a repeat of the 2021 world championships, where Melnikova topped Wong for the crown just two months after leading Russia to gold and earning a bronze in the all-around at the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Plenty has happened since then. Melnikova, who briefly dabbled in politics before removing herself from consideration in an effort to maintain the “neutral athlete” designation under International Gymnastics Federation guidelines, didn't compete outside of Russia for more than three years.

Wong, a 22-year-old from Kansas, has spent the last four years as a fixture on the U.S. national team while also competing collegiately at Florida, juggling myriad business interests and studying to become a doctor.

Melnikova easily topped qualifying earlier in the week. The finals, however, were a taut if error-riddled affair in which her second world title wasn't assured until her floor exercise score of 13.433 flashed at the end of the final rotation.

The only contender who avoided a major mistake was Wong, who qualified in 10th but found herself in a position to become the latest in a line of American world champions that includes Simone Biles, Jordyn Wieber and Morgan Hurd.

Wong gambled on vault in her final rotation, opting for the more difficult of the two vaults she does in competition. Her Cheng was excellent, and her score of 14.466 was the best of the day on the event.

Melnikova, who struggled on floor exercise during qualifying, appeared to have both of her heels land out of bounds during her first tumbling pass, a major deduction. She recovered to put together a clean and dynamic routine and her score included just a one-tenth deduction for stepping out, indicating judges believed only one foot landed out of bounds.

Had the judges ruled that both of her feet stepped onto the colored carpet that serves as the border, she would have been docked three-tenths of a point, which would have put Wong in first.

Instead, Melnikova gasped when her score was revealed before embracing her coaches to cap off an emotional return for Russian gymnastics on the world stage, in spirit if technically not in name.

Zhang was a surprise bronze medalist, the first by China in the all-around at worlds since Tang Xijing was runner-up to Biles in 2019. Zhang's 14.833 on beam was more than 1.2 points better than any other competitor on the apparatus, which serves as a test of nerves as much as it is a test of skills, a staggering gap.

That performance helped her slip past Nemour and into third.

Nemour, just 18, remains a marvel on uneven bars, where her intricate and technically demanding routine is the best being done on any apparatus by any active female gymnast.

Yet Nemour also stepped out of bounds on her vault, earning a three-tenths deduction that proved to be the difference.

American Dulcy Caylor, 17, qualified in fifth but saw her chances of earning a medal disappear after a fall near the end of her uneven bars routine. Caylor finished 13th.

Asia D'Amato of Italy was fifth, an impressive return after she missed the 2024 Paris Olympics because of a knee injury and had to watch from afar as her teammates earned a stunning silver without her.

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

Zhang Qingying of China celebrates as she competes in the Women's All-Around Final during the 53rd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Individual Neutral Athlete Angelina Melnikova competes in the Women's All-Around Final during the 53rd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Medalists Leanne Wong of United States with silver, left, Individual Neutral Athlete Angelina Melnikova with gold, center, and Zhang Qingying of China, with bronze, right, after the Women's All-Around Final during the 53rd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Individual Neutral Athlete Angelina Melnikova hugs a team member after she wins gold in the Women's All-Around Final during the 53rd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Individual Neutral Athlete Angelina Melnikova holds the gold medal after winning the Women's All-Around Final during the 53rd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

WASHINGTON (AP) — When acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed off on a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate President Donald Trump's allies for alleged political prosecution, he may have pleased his boss.

But the eyebrow-raising move — the latest in his push to prove his loyalty to Trump — has agitated the same Republican lawmakers he would need to secure the permanent job.

Blanche insists he’s not auditioning for the job of attorney general. But a succession of splashy steps the Justice Department has taken under his watch since he took the position on an acting basis last month, including an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, has left no doubt about the impression he’s hoping to make on the president who appointed him.

The fund in particular has put Blanche at the center of a Republican firestorm at a time when he aims to establish himself as the perfect person for the job for the remainder of Trump’s term. And it sharpened concerns from Democrats and other Blanche critics that he has not shed his mantle as the president’s personal attorney.

“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — Take your pick,” Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former majority leader, said in a statement.

