Care packages and cardstock turkeys: first and second ladies visit Marines and their relatives

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (AP) — Melania Trump and Usha Vance on Wednesday marked the Thanksgiving season by visiting with Marine Corps members in North Carolina and saluting the sacrifices of military families, who make up “the quiet strength of our nation,” the first lady said.

The wives of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance used their first trip together outside of Washington to visit with students attending school at Camp Lejeune, the largest Marine Corps base on the East Coast, and deliver upbeat remarks to some 1,600 uniformed, cheering Marines and their families at Marine Corps Air Station New River.

“Please know that our nation is thinking of you, praying for you and deeply grateful for your service,” Trump said of all service members stationed far from home during the holidays, speaking from a stage flanked by parked tanks and helicopters.

Trump also stressed the growing importance of artificial intelligence to the military, noting that “technology is changing the art of war.”

“Predictably, AI will alter war more profoundly than any technology since nuclear weapons,” she said, also noting that “we are moving from human operators to human overseers fast.”

Trump and Vance both recognized the just-passed 250th anniversary of the Marines, and the second lady said “military families are truly a model for our country and for my own family." The vice president is a former Marine.

Brigadier General Ralph J. Rizzo Jr. said visits by dignitaries like the first and second lady "matter because they show our families their service and sacrifices are seen and appreciated."

Trump and Vance's speeches followed school visits where they discussed AI with high schoolers and helped younger children with crafts, including making turkeys from cardstock and Elmer’s glue.

They listened to a presentation by students in an advanced placement research class from the Lejeune High School “Devilpups,” recalling the Marine Corps’ “Devil Dog” nickname, and had discussions about technological development.

Four female students demonstrated how they used AI to generate videos for their research into how electronic media affects sleep and adolescent wellbeing, as well as a study on social media addiction and how it affects young people's esteem and body image.

Trump and Vance later walked to the gymnasium, where students had assembled 2,000 care packages of goodies, including jerky sticks, for service members away from home. The first lady told the crowd that she and the president always think of U.S. service members but “especially during the holidays.”

They also spent time with kindergarteners and first-grade students at DeLalio Elementary School, entering classrooms where each table had been laid with folders from Be Best, Trump’s child-focused initiative. The folders held a puzzle, pen and sticker for each student, along with a bookmark from the second lady.

Trump told one girl in pigtails that she was “beautiful.” The patriotic ribbon pinned to the girl's light blue top meant one of her parents is on active deployment. Several of her classmates also sported the ribbon, as did many in the larger group of students making cardstock turkeys.

Trump also engaged in a lengthy conversation with a first-grade girl before offering: “Very nice. I love your story.”

Trump and Vance have appeared together at other public events, though not on the road. Most notably, they were together at the inauguration of their husbands at the U.S. Capitol in January.

Other joint appearances came at a White House event celebrating military mothers and a luncheon for Senate spouses, both in May; the opening night of “Les Misérables” at the Kennedy Center in June; and the president's signing last week of an executive order to help foster children, which also came as part of Be Best.

Melania Trump has centered her work around children, launching Be Best during her husband's first term to focus on their welfare, online safety and opioid abuse.

Last month, she announced that eight children displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war had been reunited with their families following talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this year, the first lady lobbied Congress to pass legislation imposing federal penalties for online sexual exploitation, often targeting young girls. The president signed the bill into law in May.

Usha Vance, a former lawyer, launched a “Summer Reading Challenge” to encourage students in kindergarten through eighth grade to read 12 books during the school break. Certificates and prizes were promised to those who completed the challenge.

The second lady often accompanies the vice president on his trips and sometimes brings along their three young children.

Second lady Usha Vance arrives to speak in the Mega Hangar at the Marine Corps Air Station New River in Jacksonville, N.C., Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

First lady Melania Trump meets with students at DeLalio Elementary School on the Marine Corps Air Station New River in Jacksonville, N.C., Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Second lady Usha Vance meets with students at DeLalio Elementary School on the Marine Corps Air Station New River in Jacksonville, N.C., Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

First lady Melania Trump meets with students at DeLalio Elementary School on the Marine Corps Air Station New River in Jacksonville, N.C., Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

First lady Melania Trump accompanied by second lady Usha Vance speaks to students at Lejeune High School in Jacksonville, N.C., Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

First lady Melania Trump, center, accompanied by second lady Usha Vance waves after arriving at Arrive Albert J Ellis Airport in Richlands, N.C., en route to Camp Lejeune, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

First lady Melania Trump, right, and second lady Usha Vance arrive at Arrive Albert J Ellis Airport in Richlands, N.C., en route to Camp Lejeune, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

First lady Melania Trump, right, and second lady Usha Vance arrive at Arrive Albert J Ellis Airport in Richlands, N.C., en route to Camp Lejeune, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend a dinner with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

CAIRO (AP) — Iranians began to regain internet access on Wednesday after authorities ended a monthslong shutdown. But users said service was slow and spotty in some areas, with apps like YouTube and Instagram heavily restricted, as they were before the cutoff began during nationwide protests in January.

Authorities justified the outage as a military imperative after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators appeared to be closing in on a more permanent truce. But many Iranians feared access could be cut off again at a moment's notice.

Internet tracking company Netblocks said Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is at around 86% of capacity from before the cutoff. Internet analysis firm Kentik said internet traffic, which measures the amount of data transferred and is a good illustration of usage, was at around 40%.

Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity analyst, said there were still widespread disruptions. “It's too early to say the shutdown is over,” he wrote on X.

Iran’s roughly 90 million people have been cut off from the internet for most of 2026, one of the world’s longest and strictest national shutdowns. Young people with online careers saw their incomes evaporate. Job losses and the closure of online businesses added to the war's steep economic costs.

The cutoff made it difficult for Iranian families to communicate through months of unrest and war. At some points, phone lines were also cut off, though they were later restored.

A woman living in Tehran said that for months she was barely able to speak to her sons living abroad. She couldn't believe authorities had restored access, saying she had assumed they would find some justification to prolong the outage.

A taxi driver said service was restored but weak. He expressed hope it would improve so he could use messaging apps with family and friends. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Prices spiked during the shutdown, with residents in Tehran at times paying around $7.50 per gigabyte. Prices are back down to around $2.25 for 30 gigabytes, roughly where they were before the protests.

Even then, Iran tightly controlled access to popular social media sites, leading many to rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs. The cost of those workarounds soared during the shutdown, making them unaffordable for many as the economy was battered.

Businesses have started reappearing online, announcing their return with posts on sites like Instagram and Telegram.

A gamer and tech influencer in the central city of Isfahan said the shutdown had caused him to lose a lot of his audience on YouTube and Instagram, where he had spent years building up a large following.

“All my views and interactions are way down. I’ve been erased from the algorithm,” he said in a voice note sent by WhatsApp, adding that his internet connection was still slower than before the shutdown.

“The situation is such that many content producers have had their income reduced to zero, have moved on to other jobs, or have been forced to sell their equipment to survive,” he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Iranian authorities first shut down the internet in January during mass anti-government protests that were eventually stamped out in a violent crackdown. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands detained.

That cutoff was just starting to ease when the government imposed a complete internet blackout after the start of the war, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and other top officials.

The government faced criticism for the prolonged shutdown, which caused even more harm to an economy devastated by inflation, strikes on key industries and a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.

The internet cutoff cost an estimated $30-40 million daily, with indirect losses likely twice that much, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Afshin Kolahi, told a local newspaper last month. About 10 million people have jobs that depend on internet connectivity, according to Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi.

Iranians still had access to a national net, but that has a far narrower reach, and users complained of poor service and heavy censorship. Senior government officials are given SIM cards granting them access to the global internet. Under pressure, the government expanded access to the SIM cards to some professions during the shutdown.

A woman checks her smartphone while sitting on a bench along a sidewalk in northern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)