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche came to public prominence for his lead role on Trump's defense team, including during the Republican's hush money trial in New York. That perch afforded him, he has said, a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

He was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general, the No. 2 job, then was elevated last month after Trump ousted Pam Bondi.

Now he finds himself the latest Trump-appointed attorney general to simultaneously confront expectations from subordinates to uphold institutional norms and demands from the president to do his bidding.

Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was forced out after the 2018 midterms after infuriating the president over his recusal from an investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 presidential campaign. Another, William Barr, resigned after their relationship fizzled over Barr's refusal to back Trump's baseless claims of massive election fraud. Bondi was removed after struggling to bring successful prosecutions against Trump's political opponents.

Two weeks after becoming acting attorney general, Blanche announced the appointment of Joseph diGenova, an 81-year-old former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to a special position inside the department. He'll oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump.

“At some point, at the right time, that will be made public and the American people will see exactly what happened to this administration and President Trump over the past decade," Blanche told Fox News.

Prior government reviews of the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, a centerpiece of the current conspiracy investigation, have failed to produce criminal charges against senior officials or evidence of criminal conduct by them. It's not clear what, if any, new information the continuing investigation has developed.

The Justice Department also last month obtained an indictment charging Comey, a Trump foe whose prosecution the president has long called for, with threatening Trump through a social media photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47" — a case legal experts say will be challenging for prosecutors. Comey has said he wouldn't be surprised if the Justice Department pursues additional indictments.

In other moves, Blanche announced an indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that has been the target of conservative outrage, with misleading donors about its activities, and has publicly defended a Justice Department crackdown on leaks to the news media, including subpoenas to reporters.

Arguably the most audacious demonstration of loyalty to Trump came this week when the Justice Department announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who feel they've been unjustly investigated and prosecuted, coupled with a guarantee of immunity from tax audits for Trump and his eldest sons.

As Republican concerns grew, Blanche held a tense meeting with GOP lawmakers Thursday. Shortly afterward, Senate Republicans abruptly left Washington without voting on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies.

Blanche, who defended the fund at a congressional hearing this week, has said anyone who believes they've been persecuted can apply for compensation regardless of political affiliation. But the fund has been widely understood as a boon to Trump allies investigated during the Biden administration.

“It’s pretty clear that he’s not the attorney general for the United States as much as he's the attorney general for President Trump,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and senior Justice Department official in the 1980s. He said Blanche would get an A+ if report cards were issued for fealty to Trump.

David Laufman, a former chief of staff to the deputy attorney general in President George W. Bush's administration, said that rather than protecting the Justice Department's independence, Blanche has been a “willing and ardent accomplice for carrying out any partisan or corrupt scheme the White House may devise.”

Blanche’s supporters dismiss the suggestion he is trying to curry favor with Trump to secure the permanent job.

“What he is doing is he is seeking justice based on facts and the law,” said Jay Town, who served as a U.S. attorney in Alabama during the first Trump administration. “And I don’t think that will ever change about him, whether he is the attorney general going forward or doesn’t spend another day in the administration. He is an honorable man and anybody that knows him knows that to be true.”

Blanche also says he is not angling to keep his job or feeling pressure to placate Trump.

He has told reporters he would be honored to be nominated but, "if he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’ I don’t have any goals or aspirations beyond that.”

In recent days, he's functioned as the fund's public face and most visible defender, a role consistent with his comfort in the spotlight. He sometimes holds multiple press conferences a week and grants interviews to a variety of news outlets, a contrast to Bondi, who largely stuck to Fox News appearances.

His defenders say his experience as a federal prosecutor has made him a more sophisticated communicator for the department than Bondi, but his statements have at times invited backlash, including his refusal to rule out that violent Jan. 6 rioters could be eligible for payouts.

Though Blanche will appoint the five commissioners tasked with processing claims, his precise role in the fund’s implementation is unclear. He told CNN it was developed through negotiations with Trump’s private lawyers, not him.

For some Democrats, that's a difference without a distinction.

“Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told Blanche during a combative exchange in a Senate hearing, "and that's the whole problem."

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives for a closed-door meeting with Republican senators who are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives for a closed-door meeting with Republican senators who are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)